[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hello, my name is Melanie McLaughlin and Austin street and men for mass Thank you Councilors for hearing us tonight and. Thank you to Trish and to the parents who are really organizing a lot of this. It's great to see the energy. And as we think about our children and young adults in this community, I have to say that you can tell immediately people who have experience with people with disabilities, because they know how to talk to them, they know how to interact with them and they appreciate and see them as human beings. And Councilor Leming and school committee member Olapade did that recently at the library event. It was really wonderful to see them playing Uno with a number of our children and getting involved. And I'll tell you, I have a seven, I can't believe she's 17, I have a 17 year old daughter with Down syndrome, excuse my hoarseness, I have a cold, with Down syndrome, who is also legally blind and, You know, she's the best thing that ever happened to us she's taught us so much about compassion and kindness and so many things, and I think when other people get to meet people with disabilities, they learn that lesson themselves, and not that our kids are here to teach the rest of us about humanity but that's just who they are and it is what they do. And, you know, a community that misses out on that misses out on quite a lot. and I wouldn't change anything. And I do have to say though, in terms of adaptive and other programming, I just wanna put a bug in everybody's ear too. As you're thinking about inclusion, adaptive is great and we want, that's the other thing is you have to have programs with support, right? It's not just, oh yeah, you're all welcome here, which has often been the case, which is really nice, it's nice to be welcome. But if you're welcome and there's no support and then it doesn't go well, then you're really not welcome and it's setting up our kids for failure. So having the support to make sure that it's actually a welcoming community and an inclusive community, not just, you know, in, in theory only because it takes support it takes skill, and not from parents from people who have skill you know that been experience over the time where in the interaction with parents around skill I remember, I remember our daughter having a swim lessons in the, And the schools and young teenagers are working with our kids a lot and they're not really getting trained to be able to have that experience and seeing my daughter in the pool and just teaching something as simple as first then right first let's do the swimming the lab, then you'll get to go, you know, do whatever it's a really simple lesson, but if you don't know it you don't know it and so just being able to learn the basics is really important. And as we think about the training and being able to see not just recreation, being able to see our children, again, use the library, use the coffee shops, feel welcome, feel included, and feel part of. I mean, I can't say enough about Amici's and West Medford. They are the most inclusive business I've experienced in Medford. Mario and his team make us feel right at home, make Gracie feel right at home. And Amici means friend. And he was teaching Gracie that the other day and I thought that was really beautiful. So I hope that you guys get the chance to meet all these wonderful young adults and people in our community, beyond just the schools and the students and you know the schools are required by law just to provide all of the extracurricular activities that any other student is entitled to. to every student. And so again, you know, we did ask when I was on the school committee to include a statement that if you need accommodations for any of these experiences please contact and we had a specific contact around what accommodations needed to be available and how parents could, you know, reach out and let folks know that they need accommodations. Some parents don't even want to do that because it feels like a lot for them. So it's important to continue to reach out as well. But that's something to consider, that how can we collaborate to make sure that the accommodations are helpful and real. And I have to say this, if you've never been to a dance with people with disabilities, you're really missing out because they really dance like nobody's watching. So thank you very much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. Melanie McLaughlin, Alston Street, Medford Moss. Thank you all. I just wanted to say thank you. This has been 10 years in the making. And Trish, you did fantastic tonight. I felt like a proud mother, I have to say, myself. And the community is really grateful. And this has been a long time. A couple of different special ed directors over the years, and a lot of teachers and hundreds of children have passed through this district. And it's done. I know, and I love that, you know, I can guarantee you Trish is not going anywhere. So, and neither are any of the other families so you know to the families that are watching tonight and to those out there who might hear about this later what have you and who work every day as caregivers with their children, who do extra homework, who advocated IEP meetings, who do all those things that we know how hard they are. We just wanna say that you're not alone and that this is really important that every child matters and that we know that this school committee feels that way and we wanna thank the school committee for that. And one of the things I wanted to mention is that, it was actually the former special education director that used to say this to me and would remind me and I thought it was really important. And she said, there are no special education students. everyone is a general student in our district. There are students who receive special education services. So we're all part of the community, and we know that, and we appreciate that, and we'll continue speaking up. So thank you all, and thank you guys all for what you're doing. Appreciate you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I ditto, I couldn't say more. I mean, I think that you've brought so much to the district, the first female in the district, the first black woman in the district after decades of, you know, the same leadership and having to take on an entirely new district and do all that you did. And the short time that you were here has been remarkable. And I really valued working with you. And I know that I will, I really look forward to see where you're going next. And I will be watching you and looking out for your next successes. And I know that we'll be proud of you wherever you go. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Jenny, I'll help out any way I can. I have experience with the Science Lab project, with the Boiler Room MSBA projects, and obviously with Fiona. So if I can help you out, I'll help you out any way I can.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Rick McLaughlin, 87 West Street. I'm compelled to speak with you today for three reasons. The first is as the father of an alumna who was in the marching band, I've seen other things, the same things that the students have already spoken about and what other parents have spoken about. So I'm not gonna, I'll just say yes to what they've said. The second reason is I'm the son of a career music educator, taught music in public schools for 40 years. And he told me in the 1970s that this would happen. I'm going to tell you about that in a second. The third reason is because as a professional musician myself and professor at the most influential school of music in the world, I've seen the power of music on four continents, both as a performer and as a clinician. So my dad, he taught music in public schools for 40 years. I remember in the 1970s, he told me that one day what would happen is the school committee or principals or whoever was actually managing money would cut the music program enough that it just, it wouldn't cut it completely, just enough to let it die, which is what is happening. You say that you're going to still support the arts, that's not true. The impact that other people have already discussed, you should take to heart because it's very important. But there's another element that's very important, which is the mission of the Medford Public Schools is to provide a supportive and effective educational environment that helps students successfully meet their individualized goals. This will no longer be true when you cut Ms. Ferrello's position. By cutting her position, you will make it so that Future students do not sign up for music. A previous student spoke about how it's virtually impossible to do it anyway because of the ways that the scheduling conflicts prevent them from actually taking these courses. M-Y-E-L-I-N, myelin. That is the aspect of the brain, the neurological neuron wrapping that actually makes your brain process information more effectively and more quickly. None of the things that you teach in school, none of the things Mr. Rousseau referred to earlier, English, math, science, history, I can't remember what the rest was on his list, none of those things actually improve or increase brain processing speed The only thing that does is music. By cutting Miss Rello's position, you no longer support the arts. You also no longer support the mission of the school because you no longer support the brain health of the students who go here. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hello. How are you? Hi everyone, Melanie McLaughlin, Alston Street in Medford Moss. Thank you for giving me a moment. I just wanted to comment on 2024 if I could. And I wanted to thank Member Graham for bringing this to the floor. This is something that I worked on for a couple of years with the Universal Safety Committee and something that I had been really hoping to push forward before my resignation. And so I think this is a really important piece and one that I want folks to consider as you're thinking about the building of the new high school as well. So, you know, while there's a building that we hope is going to be built in the interim, there are a lot of things that are out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that is the access to our building and particularly our high school is really, there's a lot that needs to be done there. We have applied for MOD grant in the past and have not gotten it for a number of reasons. So, can you guys hear me? Hello?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry. I was just hearing feedback. So I was just going to say that we have applied for the MOD in the past, and I think that, you know, it's something that needs to be informed, and I would recommend or ask folks if they would consider collaborating with the Disability Commission and or members of the disability community to work on this because I think well-intentioned folks who don't have lived experience with disability can often make errors that are long lasting and I think this is something that you know is long overdue and should be addressed appropriately. So I would ask the committee to please consider perhaps making an amendment to the motion to include disability advocates in the committee, I mean, in the commission, as they evaluate this process with the ADA compliance.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information. Sure. Point of information, Member McLaughlin. I believe we made a motion that we would have quarterly budget reports for actuals versus expended. in one of our previous meetings. I don't have it in front of me, but we've had this conversation certainly multiple times, but I believe it was a motion that was put forward. I would have to double check in the motions, but I believe that we said we would have actual versus expended versus projected, which is exactly what we're seeing here, which is nice. And it is remarkable that we haven't had this in the past and we very much need it. And I'm I just want to double check and see if that motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to double check too on the quarterly for the actual versus projected versus budgeted. So on that motion. So I think we, you know, should be getting a quarterly report, which would be around March, April, based on that motion that already exists. But I don't have the motion number. I have to go back to the minutes or something, but so is that I will second in lieu of us checking that. but I think we also need to check because we should have a motion in place that's quarterly, budgeted, actual, projected, deficit, as has been discussed previously. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, point of procedure. I think first we had the motion on the floor for this, and I had seconded the approval, but I just want to say for not a motion, but an amendment, right? Is that what's being suggested?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just wanted to make sure we weren't doing separate motions. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Vincent, for putting these forward. And just to be clear for the community, these are school committee goals that the school committee as a whole set for ourselves to be able to identify and for the community action items that would be tied to our mission that you have in your own goals around equity and community and so on and so forth. So these were our accountability to the, these are partially our accountability to the community. And so I just had a couple of comments slash questions. One was, so as of September 18th, 2023, number one, the school committee agendas are available with translations in the most predominant languages in our district, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And what would those be just for the community?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and so those are available on the website in those languages?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. Not that somebody has to translate with a button or Google or what have you. They're separately translated.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. May I, Mayor? I have a few more. Thank you. For the town hall meetings, I think I know that that's the sort of one in process that we're talking about. So October was going to be the first town hall meeting. And now the remainder of the note there says that it suggested, you know, that hasn't happened, so it needs to be scheduled. We had said we would have three. And to be clear, the town hall meetings wouldn't, you know, include community hosted by, you know, admin. Obviously, I would assume school committee members would be going, but essentially that it's community feedback opportunity on a number of items that don't have to be specific necessarily to the MSBA, but can be. And so the October one wasn't scheduled. And then it says the superintendent should desk at the remaining two meetings. take place in February and May. So we have three that we need to schedule, it sounds like, before the end of May. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So it looks like we are past you on that one. And to be clear, I want to make sure that, again, the community understands that this is school committee goals, right? That we're working as a school committee to be able to do these goals. These are not necessarily things that we're asking. or dumping on administration to be able to do, we should be working collaboratively to make sure that these things are happening, because these are things that we said we would be responsible for as well. So then I would just ask for the number four, create an action plan for Medford High School for the 2023-24 school year prior to October 1. I know the action plan was completed, and we talked about Principal Cabral coming to present to us again. And one of the things that was discussed was the Welsh report for the recommendations for the high school. And I know that that had been said we would do that a little bit later in the year. And I'm just sort of circling back on that because I feel like it was already end of year last year. I believe that Mr. Welsh was making the recommendations for the high school. And if we're waiting again till the end of this year to find out whether those recommendations are being implemented or not, It just feels late and it doesn't really feel like we met the goal that we said we would meet for hiring the consultant to make recommendations to. demonstrate that the recommendations were not being implemented. So I'd like to sort of put that out to my colleagues.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. And may I, Mayor? just to the, thank you, just to that point, sort of, you know, the Welsh report is, you know, again, something that was very much moved forward by the committee and, you know, paid for, you know, through our school funds for the committee. And, you know, there were recommendations that were made there that were presented to us and sort of getting an update on those is really important. So I understand that we made a calendar for the remainder of the year agenda items for the remainder of the year that we discussed, that would be really helpful to put out, but to be really explicit and clear that in that presentation, we'll be revisiting the recommendations from the consultant that was here, and that we'll be going through those.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, that would be really helpful. Yeah, and I guess toward that end, I mean, I think it's of the one, two, three, what was it, seven?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, of the seven, we partially completed the goals. It looks like one remaining and maybe a question of another. remaining, but I think to that end, you know, that's good news. Thank you for the presentation. And I think I would also ask my colleagues to consider goals for the next term and, you know, whether it's the good of the order for next month or what have you, but we're thinking about what goals our school committee wants to achieve collectively as a team to be working together so that we're tied again to the strategic plan, but more about the accountability to the community. And I believe there was something about website update in our goals. Am I missing that? Wasn't there something about that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll go back and look. I know we had a couple of meetings about that, but I just wanted to sort of look. So thank you. Thank you for indulging me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So. For the. It sounds like the motion is to. Have a motion that will discuss the formation of the Medford High School and identify priorities and attributes. By the end of February, is that what you're suggesting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then, okay, that's why, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's why I put my mic on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, if the motion is just to open discussion, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's fine. I thought I'm a little confused on why we have to have a motion to open discussion. I thought it would just be an agenda item to open discussion. I'm not sure why we are motioning to open a discussion. I guess I just love some clarification.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would love to know sort of just in terms of thought around what the requirements are for the building committee from the MSB, if there are requirements that we get copies of what the requirements are for what it looked like, and I'm assuming obviously that one of the requirements is that it will be representative obviously of the community that is in our school and that there'll be opportunities for interpretation, translation, access, all of those things. So the question is, is there a guideline on what the committee should be comprised of from MSBA, and if so, can we get a copy of that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Graham. Member McLaughlin? Whoops, thank you. So if I'm understanding, thank you for sending the link. And I, you know, if you wouldn't mind sending it to the committee as a whole, that would be great. And save people may be searching a little bit. Thank you. And then if I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like those are minimum requirements that we must meet in order for the committee, but certainly not the totality of the requirements. And I guess I'm just asking the committee to consider, you know, some of us know the history of what was once a high school committee that was created and initially created under a different administration, I believe, and then changed or recreated under another administration. And it caused a lot of community grief around the way that process was or wasn't moved forward. And I just want to make sure that we're really understanding that as a committee. before we start to do this and understanding what the history was and understanding, you know, prior applicants and, you know, people who were, you know, and then how it just sort of dropped off with everything else that needed to be taken care of. That committee just sort of vanished and nothing more came of it. And so I think we asked people to apply, we asked for a process, we asked for a whole slew of things. And then that was done and then people were appointed and, and then, and then nothing really came of it. And so I think part of it is like building trust with the community again, but I also think it's, which is part of what the town halls were intended for, um, and building relationships. And I think it's really important that we're thoughtful as a, as a committee about how we're moving forward with us to make sure we are really not creating some of the same missteps that we did in the past.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin and Member Ruseau? Thank you. So I think while this is all very exciting, and it is very exciting, and I know that we have our first deadline in 270 days, which obviously can I think we need to go by really quickly. I also feel like, you know, there needs to be a PR campaign around this. I feel like, you know, the superintendent's memos, which have been helpful, what have you, are not always read by the entire community. There's not, you know, there's a large constituency I'm sure we're missing. And I think we also need just like a one-on-one, like what is this? How, you know, certainly this has been super helpful. visual, I think that's really helpful. And I'm thinking about even sort of even more elementary around like the 101. What is this? What is the potential? We've been invited to participate. What does that mean? How much can we actually get from this? What are the outcomes that could potentially happen? Like, I'm curious, I don't even know the answer to this, because I haven't been on the website, but like, what kind of money are we talking about potentially getting from this? And then, you know, it does that cover you know, X, Y, and Z for the entirety of the high school, which I'm sure we know that it doesn't, but we do have nearby communities that have gone through this process, right? So Somerville's gone through it, I think, right? Arlington's gone through it. Did you say Winchester? Remember, we were saying Winchester's gone through it. So we have these surrounding communities that have all gone through it, and actually I was driving by Arlington and Somerville in the past week, week and a half, and I was thinking it would be a really, great opportunity for the committee as a whole to be able to potentially get a tour of those facilities, but also to potentially talk to the folks that have gone through this process. So I think it's wonderful that member Rousseau was able to speak with his friend at the Somerville school committee, but I think for the benefit of the committee as a whole, we have three surrounding communities that have done this. Why are we not tapping into that expertise as well in terms of being able to understand that better and then Again, I really do feel like there needs to be a whole PR campaign around this. I think we're throwing around words and terms and, you know, in phases of the development or whatever. And I don't think people even necessarily know what this means. Like, okay, we're talking about, you know, hopefully in our lifetime, I'm sure it will be building a new high school in Medford, right? Like basic one-on-one, what does that mean? You know, how are we gonna do that? you know, what can we get for, you know, this particular process, how else will we need to augment it? Like, I think we need a basic one-on-one, and I think we should be taking advantage of our neighbor's expertise.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So can I make a motion to create a FAQ for the MSBA?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would agree. I think that it's important to gather information before making the decisions. And I think it makes sense to have people reach out to folks that they can and also I do like the idea of either subcommittees or advisory committees because I do feel like that's where a lot of the legwork can get done and that we're not having an overwhelmingly large building committee and potentially even stages within the building committee. I think these are all great ideas. I do want to say and I think we need to be thinking about how we're being inclusive, right? And so I'm not just talking about, well, community members or whatever, I'm talking about whoever we're thinking about in the buildings that we're being diverse and inclusive, that we're thinking about what that makeup looks like, that we're really sort of being thoughtful and just sort of as we go into it. And then I did, I appreciate Representative Garbally's offer and Representative Barber's offer. I think those are lovely offers and I think we should take them up on it. I agree, we don't want to overstay our welcome or overuse. an invitation and I'm sure superintendent can reach out to her superintendent colleagues at each of those buildings as well and get a tour for us. I think it makes sense to have the building committee tour, but I would also respectfully ask that school committee members are participating in those tours so that we can also see. I know when I'm renovating a house or anything like that, I love to go look at other people's houses and see what they did and what worked for me and what didn't, and that I spend way too much time on Pinterest, so we can create a Pinterest board for our high school, I guess. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's all very exciting. I think it's thoughtful that we're having these conversations, and I would just ask that we don't make decisions tonight, that maybe we just are having the conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. just in terms of you said, letting the school, the superintendent and yourself know, just in terms of the breaking or if there are cameras sort of, you know, out of service or what have you, but can we add an amendment to this, that we are notified quarterly, school committee is notified quarterly on those so that we're kept up to date, you know, you guys monthly and us quarterly, so that we're making sure that they're actually being repaired and not just getting notices that they're broken.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just curious about whether or not we had added a motion to include a strategic and capital planning subcommittee. That wasn't one of the subcommittees previously, right? And do we need to add a motion for that? I guess I wasn't, was that on the list? When we discussed that at 80?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I think that's helpful in terms of certainly I think it's needed. I think that I think we really need to discuss the process of the subcommittees because we haven't really talked about what this process is and what it looks like. And while I think it was super helpful this year to have a questionnaire for committee members to determine their preferences around the committees, I think it was a little bit ambiguous about where that information went and how it was used and how it was going to be incorporated and so I think I'd like to be a little bit clearer about what the process is and maybe you know I don't think at this hour of the meeting it's a good time to do that but I guess I'll give that some thought but I would just like my the committee members to consider the process so that if we are as a team working together to create subcommittees we should be as a team identifying the different subcommittees that are going to exist for the upcoming term. And then also if it is the chair that is choosing the subcommittees that the chair, I mean, yeah, that the chair is establishing what that process would be around how information or how people can get information to the chair. So I think again, the form was super helpful. I just think it was kind of ad hoc and, you know, put together and I don't think the committee collectively decided how that process was going to work. And I think we need to, um, especially when we're no longer here and other people are doing it and they need to have a basis for how it needs to be done. So, um, I would like us to consider that there needs to be a process for the subcommittees and what that process for the creation of subcommittees and identification of members of subcommittees and what that process should look like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, thank you Dr. Hutchins for the presentation. I know your commitment to the work and I know the students' commitment to the work as well. I just wanna clarify, just in terms of the grant, this was the community funds grant through the city. And really it was an introduction to a 501c3 as a fiscal sponsor that we were able to connect you with so that that money could go to the Curtis Tufts directly based on some of the work that you wanted to do in the community, which I think is so important as we think about this particular student population. And one of the questions I have is how are we helping our students and our families at the Carter's Tufts feel part of our community, part of the bigger community, because I think that certainly last year we heard a lot around, you know, othering, right? And I think that as we're thinking about equity and inclusivity, I really want us to be thinking about how are we being inclusive of all of our students and helping them to feel like they're part of our community because they very much are a part of our community while respecting, obviously, their individualized needs.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I would love to see more. And I guess just more specifically, how are families being engaged as well in the community, in the Curtis Tufts community? One, I guess, just for specifics. And then two, is there transportation available for students to go between the Curtis Tufts and the high school, for example, for science labs or that sort of thing with their teachers?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Yes, they get specialized transportation to get to and from school, but not necessarily between the yes. Right. So if they were in the life of the so yes, thank you, Miss Bowen. I'm sorry, we're talking across the room. So every student, as I'm sure you know, is entitled to the life of the school. And so what I understand Ms. Bowen is saying, for others who may not have heard, was she was saying that students are entitled to extracurricular activities, what have you, and so the transportation would be provided for students that needed that. And during the day, if students, you know, using science labs and things like that, because our students at the Curtis Test are entitled to all of the services, including our swimming pools, our science labs, all of those things, I think I'm going to ask my colleagues to be thinking about how we're making that happen for all of our students, because I think that's really important that they're accessing everything that they can access. So I just want to sort of elaborate on that. I'm going to let another colleague go, and then I have a couple more questions if you don't mind there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, thank you. I love the art therapy program. I think that's awesome. And I would love to see more of that. And especially now that we have our new arts building, we have a lot of arts work in the community. I think there is very likely folks if they're out there listening and certainly folks that we can talk to that could be interested in more of the arts learning. I think it's such a great way to do learning and also the community building around the project-based learning. So what I'm hearing you talk a lot about and what I'm getting excited about is the project-based learning, the personalized learning, the differentiated curriculum, the unique learning, you know, unique universal design for learning. I mean, all of these advanced, you know, opportunities to really be able to teach to the individual. And it sounds like you guys are really doing that there, and I'm excited about that. I want to ask about the subject teachers that are there. You said there are three academic teachers.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So for top and special educator. And what about like social studies, current events? Is that sort of part of that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. And then, um, thank you. And, um, Oh, transition programming. So transition to adulthood, I know that we have, obviously, the whole transition program at the high school. So what does the transition program at Curtis Tufts look like?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. Thank you. And then last two questions. Are the students, is there any opportunity currently that exists for teaching advocacy skills to the students and families? And then lastly, what kind of MCAS supports do the students get?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Thank you. And so lastly, if the community members that are watching or listening or reading the minutes or anything like that, wanted to contact you to figure out how they might be able to support The Curtis Tufts, how can they do that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Awesome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, thank you. This is really comprehensive and exciting as a former Bricks parent three times over. Yes, I can attest to all the fun that happens at the school. I'm wondering about your I know you said you're at 537. What is space looking like for you guys?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So you're really at your max capacity right now.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Thank you. And then for the Program details, I know you didn't get to that slide, it was added on to our handout.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think it's great, and it's really helpful information. Would you mind sharing that too? Did you already share that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So can I ask a question about that? Sure. So for the developmental program, what grades are those?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: K to two, okay. And how many students do you know generally?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Three?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And one teacher?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And any power?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One teacher and a shared power, okay, thank you. And then for the language-based, what grades are those?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So three language based classrooms, two or two or fourth and fifth grade, no two or fifth grade. And one is, um, two fifth grade. Yep. And one, three, four, one, three, four. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. And then, uh, the learning learning group. So what grade is learning group?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just going to say I wanted to thank my colleague for that question, because I think it's really important to know what people need and appreciate your candor. and let us know what those things are. And I had a question about the reading specialist and whether you have any Orton-Gillingham trained specialists at the school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. So do you have one now or two for the Orton-Gillingham got accredited.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I want to hear more about the landmark program. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, thank you and so the Wilson. Does that balance literacy?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mary, I also say just, you know, special shout out to the bus drivers with 77 kids behind them. I mean, the image is just really harrowing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate my colleagues asking about differentiation between the buildings. I'd like to ask about differentiation for students. So there are students obviously that are in our schools that are going to be much more vulnerable. You know, I'm thinking of students with significant disabilities, CP, what have you, that are going to be really, really vulnerable to the heat index as well, and maybe at you know, buildings where there is or is not air conditioning and, you know, incorporated in the plan, I would like that included in terms of what are we doing with our significantly disabled population for the heat index, that there's cooling rooms, that there's gonna be cooling rooms there for students. So for example, years ago, there was a lot of overheating and I remember community members were actually bringing independent cooling systems to the schools for students to be able to use. There were some rooms that were enclosed rooms. There was the, one of the rooms that they created that was a sort of like a sensory room that was like a relaxation area that they created cooling spaces. So I would like to really incorporate how we're differentiating some of the emergency planning for, you know, our kindergarteners obviously who don't regulate or may not be able to talk about when they're you know, really overheated and other students that populations that really need to be considered.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree in some of the cases. I don't know that that's all. And so also there's individual health care plans that families can help create and that school educators know about. So individual health care plans can be addendums to IEPs, 504s, even individual, without a 504, an IEP can create an individualized health care plan. And so that should be something that families can know about and can be considered as part of this as well, because I think it's really critical. Because some of the nursing staff may or may not know some of the students, depending on their conditions. And I'm thinking particularly of a student maybe that doesn't communicate with words, but is getting overheated. And it's not typically in the nurse's office. Could be, you know, someone that has a real issue and we're not really thinking about how we're being proactive in that. So I'd really like that to be included in maybe in collaboration with Ms. Bowen and her team would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I think this is helpful. I think it would be really good to have a committee of the whole to talk about the process. I think this motion makes sense, but I'm not sure that everybody on the committee is as well versed on MSBA and what their requirements are and what the eligibility phase is versus which the acceptance phases versus what the questions are that we need to have answers. Like I think we need to have a committee of the whole or some other explanation of exactly what the process is and what is going to be asked through the phases so that as we're considering a building committee, we have some knowledge of what is actually gonna be asked and so that the public does as well. And I know that there's another phase after and whether we get accepted, but yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's a good read. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think the public might also want to know and be involved. So I'd love to take a look at the document and just make sure. Um, yeah, give that some thought about whether I want to bring that back up again, because I want to see, you know, but I do think that the public would like to know as well. And especially around like, what are some of the questions that they're going to be asking and what have you, because there's a lot to be done. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm not sure what happened with the formatting, but I sent this in a Word doc and it's all over the place. So sorry about that for the reading. It wasn't like that in the Word doc. Essentially, this is from the MASC conference that I went to earlier in the year in November. And one of the presentations that our representative and another representative from the MSC was doing was around having these annual agendas prepared in advance, knowing that most school districts have a schedule of agenda. And we know that other things will be added to the agenda, but there's a cycle. And having now been on my third term, you know, started, you know, I can see the pattern and I can see the cycle but For community members that don't know what the cycle is, for school committee members who are newer that don't understand what the cycle is, I think it's advantageous to have that sort of planned out in advance and attached to our goals, specifically as we're talking about the superintendent goals, and so folks can see what we're actually doing in moving those items forward.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I thank my colleagues for their thoughtfulness. I just to be really clear. There's a couple of things that I wanted out of this. And I think some of what's happening on Wednesday is some of that. So I think that's good. First, I just wanted to say that the August meeting was intended to be for the committee, not for the superintendent, to create an agenda for the year. It was to be a collective practice, as the MASC recommended, where we're collaborating together on what the year's schedule would be like. And really it's, you know, part of the reason of wanting to do this is both in getting organized and being transparent to the community about, you know, what will happen over the course of the year in terms of the regular meetings, and also obviously the ad hoc add-ons and the process. And to Member Ruseau's point about, you know, the items being emailed to the rest of the committee, that's really just when they go out to be posted. It's not when, you know, not before, it's finalized. When it's going to be posted and you're sending it to City Hall, send it to the committee members as well, in my opinion, because then it's helpful for us to sort of just know in advance and prepare even sooner than just our Friday packet or if we're away or we don't have a hard copy of the packet or whatever, we're getting an email of it being sent out to each other as well. And so I appreciate and I am willing to withdraw the motion for to see how things go on the Committee of the Whole on Wednesday. But with the clarity for my colleagues around what the purpose of this is, is to work collaboratively on this, not just for reports, but for other cycles of the agenda, because we also have various presentations, you know, group and organizations that come forward so that, and then also more specifically that they're tied to our goals, to the superintendent's goals specifically. So if we're talking about an item, you know, if we're talking about equity being our goal, then I would like to see on our agenda, you know, in a, in a, you know, in a table next to the, to whatever the agenda item is, how does that relate to our goals that we're talking about so that we're actually addressing? So it may be more than one goal. So it's safe. and equity goal, and it's, you know, a family and community engagement goal or whatever, that we're just putting sort of, even if it's acronyms with a code next to it or whatever, it's our E goal, it's our FCE goal or whatever, and we're really sort of tracking for the superintendent when she's getting ready to do her presentation at the end of the year on the work that's been done, but also to the community so that they can see what goals we're actually working on and to ourselves so we can be tracking, you know, what our actions really are. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I'm out of the loop on this. I don't know anything about this. I don't recall.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So reports for the remainder of the year was the school committee? Yes. Okay. So that I, it was a little bit different to me than schedule for the remainder of the year. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would like to nominate member Graham for second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. May I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Member Graham, for this. This is, I think, a much more efficient way of looking at the process and having people weigh in. So it's really helpful. There's just a few committees that I don't recognize from before. And I'm wondering, I mean, I know the superintendent evaluation was an ad hoc committee that we had sort of added for one of our goals. I like the idea of keeping it, but I just see that. And then there was another, which was, I think strategic planning was the same idea. And so are those ones that you guys have said, you want to try to move forward with? Or weren't those just unique to last year?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just also wanted to put in for a point of information. While anyone can request to be chair or on the committee, even after three school committee members are on a committee, other school committee members can attend the committee meeting. They're just not able to weigh in, obviously, and vote. So you can still attend and listen if there are ones that you're interested in. That's it. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin. Thank you. For the good of the order as well, I just wanted to bring up the school committee goals. I know we're talking about Superintendent goals tonight, and I do think that we need to review school committee goals and have it on the agenda and talk about I think we had two goals last year. And I think we should, you know, talk about those and How we did on them and then think about what goals. This committee might want to set moving forward. So that just sort of something under the good of the order, but I don't know if we want to If you have an idea, Superintendent, on when you might wanna put that, or Mayor, on when you might wanna put that on the agenda.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent. I had a question about the public school monitoring. I know it said that all families of students with disabilities will be contacted with that information. How are they being contacted?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so to be clear, it's parent email, not through the students portal or school directly to the parents email.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Principal Kroll. That was really helpful and the Roberts is such a great school. It's awesome to hear all the things the students are doing and makes me back to elementary school, or go back into education. I just had a couple of questions in mind. I was just actually trying to look on my phone and it wasn't coming up easily enough. So I figured I could ask you, can you share, especially, you know, not just with us, but the community that's watching and others, what the demographics are for your school?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you tell us what the Connections Program is?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And the 28 students over the K through five, just, can you explain how that can work in terms of, you know, students are grouped together?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You're welcome. And then for the 8.9% EL, is that a newcomer program?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You're welcome. May I, may I? I just had a couple more. Thank you. And then, so for the responsive classroom, which, you know, I know is a great program and I love the emphasis on inclusion and kindness, which I think are so needed in our world in so many ways today. And I'm wondering how that is, differentiated for your 19.4% and your 8.9% so you're 110 and 50 160 students. That are both neuro diverse and. different languages.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And recess and lunch are integrated? Awesome. And then two more questions. What do you, what do you, it's awesome hearing all the wonderful things. And I know this is your first year. Welcome to MET. Thank you. We're super excited to have you. I've heard really great things from your colleagues from previous places. So I'm really excited that. You're here, and I'm sure you've gotten thrown right into it, which is always the best way, right? You learn right away. So I loved that you were talking about the connection students being part of the student council. I just wanted to comment on that as well. But what is it that you feel like you need? We're hearing all the great things about our elementary schools, which we want to hear. But it's also really important for us to understand what is it that you need? Are you fully staffed? Is your building operating well? You know, sort of those things. how we can help them, what it is you need.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and I think that comes from leadership, right? And I appreciate you saying that. And I think it's important that we continue the conversation because we need to hear the things both that are positive and the things that are needed. So thank you for sharing that. And then lastly, and I thank you to my colleagues and to the mayor for indulging me here. So this is a really, really last one, I promise. How can the school committee be involved in your school? In other words, are there opportunities for some of the events that you had, for example, that school committee members can come to, or reading in any of the classrooms, and all of the classrooms, and all of the programming.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate the concern with too many things to do, especially with the MSBA and the work that is trying to be done there. At the same time, if there's work being done on the strategic plan, I still would wanna be thinking about how a wider range of stakeholders are being engaged with that. So again, maybe it's the Family Engagement Subcommittee or something, but maybe it's not necessarily Superintendent has to specifically plan something, but maybe it's a subcommittee could do something and not as vast as maybe is what the expectation is here. I'm assuming that it's actually not clarified on the right how that would actually be done. So I'm curious about what that would actually look like developed with the engagement of a wider audience of stakeholders. Like how do you actually break that down into action items? And so I hear you in one sense that yes, there's a lot of work to be done, but in another sense, I don't wanna sacrifice family engagement and community engagement at all. So I'm wondering if there's some kind of a happy medium or something in between.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I just, in response to that, I appreciate that. And I guess what I'm feeling is that it's about integrating some of this work with, not just specifically the strategic plan, which I know that this is the line item in particular we're talking about in terms of engaging stakeholders, but I even am wondering like, and I know there was a great flow chart in here about the MSBA process, and I think that's really great, and I know that there was outreach and communication in the letter, and I'm thinking about how we're actively engaging people and even what is the MSBA process, right? So I think it's, again, family and community engagement and thinking about how it's integrated in all of these things, not necessarily about in this one strategic plan and reaching out to stakeholders. And so crossing that off the list, I think can give the interpretation or the impression that we're not engaging stakeholders. And I don't want that obviously to be the case.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's reasonable. And as long as we're talking about the subcommittee and family engagement and making sure that we're being strategic about that, then that would be okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: the whole or to the policy subcommittee? I thought you said Committee the whole, right? Okay. Committee of the whole. Yeah. Thank you. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. We were both part of the playground committee, so I appreciate the background and sharing the information about the intention of the donations and the community engagement involved. And I just want to make sure, again, that particularly it being an inclusive playground, that we are being inclusive. And so a few things. I think the plaque is obviously fine. Not naming individual things I think is clearly important. I also want to share with the committee and the community some of the gestation really of some of the inclusive playground work as well. I think I may have shared this, I know I shared this story with the playground committee, I'm not sure I shared it with school committee, but years ago, there was a student here who had significant medical needs and disability and was in a wheelchair and did not communicate with words and was in an out of district residential placement. In out of district residential placements, the students do come home during school vacations and on some occasions. And when that would occur, the student, had no opportunity in the community really to be engaged and involved, and was not able to really be part of the community and in the schools and mom in particular shared that story with us, the family was. from Brazil initially and had emigrated here. And mom was a single mom and had done a tremendous job and had shared that at a leadership, disability leadership program that we were in and they were Medford. The little girl passed away when she was 15. Her name is Emily Oliveira. She's actually in the Oakland Park Cemetery right next to Crystal and her picture's there. And I think she deserves to be remembered in particular around this inclusive playground and in particular around the swings. Mom really wanted a swing that was accessible for her wheelchair. And I would like some commemoration to Emily and her mom for what I feel like the community should have done for them a long time ago. And I know that mom would be really thrilled to see something like that for Emily.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: A wall. A whole wall.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just... May I ask a follow-up question? Just particular to the donations as well. And I don't know if the process needs to be thought out at this point or if it already has been memorandum and you wanna share. I'm wondering, so where are the funds going and who's allocating this expenditures for improvements on the playground and that sort of thing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. May I may I just so is there a timeline or is that will the motion have a timeline on donations or do you want to just deal with that later? So it sounds like I hear what you're saying, and I think that's a great idea, especially with the committee having worked for over a year on this and knowing a lot of the conversations that have occurred. So I think that sounds great. That said, is there a window for the donations that the community can know about, or is that something that's still being thought about?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So motion for amendment with the motion to have a date to be determined regarding the donations just to that end because if it is the developer of the playground committee that is talking about how that money is being spent and certainly money will be accepted after I'm sure but the monies that could be spent for the playground improvements and I guess really even thoughts of some mechanism for how it's going to work after if people donate money after where does that money go like I just don't want it to end up in some, you know, major fund at the school level necessarily not that they don't, it's not needed, but if people are donating specifically for the playground that it really should go to the playground.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd like to make a motion, if I could, that we have some, I'm making a motion that we have some way that the inclusive playground at the McGlynn School memorialize the memory of Emily Oliveira, student from Medford Public Schools.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin, or I would question that. that it's important to compare subgroup to subgroup, but it is also very important to compare subgroup to national or international, so that you're getting it across sector of data.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Member McLaughlin. Yeah, thank you. So, it sounds to me like that this is a differentiation tool. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's a differentiation tool. So, which is great because I couldn't agree more that I think that, you know, the district and most districts need a lot of help with differentiation and personalized learning. So, to that end, in addition to the teachers sort of being able and the data being able to tease out, the differentiation that's needed, what are we offering around professional development to help support our staff around how to differentiate, which I think is, again, the gist of a lot of what we're hearing in this conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I guess that in terms of the differentiation tool too, that's why I think it's so critical when we're disaggregating the data that we're seeing the subgroups, right? Because the, you know, if you're, we're talking about, you know, MCAS, for example, and we know what our, for lack of a better word, because I hate the way that it's phrased, but lowest subgroups, right? So if we're not teasing out those subgroups for differentiation, then that's part of the issue, right? So we really need to be able to look at that data to be able to disaggregate. And I think that's part of what I'm hearing from member Rousseau as well in terms of looking at the individual student, but sort of being able to differentiate. So we're not just talking about differentiation of curriculum, we're talking about differentiation of data as well. And that's really what we need to be able to use to be able to implement the practice of differentiation, right? Well said. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Dr. Cushing, can I ask you that we just get obviously a list of the students after that will be helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great, thank you. Dr. Cushing or Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I don't know if it would make it a little bit more comfortable if maybe we could take turns doing this, right? Instead of just having the students have to do this, maybe we could each take a turn about our why. And then that might be a little bit more helpful and a little bit more relationship building, if that's okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, your why for running, your why you want to improve the school or we want to, you know, whatever you want to say, just a little intro.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Should we toss it back to the students?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Sure, thank you. Thank you guys for being here. I think it's really important just to your point about students having a voice. As a student myself, when I was younger, I didn't really have a voice. I didn't have a parent that could sort of speak on my behalf. And I know how frustrating that was. And also, I have a daughter with intellectual disability and some other high needs. And she has difficulty with expressive language and being able to let her needs known and wants known and feelings known. And I think it's important that we are able to do that and to build relationships and teach people how to do that. And I guess I'm also always asking who's not at the table. Right. So, like, we're here and I'm glad we're here and I'm really happy we're starting this process. And then I want to think about how we're ambassadors for the people who aren't here. and can be able to really help give them some capital as well. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Is that the end of the document? Oh, no, there's more on the bullets. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's an excellent, very well-written policy memo. Great job, Darren, Jayden, Yao, I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong, Mariam, Marjia, Noah, Oprah, Quinn, Sierra, Sophie, Tenzin, and the last name that I cannot see. It's really well-written. I would ask If you could elaborate or share with us a little bit more, I think what I know from my own now graduates experience. for both of my students that have graduated was part of the issue was that the teachers don't understand which classes are giving which homework. And so collaboratively, I mean, collectively, the homework can exceed the 40 minutes or the half an hour or the 20 minutes that you're recommending for each. And so I think that that has been part of the issue historically is that there's not a collective sort of collaboration across the classroom. So if each classroom is giving, you know, say you have six classes in each and you're in all AP, and each of them are giving 30 to 40 minutes of homework a night, then that's, what, three or four hours of homework. So I think that's what the collective piece maybe could be included in there, because maybe people who don't necessarily have that experience don't understand that it's across all classes that is the issue. Am I correct in assuming that that's what you guys are saying, that it can equal up to three or four hours of homework a night if each of the teachers don't necessarily know how much homework is being given?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to apologize. I actually have to go to another meeting in a moment, but I will get an update from my colleagues to the students. But also, if Dr. Cushing or member Graham can put in the chat for the students, the currently outdated school committee policy. So as. Dr. Cushing was mentioning a moment earlier, guys, the school committee policies are on the MPS website and they are searchable by keyboard and a really nice function there too is that you can do comparative to other districts to see what they look like by that search. So, um, if you get a link, um, you'll know how to search our policies. And so to member Graham's point, you know, there's policy is multilayered. Um, so there's a, you know, some pieces of it, but we're really eager to work with you guys. And I think this is a great first step. So forgive me for having to jump off, but I'm at the office and have to go to another meeting. So I look forward to seeing you all again. Bye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information. Member McLaughlin, point of information. Thank you. Sorry, I just had to take an urgent phone call for a minute and step away and I didn't hear, I started to hear a proposed motion and I was just going to ask if that could be repeated, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second, so that we don't have to keep changing the document.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I was just gonna say, yeah, I mean, I was just gonna say point of, yeah, I guess clarification, I was just gonna say they are steps, you could just number them if that makes it easier, but again, I think we're just into the weeds and the minutiae here. I think that it's the subheadings that can throw people off. Thank you, member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One of information I didn't understand what you just said, in one place we have gender and one place we have what?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, under edit, you can also do find and replace. Yeah, it's under privacy, Dr. Edouard-Vincent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Nope, too far.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, again, point of information, you could just do under edit, you can do find birth, sex, and then replace it with whatever. So the find and replace button is super handy if you're searching.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think putting a hyperlink under the text would be fine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Hays, point of,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I prefer sequentially. Thank you for the link, Mr. Tucci.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, yeah, sorry. May I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. It's not that I have edits. It's that I think for the viewing public, it's probably easier to go through in order so that we're not jumping all over the place since we're more familiar with the document than others may be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you, I was just gonna say, I think in the spirit of inclusivity, actually, it bears repeating. And I do think that I would say the same for other situations when there are other. subgroups or other entities. So for example, if it was a student with a disability, it would be a repeating both in the, you know, section on, you know, special education supports and services and perhaps on in curriculum, there's no need to have it in one or the other and look for and have people have to hunt around for it. Well, which one did the school committee decide that they were going to put it under? So I think it bears repeating.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was gonna offer Member Hays the opportunity to respond to that if she'd like before I address my concern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I was just going to say, and to the point about Frankly, reading or not reading or searching or accessibility or anything like that. I mean, the one, the only place that policy in our school district exists on the website is under school committee NPS policy. So it's not searchable unless you go into that document so you can't search the website and look for. you know, gender affirming care, anything like that, like you can't search our website for that necessarily. You can go into if you know, you can go into the school committee button and then look under NPS policies, and then go into this Z account that is created through MASC with all these policies that we've used their template for, and then modified ourselves and, you know, search under that. if you know how to do it. So I think we have a much, much bigger issue, frankly, to deal with around our accessibility and our policy, which we're doing a lot of policy revision. We haven't even talked about accessibility and how people find out this information, which I think is a really important piece. And also, as we're thinking about language and how we're writing policy, whether it's going to be easily translated, how that works. I mean, there's so much that we haven't addressed in these things. priority and primary of which should be, how do people even know what the policies are and how they exist, including our staff, including our families, including our administration, because they don't. So here we are working on all this time, revising policies, and we're talking about, well, how it gets implemented and whether it gets implemented and why it doesn't get implemented. And I think one of the biggest reasons is because nobody knows where to find it, number one, and number two, they don't know how to search it, they're not using it. So I think that has to be addressed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, may I? Member McLaughlin. I guess I would just also add, as both a communications professional and someone who works in the field, I would never think that less communication is better. I think that more communication is better. Duplicating information and communication is not a bad thing. It reinforces the policy. and reinforces that people know that. If we're saying we can't count on ourselves to make sure that this policy is changed where it is effective in the other pieces, that is a different issue. That is something that we need to create some procedure around how our policies are actually implemented, which is part of going back to the chicken or the egg here that I just mentioned a little while ago. We don't have any of that, which is part of the issue. So I think it does bear repeating again because, you know, again, we can hope that people will know that it, you know, that they need to change it in one place, that, you know, if they leave it out on one place that, you know, they'll know to take it out on another if the vote was made. We don't know that. It's not happening in either way. We all know that. So there's no, there's no procedure around how policy is being included in this policy manual.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to table.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: point of order, or point of information actually so you're talking at the second reading that that people can put this in because that's not an option.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Christian for this. And I just wanted to ask for the meetings, the November 5th, January 17th, the 20th and the 22nd. Are you going to have a hybrid model for those? I'm sorry, can we do hybrid on those?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And will there be an agenda in advance? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What's point of information? That's unless it's on the agenda. Point of information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if there's items on the agenda, we can speak to those items, which is why I asked if there would be an agenda. So we will have an agenda.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I think that this is a great opportunity actually for the student advisory to understand governance and how it works. And so I actually would make a motion that they are offered some training by MASC. a short training, an hour or so training by MASC just around sort of some of the basics. So they're understanding this and then also understanding the agenda items. So, you know, to member Rousseau's point and to other folks' point, when they come to these public meetings, they don't understand why they can't talk about something that's on, that's not on the agenda, that can be really frustrating. So for the students to be able to really understand why it needs to be on the agenda and sort of just a basic primer, I would love for them to have some opportunity to be trained instead of just being sort of thrown into this role. So I'm making a motion that we ask MASC Dorothy to provide a one-hour training to our student advisory body so that they understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What did you say?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I just need a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Yep, just a matter of procedure. I believe we need to make a motion to take this off the table, so I'm motioning to take it off the table for since it was tabled on 10-2 before we start to speak.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I would agree with my colleagues just in terms of measurable goals and benchmarks. And I think that, again, knowing where we're starting and what the measure is for where we're going is really critical for us to be able to do an appropriate evaluation when the time comes to be able to say, yes, this goal was achieved and we started here and we're now here in terms of data. So I would definitely agree with the measurable goals and benchmarks. And specifically, thank you for taking some time to rethink that this and also to just listen to our feedback tonight to and reconsider some of it. I think that, you know, it's really important to have that back and forth and continue to work together to ensure that we're able to adequately evaluate and look at what's being done in terms of both the district and performance in general. Specifically for, I'm looking at, you know, as we look at safety, equity and consistency and safe and accessible are things that have been used a couple of times. For item number one, I'm just curious about the improved physical accessibilities at school facilities and develop maintenance systems. I'm curious about, why physical there and not improve accessibility at school facilities? Like what was the differentiation for you in terms of that? And then I'll just, I have a response about one of the outcomes on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just didn't know if there was clarity. Yeah. I just didn't know if there was a particular reason. So thank you for clarifying that. And then for the outcomes, I would ask, you know, so the increasing accessibility of, you know, access, parking, pedestrian, restroom facilities. So it's, I don't think it's just facilities in terms of, you know, some of the specifics, which at the same time, I know that we need to have these benchmarks and objectives, but I would also ask that you consider, you know, I think pedestrian covers entrances and exits, but also signage. So one of the biggest issues for a lot of the students are not knowing where to go in the building. And so I think, again, accessibility around the signage and what that looks like and how people know where they're going. And some of that would be really helpful and be very, you know, much clearer, I think, as we're looking at that. And then the, I would also concur regarding the employee handbook. I think that that's really important as we're looking at that. And I think that just thinking about the accessibility aspect of that in all of these ways. So as we were talking earlier and folks were talking about the open house for the eighth graders, I was reminded of last year's open house at the high school. And I was remembering that there was not any sort of specific accessibility for families who might be a little bit outside of the box, if you will. And so as we're looking at all of these things, I would ask that we're thinking about how are we making things accessible overall? And so I heard member Graham, you know, speak to some of that around, I think some of the language stuff. And I'm also thinking around, again, the physical, but also the, you know, some of the sensory, some of the just accessibility overall, like what are we saying when we're having an open house, but we're really not opening it to all of the population if we're not making it accessible in some ways. And I know that within reason there's budgetary issues, But will there be any option for either translation or interpretation of materials? Is it needed to have an ASL interpreter? Maybe it's not. If there's going to be any opportunity where it's going to be videoed or shown, are we going to make sure that we're having closed caption? So I think just as we're thinking about all of these that we're putting accessible, in the language for everything and thinking about how we're doing that. And so what does that look like for an outcome? I think it's just, you know, when you're talking about well-documented model of communication and templates, I think you guys showed a really great example with the website and being able to show the interpretation, I mean, the translation, but being able to think about what that outreach is to make sure people know that that exists and how do they use it, right? So I think drilling down a little bit into how we can hold an evaluation around whether that work has been done or not. So with specific examples around that, so. And then any of our events that are coming up, like I know we have some great events coming up. We have homecoming dance, right, this Friday. And have, you know, have people then offer the opportunity to have accommodations if needed for the homecoming dance, right? And if so, what does that look like? And being able to understand, you know, how that happens.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for going through this. I had a couple of questions specific to the, or comments then, I guess, questions specific to some of the outliers in terms of DEI and climate overall. I know that you said that there was a survey, you know, that at some point should be a follow-up. And I would ask that in a follow-up, I know that we have our director of data here tonight as well, I would ask that in a follow up for the background questions, we include a question on whether the student is an English learner, a student with a disability, or economically disadvantaged, so that we're getting an idea of who, you know, we're breaking, disaggregating that data as well. That would be feedback that I would respectfully ask be included in a future demographic, and then especially around some of the questions. So around the diversity and inclusion, two things, well, a few things. One is, so students, it's obviously sad and upsetting to read some of this. Students at the school are teased or picked on about their physical or intellectual disability or real or perceived sexual orientation. I'm glad that the students are answering honestly in this, and I also, you know, find it very upsetting and disturbing. And so a couple of questions about that one is, I'm wondering what what happened or if it still exists, the DEI committee that was created, I forget we had a different name for it. But I can't remember the name off the top of my head right now. I know that a number of community members and a number of faculty members were part of that is that happening not happening.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So is it safe to venture then that the race equity task forces is happening? It's just need some addressing in terms of its components? Yes. Yes. All right. Let me give that some thought because I want to think about that for a minute. Then also, I know that specifically our CPAC, who presented to us at the last presentation, has been making recommendations and we voted, I think, over a year ago for a disability awareness curriculum, especially if we're talking about teasing of intellectual and physical disability. So we said that we would have a disability awareness curriculum, we did have, and, you know, we have asked that the DEI subcommittee get together and identify specifically, you know, some ideas for the curriculum which we're working on scheduling that at this point but even the disability awareness programming that currently exists that was offered for professional development is being offered sort of as an optional. And as we said, we went from, I think that went from roughly 40 attendees last year and the year prior between, you know, over 40, I think the year prior to eight this year, which is substantive, especially if we're talking about this is the kind of thing that we're seeing in our schools. So I would like us to think about how you know, that's changing and what we can be doing moving forward with some very specific action items around that disability awareness piece as well. And I know we have an agenda item that we'll talk about in a little bit about the racial, I mean, the gender identity item. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that I wanna weigh in on some of that just in terms of, yeah, I think the survey, two things, I think we're having two conversations. If we're having another survey and we wanna compare it to the base data that we have now, we need to compare apples to apples in terms of a survey, just in terms of statistics and data. However, if we think that the survey that we're talking about, the panoramic survey is actually much more expansive and at the same time, much more detailed, then there's a different conversation about, okay, maybe we need the panoramic survey, we do that, and then we have a comparison to that as apples to apples for next year. So this year we do the panoramic survey and then apples to apples for next year, because the panoramic survey, if it's being used by other districts, then we compare, we have some basis of comparison. This homemade, if you will, survey, for our district only is not going to offer any basis of comparison to another district because it's for this district only. That said, there are outliers in this data and the outliers to me are the, you know, certainly about the, you know, the student being able to have some discussion around, you know, their needs and what have you, but, you know, the two of the bigger outliers to me and clearly to the data are on the, you know, students in this school are teased or picked on about their real or perceived sexual orientation. 32% agree with that, 50% don't. Students at the school are teased or picked on about their physical or intellectual disability. 34% agree about that, 44% don't. And so these are things that are, you know, even in the standard sort of data set at our school, I agree, we want those to be 40%, but clearly in an overall aggregate picture, we can see that we have some cultural and climate issues around competency, cultural competency, frankly, both in terms of ableism and sexism and other isms, I'm sure. So I think that that clearly shows us that there's a focus, but I guess that said, the real question here is what are we looking for? Are we looking to use base data here and have a comparison you know, mid-year or are we looking to let's have a standard that other districts are using in the state? And I think that's the difference between the question. And I don't know if that's an agenda item for next time or if there needs to be a motion for that or what, but I think we're trying to answer two different questions in terms of data. And I think we have to be very clear about what it is we want. So I guess to that end, I would make a motion for us to use a panoramic survey as a standard survey for the one coming out in, if it's, you know, at the end of January or what have you, and we'll do our best to make some comparison to this, but with the idea that the following year we'll use the same survey, so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the report in fair time tonight. I had some questions specific to the, I mean, I think we've been talking about the equity issue for some time. And I do agree with my colleague around having some of the narrative of the data, some sort of qualitative narrative of the quantitative data would be really helpful for the community as well. in understanding the disparity. There's obviously a stark disparity in some of the numbers, especially based at the elementary level. And so I think people would wanna know why. And then also I think it sort of can help dispel some of the notions that some schools are better than others or what have you, which is not the case. And so really being able to help folks understand that I think would be really helpful And it would also be helpful for us as we're thinking about what the budgeting priorities are across the district and what things look like in terms of if we're really talking about equity as a priority. As we've said many times before, equity is not that everybody gets the same, it's that everybody gets what they need. And so, with that in mind, really thinking about that. Regarding the instructional priorities, I'm wondering if there's any, I know there's high quality instructional development you know, data-informed decision-making you're talking about, is there any PD being offered around differentiation of materials or universal design for learning?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so what I'm hearing you say is that that's part of all of the trainings, but nothing specific to differentiation or universal design.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. The weekly meetings at the grade level, That's the new schedule sort of, especially at the elementary. Are those meetings with all staff, teachers, all teaching staff, so general education and special education together, or are they segregated?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. So it sounds like we have work to do there as well in terms of it. If we're really talking equity and we're really talking common planning time and we're really talking everybody together, then it sounds to me like we need to think about what a schedule looks like so that people are working together and being able to, we have expertise in the district around differentiation and universal design and all of the things that could be incorporated. But if they're not meeting together to be able to have some common basis and understanding of that. It seems like it's a missed opportunity, especially as we're talking about the instructional walks and what have you. It's like, are the instructional walks happening in all of the classrooms? Are we seeing this in the EL? Are we seeing it in all of the different settings? And if so, by whom? I would wanna better understand. And then lastly, I guess I would just ask, I'm very much interested in the scope and scale of the professional development in the district, not so much to be obviously in the weeds with the superintendent's position or anybody else's position in terms of staffing, but more as a, where are we going and what are we understanding and what is happening? And I feel like as a school committee member, it's never been entirely clear. I mean, some years with phone calls and multiple conversations, it's been a little bit more clear about what professional development is being offered. but generally as a school committee member, I don't understand. There's no sort of, it's not like we get an understanding or a list of, hey, here's the professional development that's being offered this year. And I don't know if that's an option because I think it helps us better understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that would be really helpful. Thank you. And so, yeah, I guess I would just say again, going back to the, and I'd be curious about what staff in the teaching, both staff and paraprofessionals and others have to say about the common planning piece, because I wonder if we're, again, not missing an opportunity for expertise on both ends to be able to be thinking about that. So, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just gonna say, is there an option for waiving the reading as it would be the first reading? And then obviously it's posted and it's public for folks who wanna read it. And then coming back to the next meeting for the second meeting within the meantime, potentially member Graham offering the majority of this was written well this was written by member Hays who did an excellent job I would have to say in so many ways but perhaps feedback could be offered directly to member Hays so that it's not a quorum or open meeting violation and then that can be considered at the second reading or no I'm not sure of the process but member Rousseau seems to be so
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was wondering if it would, you know, I'd like to hear from Member Hays, if possible, since she put a ton of work into this. And again, I really appreciate all of the work in it. So I would just love to hear what your position, what Member Hays' position. Yes, Member Hays, thank you for drafting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to table. Till committee of the whole. Motion to table. And then I guess to second motion. Yeah, we don't need to table it. Okay, a motion to send it to the Committee of the Whole. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi everyone, this is Melanie. How are you guys doing? Can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can't hear you guys, so I'm gonna try to troubleshoot this for a minute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you so much. This looks really great. I just wanted to ask, while we're on the page, where does one see the option for translation? So, for example, if I am a Portuguese-speaking family, I get to the website, where do I see that I'm able to translate it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, member Graham. Just, I would agree. I think that's fantastic. I think it's wonderful. It's a feature I didn't know about and one I definitely would want to share with families. So marketing and outreach for that would be great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. No, I think this is really great too and appreciate your thoughtfulness and the students thoughtfulness about this and I'm really excited about it. For the alt tags for images, if you could just demonstrate how that works, that would be really helpful at some point. And then regarding the testing with the assistive technologies, I think that's a fantastic idea and would really encourage working with the high school transition program and the team there. And I'm sure that they can support and also Easterseals is super supportive with assistive tech, and I'm happy to connect folks. But I think having more than one self-advocate navigate and sort of work even with your team to help them understand how a person with a disability navigates a website would be fantastic. And as far as the screen reader goes, I think that's definitely something that's a great idea too, to be able to listen and try it out yourselves. with the incorporation of a self-advocate, I think, or more than one self-advocate, I think would be great. you know, I'm happy to do a little bit of research on the screen reader if you're interested, but would you be able to demonstrate an alt tag?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I understand. It's coding then for the screen reader to read it. Okay, that's great. And so with somebody with a screen reader can sort of go over that and it would read to it. That's helpful explanation, especially for... lay people who are listening and people like me who haven't used alt images or alt descriptions. So that's super helpful. And I think to your point, Ms. Miller, about uniformity around submissions is a really good point, especially when it comes to accessibility and ADA and language and what have you. So thank you for that food for thought.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It is exciting. It's been a banner week with the disability awareness event and this, I'm so happy to see all of this. And also just to that point, I know that the superintendent is working with the New England ADA organization and the executive director there on matters related to accessibility. And I'm sure that they would also be a great source of information for accessibility and websites, and there was a grant written around some of this, and I don't think it just pertains, as some people might think, you know, it's regarding physical accessibility or other, it includes, you know, all accessibility and the website would be included on this, so there could be, you know, if the grant comes through, Um, there could be some additional funding to help with this too, which is always the bottom line, right? Um, is where's, where's the money coming from as well. But, um, and in regarding the students and all the work that you guys have done, you know, um, I think you have great material for your resume and for your college applications and being able to share this. So thank you so much for all the hard work that you've put into it. And please don't underestimate the value of talking about the accessibility when you're sharing the work that you did on the website and how you made it both language accessible and individually accessible. I think that's super important in your applications too. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. What is the name of the mobile app? Is it just Medford Public Schools? Yes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, and I think to that, I think those are. are really great points. Member Graham, in terms of the phase two and thinking about the integration and also the groups that are not represented. And in addition to that, to Thomas's role in sort of all of this as well as sort of the uniformity and be able to create some standardization and standards of some of this. And so, for example, you know, we have approved and required a non-discrimination statement for all sign-ups for any activity of the life of the school. So, you know, whenever there's a form that goes out to sign up for an athletic event or to get tickets for a dance or, you know, any of those things that there's a non-discrimination statement that says, you know, Medford does not discriminate on the basis of all the things that we don't discriminate on. And if you need accommodations, here is the path to, you know, request accommodations to participate. And that, again, was going to be out 9-1. And I think that, you know, just with the start of the school year, it's been a little bit delayed, but that's coming and it should be uniform on everything that's the life of the school. So I would imagine, you know, maybe that's part of Thomas's role in some of this. If not, I would like to know whose it is or whose it would be just in terms of uniformity in messaging or approval, I guess, or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excellent. Thank you. And if that could be added to the phase two of the website as well, that would be great. I know I did a search on it the other day and it hadn't happened yet. So I know that you guys are working super hard on it and I really appreciate all the effort. And member Graham, I'm sure you're thinking of this, but just sort of wondering if there'll be another FCE meeting regarding phase two you know, the implementation of phase two.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, and I just wanted to get back to the language accessibility issue or issues that we were talking about in the beginning, particularly regarding, you know, outreach and thinking about that I just want to put a bug in folks here about the cultural brokers and using, you know, City side, I'm assuming, you know, maybe I shouldn't assume, but I would think the mayor would welcome the opportunity to work with the cultural brokers to really help them get the word out about. the website, and then also I think there's an opportunity to look at the interpretation line. I don't think that the school has an interpretation line, but I know the city side does. Is the school, do you know, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, is the school accessing the interpretation line?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But I'm talking more about like if you know if a if a teacher needs to call, or if a family wants a teacher to call them and I know that they have talking points but perhaps or school committee member to call them and their, you know, their family is. you know, primary languages, again, say Portuguese or Haitian Creole or something. Does the school have access to the city interpretation line? So, you know, we have an interpretation line at my office. It's a great tool. you know, we're able to call a third party who then, you know, creates a party line, you know, gets the third person on the phone and then interprets between the two languages. And it's been really fabulous in terms of relationship building and really being able to reach families. So it sounds like we don't know the answer to that question, but- We do have interpreters, member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, go ahead, Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, actually, thank you for asking though it's about having the language line on the website so, but I can investigate further in terms of access and to the superintendent's point I understand we have interpreters superintendent for outreach, you know, for specific meetings or what have you. we don't necessarily have those for, you know, individual phone calls or outreach from school committee members or sort of those things that a language line provides. So my question is, does, I would assume the language line is a citywide access language line, in which case that means that the school can access it, in which case that would mean that it can be shared on our website. But I would like to confirm that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Agreed. Thank you very much. That's exactly the point. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And to that point, I think that's great. And I think these are, and again, you know, you know, not putting too much out there on folks all at once, but I think that, you know, these are great, but if we don't get the marketing and outreach out to the folks who need it to know that it exists, right. I mean, first things first, I'm so glad that we're even, you know, doing this and, and, and, you know, I'm thinking of it. And I want to make sure that we're really thinking about how we're getting the information out so that people know that it actually exist, so thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I had a question to Member McLaughlin, I mean Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I did. And just, I know this is not on the agenda for the, you know, for the internship or what have you. So I just want to be mindful of that as well. And I guess I would just say to the students in particular, I think it's always really good in terms of just policy and a policy memo and drafting anything like that. to demonstrate like how many hours you've put in, what that's looked like, and what would a comparable rate be in the community for that, right, so that you're talking numbers in terms of, you know, what you've actually done and what you've saved the school from paying and the hard work that you've done and, you know, all of those things. So I would really encourage you to put that material together as this is being considered as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, motion to continue, yes, thank you. To January, can we say the first meeting after the January break? Yes. Representative is available to request a call back.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry. I didn't know if I could unmute. It wasn't working for a moment. Thank you. I was presenting on disability awareness. My apologies.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I said, can someone let me rename myself, please? The chat is disabled.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and also to that point, you can't not give a child physical education because they need one.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you hear me now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You can hear me now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that was all just delayed because I said whatever you guys heard like two minutes ago. So that's weird. But anyway, can you hear me now? No, and I was just going to say, and to your point, like you said something about a child can't, you know, miss reading, you know, supports because they are required to have phys ed. And I would say, And the converse of that, the child can't miss phys ed because they have to have reading support. So it's like the curriculum is required for both. So it's not just that this is where you miss gym because you have to have reading sports. That's also not how it works, just saying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think what it's saying is that, I think it is soft in terms of what it's saying, but what it's saying is that everyone is required to take physical education unless you have an exemption, is really what it's saying. And the exemption might be medical or social emotional, but that would be indicated on a IEP or 504. So, physical education is a requirement unless there is, an exemption according to, you know, IDA or ADA, that would be it, you know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: because well, number may I for a moment, sorry, member Rousseau. Number four says that in a very all encompassing way, and it does, but it doesn't address when some students aren't able to go to the gym class. So that says all students, regardless of their ability, which is that's wording I would not want, but regardless of their ability are integrated into physical education classes throughout the district. are integrated, perhaps, but what does that look like? So some students might not be able to go into the physical education class, for example, if the gym has a lot of audio echoing and there's a lot of issues with, you know, sensitivity to, you know, noise or sound or something like that, which some children have that. So, um, I think it's not eliminating three and keeping four. I think it might be an integration of three and four.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was going to say that's totally outside of the scope of both of these, which is really interesting. So that's an interesting point, you know, altogether different. I just, I guess I was going to say for three, you know, what I'm hearing is instead of saying, you know, these things will not be granted, except I think what I'm hearing is that, you know, they can be great, you know, these things can be granted, maybe request. Yeah. You know, instead of they cannot be, and the ambiguity around the other needs are interesting. May be requested by students and caregivers, not just students and caregivers, students, caregivers, and staff, really, because it could be that the IEP team needs to do that, whatever. I would say students, caregivers and staff.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Maybe requested to students and caregivers and will be granted except to meet a student.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would say IEP 504 is common medical, you know, you know, doctor's notes, you know, and at the sole discretion so that you're incorporating those folks, like you said, that, you know, might have an injury, might have a whatever. So I approved IEP 504 is, you know, medical common, you know, doctor's notes. And it's not at the sole discretion of the director of physical education. because if it's an IEP or 504, the director of physical education doesn't have a say or a medical note.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's more specific.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I hear the argument there and that all students are expected to attend physical education. And and obviously our policy does not supersede the law. Right. So so I think saying something to the effect of, you know, other than when, you know, the law indicates otherwise or something to that effect, because I think people need to understand that. there are gonna be situations where you don't have to be specific about what the situations are, but, you know, reading this policy, I don't want somebody who's not an experienced staff member or somebody, whatever, you know, that's like, oh no, everybody has to take physical education. And they're not really understanding that actually, no, there are exceptions, right? So I think that we have to at least indicate, you know, this policy, you know, does not supersede, you know, whatever, IDA 504, any of those things, something, but people have to understand that, like, Yeah, that there are exceptions. So I'm not sure that it has, how specific it has to be, but it has to be at least stated either in a disclaimer or something. Cause we can't say, in my opinion, we can't say as a school committee, every student's required to take physical education. Every student's not required to take physical education. You know, I think every student is entitled to physical education, you know, and there might be a requirement for graduation. That's a different thing than, you know, every student is required to take it. So I think we just have to be careful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just going to say, Yeah, I mean, I think obviously ID and ADA are important. I'm trying to back it up a little bit here and forgive me, like I said, I was presenting elsewhere, but is the idea that, so we know that physical education is required as a partially as a graduation requirement. Is this in addition to the graduation requirement that you guys are talking about? Because I'm not sure what the extension of this is like, where is our, latitude on this like there's obviously a requirement and the state has a requirement and the graduation requirement so how are we getting involved with this with policy i'm just a little i missed that part um i mean the the legal references are all down here i would have to um i actually had the other or is it No, but maybe Maurice or Dr. Cushing or Ms. Galussi know, like what is the requirement for physical education?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's not a minimum time requirement?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Really? I thought there was, at least when I was, I remember you would be like, it was especially, and my kids too, I thought like you had to go to gym or you couldn't graduate.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we double check with, like, thank you, and may I, Member Ruseau, if we could double check with with Rachel and with even Desi on that because that sounds, and I'll check tomorrow too when I'm at work, but that sounds a little bit suspect to me because I was always under the impression that it was required to be able to graduate and that a certain minimum of time was required and that if you missed X amount of time, then it was a real problem, but maybe that- Well, I think- Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that's what I want to differentiate, because I think that there's a difference, obviously, between what we have purview over and what we don't. And I'm not convinced that some of this is not state law versus you know school committee policies so that's and like we know MCAS is a state law right well is required right unless you bypass it but so those are sort of the things and I want to get somebody that is a little bit to weigh in that knows more than we do about whether that is the case or not because I I would just like to be, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Yeah. I just wanted to ask how this policy is going to be differentiated for our other populations, for our English learners, our students with disabilities. For the appeals process in particular, I don't see any representation from those departments, and I'm wondering if that's been thought of or how that's gonna be handled.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so I guess I'm wondering, what is the process of collaboration with like the Director of Pupil Services and the EL Director around making sure that this information, particularly the policy, but also the appeals process is appropriately communicated to those populations?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to know about in terms of the disproportionality, like the data collection and making sure that we're looking at any incidents of disproportionality, particularly for these populations, but also in our credit recovery programs. So, you know, because they lead one can lead to the other for the absence policy, and then you're going into the credit recovery, and there's some work that we have to do around there as well. So I think that I'd be really interested in hearing, I know it's day 12 or 13, you said, I would love to hear maybe mid-year, just sort of what you're seeing in terms of the data.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was gonna say, honestly, you had me at wraparound services. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I'm really excited about the student outreach and engagement as well. And I just want to ask again for the data collection, but also in terms of the outreach and other things that the team be proactive on really looking at the diversity of those groups and the representation of those groups, that translation and interpretation are provided. So I love the idea of, you know, hanging out with the principal and, you know, we have our multilingual language line for third party conversations as well. That can be super helpful, but working with the DELAC and the CPAC on those, on those things as well, so that we're really thinking about how we're diversifying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We took a look at all of- Can I just do a point of information, sorry. Can you just, for any acronyms, can you say them first? So SSTs?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then- Sorry, Mr. Chair, same point of information, SEI. Community, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I think that, I'm thinking both and in terms of the amendment and the proposed motion, in that, yes, a committee of the whole to discuss the strategic planning, but also some effort on our part and administration's part to look at the commonalities in these three reports and bring them to the table for that meeting. So I think it's both and. I don't think we need to go over that. I would agree that going through an 83-page report and being like, hey, what's this? But the broad strokes, the commonalities, the things that we're talking about that we're seeing repeated, we can identify. and bring those to the table. And maybe we'll have different perspectives with seven different members and some of administration that could be healthy conversation as well. But I think it could be the basis for talking about the process for the strategic plan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Dr. Edward-Vincent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So to clarify, you are asking that the school committee, write a letter to the joint committee on the education to support a particular bill.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: As we let folks know who is going, I'm not sure that we voted on it, but maybe my colleagues can remind me if that's other.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to bring up the, and I know that we have a deadline, I think it's of December, but I just wanted to remind folks that we voted at the end of last session on goals and just being able to report out on our goals. So I want to make sure that we're thinking about that this month as we prepare for reporting out. I think it's in December. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to regarding the cultural brokers the community liaisons I guess one question, one comment. One is, I think this is fantastic and much, much needed and eager to work with them from the school perspective as well. If a family is needing help or their assistance, can we understand the process?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just to follow up, several of them are also MassHealth certified application Councilors.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So that's great. So just for accessing MassHealth for families within our schools as well. I'm a certified application Councilor in my day job. So I just understand the responsibility involved in that and the folks that here are doing it. I think it's super important for the community to know about. Especially there's a mass health redetermination process underway right now where everybody is getting re determined, and a lot of people are losing insurance so it's super important that we share that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I have two questions comments. Thank you, Dr cushion for the report. I'll start with the HVAC situation first and go backwards. Can you address for the community, how and what remediation efforts have been applied for helping our students and our teachers and our kids in those settings when it is unbearably hot, so I know that there have been some, I just don't know that the community understands what some of those are specifically and I'm wondering if, if you might be able to share I know that there's been some cooling rooms for example, you know, some of the other examples that you might be able to share of what has been done because, you know, if it continues, hopefully it won't work, you know, coming into the end of September, but we'll probably have a few more hot days. What sorts of things have been happening to help our families and kids and staff?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And thank you. And if there are student, may I follow up there to that? If there are students and staff for that matter that are experiencing symptoms of heat, illness, heat stroke, anything like that. What can be done? I know for myself, I went for a walk on Friday. I did not anticipate coming back in the afternoon. I came back in the afternoon for the walk. It was like a five mile walk halfway through the walk. I honestly didn't think I was gonna make it. And I started shivering, which is a clear sign that something's wrong if you're shivering in the 90 plus degree heat. So how are we sharing with families and staff and others how to recognize examples of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, referrals to nursing, like are we doing anything that can help remediate any of that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry. So if there are issues like that, they can go to nursing, let staffing know, go to nursing and nursing should be able to help support our families.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just had another question, if I may. I don't know if there are other colleagues with their lights on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. The other was the safety protocols, Going back to that, I know that you mentioned school safety teams and district-wide safety teams have been established, and maybe at some point a municipal safety team, which I think is a good idea. For the safety teams that currently exist, I'm wondering about those students and staff who are sort of outside of the typical box, if you will, and how or whether there are representatives on those safety teams. and district-wide safety teams to address, for example, our English learner population, our students with disabilities, our students with special healthcare needs, you know, thinking about all of those ways to address our varied student population. Are there folks that are... Yeah, absolutely.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have some questions about that before we move to that question.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and that's what I'm wondering is if you, and I apologize because I'm on hold right now with Children's Hospital for something that's also urgent, so forgive me if I have to be interrupted for one second. That is, it was because we hadn't had the opportunity to read through it because it had not, it had been inadvertently We hadn't had the opportunity to read through it. So we asked to table it. So we had the opportunity to read through it, I would presume. And now I do have probably five or six questions that I want to ask. So I'm curious if what member Ruseau is asking with not having the second read through, if he's asking that we move to approve the document without having the second read through, or is this an opportunity for us to have those questions discussed that we have that we didn't have the opportunity to do last time?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you to the chair members. So for that explanation and for the reading of the policy, I appreciate that. I just wanted to clarify. Thanks so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have more questions, but I believe, sorry, I'm sorry, one second. I have more questions, but I believe member Hays, did you have your hand up to talk about what you wanted to talk about for last time? I did, yes. Okay, so I would let member Hays go first and then I would, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin. Can we share the document on screen so people can know what we're referring to, please? I can do that if nobody has it handy. Yeah, I have a printed copy, sorry. All right, that's fine. Hold on one second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It looks like Dr. Edweb-Minson is just marking the document so that we understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I have about six lines that I wanted to discuss. So I don't know if you want to have me do like half and then come back and do half. So it gives other folks an opportunity to talk before, you know, so I'm not monopolizing time. Yeah, let's start out. All right. Okay, thank you pages, numbers 95 and 96 please. Yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and so I was curious about. I would like some elaboration on that I'm not sure what that. in particular means, I mean, I know in the rest of it, there was, can we go up to the heading here, the subheading?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, I just wanted to be, clear that it was in the training. So just, I wanted some clarity on that. Yes, I see where it was. I was reading earlier where that was. Okay, so that was 95 and 96, information on students who are particularly at risk for bullying in the school environment. And I guess I would love a note to have that be qualified. So if it's 72 through 76, say C72 through 76, so that we're all on the same page and what that actually means, because I think it's just vague as information on students who are particularly at risk. for bullying in the environment. So just if we could refer back to the earlier document in terms of what that is referring to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please. Thank you, Laura. Mayor Lungo-Koehn also, Esquire. Appreciate that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and so this is, again, I know we're having a meeting in September to talk more about accessibility of materials and what have you. I think this is particularly important for translation. And so if we're posting the approved bullying prevention and intervention policy on the Medford Public Schools website, I think we need to make it accessible to all. It can't be just in this language. And so I'm wondering where we're having, you know, so I would add, you know, including accessibility features. So whether that's, you know, translation or what have you, but I think in particular, as I think a lot of districts, you know, are doing and maybe experiencing some language barriers around some of this, we need to really be proactive about it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and so I think one of the things we can talk about, and again, we have a motion to do this at the beginning of the year, is how folks know about that and actually having cultural brokers or community stakeholders actually try it out and see if it's translating and it's actually accurate because as we all know, you need to use plain language and there might be things here that are not translating across. Culture, so I would say that we test this out as part of the translation and accessibility that we'll be discussing in the beginning of the year. So I'd like a note there, and if that needs to be in a motion, I can do that, but I don't wanna, I wanna go through the document as a whole before motions are made. So when we do a second, whatever, reading of it today, not at another time, I can make the motion then if it makes it easier.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That would be excellent. I did meet with your Metro Connects folks earlier, and I'm excited about the cultural liaisons there. So that would be a great opportunity to look through this and see if it's actually translating. well with the tool that's used on the website. Thank you, Mary. I really appreciate that. And then I'll do one more before I stop and let colleagues and others talk, and then I'll just get back in the queue again if that's okay. So I think it's number 120.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And so there was some, there's another section, so 120 in general, the incident reporting. So I think it might be, unless I missed it and I read it a couple of times, so I'm not sure that I, can you show me the next section, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think there's a line, it's either under incident reporting or investigation. I had it as a whole in incident reporting because I wanted to ensure, and maybe my colleagues remember, and if they don't, I can look at it while others are asking questions to find the particular line. Again, I did find one line that sort of addressed it, but I want to ensure that it did address it later in the incident reporting, that incident reports and documents will be shared with all parties involved. And so this goes back to the motion that we had previously, that when there are behavior incidents or other incidents in the school that are potentially related to this bullying incident that those are part of, and that they're not excluded. Yeah, right here, 188, in short, copies of all bullying investigation forms were part of the student file, but I think there was also a part of sharing. Yeah, they said part of the student file, which essentially makes it shareable, but I'm not sure. This goes back to the concern that, you know, potentially incident reports could have been taken before the actual bullying complaint occurs and that those should have been made available to parents and guardians of the party prior to the bullying and the bullying investigation and that they should be part of the bullying investigation is essentially what I'm saying. Does anyone have any comments on that? There was a motion that we made earlier, but I don't see it anywhere, unless I missed it here. I want to make sure that it's covered.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 170, it was the incident, no, yeah, 120, incident reporting. It's the whole section of incident reporting. Yeah, because it's the issue of incident reporting. So here we have it, 188. Thank you. It says ensure copies of all forms are in the student file. Can you go further down decision and findings? Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm not, I'll have to search it to see if there's anything that says that to that effect, but essentially, you know, it does say that it should be part of the student's file, but it doesn't say anything about copies, unless I missed it, about copies to the respective parties. I feel like that should be already, you know, under the previous motion, but I want to make sure that it's reiterated. So 120, if you want to go back to 120. And maybe, Superintendent, if you could just make a note there on incident reporting and documentation. And then I'll just do a search while we're also conversing because I just did 120 because I felt like it fell under the whole section and didn't see anything specific to providing copies of incident reports.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: On incident reporting line 120, if you can make a comment right there with the Google Doc, thank you. Documentation provided to all parties, question mark, and we can go back and revisit that while I look to see
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 100%, and that's not what I'm asking, superintendent. I totally understand that, and I understand redaction. What I'm asking, and this was already addressed on the floor, is that when there are incident reports, so behavior incident reports involving a student, okay, where that incident report goes to the principal's office, because it typically does if there's been behavior involved. And we had had a motion that when that happens, that information is sent to parents so that they're notified as soon as reasonably possible. I don't have the motion in front of me right now, so that they have copies of any incident reports. So for instance, if an individual had been getting five, 10, maybe incident reports of behavior issues as an individual with a disability, for example, maybe having, you know, some, you know, who knows what medical issues as well, you know, who knows what's going on. And then they get to the point of a behavior, I mean, a bullying report, had the parent been notified of those 10 prior incident reports, right, that it occurred. And in a lot of instances, talking with families, talking with CPAC, talking with others, that had not often been the case. And the principal might come to the, meeting after 10 incidents with 10 reports in their hand that the parents have never seen. In fact, this happened just a month ago that I was made aware of, even after the motion was passed, that parents would get copies of incident reports. So we've had this discussion before, to clarify. And what I want here is to have something that indicates that that policy exists as well and where that is. And so I'll just read through. I did see something that said, you know, material will be added to the student file, which again, you know, when we say to the student file, what does that actually mean? Because we do have to consider FERPA, which we know is a federal law. I mean, there's all kinds of nuances around here. So I understand what you're saying, superintendent, around redacted names, but if it's your child and your child was involved in an incident, you have the right to know that your child was involved in an incident. And you should be getting a copy of that incident report if it's gone on file with the principal in the office. And that was what we had previously discussed. And names can be redacted, but you should know about your child's incident and not find it out from other families, members, or other students.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right now in the comment box, I would just like you to add, please revisit and I'll look at this while we're continuing the conversation, please revisit regarding copies of incident reports. And I will look through this section again because there was something that was related there, but it was very vague and I wanna make sure that it's clear.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And this is, yeah, we're still under the incident reporting piece. So I guess I wanted to, first of all, if I could, through the chair, address member Graham's comments, which I appreciate. I guess I have two things. One is I think maybe as part of like school committee onboarding for folks that are coming in or what have you is, you know, this sort of idea of this notion of codifying into policy. I think that, TAB, Tila Duhaime): Maybe folks you know aren't always clear that if emotion passes that it should be one would assume it would be implemented, but. TAB, Tila Duhaime): In that motion was passed, but I think to your point codifying it into policy. is another step. And so I think we really need to be thinking about that on the floor. If we're making motions, if these motions need to go into policy to actually be enacted, it's gonna take up a lot more time in our policy subcommittee, but that's an interesting point and one that I hear you saying. So I will definitely be revisiting that in the fall, but it's something that I would like the committee as a whole to consider. because it sounds like a slippery slope to me a little bit where if motions are passed, but and or aren't codified into policy, does that mean that they're not being enforced? Do we have to also codify motions into policy? Like that's sort of another step that I'm questioning, but I appreciate again, that being brought up. The decisions and findings, can you scroll down to that please Mayor? Well, actually it's investigation and decision and finding. I don't see anything in this material. And again, unless I'm wrong, I read through it, but I was marking through my notes and I don't see anything in here. And maybe it's back at investigation or maybe it's back at report. I'm not really sure where my colleagues think it should go, but I do think that we need something in this report that says, you know, we will provide a, translation and interpretation as needed. So you know when you're sharing bullying reports, when you're sharing investigation findings, when you're sharing decision and findings, how is that being shared with our community who might not have English as a first language or might not have English at all and are getting their material translated through their student or through other folks. So I think we need to say that we will provide translation and interpretation to families who have English as a second language. Another really important lesson that I learned Not too long ago, this was actually in the IEP process, where I was speaking with a mom. This was actually a while ago. It wasn't not too long ago. It was probably five or more years ago. But I had become friendly with a mom who was a native Vietnamese speaker, could converse in English, and I had reached out to the Vietnamese community advocates to support her and to get help for her. And they had said, does she have the IEP translated into Vietnamese? And I remember at the time saying, oh, no, no, she can speak English. And that was my naivete, ignorance, whatever you want to say. But speaking a language and deciphering complex content are two different things. And so to have it in one's original language or to have an interpreter or translator provided or translation of documents provided sorry interpreters speech translation is print so to have those things and provided I think is important and I don't see that on this document here again like to miss brownies point. I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly, Ms. Brownlee, that I would hope that there would not be incident reports that had not been shared. And that's the whole point of why we're moving forward with so many of these things, because we were in the situation where those weren't shared. And in some instances, we continue to be in the situation, and hopefully these things are remediating that, particularly training for principals and others. So I couldn't agree more, but I also think that this, interpretation of the report, interpretation of findings, interpretation of decision, interpretation of rights. We have to have somewhere that this material will be interpreted or translated for those whose language is not English as a first language. Thank you, Dr. Murray, Dr. Edwards-Vincent for putting that in there. And then 178, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I don't know if it's going to be under decision and findings. I think it's going to be earlier with report filing, to be honest, because they need to know what's going on in the process. So I would say maybe up as high as, yeah, add this to whatever the report, the incident under incident reports or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and so I just wanted to point out to the central student information, whether it's school brains or what have you to store these incident and investigation forms and all of the disciplinary remediation, all of those things. I think, again, I think that just needs to be vetted for FERPA and needs to be vetted for security. And so that's just the note I would put there. Like what, you know, how does that, I don't know that it does in school brands. I know that they have the student ID in there. I just don't know that they have all these other records in there. And I don't know what the requirements are for FERPA for, I know for our company, we have to submit forms when working with like state, programs to ensure that we have safety and security around this information. So I would just like a note around that, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I hear you. And I think that's important. What I'm saying is that the 178 is saying maintain a central student information system. So it sounds like it's wanting to digitally store incident, all of these forms. And I'm saying around digital security around this, Or is it a paper storage? I don't know. And are we ensured that this material is digitally stored and, you know, in a safe way that FERPA is not being violated for students? So that would be my question, the digital piece. Do we have the, you know, do we have the digital certification to ensure that this information is stored securely under FERPA requirements is what I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, ensuring all copies of these, you know, are of all of these forms are kept in the student are placed in the student file, and I guess I would defer defer to. Director of Pupil Services, Joan Bowen, on some of this. So I know just like, for example, for the individual behavior plans, yeah, they're in the student file, but that doesn't mean anybody can access them. And so they need to be in a secure situation. So for example, for students who are on an IEP, if they have a behavior support plan, so that's how I would word it too, I would just behavior support plan. But if they have a behavior support plan, you know, there are people who can see it and then people, you know, and hopefully are reading it and are using it. But not everybody can because it might also contain medical information. It might contain, you know, who knows what. So I guess what I'm saying there is, is that I would, I want to hear what the director of people's services has to say about this 188 to 190.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And so I guess I thank you. Director Bowen, so I guess on that 190, I would add that comment that, you know, so special education files are separate from quote student file. If we're talking about the records that are being destroyed in this sort of student record file versus special education, and they're under very different laws and what have you. So we need to think, yeah, about how that is, how we wanna word that. Thank you. I only have two more left and I would ask my colleagues if they're okay with me just going through the two more before switching out or I know, through the chair member grams next. Is it okay for me to go through two more, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so if physical injuries occurred and have not been examined, asking a nurse to examine the target and aggressor. So there's a little bit of like, I don't know, there's a little bit of a question here. So one is obviously if the injury is severe enough that they need other care, it wouldn't be the nurse that's doing this, right? Or maybe in a in an emergency situation, the nurse is there, what have you. But for example, in situations where there is abuse, it can be worse for the patient, and this is just trauma-informed practice. And I think Avery could talk to some of this as well, but if there's injuries that occur, having the individual relive the experience over and over and over again can cause additional trauma and can also affect the outcome of the. nature of the story sometimes in terms of what happened when. And so I'm not sure what we're saying about asking us to examine the target and aggressor, especially if there's an emergent situation and it's more serious. So I just want to put a note there. I just want to tag that for a second for conversation around what exactly, I mean, if the opportunity is available and the injuries are such that they're not severe enough for you know, an ambulance or police or what have you to be called, that might be different. But I would love, I know she's not here right now, but I guess, you know, it would have been good to hear Avery's input on that or somebody's because I'm not. Yeah, I'm not sure what the requirements are there. But just want to put a pin in that. And then 365. And that's my last one.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So again, I guess I would ask the director of people's services about this too. PRS is one option for collaboration with families, but it's usually involving special education or an individual with a disability, if I'm not mistaken. In other instances, it's not PRS, it's the office of civil rights. So director, yes, Bowen, if I could through the chair.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so that's in terms of the procedure and policy. And what about how does that differentiate from the Office of Civil Rights? Because I know that bullying incidents also go through the Office of Civil Rights. So I feel like if we're providing this, we also want to provide the information on the Office of Civil Rights. So why would we not also provide that information?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I think we have it on all the other documentation, so why not offer it as, you know, because it's part of the procedural safeguards for families regardless. I know it's in part of the procedural safeguards for individuals with disabilities, but I think some parents might not understand that PRS And, you know, I hadn't thought about that in terms of the procedure. They are about procedure. So I could see how it would be. It could be individuals without disabilities regarding procedure, but it also could fall under Office of Civil Rights. So I think that people need to know that there are both of those options. So that's what I would ask.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, that was six in the, seven in the affirmative.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I had a point of information, Mayor. I was wondering if I could get some clarity on the motion because- Point of information by Member McLaughlin. Clarity on the motion. Can I ask a question? Yep. Point of information. Yes, thank you. So I am hearing, if I'm hearing correctly, The request is around using consistent language for bullying. And we have the language earlier as the definition of bullying. And then we have these additional aspects of other sort of, I guess I would say second tier deeper digging into other sort of definitions of bullying. I think what I'm hearing is consistency, but then if I'm not mistaken, I'm hearing through member Graham that it's about sort of subdividing under a different category, what those would be. And I think the issue is the power differential if I'm understanding the issue correctly, but let me just finish. So I'm asking if that is the issue is the power differential or is the issue that we're not using consistent language in the definition. And if the issue is the power balance issue is the question because it leaves ambiguous who can decide whether there's a power differential or not. So those are the questions I have about that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I ask a question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that when I'm looking at this bullying, so I get that conflict bullying, not bullying, which I want to talk about the flow chart as well that Peter had created around helping simplify this because I think that's part of the issue is that we need to have some visual clarity because this is a, I forget how, 16 page document. That can be a lot and a lot of folks are TLDR, but also a lot of folks are visual learners. We haven't addressed that piece either, which I want to address before this meeting is over. But this particularly suggests to me that a finding of bullying only occurs when there is students who are not considered to be equal in power. So when the incident is determined between two students who are not considered to be equal in power within the quality of problem. So what if the students are equal in power and one is bullying the other? How is that investigation And so we said earlier. Yeah, question. So how is that qualified if they are equal in power and there's a bullying?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Since I sort of had brought up this with questions, I appreciate getting the floor back again. One is I can hear the nuance in this discussion, and I think it's important. And I would really ask also our colleagues, as a whole, if we're not using value statements around individuals doing their work, or whether they're degrading something, or that sort of language. I was at every policy subcommittee meeting with the exception of one. And some of this must have been the last conversation too, because I hadn't heard a lot of the argument around this, or I'll have to look back at the minutes because I don't recall a lot of the arguments or discussion around this. I think I can see both sides in terms of the power differential, but this is a very subjective thing, power differential. And it's like we had instances with our own family members who were very much being bullied. In this situation, there was a power differential. It was not seen necessarily by the principal because the principal very likely doesn't understand nuances of middle school power dynamics. And they're very subtle and can be relational as opposed to physical. They can be all sorts of things. So I think that's why there's such clarity and why and how you find a finding of bullying, and my concern my main concern about this which I think power differentials are an issue, and very much very often are the instances but not only and also it leaves to somebody discretion to determine whether there's a power differential as opposed to the other requirements that are part of state law which I think is critical. So I'm a little, I'm a little conflicted around this, which is why I'm having or asking that this be thought out a little bit more to do the chair to member Graham's point I understand what you're saying about wanting to really clarify the conflict bullying and not bullying because believe me, ours was ruled conflict and it, you know, And many others have been, as I've known, and I think would qualify under this, but it's because it leaves it so subjective to what this is. And I think this even makes it more subjective, frankly, around the power differential. So I don't know how to fix this, and I don't know if it's a state fix or what it is, but I think that maybe there's some middle ground, there's some opportunity for some rewarding or negotiation or something here, because I hear both sides of the argument and it's concerning for me, especially around, you know, and it still didn't answer the question is what happens when, you know, two people are in a situation and one is bullying the other, and it's not seen as a power differential, because for whatever reason, because maybe there's not a known power differential there. internally it's a power differential because somebody else is scared and the other one's not, but how does that determine? I mean, it's such nuance, it's, you know, emotions. How do you know internally whether there's a power differential or not? Or, you know, but for all appearances sake, they're both on the football team, you know, one's the quarterback, one's the linebacker, I don't know. And what, you know, they seem to be equals, they're of the same height, weight, abilities, you know, all of those things, but clearly one is, you know, bullying and, the other is not, how do you know that there's a power, you know, what do you do if there's not a power differential, yet there is bullying, which I think is why there's that clarification under the definition. So I hear two competing things here. Identifying and the difference of conflict bullying and not bullying or conflict, which I think is a tricky bit for everybody. And then the other is being consistent with our definition. and really clarifying what that is of bullying and making sure that we're aligning with what the state standard is. And then the third is that bullying often occurs when there's a power differential. And I'm not sure I know the solution, but I do think that just sort of plowing through or, you know, not plowing through, but saying, well, the subcommittee decided on this and this is why is not helpful because all of this committee, we're a committee of seven that needs to decide this material. So that's why we're having the discussion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we make any suggestions about how to support some language here?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Howard has his hand up too, excuse me. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And this is- Point of information? Or actually, point of clarification though, through the member or so, if I may, through the chair. May I, Member Ruseau? I'm not sure if Chair stepped away. Yeah, I just wanted to add, and I hear you, and it is a lot of work, and we do trust each other, and I think this is a tough subcommittee, and I think they're all important, and I think this is, you've done a lot of work on this subcommittee. We all have. And I think that when discussion happens on the floor, things can happen that you hadn't thought of in subcommittee, where you do start to have different, positions and perspectives. So that also has to be considered. And it's not a matter of trust. It can be a matter of critical thinking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just also wanted to make a point of clarification here as well. It's that subcommittee chairs don't get to decide whether something gets referred to the subcommittee, that's the committee as a whole. whether something gets referred to a subcommittee. So just for clarification.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Sorry, point that actually Mayor, may I, because there were two or three items that we had commented on that I didn't realize I was going to have an opportunity to make a motion on if I wanted to. And I was having discussion for the courtesy of other school committee members in the public. So I would like to scroll through those and see if I would like to put forward a motion before we are making a final vote, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a motion that the section includes pursuant to the definition previously and the material 56 to 63, which I think is agreed. some compromise and negotiation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The motion is to include pursuant to the definition of bullying on the lines, whatever, 17, you know, pursuant to the- Can I get the lines?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, may I have a motion again? I'm actually trying to type my motion into the chat as was asked, and we moved on to another motion, which I'm, yeah, I know I didn't have a second on my motion because I was asked to clarify it in the chat. So there is motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Pursuant to definition of, yeah, because I'm switching between documents because you guys are moving them. around so i just remember mclaughlin i have one typed for that too if you want me to just put my you're a faster typer yeah i will i will love that thank you i have to multitask between the two screens and i'm just too tired thank you so do we want to call this motion first on the civil rights yeah yeah and can you tell is the motion in the chat sorry let me just yes okay hold on one second i'd just like to read it if i may yes thank you um yes Please. May we call the roll? I think, are you standing in for the mayor, vice chair? Yeah, I'm here. I'm just waiting for phone calls, but we're for good.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And the definition was line 17 but we won't have that reference in, you know, because people won't be seeing the line numbers so I don't. Yeah, that's why I just said above because it's one of the, which is why, yeah, which is what the, my original motion was thank you. But I was asked for the line numbers so that's what you got. But second, that's great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Which was the line 17, the DESI definition.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I seconded it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I just, may I, for a point of clarification, I just want to scroll through the tabs to make sure we didn't miss anything. Because again, as I was saying there, I just wanted the opportunity to ensure I wasn't making motions at the time because I thought we were having opportunity for discussion before motion. So would you guys just indulge me for a minute where we can take it from the top and scroll through the tabs if you guys don't mind? Thank you. Cause it's an, it is a very important document yet. That's the definition. Yep. That's fine. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Okay. That's fine. Because information on students, it was, it was around the action, the training they'll take. I'm fine with that. Yes. We said that earlier. Thank you. Yeah, copies of incident reports. So we did not address this, and so I would make a motion to include a line in the Medford Public Schools will, and it can be, you know, the last line. Can we go up a little bit? After 117, so 118. ensure family caregivers, I would make a motion that the public schools will ensure family caregivers receive incident reports regarding their student with redacted information with respect to other individuals prior to investigation determination.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I make a motion to include in 118 under MPS will after ensure district staff is aware of policy in 118, MPS will ensure families or caregivers receive incident reports regarding their student redacted for identifying information prior to investigation. If I can get a second, that would be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would amend that to say MPS, and we say MPS at the top, Will, so I don't think we need to add that bit, but just ensure caregivers receive incident reports regarding their student redacted for identifying information prior to investigation, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You have a point, and I think that's interesting. I'm saying prior to investigation, because really they should receive incident reports when they happen. Once your family can't receive incident reports regarding this, you can redactify and identify information within 24 hours of their occurrence.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: of the incident report. So, you know, that they can start investigating as soon as they want. And I'm not, this is not singular to just bullying incident reports, because we have, you know, and I'll codify that in policy in September, but specific to, you know, any incidents really, but within 24 hours. of the incident, I would say is reasonable to get a report that an incident occurred. I'm not saying that they're getting a full bullying report. I'm saying the incident report, not the full bullying report, a report that an incident occurred, which you would hope they would get a phone call home that day. but within 24 hours they should get a record of an incident report occurring. So what I'm trying to avoid, and I would like to move the question, but what I'm trying to avoid is a parent being involved in this situation after 10 incidents have occurred and getting to the office and having, you know, the principal waving, you know, 10 incident reports in front of them and them being really outraged at not having known this. And, you know, I have to say that's happened to more than one person. There's my echo. Hello, echo. So I would like to move the question, please, with the amendment. NPS will ensure caregivers receive incident reports that occur as, oh, it does say it, that occur as a result of bullying within 24 hours of the incident.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: investigation standpoint. Yeah, right. So I'm not sure that I'm hearing you exactly. But what I am saying is, yes, if they're specific to the bullying incident, I agree. But what I am saying is that there could be five incident reports that are specific to this bullying incident, and they were not shared with the family. And that is what I'm trying to prevent here is that NPS will ensure caregivers receive incident reports that occur, you know, within 24 hours of the incident. And will be, you know, included in of, you know, potentially be included in a bullying investigation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But I feel like we, oh, and you said make reference to it if we have, once we have that overarching. And then, so this document, okay, so I would like to, because I don't want to forget this as a placeholder, so I will modify, thank you. I will modify my motion, but I will make a motion that we have a reference to the incident reporting policy to be created in the fall of 2023 included in this bullying advisory.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I'm withdrawing the previous motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The motion that NPS will ensure families caregivers receive incident reports, the one I typed up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, no, I know, I know, I know you don't. Yeah, I know I'm sorry I'm reading at the same time. Yes, I will withdraw the motion to move the question which it didn't get picked up. Anyway, the question was not moved. So, it's kind of silly to withdraw it, but I will do that because it wasn't followed. regardless, but I will withdraw the motion to move the question. And I will revise my motion, withdraw the motion that NPS will ensure families and caregivers receive incident reports regarding their student redacted for identifying information prior to investigation. And I will make a new motion
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I make a motion that NPS ensures caregivers receive incident reports that occur as the result of bullying investigation promptly. And further, this policy will be amended to include reference to the incident reporting policy to be created in the fall of 2023 as soon as it becomes available. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We just go down through the rest of the document quickly. Thank you. Yeah, I guess I'm going to leave that up to administration to decide regarding the.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's hard to know. Mayor, we can't hear you. You can put your vote in the chat. That might be helpful. Sorry, through the vice chair.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I finish this? Yeah, thank you. This read through. So special education. Yeah, yeah, we already agreed. Oh, so yeah, a place in the student file. I would like a motion to amend 188 through 190. So are placed in the student file and or, You know, I don't know how we address the special education file as being different. Ensure copies of all bullying reports, individual behavior plans are placed in the student file. So there's two different types, as we said, of student files.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We have the next one all set, if I may, to the chair, the translation and interpretation. Yep. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I, and I'm not gonna make a motion on this, but I do want to bring that to the attention of the administration to please circle back with Avery and check on what is appropriate for that. And we can revisit it if we need to. I can also circle back with Avery.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and then this was already set for the civil rights. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve this bullying policy plan as amended. As amended.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I just wanted to point of information or point of order, actually, sorry, excuse me. The mayor did put in her yes for that vote, so we want to amend that motion. I make a motion to amend the motion regarding, oh my God, I'm tired, you guys, what motion was that that we were waiting for the mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you guys. I didn't know if she wanted to do that. So my apologies. Can we start from the top for the roll?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Man, I just have my hand up. Yeah, I just want to say the same. Thank you guys for your super hard work. I know that this was a lot and I really appreciated the communication today just around collaboration and, you know, seeing how things get done and how it's not always easy. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I make it sorry. I have to make a motion to include the flowchart. We didn't look at the flowchart. Can we, can I make a motion that we revisit this plan in the first meeting in September to review a visual flowchart to ensure, yeah, to ensure, I'll write it in the thing. Motion to revisit the wing. Policy plan to review. Sorry to review. I'm just typing policy. I'm talking to review a visual.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I'm making a motion to revisit the building policy plan at the first meeting in September to review a visual flow chart to assist in accessibility. If I could get a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, well, I will withdraw the motion and I will ask that the community, welcome, Tom, we haven't met. And I will ask that the communication director is part of the conversation around the accessibility meeting that we already made a motion to have at the beginning of the year, both for language and other accessibility. So I think that falls into that category, but that doesn't need to be a motion. So, okay, thank you. Perfect.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, I think it was a person there that was it I, I think I had my hand up for sorry. Thank you. Yeah, I just have an issue because I didn't unfortunately receive the policy and I just, I did just reach out and ask for it. So I am getting a copy of it and I have got a copy of it. I think from one of the members, I have been part of the subcommittee. So I'm aware of a lot of it, but I didn't get to do a final read through because I did not receive it. It was sent to another McLaughlin. in the district. So I just want to put that out there as well that I haven't had a chance to read through this. So I want to be able to read through that before I take a final vote.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I just was looking at the. Yeah, I'm just looking at the agenda and I just want to clarify for myself and for folks that what what we're doing right now is the first read through right so. I forget, and maybe through the chair, Member Ruseau, if you can remind me of the policy for the read through for the new policy. So we do read through one, and then we do read through two, and then we vote for approval or not. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so thank you to the chair. So if I understand correctly, the first reading is the opportunity to have input make changes, you know, public comment, whatever. And then the second reading is just sort of reading officially what was agreed upon in the first reading before making the final vote and that affords the opportunity for folks to, you know, I guess review once again even though they can't have change or input so I guess I'm in a little bit of a quandary here and I'm looking to my colleagues to let me know what they think before I make a motion if I need to to make a motion to table because I haven't read this. So I'm looking to my colleagues for what suggestions they might have since I haven't actually had the opportunity to read through this and were they in that position, what would they like to do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. So I'm going to make a motion to table, because I have not gotten the materials I would like to get the materials. So I can read through them so that we can have a full first reading and maybe that will also afford us the opportunity to reflect on whatever the other issues are regarding the law and I also want to thank my colleagues on the on the subcommittee. This has been a lot of work and the people that have attended the subcommittee. This has been a lot of work and Also to miss Branley thanking her and to know that there was a lot of people and there are a lot of people who are watching and or have been involved prior to miss Branley as we were working through this process. Prior to it going to the policy subcommittee which unfortunately took an incident for it to get you know that far and there are other people out there in the community I know. that have had ongoing issues as well and that we've talked to and worked with. So I want them to know that we very much care about the issue and it has been a big commitment to an important commitment and an ongoing commitment that we'll continue to have. But I do need to make a motion to table so that I can give it my full attention and get the documents that I have not received. So I would like a second, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, thank you. Good to hear from members as well and from the community. Although I do have to respectfully agree to disagree. I think we've come this far with the five meetings that we had and I don't want to push something through without having had the ability to read it. I don't feel like I'd be doing due diligence to my constituents and to the people of Medford not having read it as part of the subcommittee. I really do feel like it needs to be read and that's the important piece. I put a lot of work into it and a lot of work before the subcommittee. into it working with a number of families. So I think it's important for every member of our school committee to be able to read the proposed policy before we can vote on and approve of it. And I do believe that any other member of this community, the school committee, if they had not had the opportunity to read this would feel likewise. So I am respectfully asking that we table this, but I will ask and amend that we table it to the very first possible meeting in September so that it can be the first item of issue on the agenda so that we can get this moved forward. I know that the superintendent knows that this is coming. We just need to be able to fully do our work and diligence for the community that we've been voted to do, which is reading through it and having a say on it. I cannot vote on something That I haven't even seen the final version of especially when I had so much input on it as a subcommittee member and also having been a family member who has experienced bullying in the community as well I really feel like it's important to take the time to be able to read this one or two more meetings is not going to make that much of a difference. And I won't feel I'm doing this in good conscience without having read through the policy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to go to Executive Session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There is always a chance, excuse me, sorry, Mayor. Point of information, Member McLaughlin, can we ask Mr. McLaughlin if he can get this monitor working on this side.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this information. It's a lot. And I know it's a lot of work and I especially like the comparison data and I didn't realize I was a data nerd until I went to grad school and now I'm a total data nerd. So I love it. Thank you. And I am really excited about the possibilities as you talk about how you folks are looking at how to improve, you know, what to do next, how to involve community folks interested in the community liaisons and how those have been sort of determined. So that's one question. And do you want me to do question by question or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: for both what populations are reaching out to and how did you find how did you determine who the community liaison is, and and or do they have training as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: that thank you that is super interesting information to me and I think one you know something that the that the city should really be celebrating it's great to know I think we've talked about. increasing family engagement at the school levels. And, you know, really the cultural broker model is a really important model and something I'm doing in my own work during the day. I'm actually becoming a certified application Councilor. Yeah, yeah. So I totally understand that process. And I think that's super important. And I, and especially with the redetermination right now, as you know, and do a lot of work with DPH, Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Yeah, so with that, I work a lot with the Division of Children, Youth, and Special Healthcare Needs. So that is one of the populations that I really wanted to ask you about here, especially in terms of when we're talking cultural brokers, we're talking that that's a culture in itself as well. And so where and how are we reaching that community, particular around, you know, there's lots of issues of public health that are intersecting for families and children with youth and children with youth with special healthcare needs. So I didn't sort of see that as a subgroup, and I'm really eager to move that forward as I'm sure you know as well, and happy to help any way I can, but I'd like to know what you guys are doing in that realm.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I guess I'm asking that in the DEI realm as well. So not just about, you know, chronic health care needs, but really about, you know, the connect program and other things that you were talking about, specifically some of the parent ed and some of the things that you're talking about with MFN. So these are all things that I think are really important to target that community, just as we are with language access and culture access and other communities. So again, happy to move that forward, but just want to put that out there and put that out there publicly, because I think all too often it's a community that gets dropped off and there's lots of intersectionality. There's people who speak other languages that also have disabilities, of course, and that just complicates issues even more. So again, I feel like I'm always clanging this bell and it does get a little tiresome, I'm sure. It does for me, certainly, but I think it's something that's really important and I wanna make sure that we're moving that forward. So love everything that's happening here and I'm eager to talk more.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I really appreciate the work on this. And yeah, maybe if you guys could take a minute and read the Community members that were part of it because it sounds like it was a lot of work and I know there are other people that aren't on the call, but just as a thank you to them. I know a lot of folks worked hard on it, so if you guys don't mind maybe just sharing that with the community would be great. And then, like I said, I see that there's a ton of work that's been done on this and much appreciated work and again i'm going to be that clanging bell. to ask how this is happening for students with disabilities. And Dr. Cushing, I know that this is something you and I talked about quite a bit during the process. So I'm really eager to hear what that is, particularly for our programmatic elements, right? So when we're talking about equity to access for health literacy and healthcare literacy for, I think it was one of the goals for the end is talking about healthcare equity, meet with the central administration about possible schedule changes to accommodate equity in health education for all students. So I know the Director of Pupil Services is not available tonight. I don't know if Stacey Shulman is still on the call or not, or if you guys wanna address, but how we are working with the programmatic units to accommodate equity in healthcare education for our students who are developmentally disabled, have different disabilities, learning needs, what have you, how are we accommodating them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So we're not talking about differentiating the curriculum that typical students are getting. You're talking about an entirely different curriculum. Yeah, I think that would be useful conversation to have. I think differentiation can really happen and it's really important thing to happen so that all students are getting, you know, a version of the same curriculum if, when, if, and when possible. in the least restrictive environment, obviously, but that's the free and appropriate public education piece for the curriculum. And it sounds like there's gonna be a lot of really great stuff here that I know that there's a professor, particularly at Tufts that works on this specific to healthcare curriculum and individuals with disabilities. I was just at a resource fair and was talking with that professor. So I'd love to put you guys in touch. I think it's really important to be looking at differentiation as opposed to necessarily entirely separate and segregated curriculum for obvious reasons. So we'd love to talk more about what that looks like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just had one more question. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I know you can't see my light over here. I just, I was looking through the memo and was wondering if there was a timeline or schedule or anything like that that you guys have roughly laid out or not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I'm wondering if through the chair, if member Graham is suggesting committee of the holes on those off dates, or I'm wondering why we wouldn't be able to do committee of the whole before meetings so that people are getting practical. I think it's six of one half a dozen of another, but I'm curious about, cause we haven't had discussion about this because we said we were gonna start discussion on it in September so that we could really start planning for it. So I'm just wondering what the, what you're thinking what the what member grams thinking for that time frame on those other dates, I think, you know, for new members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. No, that makes sense too. Just thinking about, especially when you're first starting, if you're doing a committee of the whole before a whole meeting, it can be a lot as well. And I know that we'll have other, I'm sure we'll have additional conversations about what onboarding will look like and what other kind of training will be involved. So just giving us a little bit of wiggle room right now makes sense. So I would, did you make a motion? I would make a motion actually to accept those dates.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the value, I think, of a retreat that has not happened in my experience. And we've had some sort of day-long learning sessions, which have been really helpful, but not sort of a quote-unquote retreat or getaway, and I know the pandemic, what have you. So I appreciate the, gesture. I also wonder, you know, especially being in June right now and just, you know, knowing the exhaustion that June brings and knowing the exhaustion that September brings. And then as a mother knowing the exhaustion that December brings, I mean, I am like, I'm sure we all are. I'm not, I'm not a mother and a father, parents in general. the December month is just, I already feel like I can't squeeze anything else in there. So I appreciate the gesture, but I'm also not sure how realistic that is when it comes right down to it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, and I would also say just having been thrown into the mix and having sat through a lot of school committee meetings, there was still a tremendous amount to learn, not just from the MASC orientation or present, you know, I guess you could call it an orientation, but it's also very specific to the district orientation. And I think that there, I don't think I know that there was, I was still finding out, I'm still finding out new things actually. But I was definitely still finding out new things the first year all throughout the year. So I just really think being thoughtful about this is important. And I know folks are, I love the idea of a retreat too. I think it's a great idea. I don't know how realistic it is for that month. And I will add that to member Hays' point, I think we also need to have some accountability for the MASC training because I don't necessarily think that Everybody does do that so maybe that's going to be part of what you know the onboarding for the subcommittee can talk about, or whatever it's going to be next September, can talk about some of what the process might look like and how there can be some assurance that you know that there's that there's people are going to the training but also maybe much like what we heard earlier tonight and presentations and just good practice maybe there'll be mentor opportunities where people can be partnered with mentors if folks want to offer that opportunity.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to amend my motion to, motion to what? I made a motion to withdraw. Withdraw, yeah, the motion. I made a motion to accept this. I didn't get seconded though.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, the negotiation that was proposed 20 minutes ago.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a motion to move the question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I want to ask if we could just say things one at a time through the chair so I can hear and understand what people are saying, please. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to, if I can, just say thank you to my colleagues for completing 2022-2023 school year. Yeah, it's pretty much over. And thank you guys for all your hard work and commitment. been a long year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that, first of all, I also want to say to the students how particularly proud I am for you moving this forward in a very practical way and to the CCSR and to Ms. North for really just taking the initiative and really creating a pilot project because that is how things get done, usually by piloting, demonstrating that they work, having a price point, making sure that people know what that is, what things look like, having something tangible that people can see and look at. And so I hope that this is a real opportunity for people to be thinking about policy as well, because as member Graham said, you know, actually the students that first brought this to the school committee were in my daughter's graduating class. So they actually just graduated from college this year. And we're very proud of all of them for having brought this forward as well. But policy is iterations of, Right. And so it's evolutions of people, you know, there are leaders who start things, there are people that come along and actually practically implement it. There are people that come along and have another iteration of that a version of that that's even better. So it's just always building on other people as well and working together. So I think this is a really great example of how policy can be played out with folks. So I don't even think it's necessarily a bad thing that this wasn't right at the front, I think it wasn't even available right at the front four years ago. I think it's the evolution piece of it. I also very highly recommend this. I would also respectfully ask that member Graham consider amendment to the motion to include, and I would ask that you young women and Ms. North and the CCR consider including these for fifth graders in our elementary school. I know certainly some of our young women have you know, that experience much earlier, so making sure that they're available. And also there are class, there are bathrooms in particular classrooms, specifically classrooms that might be subseparate, where those would be included as well. So I would just ask that we expand on that motion. Thank you. I actually, I'm gonna press the button. The face. It's a little face with a voice coming out. On the front, on the front.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Understandably. Mayor, may I respond?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just want to say thank you. That's great. And I think it's also another great example and an important example just for the policy piece of it as well. When you're talking about having our maintenance folks install, having our nurses collaborate, having people know where in which bathrooms, that's all practical application of how you implement policy. So really being able to think those things through ahead of time makes it much more effective, bringing things to the table so that policy actually gets passed. And I just think it's a real learning opportunity again, for our students and for folks who are watching that that's a really great example of how it gets done. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and I also, I just wanted to say, focusing on the positive, you know, in terms of, you know, what has or hasn't happened in the past, I just want to say, that's how things change. And you, you know, you get stuff done, and you guys are getting stuff done, and you keep getting stuff done. And it doesn't have to be the way things were before because you can change it. And that's how you do make the change that you made today. So, you know, when member Ruseau was talking and he was saying how, you know, things have been or whatever, it was all I could do to hold myself back and not, you know, yell out, not anymore, right? So not anymore here, right? So you guys did that. So that's really great. And I also just want to add to member Ruseau's comments that, you know, not to get too specific, but regarding tampons and pads, you know, there are obviously as women, we know there are preferences for different reasons that we don't need to get into, but we want to have both, you know, whenever possible for all choices for individuals. So thank you guys again, and I want to second the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Appreciate y'all being here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you miss miss gain it was a pleasure to be on the committee, interviewing you and getting to know you just that little bit then and I definitely think Medford made the right choice and we're lucky to have you and want to let you know that our, you know, doors are open in terms of reaching out in different ideas and not to put you to sleep but in the event that you're interested or you want to, you can access previous meetings on Medford community media. And I hope that doesn't deter you from coming to the district. But should you be interested in information, you can get more there as well. All right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, there are two things I do need to talk about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just quickly, I just wanted to say for the Special Education Subcommittee, we obviously approved a non-discrimination statement. So for folks that are out there watching, that should be coming in your September, anything that's sent out in September and should be elsewhere. I'm happy to answer questions on that for folks that want, and if I may move forward, Mayor, to the DEI subcommittee meeting. And then the DEI subcommittee meeting, I just wanted to say that we were discussing the impact of new safety regulations and procedures on various populations within our school. And so we agreed to have a meeting in the month of September as a whole, to discuss, not as a subcommittee, but the superintendent would bring back information to the committee at large or the entire committee with data around some of the things that were asked for in the subcommittee. So in September, folks can expect data on some of the DEI material that was discussed in this subcommittee meeting. So just again, a reminder that we would have a meeting in the first month in the September on the DEI topic to include data that the superintendent is collecting, superintendent team is collecting regarding impact of safety policy and procedure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, we didn't because we didn't do the good of the order.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was going to under the good of the order I was going to ask that the committee consider a process for onboarding school committee members and a way in which we can make that happen, whether it's through one of our subcommittees or some other plan, but I think we really need to think about preparing onboarding materials for incoming school committee members. And I just wanted to put that out to our committee for suggestions.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: make a motion to send it to a sub motion to, no, actually I make a motion to create a one-time subcommittee in the fall for onboarding process of school committee members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, Member McLaughlin, again, because I don't think you can see me, sorry if I'm interrupting. But thank you, Superintendent, especially for your more recent comments. I did have a question about the Moms Demand. I did have a comment slash question about the Moms Demand action. Folks might remember, school committee worked with them at the beginning of the year, I believe. And I'm so glad to see city council is working with them as well. I think it's really important. I think it's important across the city. And we did have a resolution that we were sending out safety messages to families regarding moms demand action. And just as I'm wondering if that actually occurred as an out of district parent, I did not see it, but I would like to know that we followed up on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you make sure that it reaches our out of district families as well, please? Yes. Thank you. Um so thanks. I'm glad to hear that those are going. I'm glad to hear those are going out and I'm sure you need far more than I have but I have lots of orange envelopes. Doctor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Pushing so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. I think the podium blocks me, frankly, the way the position that it's in I'm not sure if you can see I know I often can't see the superintendent with the podium, but thank you. I've been waiting a little bit, a little while. which is why I think maybe you can't see me but I wanted to ask as well so there's a few things when I first came on to the school committee, the budget process was very different than it is now and I know that we had a director of finance in the interim, that sort of change things and some of the recommendations on recommendations from this committee. In the past, just so for folks who are listening or in the audience or watching online, in the past, what would happen is department heads would come before the committee, would sort of describe what happened in their, what happens in their department, would break down what their department did and what they were proposing was needed in the future. And that process was sort of eliminated in this last iteration. And it became more of a sort of global look at it at a larger number. I frankly liked the transparency that occurred when department heads were able to come up and we were able to ask them about what was needed and how we were able to get to certain numbers. I know that the process was longer as a result of that, but personally, I preferred that. I felt like it was more, for me, it helped me better understand the budget and where money was coming and going. And we were also able to really understand what each school had. So how many adjustment Councilors were at X school, how many, you know, BCBAs, we're at Wise School, we were able to sort of see equity across the district or inequity across the district and how it might be able to be addressed. And in this iteration, I'm not finding that as much. So I just want to mention that to my colleagues here and to the audience as well, because I think that we always have the opportunity to change the process. And I think the more transparent and simplified the process can be, as much as one can do with a, you know, $70-$80 million budget, the better it is. I have worked on multi-million dollar budgets in my professional life, and it has been a much different process and one much more similar to what we had seen earlier with sort of department by department, subtotal by subtotal. which for me was particularly helpful. Another real concern I have about this budget is we're talking SEL, we're talking post-pandemic relief, we're talking ARPA and ESSER. And, you know, I haven't really heard a lot of discussion about our underrepresented subgroups and the increased need of our underrepresented subgroups, particularly we know we have a mental health crisis happening right now, how we're just how we're, you know, thinking about that for our student population, how we're thinking about we just recently to my relief passed a resolution, ensuring non discrimination and inclusion and non exclusion from all activities that are school based before school, during school and after school, and yet I continue to hear from families, and I am concerned about particularly summer programming. And what we're doing around summer programming, for example, the summer fun camp, which has historically been, you know, one or two general education teachers and a lot of high school students. More recently, through a lot of work from community members, we were able to get increased services provided there for some students with higher needs, students with disabilities, other students. so that they could access that program. That doesn't seem clear to me as to whether that's happening this summer, or whether that's happening with any of our summer programming or enrichment programming or after school programming, or any of our programming and I don't know, a lot of times when we asked that question we're told this step that people aren't available, that it's hard difficult to hire folks but if we don't even have them. allocated in a budget, or if we're not talking about how they are allocated in the budget, if they are, whether it's through additional special education funding for grants that, again, we don't see on this particular budget sheet, which can be substantive in their money, the IDEA funds, other funds, not knowing where that money is going is really tricky for me, and understanding how that gets teased out is really tricky for me. And also, I think we talked in the last meeting or the meeting prior, specifically about the revolving accounts and what kind of income they generate. So for example, if the, and this is just an example, I don't have these numbers for real, but if, for example, the summer fund program, which is a summer camp for students in the Medford community that is housed in one of our schools, if for example that, and it's tuition driven, If, for example, that program made a profit of say, I don't know $40,000 I don't know that it does but say for example it made a profit of $40,000 yet was unable to accommodate individuals who had additional needs for any number of reasons because budget money wasn't allocated because what have you. That's not meeting the requirement of reasonable accommodations, for example, and how are we really considering that, particularly when we're talking about SEL for those who folks who don't understand the acronym I would just share it social emotional learning and the importance of belonging, being part of one's community and feeling that and also recruitment of skills so that you start in September. with the same skills that you had and regression, preventing regression of skills so that you don't go backwards over the summer, particularly for our more marginalized subgroups. So I just feel like that conversation is being lost here. So in summary, I have two comments overall. One is I think we're losing a bit of the conversation. 33 staff that we have to consider is very dire. And also these other pieces that I feel like aren't being discussed are very dire. And then secondly, the process and the transparency around the process. This has been far more vague for me than in previous processes. And this is not a reflection of the superintendent by any means, you know, we had, you know, different directors of finance over the past term and things have changed. So, and hopefully we'll be hiring another director of finance soon. So I think we really need to hear from the community as well about what the process can look like and how it can be more transparent and whether in fact people are understanding some of the language that we're even talking about or whether they're looking at these sheets and know how it translates into schools or anything, because I'm not entirely convinced that they do. So thank you for hearing me out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But point of information. information you asked is through the chair is member Ruseau asking that we do that before we hear from the public because I would, I prefer to do it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Again, point of information there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I was confused and I just want to make sure that others aren't confused because, you know, sitting behind here and having more access than maybe other people and I'm still confused. So what I was misunderstanding was I thought Member Ruseau was asking that we are voting for or against as a committee, this number, and that is not what I'm understanding. He's asking for public to come up to discuss for, and then the folks against or vice versa, against or for. and then close each session before we make a vote. Is that accurate? That's correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you repeat specifically the additional amount? And I heard the rest of the piece, but specifically the additional amount, and I would like to just respond to that for one moment, if you'd just give that number again.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: and that is 50K to implement the non-discrimination agreement that we all voted on for the wraparound services before and after school and any in-school activities. So I would request an additional 50,000 to ensure that we are keeping our ADA regulations as proposed, and also that we are being non-exclusive and committing to our equity across the school district.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The 50K would be specifically for additional staffing at any of the programs, including afterschool, the summer fun and summer enrichment before school, for whether it be BCBA, school adjustment Councilor, whatever the district deems necessary to be sure that we are being inclusive of all of our student population in those activities, particularly regarding the additional supports or additional support requests that we're going to be putting on all of our outgoing paperwork. So specifically right now it's to give it a run for this year to see if that amount is enough or in the ballpark, but just to at least initiate that I know what the after school I mean at the summer fund program for the camp they have no BCBA they have no paraprofessionals they have no staffing and a number of families have, you know, frankly, had to not go there because there's no additional support, or, you know, it's been problematic for students that have gone there. And so I think that that's a number to start. I don't think that number is necessarily going to fill it, but I think we have to make the commitment that we said we were going to make to ensuring equity for all of our students.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would suggest to the rest of the committee that it could start with community schools, afterschool and athletics, but that's where we're seeing a lot of the differences in equity and support. sorry, differences in equity and supports, but I would defer to the committee as a whole to be thinking about where those line items could go.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that's a good point I believe we did make a motion and I was just flipping through our notes but I would have to have more time to look at that to get that information actually to find out about the revolving accounts. for that reason, at least from my perspective, it was for that reason, but also to be more transparent and to understand what the income revenue is from the revolving accounts. I would say that it's not just community, you know, the revolving accounts that this material comes from, but it's certainly a good start. So I would be willing to withdraw the recommended amendment based on the fulfillment of the report that we're talking about and how we're going to address that in September.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that might be better understood if you read the different ratings for the needs improvement versus proficient back up at the top. And so there's a little bit of
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if you can go back up to the top and look at what those needs improvement and proficient, actually how they're defined.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, Member McLaughlin. Performance on a standard or overall is below the requirements of a standard or overall, but is not considered to be unsatisfactory at the time improvement is necessary and expected. Proficient practice is understood to be fully satisfactory. So I guess, yeah, I can see where the conflict is there. I think that, yeah, I guess, yeah, one has to be needs improvement. Proficient has to be actually fully satisfactory. So it does say fully. There is not ambiguity. or proficient. So yeah. So we'll have to look at the ratings. So thank you for pointing that out. We'll review that between now and the next meeting before it's reviewed to the committee. And I might also just add, I wanted to, if I could Mayor, say thank you to the subcommittee, which was member Graham, member Hays and myself for the multiple meetings that this took to put this together. So thank you all.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you want me to share it? Is it something you emailed us?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's OK. And so it's right here. What do you want, the PDF, 2023 evaluation PDF, or what are you looking for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Uh, it's just on the it should be on your right on your I mean on the bottom menu bar. So evaluations of committee notes, notes version 2 version 3 Superintendent evaluation guide. Oh, last modified. Let me do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. I was just going to say, I think this is really helpful. And I, you know, especially having the numbers being able to add up instead of trying to, you know, nuance a whole bunch of other things. So it looks like the, so the access toward progress goals and the assessed performance on standard. Okay. So, so the access towards goals, which we can see, you know, so, Obviously, the numbers speak for themselves. So, you know, some progress and significant progress, or some significant progress and met. And then the step two, it looks like the numbers are in the proficient. I know that you said you're going to marry the comments from the evaluators. So. Yeah, I'm going to, I'm sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I think you've done a great job. Thank you for all that you have done. And I think this particular rubric and sort of seeing the visual again, I'm a visual learner, as I've said before, I think seeing the visual with the numbers and the standards is really helpful for me. So I appreciate that. And so the way that the numbers look, and again, we will talk about this in the larger committee meeting. But if I understand correctly, the way the numbers are coming out now is a is proficient.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And we'll see that later on page three or whatever. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I thought your instructions were very helpful as well. So essentially what you had said to us was go to page three, do your individual assessments based on what you think. And then you're taking those individual assessments and assigning the number of significant progress met or exceeded based on various committee members input. and then the same with the standards that we all agreed upon.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I think it's been super helpful. And then I think that obviously there'll be some, so that's the quantitative data. Right, and there'll be some qualitative data that will be brought to the table at the next. Um, school committee meeting, um, when we. When we share this out, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So may I? Sure. Thank you. So would it be helpful to have all of the narrative in one like, you know, Google Doc or something that is shared? individually with us where we cannot respond to each other, so that we're not violating any public meeting rules, where we could potentially highlight comments that we feel are representative of the whole, probably as like sort of homework before the next meeting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think you mean June 1st, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't think you need a motion, but what do you think?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's the table motion to table to the next meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and to be clear if people are wondering, like again that are watching or whatever if they're wondering why we're not discussing, you know, the, the ratings themselves that's not the purpose of the meeting this meeting is really to as a, as a, you know, the evaluation subcommittee to really work on the process, right? Member Hays. Correct, yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we get a timeline member Hays, excuse me, may I speak, please. Sorry. Yes, of course. Can we get a timeline on when you want to get the qualitative material to us and when you'd like us to get back to you with the highlighted material before the next meeting that would be helpful just to put it in my calendar.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yeah, that's right. We're not getting them back to you. We're just highlighting the homework in the meantime, right? Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to add that I think what I'm hearing too is that, you know, the evidence that's there and we are, that's part of the process that we're going through now in terms of making this process uniform using the rubric that DESI provides around evaluation, identifying in advance what the goals are, what goals and items are being evaluated, And that we're using this specific rubric to do this which has not been the case in the past so that's all publicly available information that's all part of what you see here in the in the. in the material that we just shared, but also, you know, DESE has their superintendent rubric online, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and was one of the reasons that we really wanted to standardize the form and use what other people are using so that we're comparing apples to apples across districts and amongst each other. And then the other piece I think I heard you say was that, would you know what individuals reported? And yes, that's part of public information. And we are also sharing that as part of a vote that we took earlier that each of our reports are, you know, they're public anyway, but that we would all, you know, essentially be able to see or have that information that we saw individually. But this subcommittee is tasked with bringing all that information together under member Hays' stewardship and direction to bring all the information together. And so that's part of why we're looking at the, you know, quantitative data. The numbers are a little bit easier to just sort of put together. The qualitative data can be a little bit more time-consuming because we might have seven, you know, well, we will have seven narratives, but I suspect that a lot of them will be similar and some of them may be dissimilar, and that's sort of what we'll be charted with. And then I just, if I might, Member Hays, I wanted to also address the question from Jess, who, I don't know Jess's last name, but sorry, Jess, that we didn't get the name for the record, but to just share that part of the superintendent evaluation process should be happening throughout the year, right? I mean we're all hearing from constituents as school committee members about what their experiences are in the district what they would like to see changed or better or improved what they think is working, you know how things are sort of happening so we're seeing that throughout the year we definitely have public participation throughout the year as well. I think it's a longer conversation for the entire committee to have around, you know how and in what way. there'd be public participation in superintendent evaluation and also looking at what other districts are doing and what the protocol is and sort of all of those things. And because it can also, as you can imagine, the people that show up might be the squeaky wheels and the people that don't might not be. So there sort of has to be a process that we all agree is equitable and is one that is consistent and one that the MASC, which is the Mass Association of School Committees, and the MASS, which is the Mass Association of School Superintendents, would surely offer advice and let us know best practices around doing that as well. So I think that there's always opportunity for feedback. So I hope that you guys are reaching out to us to let us know. And also, I know that the superintendent has been receptive as well in terms of people reaching out to her. So I would encourage that too. And that's part of the building relationships that we should all be working on in terms of the family and community engagement. So I just I just sort of wanted to mention that as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely. Thank you. Yep, it is as part of the data that's that's if I may member pays I'm sorry. Sure. Absolutely, that's why we're going with a rubric. So thank you, you're absolutely right. It's shared with all the members across the board, same rubric. We're all evaluating based on the items we agreed to evaluate based on the superintendent's goal. So we are making it much more uniform. Thank you for asking and for noticing. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say that I think it is good practice just as part of whenever we're, you know, orienting the community to what we're doing, you know, here's where we were, here's what we did, here's where we're going, here's what we're presenting, whatever. So I think a primer slide or, you know, one or two, you know, here's The, you know, here are the goals here the, you know, pieces that we evaluated on and here's what the evaluation wants is always good sort of just again because not everybody is necessarily accessing the website, not everybody is necessarily, you know, coming to a public meeting or watching the meetings on MCM or what have you. So I think it's just always good if people, you know, decide to tune in for that or if we have a record of the information is sort of this was what the process was. And so I think it could be really helpful to have a one-page, you know, piece and I'm happy to help work with you on that if you'd like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I think you did it really already. I think you did the majority of the work already in the instructions. So I think it would just be a matter of simplifying that on a slide or two. I'm happy to do that and modify you guys at the next one. Sure. Wonderful, thanks so much. Sure, so I would make an emotion that we continue the meeting to June 1st for our subcommittee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for the report, Superintendent. I had a question just looking at looking at grants and revolving accounts at 18% of the budget and grants at 5% or I mean at the revolving accounts at 6% which is more than the federal government actually I'm curious if we can get numbers for the for the grants and the revolving accounts, just to know you know what the numbers are attached to those because I think it would be super helpful for me to better understand what those are given that again they're almost 20% of the total budget.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in the budget book will have a break.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Family engagement grant will have a number. Yes, all those things will have a number. Great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We get the same for the 6% on the revolving accounts.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just think it would be really helpful to know the sources of that income and just, again, an average or even the last year's numbers or something with an even italicized ellipsis or something that says, You know, or asterisk or something that says you know these numbers might be subject to change, but just knowing. Especially for incoming you know school committee members and for the Community and other people to see where that income is generated and sort of where the numbers, I think that would be really helpful, thank you, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's 5.02. We'll get started in a moment. Just want to make sure I don't see Sharon on here yet.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. Okay, good. Welcome, everyone to the diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee meeting for today. Thank you. Member Hays, sorry. If you could mute, that would be great. Thank you. So it's, please, I'm just gonna read our notice and then we'll get started. So please be advised that on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, from five to six, there will be a diversity, equity, and inclusion subcommittee meeting to be held via remote participation on Zoom. The purpose of the subcommittee meeting will be to examine the new safety procedures outlined in the update to the Medford High School student handbook sent to families on January 2nd, 2023, from a DEI perspective. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 15 and Verizon Channel 45 at 5 p.m. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log or call in by using the following link or call-in number. Medford Public Schools is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. is noted online and the call in number is 309-205-3325 if you need to call into the meeting. And with that, we will take roll call.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Seriously? Oh, okay. I thought it was mute. Thank you guys. Good. So member Hays. Thank you. Member McLaughlin here. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great, thank you. I know that as the superintendent said that she was in route, driving back to the high school so that might be a moment or two. And we were just going to get started so I was hoping the superintendent might be able to give us a little bit of background but I do see that. Principal DeLava is on the call, so if I could ask maybe Principal DeLava if you can give us a little bit of background in terms of, you know, the changes to the student handbook and what occurred.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess I would add, oh, sorry. Uh, member, um, Hayes, just a moment. Um, I guess I would also add if there's any, I'd be curious if there's any sort of data collection on, on, um, you know, any student increase in, you know, either behavior referrals or requests to leave classrooms or anything like that based on any subgroup population. And these new procedures, that could always be helpful to take a look at, but member Hays.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Principal DeLava please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think data collection sounds like a good idea just in terms of ensuring, you know, again, the equity piece. And I would be curious as to Member Hays' reflection on the data collection and sort of how you would want to
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, what the data is saying, essentially, if they're going to be using more data to sort of, if the proposal is to sort of use data to sort of, to see how this is affecting the students, both with the student survey that's currently out in this informal recording that Mr. DeLave was just talking about from the MCAS and others, you know, is it a discussion that you want to have to reconvene around data. I mean, I think it's a little tricky to have this discussion sort of in an ambiguous way without knowing exactly what it is we're dealing with or looking for. So we're saying, yeah, we want to look at this information and consider all the ways that these new procedures could impact underrepresented populations. And so what is the way in which to do that? And then how would we be able to review that once that occurs?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Suggestions? Member Ruseau and then Superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So superintendent if I understood you accurately you were saying data collection to reconvene in the fall around looking at what what the basically taking the surveys that are currently out looking at that data and potentially the teacher. What's the word I'm looking for? Roundtable, if you will. You know, that as well, and having that data and coming back. Were you saying to the subcommittee or were you saying to the committee as a whole to sort of give information about how this is or isn't working?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I think it's a good start superintendent to, you know, have something to build on in September to have this conversation. I'm fine. I don't know how the rest of the members feel about having that conversation as a part of a agenda item on the school committee meeting as a whole. And then, you know, from there, we can talk about whether, you know, again, to member Hays' point, whether this should be, you know, dated. response or data information, particularly around, you know, a topic should be a regular thing or part of a report, as Member Ruseau was saying, or not. But I think just to sort of get us at a starting point, I think it would be helpful to have, you know, maybe this is an agenda item, maybe, you know, you know, in the end of September ish, so that there's time to collect data would be great. And if the rest of the members are in agreement with that, I'd be happy to to say, that's great, and make a motion to adjourn. So let me know what folks think. Thumbs up, thumbs down?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that. to members of this point, if you are looking for a full report, then that would be something that would need to go through the policy, you know, that we've already written for a report. I would recommend having it a little more ambiguous in the terms of following the superintendent's lead around having her present the data at the school committee meeting. But I think, you know, you can be more specific with both the superintendent and Mr. DeLeva about some of the data points you are maybe specifically looking for, so that it'll be an informed presentation. That's always something that's just good practice for what you want for the presentation. And then from that point, you know, after the presentation, if you feel like, you know, if the committee or other members obviously have the prerogative to, you know, feel like they want additional information or they think this should be a regular report or whatever, and then you can follow the procedure from there. But I think because, you know, my feeling, because this is new and there's some ambiguity around it and people are still feeling their way through it, that I think it would be good to start with this first step and then see how the data is presented with a clear expectation from an email or what have you about the data that is being looked at. And then I think it's a matter of literally just emailing Markey to get it on the agenda for, you know, the second meeting in September, and I would leave that to the superintendent and Markey to be able to make that happen, but I have full confidence that that can happen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I hear you. I don't think that we need to make a motion that's your prerogative. I don't think we need to make a motion we can report out to the whole committee and I can do that as the chair and then I can offer you the opportunity to speak as well if you'd like, you know your prerogative and just share with the rest of the school committee that we had a discussion and we asked for some data points and the superintendent you know, agreed that she would provide these data points at a meeting in September. And if you want, you know, for the next meeting, we can ask the superintendent if perhaps you can give us that date for September. I'm sure Markey can give us that in the meantime. And that may make things feel a little bit more concrete for you, superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That works for me. How about you folks? Yeah, okay so I'm confident with reporting that out member Hays, I don't think we need a motion to make that happen it seems like it's already happened so, and we are at 556 so I'm going to ask folks is there anything that anybody wants to add I want to thank you all for taking the time to brainstorm this a little bit. And I think that it needs to, you know, we'll need to massage it a little bit, we'll see what the data points look like. And I think that it's really about the conversation, as Member Hays was saying, and some of the brainstorming about how are we ensuring that this is an equitable, that we are putting in to practice equitable practice for all of our student population, and really considering the impact that, you know, significant changes can have on more of our underrepresented population. So I appreciate everybody taking the time to sort of wade your way through this. And thank you, Member Hays, for bringing the resolution forward. And so we'll report this out at the next meeting. And with that, I make a motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so motion to adjourn, seconded by Member Ruseau. Roll call, Member Hays? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. The Special Education and Behavioral Health Subcommittee meeting occurred last week with myself and members, Mastone and Rousseau. And we discussed drafting an accommodation statement that you'll see later on in the agenda, essentially with the collaboration of Director of Pupil Services, among others, and the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. So, I'll wait until the later motions to talk more about that. Is that acceptable? Yeah, okay, thank you. Motion to approve the reports of subcommittees.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, can I make a point of information? That's at the field, at the Andrews field, McGlynn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the presentation, I'm always so excited to hear about the CCS are. projects, and I love this outreach initiative. I had a couple of, I guess, either questions or comments that I wanted to suggest, because I think it's a really great opportunity to be thinking outside of the box. And I love that you guys are collaborating and meeting across departments. And I would ask that, particularly with the meetings with the Director of Pupil Services and our EL Director, if there could be CPAC and ALPAC representation at those meetings as well. So there's a, for folks who are watching or listening, Special Ed Parent Advisory Council, whose role is to advise the district on matters pertaining to special education and to disability, and it's the same for the English Learners ALPAC. So I think it'd be great, since those organizations sort of already exist, to be able to include them with feedback. Could be super helpful. For the outreach, I'm sure you guys will be doing translated material. And would you be using, well, I guess Mr. Paltasher will talk about talking points, right? You guys using, yeah. And then I just wanted to, is the diversity and community enrichment, the elective that you were talking about, was that the one that had the reverse inclusion model? Yeah, that was a great model. Yeah, that was a great model, especially for building peer friendships. You know, those friendships were sustained even after school and through the summer students with and without disabilities. And it was a really great opportunity to the students and for them to interact with each other and really get to know each other and saw great outcomes with that for genuine friendships with, I thought was really remarkable. And so to that end, I think again, another just bug in people's ear to sort of be thinking about because that program was so successful is potentially a peer mentor program. So I think that for either potentially students who have had experience with CCSR for students that haven't, particularly if you're looking at recruiting new folks, particularly LPAT, you know, students who English might not be their first language, maybe need a little extra support. Students with disability, like a peer mentor program where you're cultivating these leaders, potentially thinking about, you know, what that could look like in your leadership institute, I think could be great. I'm happy to talk offline more about models that I've seen, you know, work elsewhere if folks are interested, but I think this is a really great opportunity to really enhance the diversity in the community and in the community engagement. So I appreciate you guys doing that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you for that presentation. It was excellent. And I know during the open house, we're able to come by and it's so exciting being in that shop. And I didn't realize just, you know, how much artistry is involved in the work too. People think that, you know, it's labor, which it is, but it's also art and it's really great to come by and see the combination and what the kids are doing and the creativity that's involved there. So I guess I would just encourage community members and others to come by and take a look at what's happening at the vocational school, because I always just feel so positive when we go through those tours and we see what our kids are doing in the schools and what you guys are doing. So thank you for that combination of skill and art. It's a special ability that's able to do that. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was just gonna say, I'm willing to waive the reading of the non-discrimination policy currently and the Medford School Committee non-discrimination AC policy, if my colleagues agree. I do, I agree. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So yes, that's what I was going to propose is that that's exactly at that if the event is wheelchair accessible. Frankly, it's just good practice for all events citywide that if the event is wheelchair accessible that folks let them let let the community know that it is wheelchair accessible because you don't want people coming to the event and in a wheelchair and not having it be accessible and not having noted that. or omitted that. So I think it's important to include it, and I can rephrase it to include it when the event is wheelchair accessible. I would also just add that because we are getting federal funding, as is the city, situations are generally required to be accessible to wheelchairs as well. There are some instances in the city I understand that are quote unquote grandfathered based on the status of the building. I think that Curtis Tufts might fall into that category, although I don't know for sure. And I'm hoping that we're gonna talk more about that as a committee, as a whole, as we move forward. But in the interim, what we want, what this was proposing is really that the community understands that accommodation requests are required. And I know that we waived the reading, but they are required under several of the laws that are noted in the motion. including Title IX, Section 504 Rehabilitation Act, IDEA, I mean, Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. So I'm fine with modifying the motion to say, you know, from we value inclusion to submit it at least five days prior to the event period with a quote, and then separate from that, please add, you know, when event is wheelchair accessible.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: the notice. This is a meeting of the Special Education Behavioral Health Subcommittee. I am the chair of the subcommittee along with members Rousseau and Mustone. So thank you all for coming. This meeting is, I'm just gonna read the notice. Please be advised that on Wednesday, May 3rd from five to 6 p.m. there's a special education subcommittee meeting, special education behavioral health subcommittee meeting to be held through remote participation via Zoom. The purpose of the subcommittee meeting will be to review and develop a non-discrimination slash inclusion statement for Medford Public Schools outreach slash information. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 15 and Verizon Channel 45 at 5 p.m. Since the meeting will be held remotely, participants can log in or call in by using the following link or call-in number. The link is mps02155-org.zoom.us. Actually, you can see it on the website if you need to go there, which you would if you're going on Zoom. and then the call in is 929-205-6099. Those submitting questions or comments need to include the following information. Comments or questions can be submitted during the meeting by emailing Melanie McLachlan, M-E-L-A-N-I-E-M-C-L-M-L-A-N-I-E. at medford.k12.ma.us, and those submitting questions or comments must include the following information. First and last name, Medford Street address, and your question or comment. So again, thank you all for coming.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You just said she had a visitor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's okay. That's okay. Thank you. Member Mustone. Member McLaughlin here. Member Ruseau present. Great, thank you. So again, this is the purpose is to discuss an inclusion slash equity statement slash accommodation statement for Medford Public Schools. So I'm actually going to share my screen. I will send this to this document to the superintendent's office, Markey, after the meeting to share if needed, but I'll share my screen with folks as well. I did share it with committee members, with member Bowen, I mean, with Director of Pupil Services, Joan Bowen and Dr. Edouard-Vincent. So this is a document that sort of helps outline some of the discussion that I'd like to use.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So this is just some research done on some differences in non-discrimination statement versus inclusion statement. So first of all, I wanna ground us in the work that we're doing right now. So based on the Medford Public Schools strategic plan, which has been approved. This is the E in the ACES acronym that Dr. Edouard-Vincent uses in terms of the strategic plan. And there's a link to that. It's also available on our website. And in there, within that, there's just a couple of statements that I think are relevant to the meeting today, which are You know prioritize systems that support a shared vision for disability awareness anti racism anti bias and cultural proficiency across the district. and provide equal access to academic support and enrichment, so I really want to ground us in that part of the strategic plan, which is where we're really feeling like. This statement applies and so folks may know that anybody receiving federal funds, of which most public schools do. they're required to have what's called a non-discrimination clause in their documentation on their website. It's supposed to be pretty easy to find, very straightforward. Ours is not particularly easy to find, and we can talk more about that shortly. But, you know, I just spent a bit of time just putting in words like non-discrimination, disability, gender, sort of those things, and it didn't readily come up. There is a statement from the superintendent on the homepage that talks a little bit about it, but it's not an actual non-discrimination clause. There are some, both in our policy, school committee policy statement and on some of the the ADA requirements on the website. But again, I definitely think it could be more prominent. But in any case, the non-discrimination clause is required, and it's, you know, what you typically see, people are probably really familiar with it, meant for public schools or your employment or any other place does not discriminate on the basis of, you know, so on and so forth. And The definition of non-discrimination is the practice of treating people, companies, countries, et cetera, and the same as others in order to be fair. And then I just wanted to share the definition of inclusion because I don't necessarily think that a non-discrimination statement or clause is also an inclusion clause. A well-written one should be, but that's not always the case. And so inclusion by definition is, and again this definition is from, you know, the CDC among others but they, I believe, took it from some of the laws and IDA what have you. But it's that all children regardless of ability or disability. have the right to be respected and appreciated as valuable members of the school community, fully participate in all school activities, and interact with peers of all ability levels with opportunities to develop friendships. So that's a little bit different than non-discrimination. And I'd like to say it's more strength-based, frankly. I think it's nice. It doesn't sort of have that, you know, some of the negative language that sometimes people see in the non-discrimination around There's some articles that I've referenced in here that folks can link to and check out if they want to just around the differences between the two. I do want to share an example from the community of one example of an inclusion form, if you will. And this was something that the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council and others, community members, worked with the Medford Recreation Department to include on all of their documentation. So it's a good example of something within the community. And so on all Medford Recreation notices, notification, what have you, they have the statement you see here for participants who wish to request special accommodations for program, please fill out our inclusion services request form. and please submit the form to, and you have the email here to submit the form to. In a minute, if folks want, I can click on that hyperlink and we can look at an example of the inclusion services request form. Here are some references to the conversation that I'm having now and sort of the origin of some of the conversation and the requirements for non-discrimination, but also some of them that expand to inclusion. And again, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not gonna get into the legal aspects, but under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and ADA, particularly in IDA as well, there are requirements to be inclusive of all persons, including students with disabilities, of course. Here's some resources I shared with you guys. The first is just an article written by a professor that I thought was pretty interesting on how she makes her syllabus more inclusive and the way that it's evolved over time. And I thought that was sort of interesting, particularly having studied inclusive education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and working with Professor Hare there and him often talking about ways that we're actually considering being inclusive and the ways that, you know, he would often let people know they can stand up and stretch if they need to. They can sort of, he always made us use a microphone to make sure everyone could hear. There were just little different things that, ways to be inclusive beyond, you know, some of the standard quote unquote accommodations. The Every Student Initiative, I think, is something that you guys, you know, might want to take a look at. The link says ensure every student has access to high quality learning, but it's not just that. It's also about life of the school, enrichment activities, athletics, and so, you know, essentially the 504 Rehabilitation Act, ADA, and IDEA all apply to the life of the school. So it's not just the academic day, it is the life of the school. So any activities that students participate in as a school-based activity, these can include volunteer activities, these can include enrichment activities from outside organizations, what have you. But if they're the life of the school, meaning they're attached to the school, everyone in the school has been invited, they're in the school building, not necessarily have to be in the school building, but those sorts of things apply under ADA 504 and IDEA. So I'm happy to go back to some of these documents if folks want to look at them for a second, but I just wanted to share that the purpose really is for us to look at a sample inclusion statement or accommodation statement. Some people call it accommodation statements. It's interesting because when you look at inclusion statements these days, what's coming up a lot is DEI, DEI statements, which are also really interesting and some people refer to disability in their DEI statements and some people don't. Some people it's strictly anti-racism, which is another conversation that folks have because we all know disability is part of diversity as is culture and language and race and lots of things. But that was interesting in the search, but we did find some good examples. So I sort of wanted to give you guys that as like a starting point. So here's an example. I think this might have been either from Harvard or from. University of Virginia, but I can reference it if we need to. So we value inclusion and access for all participants and are pleased to provide reasonable accommodations for this activity slash event. Please contact. And you know, sensibly, this school committee or. the superintendent will have to clarify, would have to decide who a contact would be. It could be potentially an assistant principal, it could be the 504 coordinator, it could be director of pupil services. Please contact so-and-so to make a reasonable accommodation request, and then a date for a request to be submitted, and then noting that the event is accessible. Another organization said they recommend using an accommodation statement and publicity materials on all documents to let individuals know how to request accommodations for your event or program if needed, but also that it's accessible, like this event is wheelchair accessible or any of the other accessibility standards that we need to know. So I'm going to stop there for a second. I want to just show you guys a little bit more further down about sort of some of the things that we can look at. So we're going to look at some examples from Medford Public Schools about what's currently on our website and otherwise, and then some examples from other school districts about what's on their website, and then hopefully have a more robust conversation as well. But I just want to stop right there for a minute and let my colleagues and others take a breath and see if there are any questions or comments so far.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I would defer to Joan on that, but I would say yes, anything that is the life of the school. So if they're using school facilities, if it's including all school, all non-disabled students, if there are opportunities for that, then yes, but I want to ask the director of pupil services for perspective.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And each building has a 504 coordinator? Yes. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a good question. And that's something that I really want the group to discuss. So I think, so not only obviously the enrichment activities, the life of the schools, but obviously this applies to field trips, this applies to all things. And that is a big reason that we wanted to have this meeting today is because it is the fact that a lot of parents don't know that students are entitled to accommodations for life of the school. And frankly, there are a lot of staff members that might not understand that as well. And so I think it's important that this information goes out to you know any information that is that is a life of the school event so if it's an email going out from the principals about a school based activity if it's a potentially. a field trip form, anything, you know, similar to a nondiscrimination. So, one of the suggestions I had is to include the nondiscrimination statement on documentation and with an additional, you know, sentence or two around, you know, if your student requires accommodations, right, what you can do. Because really, we're supposed to be doing this. This is not like, you know, a favor we're asking. This is something that the district's really supposed to be doing. It's just that how is the information actually reaching families and getting to families and getting to staff and it's not quite clear how that is. I see Shanine has her hand up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, can you let us know who you are and your name? I meant to do that with you, Alex. I apologize. So yes, Shanine, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, she and I couldn't agree more. I think that there's some policy pieces here too that we need to talk about so you know definitely we might want to be, you know, to the other committee members, I would think that there are some things that we might recommend or refer to the rules policy and equity. subcommittee potentially with recommendations from the special behavioral health subcommittee and or a joint meeting around, you know, obviously you're absolutely right field trips are, you know, accommodations are required for field trips for students to meaningfully attend a field trip during the school day. I think the difference and again, Joan, I would defer to you, but I think that a little bit of the difference is the difference potentially in reasonable quote unquote accommodations, right? So reasonable accommodations, but if it's in the life of the school, there is a, you know, aspect of that. So, you know, there's been some historically some experience and I totally and fully understand that the PTOs are, volunteer organizations, right? And a lot of these events are fundraisers or afterschool enrichment opportunities or what have you. And if they're going to be held in the school and they're going to be offered to all students in the school, students with disabilities cannot be excluded under federal law, among other things. So the issue is not whether that's appropriate or not, in my opinion, the issue is how do we make sure that everybody's informed that students with disabilities and all students need to have access. And so if there are students that require additional accommodations, then we need to create a plan for them to be able to reach out to, again, Ms. Bowen has said, the ETL or building principal, which I think we should be really clear about. to discuss a reasonable accommodation. And we do, a lot of the reasonable accommodation requests have a date on them. So for example, with Medford Recreation, they have a reasonable accommodation request. If your student, if your child needs, you know, additional support to participate in this activity, please let us know by X date, you know, if say, so that we're not finding out, so that the school's not finding out the day before, you know, that there's a request for accommodations or something like that. So, Tanya? Hi. Hi Mel.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I think I appreciate that. And I'd love to hear from some of the members of the subcommittee as well. I think that part of the issue too, is that the onus should not be on parents, right? Parents of children with disabilities, I can speak for myself personally, especially a child with complex healthcare needs and other disabilities, multiple disabilities. The last thing that, we need to be, you know, burdened with, if you will, is to convince other people that our child, our children, our child are entitled to attend events at their school. And for that matter, you know, out-of-district students are also connected to school buildings, so they're a part of the school as well. So if there are out-of-district students whose families, who should also be getting this information, whose families and whose children want to actively participate in the life of the school, because the life of the school is community. It's part of building community. It's part of building skills and friendships and all the things that we're talking about. They are also obviously need, you know, reasonable accommodations, then we need to know that. I do want to share, if I could, well, actually I want to stop for a second and see if any of the subcommittee members have any questions or comments.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, first of all, again, it's the law, so it's really compliance, right? It's really about being in compliance with the law, first and foremost. So we need to make sure that we're complying so that we're not subject to, you know, potential hearings or what have you. So that's number one is so compliance. And then number two, yeah, it could definitely affect the budget, I would say, in some circumstances. In others, it might not. You know, it depends on what the reasonable accommodations are and I think that has to be sort of a case by case basis but I would defer again to the director of people services and we, you know, in terms of what what the implications of that are but it's also the point of this right now is really to craft. a statement that we can bring forward either to, you know, well, to the to the committee to the school committee as a whole, who then may refer to the rules, policy and equity subcommittee, possibly they may not, you know, if they do, I would definitely recommend a very specific date for that, because this we've been out of compliance for a bit around getting I mean, technically, some of this stuff is on the website, so you could say, technically, we're not out of compliance, but if students are being told that there's that there I mean, if families are being told that there. students or child cannot participate in a life of the school activity, that is a potential out of compliance. And again, if families don't know that, you know, that's one thing, but districts should know it and should know what that means. But yeah, I think there could be costs involved, but really the purpose of this right now is to craft a statement that we feel comfortable with as a special education behavioral health subcommittee moving forward with you know, putting it forward to the rest of the school committee to see, you know, what their perspective is on that. So I wanted to share with you maybe for a minute if there's nothing from other members of the committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: sounds like there's not, then we can, you know, I can show you this is sort of an old nondiscrimination statement. So actually, if you Google nondiscrimination in Medford public schools, this is the first thing that comes up, which is a very old The old statement from you know cat that Kathy McDowell, you can see she's the grievance coordinator for 504 put up so it's 504 title nine title to there's a lot of other things that apply to non discrimination, but the specific to students with disabilities are the 504 IDA and potentially title nine but. I forget the other one. I just the other one we noted here so. It's up father, so that's an old, but that's the first thing that comes up. If you if you Google it from Medford, if you look at the this is our URL on the civil rights statement that we have. So annually was supposed to provide a civil rights statement for the district. So this is what's on currently on the website. And again, we can see that this is out of date, right? Like so we know that there's disability and there's some information on, you know, civil rights. Rehabilitation Act 504 Title one and some other civil rights laws, but you can see that still has you know Diane and old school committee members on and so these are things that just need to be updated, I would think. um. In terms of the website update, which we are doing, or we're going to be advising as part of the Family and Community Engagement Subcommittee, and we made a motion last week for that to happen with accessibility and other information on the website to make sure it's updated. So I think this could potentially fall under that, but I'm just sort of sharing that there are some things on the website. They can be hard to find. They can be few and far between. And then a lot of them are outdated and again a lot of them are specific more to non discrimination than they are to. accommodation or inclusion. And so we also have a school committee policy on non-discrimination. So it's the AC non-discrimination policy, which is part of the MASC boilerplate, if you will. I think we did have a little bit of changes to this. I think member Rousseau might remember better, but as a member of the rules policy and equity subcommittee, I believe that we did have some review of this language change, but not fully. And again, it's a little bit different from an accommodation statement. So a non-discrimination statement is different. And you can see, you know, it talks about an integrated society, it talks about positive experiences, it talks about You know, other things, and it's the policy, not to discriminate and sort of what happens if you do discriminate or could happen if you do discriminate, but it doesn't talk about well what if you need accommodations, what if you need, you know, other things it doesn't sort of take that next step on our policy. But the other is the school lunch. There's also something on non-discrimination under the school lunch because they're required by the USDA federal organization to anyone that gets for federal funding is required to publicly state and have a public facing non-discrimination statement. So I noticed that our school lunch department has one on their page under the USDA requirement. Just quickly, a sample from Newton Public Schools. This is a non-discrimination statement from Newton Public Schools. It's not necessarily an accommodation statement. I haven't done a deep dive into other districts to see about that. One of the things I liked about the Newton Public Schools non-discrimination statement is that as you can see here where I highlight, Newton Public Schools does not exclude from participation, deny the benefits of Newton Public Schools from or otherwise discriminate against any of these individuals. So, you know, that exclude from participation is part of it, deny the benefits of, you know, is another part of it. So they're sort of covering themselves there under the being more, you know, broad in terms of making sure that people aren't being excluded, although, again, there's no direct instruction on how to get accommodations or to request accommodations if your student needs to. Yeah, they talked about, Marblehead I liked, it talked about being proactive allies, fostering belonging and acceptance. And again, these are more DEI statements, I mean, more non-discrimination statements than they are active accommodation statements, but there's some sort of examples. But going back to the top now, and again, this document would be available. to all, and I would very much recommend that people look at some of these if they're so inclined. I also just wanted to share there was a recent Supreme Court ruling for a deaf student, which I'm sure Joan is very well aware of this. This was a landmark decision that just happened recently, where a student who was, you know, not receiving accommodations in his school district, not just related to academics, but to all activities, was able to exhaust all of his efforts, both under IDEA and ADA. So in some instances, IDEA, you know, it is through the Problem Resolution Service where system or yeah, problem resolution system, no, program quality assurance, PQA, sorry. But in any case, it's through that system. And ADA, which is the civil rights piece, is through the Office of Civil Rights in terms of people who want to, you know, who have a complaint and want the complaint to be explored. This ruling was landmark and it just happened like a month or two ago because it said that a student is not limited to one or the other, that they can actually file claims under both. So they can file claims under both IDEA for some of the academics, the accommodations around that and ADA, which can open districts up potentially to twice as much liability. And it's an important ruling frankly, I think all districts should know about. I know certainly if I was still in my policy class at the School of Ed, we would be studying this inside and out, because it's a really important decision. And there are a few, there are probably like a handful, maybe between five and 10 landmark decisions over the years, past 40 years, that have to do with individuals with disabilities in schools, and so they're really important, and that's one. So getting back to a proposal of a statement. So one of the things that I had and I can highlight it. So this is just, you know, an example and maybe we could just tweak this a little bit if folks are amenable. I know we have 26 more minutes left so that we can think about what this might look like again to present to the larger committee. If this subcommittee agrees, that's what they want to do. So if folks want to take a look at that statement for a second, you can feel free to raise your hand if you have things you want to add or
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, it's um, well, it doesn't actually partially exist in the policy. So we just were talking about this a moment ago. So there's a non discrimination policy AC right there that we currently have.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Potentially, if that's what the subcommittee decides. I mean, first we have to craft the language, and then potentially there's a motion to, you know, add it to the policy under non-discrimination. You know, that could be a recommendation that we're making to the larger committee, sort of waiting to see what you guys are thinking in terms of as we craft the language. But I don't think it would be clearly, I wanna say, I don't think it's just something that's embedded in policy on the school committee page that you have to dig deep on school committee policy to be able to find this. I think that part of the other discussion is that this needs to be on documents that go to family members about life of the school activities and also on our website, clearly on, the CPAC, it could be pinned on the CPAC page, but also, you know, potentially at, you know, you know, on, I don't know, I don't know if it's N1 Jones or somewhere else that it could be provided to at 504 or IEP meetings. But yeah, just being able to make sure that we get this information out to the district to families, to school community members, to teachers, to staff, because there are also teachers and staff that don't necessarily understand that, you know, this federal law.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. OK, looks like contact name and date member or so. So yes, you're right. That would need to be like policy so that they understand what the process is. So if we're talking about process and policy, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, thank you, Alex. I'm sorry, member. So are you done? Yes. Yeah, thank you, Alex.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So yes, to be clear, this special education subcommittee can recommend to the committee of the whole, so the entire seven member body, that this language be included as part of a policy that Medford Public Schools includes on this policy statement or what have you, and that The committee as a seven member body can vote whether that's acceptable and or they can vote whether that needs more discussion and they'd like it to be part of the rules, policy and equity subcommittee, in which case I might ask that we have a joint subcommittee meeting of special ed. Behavioral health and rules, policy and equity, but hopefully that would not be the case because I think it's pretty straightforward and it's obviously. The law so really what I wanted you know this the intention of this meeting today was for us to come to an agreement on a. Accommodation inclusion statement that we would all feel comfortable putting forward.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's nice to hear. Thank you. I don't know, I think we're pretty much in an e-world, right, where everything is pretty much transmitted electronically. So I don't necessarily know that it's going to be a lot to put onto documents. I think it can be simple, you know, cut and paste and, you know, maybe, you know, it can be included in, you know, potentially the superintendent's, you know, comments and, you know, that we start to see it in documentation, what have you. Yeah, I think that it is something that can always be revisited. Anything can be revisited if the committee votes to have it revisited.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just wanted to say, to be clear, there are elements of this already and on our website. And I think, you know, we've had a fabulous revamp of our website. I think it's incredible. I do think that this should be more forward-facing. I think that, frankly, it should be on the cover page of, you know, each of the websites or in at least small print on the bottom that, you know, Medford Public Schools does not discriminate on the basis of, you know, so on and so forth. And then again, what I was suggesting is that, you know, potentially the statement reads Medford Public Schools does not discriminate, right, the nondiscrimination clause that we have, which is on the basis of all of the things that we've included, you know, I don't want to go through them all now, because I don't want to miss any. But, you know, I know that we have them in our policy, I know that there are other places in the website. So that nondiscrimination clause does currently exist. So including that, and then in addition, you know, the accommodation statement. So that's not just that we don't discriminate, it's know, if you need reasonable accommodations, please, you know, here's the process on how to do that. And also, I do think it's a really good practice. And it's something that I'm going to mention also, at the city level, is that when there are, you know, public events that, you know, folks include in their materials, whether the event is accessible, which is really just sort of good practice. You know, people do that all the time. and they don't want to get in a situation where somebody shows up in the event is not accessible, right? So it's just good practice to do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry, Superintendent. Yes. And then Sinead, I'll get to you next. Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can appreciate that superintendent to have a rollout. In September and I appreciate you being thoughtful about the process because we don't want to just sort of throw the process together I agree right we want to make sure that people are prepared and whether it's the assistant principals that are where the 504 coordinator in the building that has taken the request or, you know, direct. Joan Bowen's office, I think that's true. There are things that need to be done. And again, to be clear, we know that this is already supposed to be happening, right? Like this is already, if a parent makes it, and I know that Ms. Bowen knows this, and I just want to make sure that others who are watching know this, especially parents, right? This is already supposed to be happening, but for us to be thoughtful about it and to be recognizing it as a value statement, I appreciate you saying that, Superintendent, because it's not only a requirement in the law, it is also a value statement to put it forward facing and to actually do it. So I very much appreciate you saying that and doing it thoughtfully, I think is really important. So yes, I would be perfectly fine with that. And I'm sure that CPAC, which is their role, is available to advise the district at any time about sort of what that can look like moving forward. And I'm not necessarily saying that it needs to go on And I'm only one member of this subcommittee and also one member of the school committee and a member of the community. And I'm not saying that it needs to go on every single bit of communication. That's up to other folks to decide. But I would say that anything that is related to the life of the school, it should be on. So any after school enrichment, sort of field trip, those sorts of things, I think it should be on. And that was something that I would definitely But we do have, I definitely think it should be more, it is in some ways, not in some ways, it is on our website. There is a version of a non-discrimination agreement on our website. I'll tell you right now, it's really hard to find. It's embedded in a number of different places. I do think that it should be a little bit clearer. But again, we have a family and community engagement subcommittee meeting. coming up to and working with the new with the people who have been so great and excuse me and preparing the website that we can sort of talk more about where that can can go but we right currently right now we have it embedded in the school committee policy that you know is people might not necessarily go to it's a little dry. We have it on the school lunch page that I can see. And then I think we have it as a link under the 504 coordinator. But actually, some of that information is dated, as I just showed you, with the out-of-date contacts and what have you. But yes, I think that it is mindful to do that on a September rollout for the particular text, but obviously not the practice. if you end up, if you follow Dr. Vincent, what I'm saying. Thank you. Thank you. Shanine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think we're sort of one step at a time in it right now to make sure that we're, you know, really sort of letting families and others know that, you know, this is obviously like we said, something that should be being done regardless. But right, I think it's a learning process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Cut it. Hey, Shanine, you're preaching to the choir here, my friend. I'm just saying, you know, we're hoping to like, we're hoping to screen, you know, Crip Camp, you know, next October too. We're hoping to have some other events so people understand this and, you know, the pioneer Judy Heumann who You know, was really a part of the movement to get the ADA passed used to say this all the time I mean we see this it's not exclusive to Medford, by the way, this is, you know, something that happens in a lot of places that people are not necessarily accommodating and unfortunately a lot of times it takes, you know, parents and others to have to, you know, create Situations that make relationships sort of deteriorate in some cases. So what I'm trying to do, and what I hope the subcommittee and others are trying to do really is to figure out how to build relationships and work together to make sure that people are understanding that this is a requirement. It should be part of policy for sure. And also how do we get the information out? Because the truth is people can also do the bare minimum and not really want to be meaningful about it. So I appreciate that there's some meaningful, and I don't know the answer to that question necessarily, Shanine. And I think we all don't, we're sort of working and figuring that out, but I think I'm encouraged by us all being here and wanting to work that out together. So I appreciate your comment, Alex.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and I would agree for the most part, although except for when there are people who don't understand, right, who don't have the information. So it has been, I would agree that it has been really, the district has been really responsive about accommodations and a number of instances, but I would also say I've talked to families who have had experience with people who don't realize that that's the requirement and or families who don't want to ask your right because it feels like their child's a burden or it feels like they don't want to have to go through the process because it can be hard for them. So I think that that's a point and that's where I think the superintendent was talking about the value statement. So it's also a value statement right it's also talking about, you know, what equity means right we're talking about equity being at the forefront for our district and so you know this is an example of. you know, also being equitable and being proactive and building relationships, I think. So I think that's a really good point. So I guess I would like to make a motion that we include this item here in blue. as, oops, sorry, I didn't mean to do that. This item here in blue as a suggestion for accommodation, you know, statement, inclusion statement to accompany policy and practice in Medford Public Schools as a recommendation to the whole committee at our next meeting. Are folks comfortable? With that statement, if so, I would need a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Mastone. I'll do the roll. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mastone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. We have three yes and no, no. So we will move this forward at the next school committee meeting, which is, I know we have cows next week, the eighth. So the next one is the 15th, is it? Yes. The 15th, right? So this will be on the agenda. Oh, sorry. Member Ruseau has his hand raised. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I understand. Thank you, Member Ruseau. Thank you. I understand and I appreciate that. It will be a well-written motion. I appreciate it. anyone else? Any other questions or comments? I'm seeing none. So I just want to note for the record that we are six minutes events of schedule. So, um, you know, motion to adjourn. Yes, there you go. Thank you, Mia. Second roll call motion to adjourn. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Miss Stone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, everyone. Have a good day.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have not heard of that previously, and I think it's a great idea, and I thank you for noticing. So I would obviously be, I don't think we need to make a motion if it's already in policy, but I would be wanting to ensure that we're doing that starting in September.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That was actually what I was going to suggest. So thank you, Dr. Avey, that if we could have either rotating membership, or I don't think the students necessarily want seven school committee members coming into their meeting on an every other month basis, but I think know, a rotating visit would be really nice so that we can hear directly from them. And I know that you this was really sort of implemented last year, a year before last, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I appreciate members those willingness to check in with ma SC on this and see what other folks are doing. I would imagine, you know, wouldn't necessarily having to compel students. I would think that there's, you know, lots of students out there that want to talk to us. I don't know that they want to do it in a public meeting per se, but obviously we need to. So I think we could make it potentially if it's not every other month, we could explore making it you know, something else after you get back from the MISC, but I envision it, you know, either an early, you know, before the regular meeting, you know, see, you know, Cal meeting or something like that, where we're having some pizza and some, you know, conversation with the students, which I think could really work out well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, as a member of the Rules, Policy and Equity subcommittee, I also wanted to just note that there were some items in the document that Attorney Greenspan was able to address. And then there were some that were outside of his scope related to special education. And we have a different law firm that represents the district regarding special education. And so I had respectfully asked that the Director of Pupil Services reach out to the, to me, Cassian Lehane, and to just follow up on a couple of the items that needed legal consult as well, just because Attorney Greenspan, it was out of his scope. So I just wanted to let members know that that will be part of the next conversation, I think, as well, hopefully. And Tumi Hassan-Lahin can get back to us on that. But just because there's so many nuances when it comes to legislation and other legal issues related to students with disabilities and other needs that I want to make sure that we're addressing, pressing our T's and dotting our I's in that capacity as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. You know, I, it was my impression that we were going to have this shared so people could look at it between now and the next meeting because it's a lot to look at in this meeting. And I wanted to also as a member of the committee with member Graham and member Hays, I wanted to thank the committee for their work on this and also member Hays' work on really sort of putting all of the documentation together. And I think we have, if I'm not mistaken, one more meeting. between this and the next school committee meeting that we would, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the minutes, yes. And also, yeah, we need a motion to approve the process. So motion to approve the minutes, please. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate that. Yeah, what we're, I believe the motion is for tonight is to establish the process of sharing the template with you all and the instructions prior to the superintendent self-evaluation. So that was really the process we're talking about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, actually I think it's helpful for the community to know a brief summary.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I thank you for the report. I also appreciate coming from the education world, the framework and framing systemic change. And I think that we all know that systems level change is painful and difficult and arduous and time consuming. And I think that, you know, putting in perspective as well, as you said, the long term of stability with the previous administration. So the fact that we have, you know, new administration turnover central administration turnover as a whole, really, and also a global pandemic. In the past couple of years, I think that it says a lot as well as to what's going on. I think that it's important to also put things in context in place. Because I think that we all know there's a lot of work to be done. But I think we also need to sort of look at it in terms of perspective as to in terms of what else has been going on. And, and, and thinking about how change actually happens, and how it needs to happen over time. And I think we also know, both with the frameworks that are used, that if you do change too quickly, you know what can happen, right, and that things can really sort of blow up as well, which is part of what I think we're seeing around having such turnover and you know all of this churning. But a couple of questions so I appreciate the frameworks and I and I say that just because there are other frameworks that talk about change and you know the systems change and how, what, what can happen. As you know, so I wanted to ask about just a couple of questions. One was, did you also happen to interview or include the annex to the high school, the Curtis Tufts, which has, you know, a long history of, you know, maybe some students who have been marginalized or for various reasons and staff that could really share some of their experience.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I just think it's, you know, I think some of those students and families there probably have experienced very directly some of the policies and procedures that have been in place and I think it could be interesting and I appreciate Mr. Jarski sharing his perspective with you. I'm sure it was valuable. And to that end, I'm wondering about, I did want to say I appreciate you mentoring the mentor program. I think that, you know, across the board, mentor programs are so essential and Having worked with the committee on education at the state level and really reviewing mentor programs and schools, knowing that you know if folks feel like they really have people to rely on in terms of the mentor program, then that is one of the ways that they're able to, especially new teachers feel like their belonging so I appreciate you mentioning that and I think it's an important piece to consider and I also really appreciate your mention of the need for building based subs I think that I've heard that more from families than anything in terms of, particularly from families whose children may fit the high needs categories and who are not having necessarily staffing there that might've been appropriate in terms of, you know, building base subs who can actually get to know students and also the cost analysis compared to what you were saying, I think is really critical. So I appreciate that. And then I wanted to ask you about the leadership committee on DEI, and if you had talked to any of the folks about sort of what had existed and sort of didn't exist after a little while, basically last year, as far as a DEI committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I was asking the question because we did have a committee that was appointed that was community members, school-based members and others. And it's sort of, it's unclear to me what happened to that. And it, you know, I know that it sort of fell apart, I think a little bit. And I think those people would have valuable input as to why that fell apart. I think it was well-intentioned and I'm sure there are a lot of people in the district that really do wanna do the work. But I think that there's a lot of, after review that could be done with that committee or that no longer committee, however you want to look at it, that could really inform that information. So I think it's interesting that you didn't know that there was one. So that speaks volumes to me. And then I also would want to know about how in the report family engagement was considered.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me, member McLaughlin. I think the highlights are super helpful, thank you, but I wanted to know if you could go back up to the top and show me, I wasn't quite getting where you were saying you would put in the superintendent's information on the indicators, so if maybe you could. On the goals, I filled in the goals here. Okay. Oh yeah. So all of that information there is from the superintendent is what you're saying. Yes. From her goals that she gave us. Yep. Okay. And do you think, I mean, I don't know what it looks like printed out, but is there a way to potentially make the text bigger in the early literacy and leading now sections or is it just not going to happen?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I was just wondering, I guess we'll just, some of us anyway, probably not all of us will have to get our magnifying glasses out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, that's good. And then maybe, and you're not able to add, oh, you are able to add text. Cause you were able to add it in the boxes. Right. So, um, Nevermind, I guess this could be part of our instructional sheet. I was just going to say, I think it'd be helpful for folks to know that, you know, following our goals identified by, you know, Medford Superintendent Maurice Edward, whatever. So people aren't thinking that this is like part of the basic form, if you understand what I'm saying. But that could be in a sheet sharing a member Hays, where it's the instruction piece so like if we, if we have a sheet that's just giving our colleagues instruction and it's just under superintendents performance goals. You know if we want to just let folks know that these are goals that have been previously identified by the superintendent and so that folks are not thinking that So if I could just interrupt, I think, you know, up here, it says it right down. I know, it does say, I'm reading that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, is there anything that identifies this as Medford, though? Like, that's what I'm wondering. Cause this could be anybody's, I mean- No, we do put the name of the superintendent. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right. And maybe Medford Public Schools or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: After Dr. Edouard-Vincent, that next line there, can you put, nope, up top, go back up where it said Dr. Edouard-Vincent. After her, the next line, can you put Medford Public Schools?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Hays, I'm not asking you to add something. I'm asking you to put text in the box. So after where it says superintendent, there's another line, not under evaluator, but to the right. Yeah. Can you add text there yet? Could you put Medford public schools in there? Yeah. I mean, that is supposed to be the space for her to sign. That's signature. Oh, that's her. No, I think I didn't need this. Okay, why is it going to need might be signature. Anyway, I'm just, it's probably just, I'm just picking on little things but I think it's important, and one of the things I try to do best practice and my own stuff at work that I always try to use page numbers and identify what the document actually is and where it's from so that Should somebody have to look at this later and not know was this one Dr. Edwin Vincent was the superintendent of this school district or another school district or what have you so I just like to make it as basic as possible but maybe I'm just being a little too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have my hand raised. I don't know that's it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I do. I had another question. Superintendent, did you have a question as well or do you need to learn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so no member he's just going back to the highlighted pieces, so thank you for entertaining the Medford piece and I do think that you know, yeah, this form's not necessarily going anywhere other than our website, but it will go into a DESI file somewhere and who knows, you know, some time from now, you know, Dr. Edouard-Vincent gets famous or something and people are trying to figure out when, you know, this evaluation was or where it was or whatever. People know that it's Medford, just a, again, a little picky thing for me, but I like page numbers and as much explained as possible. But I do like the fact that these are highlighted. So thank you very much. I think that's great. And I think that will be helpful. And I think that if we're just doing after this, I'm assuming a one-page sheet of instruction for our colleagues, although I think it's pretty self-explanatory, but I think it would be helpful to have just a brief explanation as well. What do you think?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, we're still looking at the evaluation. You're still looking, okay. Sometimes when you share the screen, if you only share the one, yeah, there you go. Stop sharing on that one and then open another one. Wait a minute, that's still in.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I love the materials needed added. Thank you. I would just again at the heading member Hays, I would recommend having it as superintendent summit of evaluation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just going back up to the, I just wanted to make a, on the comments, comments are required further up. I think where it said comments, every, you know, the evaluation process is really helpful when we have comments, each member should be putting in comments or whatever. Have we talked about how those comments are going to be conveyed or is that part of what we're going to talk about next?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Is there an explanation in here about what happens with those? No, because we haven't actually talked about that as a group yet. OK. And is that on the agenda for today, or is that another meeting? Oh, you know, we didn't really put that in as a specific topic. It's not on for today. So we have evaluation subcommittee compiles individual ratings and draft summative evaluation. No, so it's number five, we draft something. Yeah, it's not specific. It's not. Yeah, but I think maybe I would add. So my suggestion to the to the subcommittee would be to add Maybe we can come up with some process now is like either five day or something like that, that says, you know, how will we, how are we going to condense comments that are inclusive. and a narrative, what that process will be, or are we just gonna dump comments? Like, are we just gonna cut and paste comments? That's what I guess I'm asking, what folks think. Maybe that can be 5A of this so that people know. You know, the other thing about the comments is that one of the things that we talked about is that this is an overall committee evaluation. So when people, one of the other instructions we might wanna include is that when people are putting comments in, perhaps to not make them personal and not use first person. So in other words, I really think Maurice did, you know, Dr. Edwin Vincent did this right or whatever. I'm not sure that like that was problematic, particularly in the past, because when you are marrying those comments, like one member may feel that way, but another one may not. So how are we addressing that? Like there's, there are definitely pieces of that. So I don't know. I don't know how you guys want to, I just am raising it. So I would like to hear some feedback about it. And I do think that it is part of the agenda today because it is number five, but essentially it's a 5A that we're adding, we would be adding to this process of what, how are we drafting the summative evaluation? So clearly, drafting ratings are not difficult, right? Because if we're doing, you know, whatever, you know, exemplary needs improvement, whatever, in each of those items, we already have categories that are not subjective, but the comment piece is going to be potentially more so and might need to be, I don't think curated is the right word, but wordsmithed or something. But again, I defer to you, to the rest of the subcommittee to see what you guys have to say.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. If I may, I was just going to say, it's not so much how a particular member chooses to word their comments. It's that when we're doing the summative, you cannot use the I statements, right? If we're doing summative comments, right, how are we summarizing comments on all of the different categories? And so if a school committee member says, you know, you know, did great with instructional leadership or whatever, and another school committee member says, or writes in comments, you know, I think, you know, instructional leadership needs improvement and, you know, here's why and whatever, we're not necessarily gonna use the I think piece in there, but we're gonna have to, you know, I would assume include those comments in some narrative that is cohesive. And so I'm asking what that process is going to be. And so we're not typically writing in the first person when we're doing it as a whole committee in terms of comments. So thinking about that, how are we doing this? And this was an issue last time because I remember clearly that was a discussion that we had because when we were seeing the summary narrative, when we were seeing Qualitative data, it wasn't cohesive and it wasn't a narrative because it was littered with individual statements instead of an overall comment. So I guess the question is, how does the whole committee summarize or does the subcommittee summarize the comments giving the whole committee copies of the individual comments? That's what I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Or may I, member? Yes. So that's what I'm trying to figure out is like, are we doing a, you know, a total text dump where everybody's comments get put in to the overall evaluation or are we summarizing the comments? And so if we're summarizing the comments, you know, I think the subcommittee has the, you know, can do that. I think that's part of what, you know, has been suggested. And I think the overall committee obviously reviews and approves, but, I just think that we need to be clear on what that process is as a subcommittee before we do it and then we also need to schedule time to be able to do that because I did feel like, and especially for asking people to make comments explicitly which is what this form is doing to please add comments which you know in the past some people have and some more people some people did more and other people did less and some people may have done little or none so um which doesn't i guess doesn't matter either way but just knowing that we have a process and so i guess i'm leaning towards i would be leaning towards creating a narrative um that would be inclusive um where we can refer and we already said that we were going to have the original individual evaluations as part of the packet as well. So people could refer to it, but I think that we're entirely capable of making a narrative of the comments. I just want to be clear that that's what we're doing, or if that's not what we're doing, that we're explicitly cutting and pasting. Okay. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You're a little echoey.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. Understandable, though. I think it was the same thing as the other night. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if it's a speaker or something else, a phone or something in your room. But it's definitely echoey.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, superintendent. If I understood correctly, member Hays, what I heard member Graham say was that following our representative comments of the evaluation or whatever, and then I think being as inclusive as possible. So yeah, I'm OK with sort of it's like an in-between for both and not necessarily having to create a narrative. And like member Graham was saying, there are a lot of times when the same comment is repeated throughout. several members, I just, I think that it's going to be a little bit more challenging if there are very disparate comments, but we can still say like what member Graham was saying, these are representative comments. So one might be this and the other might be that. And so they're representing both.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That works for me. I just want to double check on the next meeting to make sure it's in my calendar. I'm sure it is. But what is the date? Do you guys know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, the deadline should be on there for when they return it, that's right. Good thinking, Member Hays. Yeah. And we're getting this to them for this Monday, or are we waiting until the Monday of the 8th?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. I would also highlight it. you know, make it really clear. Individual. Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I don't think they should send it to this subcommittee I would say to member Hays. Okay. Because sending it to all three of us could be an issue. If anybody responds so by May 21.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to say thank you for doing this. I thought this was really helpful and I think sets out a good process moving forward and is pretty self-explanatory and appreciate the work that you did on that. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry, go ahead.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right. Second. Roll call, member Hays. Yep, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. But we can make motions on the floor. I'm not sure what you're saying, that it is a motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You said it's on the agenda. Approving the minutes is on the agenda. Oh, approving the minutes. Yeah, no, that's different. Voting on the evaluation process could be part, yeah, would need to be part of the agenda.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: For committee consideration, right? Because they can't approve. We can't say, yeah, they're either gonna approve or disapprove, but for yeah, committee vote. Yeah, for committee vote, not approval. I would second that with the amendment. for committee consideration.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have a point of information. It's my middle.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: McLaughlin. So I'm assuming that the comments on the right are from Attorney Greenspan. Correct. Okay. Because they yeah, just the Katie me any LT is a little.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: confusing. So just want to make sure that folks know that the comments on the right are from attorney. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I think it needs to be parsed out a little bit because it's a little confusing in terms of the way I'm looking at it so if I understand it correctly, an anonymous complaint of bullying or retaliation will not result in disciplinary action taken against a student, obviously until an investigation is made, I would assume it says solely on the best on the basis of an anonymous report. So in other words, they're not going to take disciplinary action against a student, for example, suspending a student solely on the basis of an anonymous report, but I think that should there be an investigation based on an anonymous report and the investigation shows that there was, you know, reasonable cause for bullying or whatever, that then disciplinary action should be taken, can be taken even against the student. So I think this whole thing is a little bit confusing and I just want both Howard to clarify because obviously I think if there's a staff member disciplinary action can be taken. But again, I would assume it wouldn't be based solely on an anonymous report, which says solely on the basis of an anonymous report, that there would be an investigation to determine that the anonymous report was accurate. Because obviously, anonymous reports, you know, could just be somebody, you know, you know, creating a hoax or something like that. So I guess it's just a little bit unclear to me, and I think maybe instead of having it be like three sentences right now, which is essentially what it is in one sentence, that we might want to just break it down into individual sentences or something, because I'm not really understanding what you guys are saying. In terms of how, I'm sorry, just to clarify, in terms of how it applies to a student but not a staff member or a staff member but not a student based solely on the basis of an anonymous report, which I think anything based solely on the basis of anonymous report, disciplinary action wouldn't be taken because it couldn't be unless it was confirmed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Exactly, based solely on an anonymous report. It's the solely, right? So that was the piece that I'm talking about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I don't think that's the impression that we've had, Howard. And so I guess maybe that begs the question if you're saying that that is what is required. I think that according to what I saw in the DESE bullying standards, it can be a student or a staff member. I don't think it can be a parent or community member. I think you're right there. I think outside of the school is a different issue, although there's some gray areas around social media and that sort of thing. particularly with student and staff members. So I would agree with you that I don't think it could be a parent, caregiver, or community member, but the student and staff member, I think it can be based on what I've seen in terms of my own research on DESE and bullying. So I would say, yeah, includes staff members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I think that that's, you know, respectfully, Howard, I think that parents and caregivers and even community members can file a report of bullying. And I think that, you know, Joan, Ms. Bowen will have some background on this and maybe Dr. Cushing as well. But I think that they can, in fact, in fact, I know that they have. And that they are required to be investigated because there's going to be sometimes student sometimes you can imagine all kinds of scenarios where a student may be getting bullied and not want to file a complaint and the parent does right and because it's you know an important issue and what have you so there's a whole bunch of nuance around this, but I do think that we're confusing two issues and I guess this is what. I want to parse out a little bit for folks so that we're not right now, we went from talking about anonymous reports to a whole other subject. So I guess I'd like to, you know, finish up the anonymous report question comment, which I think the whole issue is that this is accurate. based solely, you know, solely on the basis of anonymous report. So, you know, that they can't be disciplined based solely on an anonymous report, which I would agree with, and I think is accurate. I don't know the question of whether a parent, caregiver, or community member can be disciplined by the school or anything else. Any other action can be taken against this them on the school. And that's where the nuance around parent, caregiver or community member came in for me, not about whether or not they can file a bullying report, because I believe that they can. So I think we're like mixing up a couple of issues here. And I would respectfully ask that maybe we break them down and, you know, finish one before we potentially start another.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm not sure what you're talking about. Are you talking about an anonymous report or an other report? I'm not sure what you're saying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, if I'm not mistaken, it's on the website. Well, it's on the website, if I'm not mistaken. It's not just... Yeah, you're right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So in any case, I guess what I'm saying is, what are we talking about right here? Because I'm not talking about a student going to a business and something happening there, which obviously is another issue and is a whole other nuance. And I think that we could get into all of these various conversations and throw a million different scenarios in the pot and you know go go down that road and I don't think anybody has the time for that I think what I'm trying to say is that okay for the anonymous report. You know, I believe Howard attorney Greenspan is going to check on the parent caregiver or community member issue which I don't think can be included there personally because the school is not going to take disciplinary action against parent care giver or community members. Number one. Number two, I think the other issue around whether you know caregivers, or community members for that matter, can file a bullying report, which is different than an anonymous report, which frankly they can based on the website, but a bullying report is another question altogether. Certainly I know parent caregivers are, potentially community members can too. What happens if you have a kid in DCF custody who's only confiding in their parish member? Right. And they're being bullied. I mean, I would assume they would go to a staff member and have that worked out. But but we don't necessarily know. So I think, again, that's probably a question for Attorney Greenspan to answer in terms of who can file a bullying report. But I just want to say for folks watching and others, I you know, and certainly they can look on Desi's website themselves. But I firmly believe that parent caregivers can and in fact have so and I would defer to Dr. Cushing and Joan Bowen and the superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. Just what is, how are we going to make sure that that is happening? So I think it needs to be built into the school calendar.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do we need to make a motion or do we just want to say yes?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Then I agree.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Musso, can you just hover over that item so we can see the comment open? Yeah, because we don't know which one. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. I mean, I think this gets back to the incident report issue that we've been talking about for some time. And so I agree that all should be taken out, but I think that we need to think about if they're documenting incidences of unacceptable student behavior and treating these instances with standard school disciplinary procedures, then I would say, one, parent caregivers need to be notified. And two, with the understanding that there are unique legal requirements and procedures for students with disabilities.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But I actually no, I disagree because I think that it needs to be we talk about communication all the time. And I think that yes, while those other policies are there, that's important. But people who are reading these may not know that those other policies are there, whether their parents or caregivers or anybody else. So I think it's really important that we reiterate things throughout our district in terms of policies and procedures and that folks are aware of them. So I would actually disagree. I think that there should be either if it's separate bullet items for, you know, how the incident reports are handled and or a separate bullet item for, you know, understanding legal procedure around. students with disability and manifestation of disability. And then I would also say, I mean, I would go back to the to the unacceptable point I mean I hear what you're saying but I think it is a value statement and I get, you know, student some student behavior is unacceptable some student behavior is, you know, anything else, but if we're trying to think about student strength based language, you know, we can just say during documenting incidences of student behavior and treating these incidents with standard school disciplinary procedures as needed or something like that. So that we're, you know, I think that putting a value statement on things is not necessarily helpful. And if we want to be strength based as a district, I think we should be reconsidering those. So two items I have there. One is, you know, two distinct bullet items around, you know, or included in this bullet item, I don't care around You know incident report incidents, you know documentation of incidents are shared with you know caregivers and. There is an understanding that there are unique procedures and policies for students with disabilities. so that people can cross-reference that. And for more information or something, go here. But I think, again, some family members, caregivers who are invested in looking at the bullying policy might not know about the special education students with disabilities laws and policies. And so having that reiterated, I think is important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I couldn't agree more. I think we need to get to the attorney comments. I do want to note for the record that there are different and very disciplinary procedures for students with disabilities. So I would like a link there. And then I would also say we still haven't addressed the issue of incident reports to caregivers. So we need to think about that at some point.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: links for the disability, the protocol for students with disabilities. Yeah, I can do that. There's not a link for an incident report because we've talked about this on the floor. So that's a separate issue. But the disability one, sure, Joan or I can get that to you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Again, I think just using the same as you know what we've done in the previous section in terms of the value language and the and the all but I think that it also begs the question again I mean I'm seeing incident 1234 times on this page. I think we have to put somewhere in here where the incident reports are going for family and community engagement as well. So I am making a motion that we include a segment on incident report, any incident reports created are also shared with caregivers and family members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, we already had it and we already agreed on it. So I'm just saying that if we're going to, I'm wondering where we're putting it because we haven't done that yet.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I think it was said we need to review that policy. So I guess I would ask that we look at that policy at the next bullying meeting that we have on this policy because the issue is and the issue that was on the floor is that we've had families historically that have not been made aware of behavior incidents and then students potentially are getting suspended or disciplined or whatever else and student and families and caregivers are not aware of this. So I believe we already decided on the floor that this was going to be something that we did. I mean, we can clarify when we come back to report out on this meeting with the other members of the committee if we'd like to where that information should be, but I think it's important that the incident report information is in the bullying context, because we're now asking families to go to multiple different places to understand these policies, where on one hand, I understand what you guys are saying about wanting to narrow down the scope and making sure that it's simple and understandable. On the other hand, we're putting the burden on parents and families to find out the other information that accompanies this. So whether it's a link, that's fine, but I don't want to wait another, you know, till again, September, October, whatever, till we're dealing with the incident report, because it is intrinsically connected to the bullying report. So I would ask that it be included in the next meeting that we have on this issue.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, not right now. I know that. I understand that. That's what I'm saying. When we report out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, which we can do at the next meeting and have it combined with the bullying meeting for the next RPI meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll just do it at the next school committee meeting. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Also, it's IEP or 504. I'm not sure where you're going.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I believe it's IEP or 504. And I agree with Howard that it is 10 days but Howard it's 10 days and or a pattern of removal so it's not some people think it's 10 consecutive days. It can be 10 days or a pattern of removal. So what some administrators do, and I'm not saying in this district, but sometimes what we see administrators might do is suspend a student for less than the 10 days and or do partial dismissal so that they're sort of underneath this law. So I think that, again, this needs a link. I would also defer to Joan on the link and the specifics. It does get very nuanced. And I think that they should be, you know, somebody else needs to be involved that understands this better, whether it's the director of student services or the attorney or somebody. But I would definitely say add 504 and then nuance around the move from school for more than 10 days, because it's a little bit more than just that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry. Remember Ruseau point of information, but there's no appeals process. That's true, Howard, but there is, there are other procedural safeguards. So there is potentially the office of civil rights. So I just want to be really clear that like, if people feel so Joan, I would ask that you maybe we have Joan answer some of this too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So number 10 says notify the aggressor of his or her rights in the process to appeal your decision. So Howard saying that there's not a process to appeal the decision regarding what the school district decides on bullying, but there are other procedural safeguards such as the office for civil rights.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, okay, I misunderstood. I'm sorry, I was misunderstanding, Member Ruseau. I was thinking that this was saying that there was a finding of no bullying and the aggressor and the individual can be notified of their rights and that they could appeal if they wanted to, meaning the individual that made the bullying. And so I guess it also begs the question, what happens if, There is no, and do we have that farther down or Howard, can you respond to that? What if there's a finding of no bullying? Because I believe that there's also no appeal process for that in terms of the school district, but there is other procedural safeguards. So that was the sort of nuance that I was trying to tease out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, civil rights is the federal government. But the point is, is that we can do a link there then, because if you want, because I'm just saying from Joan's perspective too, that there are procedural safeguards and we do have to notify families of procedural safeguards. So if there's a bullying incident that does involve a student with a disability, for example, and the bullying decision has been found unfounded, in the district by the district personnel to say that there's no appeal is not accurate for students with disabilities, because there is, there are procedural safeguards, which include the Office of Civil Rights or ERS. So I think that it's getting, I don't know, Howard, I would defer to you and looking, maybe talking with some of the, you know, too many Hesse and Lehane folks and see, but I think it could be really nuanced there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So maybe Joan, if you would, through member Ruseau, if through the chair, if we can have the director of pupil services reach out to our special education representatives to clarify this question or issue, I would ask that so that we're clear that if we're telling people that there's no right to appeal their decision, that we need to be accountable for that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I understand, but we are going to have to, I think, address the other stuff as well. And so that's why I'm bringing it up. So I understand that this is for the aggressor. I get that. And so the other issue is that if the decision is found not bullying, then what? Because we haven't put that in here, number one. And then number two is, what does that actually mean? If there's no appeal, what are there? And so I think that those are the two issues that I'm trying to respond to, because if we're saying we're notifying the aggressor of his or her rights in the process to appeal the decision, we are also at some point notifying if we find no bullying, we're notifying the families that no bullying was found, and we have to tell them what that process is after that, if there is one or not, in my opinion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, that's fine. But I'm just saying that if it's as it relates to the appeal, I want to look at that when we're looking at it two pages down specific to the no bullying, because it is it's very legally complicated. And I think, you know, has he to me and Lehane do need to look at this to some degree.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just was going to say, I concur with member Graham. I think it's important that we lay out a process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we just look at that? What did it say?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's the same thing. You might just want to put slash program quality assurance because people see it as both. And then I would just recommend the PRS in parentheses and PQA in parentheses just so folks know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So this just to that just to that point this is similar to the appeals process, what I was discussing earlier so just to remember grams point earlier so this is an example, so seeking assistance outside of the district you may do so through PRS this is what we were asking that be put in. I was asking to be sure that it was put in PRS and or OCR, which is the Office of Civil Rights. And that is the procedural safeguards that we were talking about earlier. So we have part of it in there. I would ask that we add the civil rights. And also people are talking about students on IEPs. But again, students with disabilities are not just students on IEPs. There are students that have disabilities that don't have IEPs or 504s. There are students who have disabilities that are on 504s. So I think we need to be clear, like we can't say that just because a student has an IEP, there aren't students with disabilities that don't have IEPs. So I think we might just want to say students with disabilities and get rid of IEP and 504 altogether, because I think that that is confusing and not everybody that has a disability has an IEP or 504.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Point of information, ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just to the chair, I'm curious if you'll clarify the dominoes that you mentioned that the high school principals effect could have, what were you referring to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I would like to make a motion that- I actually have a point of information on that too, excuse me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Just in terms of the, so on slide four, if I'm understanding correctly, it's saying that May 1st, we're gonna have another budget meeting, right? And then in between that and the school committee request, there's gonna be a meeting with the superintendent's recommendations, right? I mean, that's what...
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it's just that the point of information hasn't been answered. So may I ask again? Yes, thank you. So I'm still not understanding on slide four, we have under budget meetings, we have April 3, April 10, and May 1. Then in between school committee request and budget meetings, there's a superintendent's recommendation TBD for a date. So that I'm confused by that when folks are saying, The may one meeting is going to be the superintendent's recommendation because this graphic on page for suggest that there's going to be. time in between that for a meeting with the superintendent's recommendation. So I need that clarified.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just some clarification on that. So, again, going back to the schedule of what we're talking about, if May one is the superintendent's recommendation and then we are gonna have a public meeting, right? And then we are gonna have a school committee meeting to discuss. Um I just wanna clarify if through the chair, if member Graham is asking that what the superintendent presents on May 1 is her recommendation not backed into an allocation because we haven't really sort of asked for the allocation at this point, at that point. So I'm not really clear. Do you guys follow me? Yes. So I guess I'm asking for some clarity on what the motion is actually asking for.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information. And so what I'm asking for is clarification between the superintendent's recommendation and the school committee's recommendation, because those could potentially be two different things. So the superintendent on May 1, if she's gonna share her recommendations with us based on the information that she's given us up to this point, then I would assume May 1 is what she's representing as the superintendent as her recommendation. And then on the, according to the schedule, and this is what I'm trying to differentiate because I do, through the chair to member Ruseau's point, I do think that there is potentially a difference between what that school committee recommendation might be for the allocation and potentially what the superintendents might be. So that is exactly the point. And so I'm trying to get clarification on that motion because I'm just looking at our calendar and trying to find it for us when we're meeting. to decide what we're going to put forward our school committee request May 15th or June 5th. You know, that's a substantial amount of time between May one, when the superintendent's making her recommendations, we still have to have the public meeting. And then we decide what our allocation is not May one. So I guess what I'm trying to get is I hear, I hear what I think people are saying, which is that we want a real understanding of what our school needs in terms of not backing into a number. I totally get that. And frankly, I agree with that, but I think I'm not sure that I understand the motion for May 1st, because I think that that's the superintendent's discretion. And then the school committee's job is to decide whether they accept that or not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to understand. So, is this is the 74 million that we're talking about in this meeting not clarification in terms of what is needed versus what her recommendation might be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, 74 professional development and the restorative. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm misunderstanding this.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So none of the budgetary priorities are included, but they were included under ESSER, and so they're gonna be expiring 2024, so then they're not included in what the 74 million is that she's recommending.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have an issue with the minutes from the last meeting. Motion to sever.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So for the minutes from the last meeting, just on the last page, it just says, when we were talking with Ms. Fidler-Carey about the before school and after school program, And she was mentioning that there would be wraparound paraprofessionals. And I had asked if that would open more opportunities for students with disabilities. And she said, she believed it would, but in the, let's see, halfway up, it says member McLaughlin follows up and is asking slash looking for confirmation. If not opening it up to students with disabilities, they have access to the programming regardless. And I just want to clarify that I'm not, I was not asking or looking for confirmation. I was stating, that students with disabilities have access to before and after school programming, regardless of wraparound services and wraparound paraprofessionals. So I'm just asking for that clarification. Do I need to make a motion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I just wanted to say thank you, Mr. Downs, for your service to Medford. And Haverhill's gain is Medford's loss. We wish you all the best. We know you're going to do well, and I'm glad you're getting back to the Valley and will be part of the Merrimack Valley that so needs you. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I just had a question on I'm assuming you when you said the requisite insurance materials would have you that there will be an option for cancellation or something. I know that, you know, when we had the COVID experience with field trip and trying to get money back and all that don't want to obviously, you know, don't expect another global pandemic but you know, is there an option for cancellation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information. Sorry. Information member McLaughlin, but the indicators are 15 indicators.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So there's 15 indicators. So if the school committee is interested and wants to know what the 15 indicators are, I can, I can provide you could send us the 15 indicators. And so they randomize, I would assume they ran my, or maybe based on PRS, but I would assume they randomize the indicators anyway that they pick. And then, you know, one cohort gets some in the other gets the other. But the indicators are important to know because it's really sort of how we're being judged on special education across the state. So I encourage the school committee, if we can get a copy of them, that would be great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it's good to know. I was the co-chair of the Special Ed Advisory Council and even the Special Ed Advisory Council at the state level didn't have the 15 indicators. So it was crazy. So it's good to know them. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so I also, so I know you present to the committee when the CPR, Tiered Focus Monitoring, just when you get to know the names, they change them. Right. And I'm assuming, or actually, can you share what the Special Education Parent Advisory Council involvement is with the Tiered Focus Monitoring? So they'll probably be selected,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. In our packet is a list of how they're. Oh yeah, this is the narrative right before this is a narrative I gave you and I just have two slides here. Sorry, I didn't know if there was something in addition that you're referencing. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for this Ms. Bowen. Just a few questions. One is for the, I know that Medford staff attend IEP meetings for out of district students. And I'm curious, I know that students are entitled to a general education teacher and, or as you were saying, Councilor, you know, they have access to guidance Councilors, whatever. to attend the meeting. Do you know if that happens with the out-of-district placements?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So just for clarification though, when you say they're not, at accessing general education curriculum? What do you mean?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and then can I just ask you so for these districts and for two questions. One is for 40 out of the, you know, roughly 4000 students, right. So that's 10% of students out of district, right? No, 1%. Thank you. I was losing my zero. 1% is you're like, right. I'm like, you and I both went to class together. Yeah. So 1% of students out of district, is that comparable, would you say, to districts similar to ours in terms of the number?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then out-of-district families are advised and district professionals are advised that all out-of-district students are assigned a Medford public school building or a Medford public school and have access to the activities and life of that school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And do you know, thank you. And then last question. So do you know if the families who end up with their children are not in district placements, are they, advised of that nature that they have a school assignment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. You're welcome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that's a really good and important point on the ADA compliance and it's something that The city overall needs to really consider because we have lots of ADA noncompliance in our city. And particularly we're concerned about some of the schools, particularly access to the schools, curb cuts, all sorts of things that disabled parking, all sorts of things that are issues. So we do have a disability sort of ADA committee at the school level where we're talking about some of these things and really trying to get some things in motion. The more people that can coalesce around this issue, the better, because as you all know, the more voices, the more people listen, and this is a really important cause across the city. I see far too many people that are not able to access our city, and if we want equity, we really need to ensure access. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also just wanted to mention the intersectionality, right, of aging and disability, right? And so you heard Senator Jalen say, maybe we'll all be lucky enough to get older someday. And with that getting older, usually comes disability. And so getting back to the ADA point, when we're talking about you know, accessibility, it is elderly, it is individuals with disabilities, it's across the city. And some things are about money and some things are about priorities, but some things are also legislated. So the Americans with Disabilities Act is a law that requires access when reasonable, when reasonable accommodation. So really thinking about how people are coalescing around this, what civic engagement folks can get involved in, whether it's the Disability Commission, whether it's reaching out to us all here, creating groups to talk about how do we move these things forward because we can sit here for two hours and talk about all of this, or we can work together to get some things done and really creating, to Matt's point, some strategies around, okay, what are our goals this year? We're not going to tackle it all at once. What are our goals this year? Can we pick two goals this year that we want to get done? Okay, who wants to work on those two goals? So certainly, one of the things I want to work on is accessibility in the city. So if there's anybody here that wants to work on that, sign me up, I'm working with you, and I think it's a really important cause. I think it's about really civic engagement, too. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Superintendent. And I was just going to add, if folks will spread the word that, you know, we need folks here in Medford. And also, if there are folks here that are interested, there's positions for paraprofessionals, there's positions for substitutes, people that might want to just pick up a little extra work, you know, and get into our schools and see what's going on. We need you. It does take a village. So please spread the word. And also, you know, consider if you're interested, letting Dr. Edouard-Vincent know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's awesome. And also, you know, the pipeline is really drying up for teachers and especially for Teachers in special education, so if you know young people who are looking for guaranteed positions when they're gonna get out of school, let them know that that's a field to really consider. Also, teacher for the visually impaired, TVI, they're almost impossible to find. So really specialist teachers too are really a great career to consider.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you, Jenny. And even on that end, even at a $25,000, $30,000 annual salary, that's still not a living wage, right? And so that's a huge part of it. But also, it's really important to point out that if you're only given so much of the pie, and you cut a bigger piece off for somebody else, then somebody else gets a smaller piece, right? And so we have to think about that. What are our priorities? So when we're getting a million emails and phone calls and everything else and signs and everything else in the community about what we're not providing one workforce, folks need to understand that it's because we're trying to maybe Help another workforce that has been underpaid for quite some time and we want to be able to increase the rates for everybody But again, if you're only given so much you can only do so much So it's really, you know thinking about what our priorities are and our budget shows what our priorities are Yeah
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I like that. We need to make a bigger pie. Oh, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information. Point of information, Member McLaughlin. And just also that the next evaluation subcommittee meeting is the 24th?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, Member Ruseau was first, if you don't mind. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. This looks really great. I love the clean design. It's really, and I'm super excited about the accessibility and the all text and all that. So thank you guys very much for being so conscientious about that. And I guess I'm wondering, does that, so to member Ruseau's point about the PDFs. So if the agendas are not in a searchable PDF format, are they not able to be translated?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So then we might want to think about that just in terms of translation access, because it's actually one of the things we were talking about at a previous meeting about having our materials translated. So I don't know what that involves, but it's just something to consider because it is something that we've been talking about in terms of, and so is that the same for policy? So the policy handbook, is that a PDF as well, or is that searchable?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, if we could, that would be great. Because same thing, I think if people want to know what policy is on something, if they could search for it, that's great, and or have it translated is fantastic.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so then. Okay, thank you. So it's really about thinking about how to be consistent with the format.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, good. All right. Maybe that's something we can talk about is in terms of policy, um, around that. So thank you. And then, um, I wanted to ask, so since all of these fantastic students are going on to, uh, their next careers and thankfully with the website that they can show for the work that they've been doing on their, uh, resume, which is excellent. Uh, I'm wondering about sustainability and the plan for the future. I know that you said that there's a phase, additional phases. that you're working on. So if you guys wouldn't mind sharing a little bit about that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for mentioning that because that made me wonder also, I wanted to just ask about the pay portal. So does that, what does that pay portal work for? So would that work for, for example, like the summer fun camp when people are signing up for summer fun? Yeah, great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, athletics is using. Oh, good. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Community schools.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Will community schools be added? Do we know for the pay portal?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Thank you. Excellent. Excellent job. You guys. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Ms. Fidler-Carey. I just wanted to ask, especially around the percentage of folks who are taking advantage of the discounted tuition, what have you, is any of this material translated?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. May I follow up? Yeah, thank you, that's super helpful. And then I just wanted to ask on the page two for the wraparound professionals, I know that we did talk about this a little bit last week as well, but I just wanted to double check on the inclusivity for students with disabilities and with significant disabilities for the before school and after school program with the budget line item for the wraparound paraprofessionals, is that permitting more opportunity for students with disabilities to be attending these programs?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then just as a follow-up, I guess what I'm asking too is that It's not opening it up to students with disabilities. I mean, students with disabilities have access to the programming regardless, right? So we are just finding the staffing to ensure that they have access.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, sorry. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the visuals. I think they're It's always good to have those, so I appreciate them. And I guess I just wanted to ask if we can back it up a little bit in particular for folks who are watching or will be watching the budget meetings. And I don't know if now is the time or if you wanna do this at the next budget meeting, but I'd sort of like to give like a broad understanding to the community of sort of, what has happened the past three years, and to member Graham's point a little bit about the spending down, but also, you know, we started here, we had these ESSER funds, they were used because of this, you know, this is where we're at, you know, this is going to stop at this point, and we may very well be in a decision where we have to figure out what to do with that. And so sort of like a primer, if we will, if we could for like an intro to to school committee budget, I think would be really helpful. Just again, maybe for the next meeting, since I don't think it was prepared for this meeting, but I think for people who are watching, who don't really understand, and I think we, who are maybe more familiar with the budget are talking about a lot of things that people probably are not following and in particular with ESSER funding among other things. So I would ask if we could potentially have that. Yes. Thank you, superintendent. for the next meeting. I think that would be really helpful. And then I wanted to ask you about also the stages in the back, the last page for the budget process and tentative timeline. In that explanation, if you wouldn't mind sharing what the expectation would be for the April 3rd, 10th, and May 1 meeting. For example, you know, April 3rd meeting, we're going to go over, you know, a broad introduction to, you know, what we're hoping, what, you know, give an outline of what's been spent, how it's been spent and what we think, you know, maybe issues moving forward. So it's sort of a broad picture and then what folks can maybe expect for the 10th and the 1st. And again, I know this timeline is sort of tentative here. And then I wanted to ask you, didn't we have, or don't we have to have a public meeting to and I know these meetings are public, but don't we have to have a meeting specifically
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Can we include that in the timeline? please, just so folks know when they see that, if they're looking for that, I think that's super helpful, thank you. And then I wanted to ask you just two more questions if I could. One is in the pie chart that is on page one, if you can explain for folks the student services at the 5.25%. The student, which- Sorry, pie chart. Actually, it's FY23 budget numbers, the approximations where you had the 5.25 student services.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm just looking for wherever there might be some ambiguity. I think the other things sort of speak for themselves, but that maybe doesn't for other folks. So I appreciate that. And then the sort of the last, okay, my last question for now was the, the budgetary priorities, so the summer programming. And again, I know they're grant dependent, and I'm just wanting to ensure that we're, you know, and I'm sure we are because I know the central admin and sort of the way you folks are working, but I just want to ensure as we're planning that, that we're planning inclusivity and equity around the programming for the summer so that we're thinking about all of the student population, especially the most vulnerable affected by the pandemic. So just that's sort of more statement than a question, if that's okay. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yeah. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just a quick question for the budget concerns. For the 14% increase in out of district tuition, is that because the schools have increased their tuition or is that because we have an increased number of students going out of district or is it both?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. No, I would agree that it's important to be very clear on what we're discussing when we're talking about. false accusations and actually who determines whether something is a false accusation and what the implications are that because I think it's a slippery slope as well. And I think that I'm not sure who's actually qualified to do that and what the implications could be, whether they would be, there might be legal or criminal ramifications as well. So I think it's really, that's why I think it's important to have our attorney as part of this as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just saying I would agree, and I also think that we need to be thinking about, and not for this meeting, obviously, but in the bigger picture, I think we need to be thinking about how we're simplifying the language overall and the document overall for translation, because I think there's going to be a lot of things that don't actually translate. So we might want to rethink that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to add to that that you know it could be that there was a requirement that a curriculum be mentioned so that parents understand and know what is being taught and or that you know, I mean so I don't want to eliminate it all together I think it should be a question for. Howard, because I think that maybe in a lot of these instances, they have requirements that a curriculum be posted to follow the guidelines or whatever, and that the district obviously chooses the curriculum. We're not choosing the curriculum, but we are including the curriculum in the bullying policy because it's demonstrating that the district actually has chosen one and created one. So I don't want to just eliminate anything. I think it's dated, obviously, and needs to be updated, but I think we need to double check and see if it's required that a curriculum is mentioned and created by the district, which I suspect is why this is in here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was just gonna say, I thought at first that it was gonna be just that and not have the attorney come to the meeting. I think it's also important to have the attorney come to the meeting also, not just for us, but for the edification of the community as well. So I think it's a good teaching opportunity, but I don't think we need to go through the weeds with the community. I'm fine with seconding the motion with the assurance that the attorney Greenspan will come to the meeting review the material after having gone over it with a school committee member. So second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Are you asking for April 27th? 25th and 27th.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The 25th looks- For some reason I, sorry, go ahead, Maurice.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, the 25th for me too. And for some reason, I actually already have a policy subcommittee meeting listed on the 25th for us. So maybe that was a tentative date we had talked about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's it. Yeah, calendar. My phone's listening.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So if I understand what member Graham is proposing is trying to be inclusive of economically disadvantaged families to keep them at a rate that would be reasonable for them to be able to access the program while also considering an increase in the rate for folks who are not economically disadvantaged to make it more market value so that we can therefore afford more of the things that we're talking about. But you just want to come back with that at this point. Okay, so I'll second that. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you say that again? I'm tired, I think. Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, in a little different language. Yes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So there's no wait list.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Yeah, and I think that really parent information is obviously very important. We had a training last week that Medford Public Schools collaborated with on the CPAC for a training for parents and professionals on bullying, and I think that having more of those is important. And, you know, again, even, you know, quarterly or at the beginning of the year and middle of the year or something so that folks do know this. And I think we just have to also keep an open mind and ask ourselves if we're doing that, how we're getting that information translated to families that need to know. So all part of the process, I think, as we're looking at the policy piece. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Ms. Schulman, for that report. I just had a couple of questions. How are the students informed of this process in terms of the start with hello, the say something, in the system, how are they trained?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you know if it's differentiated or interpreted at all? It is interpreted, yes. And differentiated?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then for the data that, so tell me if you would just, if something comes through on the tip line, I think I understood what you were saying, that it will go to an administrator or guidance, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, but if a student obviously is in danger, you notify. Yes, of course, yes. And then, thank you. And so, just, if you don't mind just procedurally if you'll walk me through it so like sure what happens like somebody gets a. notice on their email and then they walk down the hot like tell me just walk me through it if you don't mind.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So the crisis team is 24-7?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And is there an interpretation line for that, do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Otherwise, if people need interpretation. Yes, absolutely, they have a lot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Two questions. One is, Does, oh, is this involved with the mobile crisis center crisis at all? Like, do we have a mobile crisis, I guess, van or I guess every, so I've been working with the CBHI.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I was under the impression that every community needed to have a mobile.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, because what if you don't have health insurance? Like, what is that? Then we problem solve. Okay. And then the other is, do you know if there exists yet, I know that there was some, there is at least law enforcement training around autism and other disabilities, but do you know if there's any of this that offers training around disability and understanding of, for example, autism or any of the other disabilities where there may be some nuances that you really need to understand from a disability perspective around some of the potential behaviors?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But if there is somebody, if there's a student that is known to have a known disability, I would assume you would then bring in Ms. Bowen's team or others from Ms. Bowen's team, some specialized support.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes, thank you. I was just looking at the schedule, superintendent, for the virtual listening sessions on April 27th. And I'm wondering if that's one session you're planning on having or more than one session and if there will be session or I would like to suggest that there be sessions with interpreters available.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. make a motion that one of the goals for the school committee be regarding equity, in particular access for all families to school committee business. Specifically, I would recommend that we make a goal of being able to have translated materials of the school committee meetings and at least two to three, excuse me, and at least two to three perhaps three meetings over the course of the year that are similar to like a town hall with interpretation and offered in perhaps multiple languages. There's a number of ways that it can be done. I know that it's done in a number of organizations, but I would really like my colleagues to consider equity as one of our goals that can be accounted for come next year, where we can demonstrate that we've, had some thoughtfulness around what equity actually should look like and how we can start moving that forward as I know it's one of the primary goals for the superintendent as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I, yes, so one of the things is it just so for edification for the public in the community as well. Translation is material so that's print document interpretation is word spoken. So I'm looking for to, I'm looking for, you know, and they don't have to be all of the materials at once I know that there's a, there's a. a cost involved, so I would like to say that, but frankly, also anyone that's receiving federal funding is really required to be translating materials, so I want us to really set a goal for having translated material and, in addition, having at least a minimum of three town halls, committee of the hall meetings, whatever you want to call them, with interpretation using our two highest use languages in the community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and so I'm willing to say a certain percentage with the goal of increasing each year, so I would defer to my colleagues about that. But I would also say that I wasn't necessarily assuming that the district would be translating material. I was assuming potentially it was a budget line item where material is being translated for the district because It's something, again, that is required. If we're receiving federal funding, it's something that is required. So, I mean, that's up to the district and the superintendent to decide how they wanna think about this, but I really think it's past time to be thinking about it. And I would really encourage my colleagues to consider this as one of the goals that we really wanna focus on. And I do hear you, Mayor. I don't think, you know, everything everywhere all at once. Like I don't think, you know, but I think having measurable goals and benchmarks around this would be really important. So I would like to open that dialogue up with the committee. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. I think in general, a lot of our community are that are not English speaking as a primary language, perhaps don't understand the function of the school committee don't understand how it operates don't understand any of those things. So as opposed to having just a committee meeting. a typical general committee meeting that is then translated, I think it might be better to have a topical, like two or three topical meetings that are then translated. Of course, they would have to be public meetings, they're committee meetings. They could be considered committee of the whole, town hall, what have you, but it could be topical. What is the school committee and how does it work? How can you get involved with your children's schools? Any number of topics, but I would say a minimum of three. with, you know, specifically with the guidance on, I know that Haitian Creole is one of our primary languages. I don't know what the second highest spoken language would be in the district, but I would really focus on, I guess, the first two with maybe, three might be ambitious for town halls or meetings, but maybe two meetings between now and when we set our goals next time that are really meetings to build it's also community engagement. So it's not just equity, it's under the community engagement goal as well, to build community engagement. I mean, our demographics on our high school and our other schools are very clear that we have, I think, what did we say last year at graduation? Something like 300 different countries represented at graduation, which is fantastic. But I think there's a lot of families out there that we're not necessarily reaching. So in response to that, I guess I would say topical.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No. And so this is really about opportunity for engagement and understanding so it's about building family relationship and in community and having interpretation so maybe it is a committee of the whole if you need a name for it, a committee of the whole or two committees of the whole. where they are opportunities to have a discussion on a topical, whether it's how to get engaged with your schools, how to ask question and answers of your school committee, what is a school committee, how do you affect policy change if needed, any of those topics. I mean, the topics I think can be decided, but I think the important piece is that we're opening a forum that offers translation and people to understand the process. So I don't care what we call it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Certainly, that's one option. Thank you, Mayor. That's certainly one option. I mean, I just was at a conference on Saturday and did a presentation that was a simultaneous interpretation in Vietnamese. And so you can either do simultaneous interpretation where you stop and pause, or you can have the breakout rooms, like you said. Even with the breakout rooms, you don't have to have administration in each of the breakout rooms. You can actually have people listening in their language and the main meeting still happening. and so that there are people listening in their language, but the main meeting is still happening. Yeah, and so then we're still all part of the same meeting, because what I don't want is, no, I don't want people to go in other rooms with one administrator and talk, because that is sort of defeating the purpose. I want us all to be part of, I think it is more like a town hall, because it's more of a sort of question and answer discussion, but it can be called whatever. I think it would have to be facilitated, obviously, we wouldn't just have you know, random questions or whatever would be facilitated and topical, but I do think it's an important step towards recognizing that we need to engage other communities. So yeah, I'm fine with, again, a fall start if folks think that that makes sense, but I guess looking specifically at a goal, you know, we talked about having goals for the school committee and looking specifically at a goal that we can be held accountable for as school committee members, I would say, I would, respectfully ask my colleagues to consider equity to be one of those goals and two measurable ways that we can achieve part of that goal between the time we have now and in January, when we would reestablish goals. I think we said, I don't take me literally, I don't remember the exact date when we said we would do new goals, but that we would have equity in the way that we could, or that we would address equity. And two of the ways that we would address that is one, with an increase of a certain percentage of school committee materials being translated into at least one of our most popular languages. And then to at least, you know, one to two for this year, because we're already on the short end, we, you know, we're already on the short end of setting the goal. So for this year, I would say one to two town halls that are in the two primary languages or that offer translation in the two primary languages.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What are they?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yes, Portuguese, right. Spanish and Haitian Creole.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah. So I think that would be a great example.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me. I just wanted to respond to the chair to member Graham's recommendation for that equity goal. I think that's reasonable. Although my only concern about agenda only, which I think it is good to have it in a step fashion so that it's also not overwhelming for the reader. One of my concerns is that by seeing the agenda only and not the minutes or the notes at this point, but ultimately minutes, I hope, I'm not sure that people can understand the resolution of the process. If you're only seeing agendas over agendas, is anything getting done? I'd like to think creatively about that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, yes, thank you. Mayor? Um, yes, but again, I think that when you say it, when we say like this, the, the work is going to fall on the, the, the school, I think we all have to be responsible for this as well. And I don't necessarily think that it's all the work just goes on the school. I think that we look at the budget and we think about how are we allocating this in our line items in our budget. So, you know, our, our budget shows our values as well. So I think that it's not a matter of here is more work for the same amount of money. It's no, this is important and we need to. think about how we're doing this so that it is meaningful and that we're all taking ownership of it, number one. And number two, I agree that it's important to have it graduated, so I'm fine with that, with the understanding, as Member Graham was saying, that it would be expanded, that this is because we have such a short schedule on these particular goals, as school committee members, that we will look to be expanding this. But I think, obviously, that will be assessed when we reconvene or when whoever reconvenes for the next set of goals that they'll be setting. So again, I just have a motion for equity to be one of the goals with those understandings that were discussed. If there's a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We can separate the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, well then. Yeah, I mean, Yeah, I'm okay with making that amendment to the motion, that equity with the measurable benchmarks we mentioned of one, or A, having school committee agendas translated in our primary languages, our three primary languages, beginning September, and two, having at least one, for lack of a better word, people can call it what we want when we decide, a town hall discussion with interpretation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. So did you get any of that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's fine, I'll do it again. I am making a motion that our school committee has goals, equity being one of them as a accountability measure based on our goals with two sections of equity measurable benchmarks, one which be-
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One, which would be having a translated agenda beginning September, school committee agenda beginning September, and our three most often used languages, which is Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Spanish.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: a town hall, for lack of a better word, with interpretation, interpreters, and also in those three languages, and it can be a topic-based town hall, and maybe we can think about what that is between now and the beginning of September by talking to some of our community members. who might be interested in specific topics. And then two would be expanding the fine arts. And maybe member Mistone could speak a little bit to that amendment. Expanding the fine arts, just expanding the fine arts.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So, I have a motion if I can get a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: For both of those. Okay. It's one motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One motion. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. So in the way that that is measurable is that it is that we are receiving a plan and approving it. So we would
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And will data be collected across the, over the year by us to, to demonstrate that we're being held accountable to that plan? So the point, I think, I guess part of what I'm asking, I think it's a great idea. I'm trying to understand the measurable, the way that the community can measure whether the school committee was accountable in the process. And so maybe it's just in the first phase because it's the second phase potentially for the next set of goals might be around review. Okay, all right, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I make a motion for those three goals for school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's an easy goal to accomplish since we're already underway on it. So I would be fine with adding that as a fourth goal, if you will, because I think we are underway for doing that. And again, I think, thank you member Hays for that process and getting that underway and for MASC for informing the process for everybody being so patient with the process, but I think it's much improved, and I think that's a great measurement of how we've worked together.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I was just going to say I'm happy as the chair of the diversity, equity and inclusion subcommittee to take that on and make our proposed policy with my committee members to move the issue forward. I do think it's important, obviously, that our students see themselves on the agenda. It's not just about having the opportunity, which everyone has the opportunity to come up and speak, but seeing themselves on the agenda lets them know that We value them and we think it's important. So I would be happy to take that on as the chair of the DEI with my committee members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Hays. Ms. Branley. Did they turn that on?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I missed you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move the topic to the DEI subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you zoom back out again so I can see it? I'm sorry, yes. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, just having worked with a number of folks who have been through this process, and it's just so abstract, as I'm sure you can imagine, particularly with social media, it can be really, you know, tricky. And I think that the way the, what I've seen and experienced is the way that these things get handled, you know, sometimes well, and sometimes maybe it could have been done better is through reporting from usually, you know, the victim or the victim's family, particularly around things that are outside of school. And it is, In my opinion, and was the intent of the law, in my opinion, that this is addressed in and outside of school, particularly because, oh my God, I'm forgetting Phoebe's name. What was Phoebe? You know, the girl from Hopkinton that a lot of this law was created by, if anybody remembers. Phoebe Prince, South Hadley. Thank you. Yeah, South Hadley. Thank you, Phoebe Prince, that so much of this law was created for her, you know, that that was the problem is that she was, you know, obviously, one of the problems is that she was being bullied 24 seven, you know, through all kinds of, you know, means. And so I think that that was one of the reasons that it was addressed. But I think that, in my opinion, one of the things is that families need families and students and obviously staff need to be Educated and informed around this to understand that that is the policy and that it can and should be reported outside of school, you know, in you I think you had an example of what about if they're at summer camp and they have a bullying situation do we get the call and go to work to deal with this. In the middle of July, when the students aren't even available to us for interactions, I would say yes, I mean I think that. we have to figure out some of that, well, particularly maybe when it, I would defer to Maurice about, you know, whether it's, you know, that summer and we're convening people to deal with it over the summer, or if we're getting the notification and we're making a plan for when the students are returning in September, I'm not really sure, but the notification I would think can and should happen in July. And so there needs to be a process for that because it does extend to outside of our school. So that's my two cents, thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It is up again. Okay, go ahead. I guess first I wanted to ask, you know, if Howard's here or whether, you know, Howard is going to be here at some point for things, because I think that we could, you know, I mean, I think that's part of what the law is. It's always so debatable and whether we're interpreting the law the correct way for this and all of those things. I think it makes these, a lot of these things really sort of ambiguous and I'm not sure that it's really our role to try to figure some of it out. And so that's a little bit concerning for me. And then the other concern is just as an example that you had member Rizzo a few minutes ago about, you know, and I know you said that, you know, sort of the fringe moving from one school to another, you know, one, you know, middle school to high school or something like that. is sort of outside of the scope. And I would actually beg to differ. I mean, we actually had a personal experience that I will share that, you know, where there was some middle school bullying and, you know, we're encouraged, this was a long time ago, so I don't want people to think that it's anybody that is currently within our schools. But we were encouraged to not file a report, and instead to allow, you know, administration to notify each other of the situation so that know incoming administration would be aware to keep an eye out to make sure that this wasn't happening at you know another school or what have you and that's part of the problem is that if there's not and it didn't happen but that's part of the problem is if there's not communication between one school to another when kids are transitioning that can be terribly problematic so I don't know that that was necessarily a good example and I'm just saying that for edification really of the public, I guess, in terms of how these can be really tricky. And I think our role here, if I understand correctly, is that we want to try to be clear and succinct with what our policy is. And I think that there also has to be some legal review or something of it, because I don't think that we are in a position to interpret the law.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thanks know to be clear that's not what I'm suggesting, but I am suggesting that I would like to keep draft of the document with all edits recorded and you know maybe we're doing save as so we have versions or something but my concern is because we don't know, you know, I mean, I'm sure that there are some things here that are pretty obvious, whether if there's repeated information, it's pretty clear it doesn't need to be repeated, those sorts of things. But if there are things that we are making a decision that, oh, we think we can omit, but we don't, in fact, really know that, then how do we really know that is what I'm saying. So I guess I would say agreed. I think there's work that we can do here before it goes to an attorney. I also think that we need to keep versions and records of what our edits were so that it is really clear or just keep again the comments and the strikeouts and what have you if we want to do that, but to be clear, so that whoever is looking at it can see what the process and what some of the work was because I think that there may be instances where we could, and this is why I think an attorney needs to look at it primarily, where we could be thinking we're doing something that is appropriate when we're not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, no, I just wanted to add for the for the presentation on the ninth, it is the Federation for children with special needs that is doing it full disclosure I work for them I don't do the presentation, I just know about it. But it's also contracted through DC, so the Federation is contracted to Department of Education to provide this training so it's not. specific to just children with disabilities. It's not specific to just families. It's also caregivers, guardians, foster families, and staff and others. And I think it's a really good opportunity. It's virtual. We will see if it can be recorded potentially for people if they need the link shared. If they're not able to make it, there's a registration link that I did share. and a flyer. I know CPAC and the district are working together to get this flyer out to the community and the superintendent will be getting information out as well. So thank you for that. But I do think that there's so many nuances and so many pieces that are really tricky. And as Maurice was just saying a moment ago, I was actually talking with somebody just last week specifically about the child pornography issue, because it's not just an issue for the person that creates it if somebody forwards that image they're, they're considered complicit, I mean, it gets really messy and can get really troubling with law enforcement I'm on the, I'm also on the board of an organization called mass kids which is about. child abuse prevention. So I know some of those things around that and it just can get really messy. And so I think training for everybody is a really, really, really good point. And hopefully people will come on the night that it won't be the only training that exists, but I just, I would second Dr. Ebay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I do, I think it's, you know, like FBI speak. I think it's just, you know, writing images on video data or intelligence of any nature. So intelligence could be like old style notes, right? Like anything that sort of is, that is evidence of bullying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Or evidence. I would say evidence. Data or evidence of any nature.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we could probably lose facsimile, but that's just me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's after social media.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think I would agree with that, Member Ruseau. I think that we all have ideas on ways to do that, and I think I know that Member Graham offered to sort of take a pass at that. I think that's a very good idea, not to have everybody doing this, but if Member Graham, because I know you like to organize things, if she's willing, as she had said earlier, taking a pass. I would just recommend, I mean, I'm sure you know how to clean up documents as I'm sure we all do, but I would also just recommend like the subheadings right making it really clear, you know, all the ways that we learned, you know, to write, what have you but, and I would also add and I know that I have talked to Dr. Cushing in Ms. Bowen about this, and I believe there is hopefully an iteration of it that we can include at some point, a visual. So there will be a visual for those who don't learn, who are neurodiverse potentially and don't learn with all of the text and the subheadings and the bullets and all those fun things. Anyway, that will have something that we can distill hopefully visually.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You saw my tiny little hand raised. Sorry, I didn't actually do the hand raise. Thank you, member Rousseau. No, I'm backing up a little bit as we're looking at this though. And I'm asking, is there adoption of a bullying prevention curriculum? So probably about-
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And we can ask someone from the team in a second, if you don't mind, but I'm assuming that the, or maybe I shouldn't assume, are those HECAT meetings public or are their notes, they're not public. Are there minutes coming out of them? Like how, yeah, that's interesting. Cause how are we getting, will there be reporting out of that? How? Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I'll check in with, maybe with Dr. Cushing in terms of what the schedule is, and I'd like to know sort of, you know, some of the agenda items as well, because I think it's important to know that that's on there. I guess I didn't realize that bullying prevention curriculum was gonna be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just for the edification of, again, the public watching our folks that are on here that don't know what the HECAT is, Peter, would you mind, through the chair, Member Ruseau, if Dr. Cushing could just... It's the Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool. And so a committee has been convened to, or not a committee, a group has been convened based on applications that were submitted and chosen to review that. Correct?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree. And I think that, you know, that it's providing the bullying prevention curriculum and bystander training. And then I would, you know, I would go, I would also suggest that that would not, would be to staff and families.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau, may I? Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you for this, and I know that Dr. Cushion and Ms. Bowen worked on this, and I really appreciate it. I do think that there's some things, and we don't have to get into it now, I'm happy to, you know, if you're interested, Dr. Edouard-Vincent or Dr. Cushion, give some support, lend some support around some visuals that could support this, PEX images, picture exchange images that I know, Ms. Bowen is familiar with as well, but also just fonts that are accessible, font sizes that are accessible, and sort of some of the, I don't know, I like straight lines, that's just me, but that's sort of a straight line. You know, just some of the aesthetic of it, but I think that there's some ways that there could be one or two iterations of this. So would love to give, you know, feedback if you're interested, but I think that this is really important and I think it really... Always happy to take feedback. Thank you, Dr. Cushman.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm happy to do that. Member Ruseau member Graham and then bring it back for another subcommittee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I like that idea. No, I think that makes sense. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is Miss Brownlee done?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So also I wanted to mention, and it's something for, it's really food for thought. It's, I don't know that it's for right now, but we do need to think about it. And so maybe it's something that we're putting in our notes or what have you that, you know, it needs to be explicit that, you know, this is not, you know, and I know it says in one sentence here, but it does not say sort of procedurally what that means, but that, you know, there can be bullying by staff, right? Or by teachers or by guidance Councilors. Some of the people that were saying it needs to be reported to immediately is his or her, blah, blah, blah. And what if in one of those instances, that is the person, so that they're feeling that they're being bullied again. So I think we have to think about how we state that. And maybe it's after this. I don't know. I just want to put that in the parking lot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I would agree with that, that there should be some response timeline at least. But I also would imagine that there's going to be some legal timeline. No?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just going to share. There's also an excellent local plan checklist to make sure that your local plan is required. It has all the content of what is required by law. And so we can use that, I would think, at a next meeting or when we're getting closer or at some point. But it's a pretty good checklist of whether these things are part of our plan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's required to be part of the plan, Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree that we can have a resources section and it can say for resources, please go to the webpage. If you need printed resources, please contact someone for folks who may have this in a print form and are not able to go to the webpage, that might be an option. And then Ms. Bowen had something in the chat, member Rousseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think a comparison is a good idea I prefer this, then the, you know, then the narrative paragraphs I think this is the point of what we were making earlier about having subheadings and bulleting and what have you so it looks like somebody, or maybe they copied it from somewhere. had a similar idea to make it more palatable. I just think, yeah, it would be a good practice to compare to make sure that there's not one that has something that the other doesn't, with the ultimate goal of eliminating the repeat.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well I would like to say iterations of the of the work is what we were talking about at the beginning of the meeting as well so I would like you to do a save as for this document today's date for this.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, but then mark this as the date for that iteration. And if, you know, you want to download it, so make sure that Google doesn't, you know, something doesn't happen with Google and whatever. So download a copy where it has the today's date, where it's named with today's date for this iteration, instead of just relying on the Google version. I think would be helpful so that we don't, at the risk of a technical snafu, we can still document what's been done and backtrack if we have a question or we need to verify that what we intended actually is what we ended up with so that we're all on the same page. I think it would be helpful to have that. So I would suggest that You know that's fine if you got if we come with it with the edited version for next time but that we have something to compare it with today's if we need to go back and say that's not quite how I remember that I'd like to look at it and not take up until we can, we can, we can immediately just go back to any version like this is the one we started with today. No, I know, I understand how, I know, I'm sorry, Member Ruseau, I understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, then you can download it and send it in an attachment to me and I'll keep it in a file for me. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I can do that. Yep, that would be fine. And then there was something else I was gonna ask. Hmm. Oh yeah, and is there a timeline for us to be completing this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, right. I wish I was kidding. I know, no, seriously.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, we're having the bullying thing is next week on the ninth from seven to nine. I think it would be good to have that and then come back to the table, frankly. So I would say, you know, I would prefer two weeks so that we have the time to digest what's being shared with us from a training perspective from, you know, Desi and folks to make sure that we're sort of maybe getting some education and edification ourselves before coming back to the table. But I think that we could have, you know, time to do the things that we asked committee members to do. And, you know, time for community members and staff and others to sort of take another read through, you know, give some thought to the things that, you know, they might want to be thinking about and or looking at timelines. And then I guess I would like to say, I would hope that it's not too ambitious to have at least a working document. You know, what are we in a in March. I think we need to have a working document, especially for things that are pretty egregious. I would say I think it's reasonable to put a working document together within a two-month deadline with the understanding that the work could be evolving, but we at least need to have something that can be presentable to the community, I would think, before the end of the school year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm not, I have a big project on the 15th and we have to do a run through at four o'clock on that time. I am free if we wanna do, if you guys can do like a six o'clock, I could not do the same time.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: As is the transition fair. Transition fair, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, in collaboration with Dr. Cushing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I thought Memogram was going to just take a look at sort of trying to make it more palatable. I didn't know if it was like with subheadings or bulleting things that are already there. Yeah, or.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Yeah. If there's whole sections that we can eliminate because they're repeats or whatever, that makes sense not to try to be structuring them, but just in the long, in the big picture, obviously there needs to be a structure and style.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then may I make a recommendation, Superintendent, that Howard gets a heads up that we're doing this stuff
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and if not attend, at least have some time for, you know, review or a synopsis or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I thought you said you were gonna do that, members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Hays and member McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah. And I think that I agree with all of my colleagues here. I think it's a reasonable request. I think the training from MASC and this process is hopefully going to go much more smoothly and will be much more transparent in terms of the meetings being public with the composite being put together. That said, I'm sure that the superintendent attends the subcommittee meetings and is also paying attention to a number of things at those subcommittee meetings. So obviously I think it would be good for her to have, you know, time alone to look at the document, what have you. So I think June 1st is reasonable for the subcommittee to add that date in there in between the time, but I also, or, and I also want, the community and the public to know obviously that this is a, you know, that these are public meetings, you know, there'll be subcommittee meetings. So, you know, people can and I expect will attend and will understand the process a bit better. So I think that that would be really helpful. So I guess I'm saying yes. And I don't know that we need a motion to add the June 1st in there, or do we, because we have to make a motion to approve the minutes. So do we need to make a motion? for June 1st.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? Yeah, so I was also just going to say, yeah, so the timeline for the delivery of the material and, oh shoot, now I just lost my train of thought. There was something else that I wanted to mention.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I remembered, sorry. Just that, you know, obviously everything will be marked draft, that it's not approved until it's voted on, you know, just to be really clear that we want to make sure that we're not, you know, confusing evaluations at all, that these will be marked very clearly, draft, not approved. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Robinson. I just wanted to ask, maybe this can be a consideration for response at the next meeting, but for the grade eight course selection night for March 15th, if we could just let the community know how that information is gonna be available for translation and any other needs for families for that night. So maybe at the next meeting, if you could let us know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Congratulations. That's good stuff. Excellent information. And I would love to see you guys go on this trip. And I would love if you would come back, obviously having one, but also, you know, maybe sharing a couple of the ethical dilemmas that are discussed, because I think What's so interesting about ethical dilemmas are that there's no easy answer. That's the whole point. And that sort of what the argument is of them. So, and was any of the other ones recorded? Do you guys know? Yeah. No. No. No. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mr. Trotter and all the students that participate in CCSR. It is one of my favorite aspects of our district. I think it's an incredible program. And I do think that, especially now when we know that there are so many behavioral health and social emotional needs in our community and with our adolescents, it's so important to be able to get outside of ourselves and think about how we can help other people and just that reward of helping others and helps us get outside of ourselves. And I wonder, is this book available to the public? Is it online at all?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that would be great because I just wanted to share you know one of the projects the English learner give back program. I was looking through to see what was being done with students with disabilities and English and you know students who have English as a second language or families that have English as a second language in the first Page 19, the first two things I saw from 2019-2020 was the English Learner Give Back program and the reverse inclusion experience that had been happening with the access classroom at the high school, which I know several of those students that participated in, and for both the students with and without disabilities, that was such a rewarding program. And for the EL Give Back program, these videos introducing people to the district, students to the district, and the videos are uploaded in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Arabic, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and this year, Hindi will be added. So I just think that that's a great example of the equity that we're talking about in the district and wanting to have this outreach in the district. So I applaud all of you students and all of the advisors that are out there working so hard on this as well. And I would ask, And I know that I'm hoping to meet at some point as well. I would ask if there can be some consideration or if there has been some consideration just in terms of outreach, what that might look like for students who are newcomers to participate in the program, right? Not just to be a beneficiary of the program, but to participate in the program. And so that might look like needing an interpreter or needing translation for some of the stuff. And the same goes for students with significant disabilities being able to participate and what that looks like for our staff to either have support, whether it be through paraprofessionals or behavior support individuals to help them be part of CCSR as well. So is that something that can be considered for the future?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I couldn't agree more. And I love that the social justice piece is so embedded in this. And I just wanted to add that sometimes you need a partner to participate in the program. And sometimes it can be hard for some students who maybe are a little bit more isolated and don't know how to find a partner. So I love your peer-to-peer model because I think students get it better than any of us in terms of what that can feel like, that isolation and the need to have a mentor and what that looks like. So I really appreciate the thought around that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. You learned what?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, exactly. And so also just thinking about restorative justice, right? We're talking all the time about restorative justice in our district. And I think this is a really great example of how restorative justice can work and how, you know, again, we can get outside of ourselves and think about how we can help our community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Definitely.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yeah, I also just wanted to say thank you to all the students and to let you know that the school committee is here as well for any help or outreach or anything like that that you need. This is such a great program and I don't think I've heard so much clapping in the school committee chambers in one night in a long time, so it feels really good, I have to say, just for all the good news, but I would like to make a motion for an outreach plan for the CCSR that is inclusive and and thoughtful around the diversity, equity and inclusion aspect of outreach for the program and how we can, we and experts in the community and others can help support that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would say, I guess maybe I would ask Mr. Trotter what he would think would be reasonable.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. The language is that by May 15th, 2023, the CCSR will provide an inclusive outreach plan that considers students of all backgrounds and abilities for meaningful citizenship.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, for all of them. For all, the high school level, obviously, but all of the levels to, yes, to increase our outreach. I mean, it's such a great program that, you know, so that we can see an increase in membership and support of all of our students.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely. Yes, sounds great. So do we want, do we want to add to the motion that, you know, that CCSR will work with central administrate an amendment to the ocean, the motion that they'll work with central administration, um, to, you know, ensure an outreach plan that's reasonable. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you all for the presentation tonight. I thought it was excellent and also just such a good example for the community of what civic discourse really looks like in terms of coming forward, telling us what's going on, respectfully, thoughtfully, you know, sharing stories and real examples of safety concerns and things that we can wrap our minds around and really understand. So thank you all so much for doing that, especially the students, Cece, Connor, Will, Jacob. Cooper, I think, and I'm sure I missed some others, but thank you guys all for coming out tonight. It's a really great example of leadership. And I'm sure your parents were all super proud. And it's just funny seeing people that you've known since kindergarten get up here and be leaders. So I found that really moving and remarkable and a great example for the community. So thank you for that. And I think, you know, I responded to an email about this specifically around the school committee's responsibility in terms of what our abilities are. So ours are to approve the budget, right, that we then send to city council that, you know, then approves or doesn't approve what we put forward to hire and supervise and evaluate the, not supervise, hire and evaluate the superintendent and to set policy. So we don't hire personnel. I just wanna make sure that people know that, that the school committee cannot be involved in the hiring process, the posting, any of that process. But what we can do and what is so important here is really understanding what the budget needs especially are, especially if they're not being brought to our attention. If we don't know about this, having students on the ground, parents on the ground that really can see and experience what you guys see and experience to share this with us so that we know when budget season is upon us, which is, upon us that when department chairs come to us and tell us some of the things that they say they need but may or may not mention some of the things that we've heard about that's our opportunity to say well what about this and how does that affect that so this is a really good opportunity for that and I'm sure in the budget process you'll see some response to some of what we were hearing here tonight. And so that's always posted so people know which departments are coming, if they're coming before us when or what the process will be this year, it depends. But anyway, I think that this is a really great example and I would agree with my colleague that this should be on the agenda for next week. I know that we don't need a motion to put something on the agenda and that another agenda will be fashioned, but particularly around the safety of our students. And also, can I just say that like, This coach sounds so amazing. What is it? 89 kids and they got to they won the championship and broke a record like and he was one for records and one coach.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Where?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. Right. Sorry to hear that someone that's done such a remarkable job is leaving, but I hope you know how valued you are, especially hearing the students' testimony tonight. So thank you again, and we look forward to hearing about all the future wins.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, three years. Great, thanks. Point of information. I'm just wondering if that is something that the superintendent is doing or something that the director of athletics would be doing. So how I would respectfully ask that maybe the director of athletics could give us that information and share information with us. And I would ask the superintendent's thoughts on that in terms of a reporter coming to talk with us.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you and thank you for letting us know. I think that, you know, so this was something that was brought up as well a couple of months ago, because we said, you know, school committee also needs IDs. And it was mentioned that, oh, you know, the way that it was, the process was that there was a picture day and that was how they had gotten the IDs. But obviously we're gonna have staff that might come in mid year, we're gonna have, you know, students that might transfer over, we're going to have school committee members, what have you, that will need IDs throughout the year. So a process would be really helpful. I do think that what we had said with the school committee was that we would send a headshot, you know, most of us have a headshot that can be used for IDs, but that, you know, we should be also modeling that behavior when we're going into the schools as well. So that was one thing. If we could do that for school committee as well, that would be helpful. Just let us know to whom we should send the headshot and when we can pick them up. This was done a couple of years ago. I lost mine, to be honest, so my apologies. But I'll try not to do that again. And then the other was for Dr. Cushing, the question I had about the survey.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Essentially, I know you guys said you were gonna look over the survey options with Department of Public Health, I mean the Board of Health. Will you show us that before you guys, is that the process that you're gonna go through? You're gonna sort of one iteration where you and Ms. Bowen are working on it and then you'll bring a version of that to school committee before it goes out? Will we have an opportunity to see it and or offer any feedback?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, I guess thank you for that. information. And I guess one of the things I'm thinking of is, you know, there have been examples in the past where surveys have gone out where they might not have been inclusive of all schools and or all students, or potentially culturally sensitive. And so just making sure that, you know, that is a factor, I'm assuming the Board of Health will have been more thought of that in terms of a community response, but not necessarily in terms of a student response. So I just want to make sure that we're thinking about that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. I have information. So are you suggesting that this, did you say this was being tabled? I believe somebody was going to table it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So there's a motion on the floor by Member Mustone to table this? Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Till next Monday. Okay. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You don't happen to have it, do you? Through the chair, do we have that? Do I have it? Just the law or a summary of it. I'm sorry, what is it? What's the question? I can't hear you. Sorry. The question through the chair is, do we have a summary? We got the law citation, is there a summary of what the law says? Do you know for the public certification?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the first reading.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So for those who stayed on long enough to watch, that was their reward.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That sounds good to me. So are you going to like sort of share like a doc to look at the timeline and then just sort of work together to identify dates backward or what the milestones are for moving the dates backward?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So can I just get some clarification? Sharon? Yes. So, um, essentially what I think I heard a member Graham saying is that committee of the whole to discuss. The data that we're all coming back to the table with, uh, not a committee of the whole to approve the template. Right. Correct. Okay. Just wanted to clarify. So I think that, thank you. So I think that, um, You know, we have to report out from this committee. So I think that if we could have a date that we're getting the template out, that we know that that's coming in a date that we know that it's due. And, you know, then we can have obviously a better idea when the superintendent is available to, to speak to, you know, what she needs to speak to, but we're already February 16th, which is making me feel like, ah, right. Because we need time to also do the evaluation when we need time to create the template.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I just ask a question, Sharon? Yes. A few things. One is, it's a little confusing for me just without any visuals or anything like that. So I'm wondering if one, if there's anyone that might be willing to just like share a screen for others to see, just sort of even a calendar screen from like now to, thank you, Jenny. So yeah, but even like the calendar, so we can sort of look at the dates just from, you know, February through June or something, yearly calendar or something. I don't know that we're looking at dates. So we're actually looking back at what we're trying to do would be helpful. But I guess I'm also trying to understand that what we're saying is, so it's February 16th, we have X weeks till, you know, we wanna have the due date for the final. And I'm assuming when we're saying final evaluation, we're talking about, the evaluation that we're bringing back to the whole committee to, you know, open whole committee, regular school committee meeting where we're approving or presenting the evaluation and then voting to approve it. So, you know, how many weeks between now and then, and what actually are we trying to achieve in those weeks? And if I understood you, Sharon, what we're saying is that we need one to create the template you know, two, to give the members time to fill out the template, you know, three, the superintendent presenting on, you know, what she's done for submitting the, or just, I don't know if we have discussion first before submitting and then, you know, five submit for approval. So is that, are those like the five steps we're talking about?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm not sure that I need that. I guess. Thank you, Jenny, for that list. That's super helpful. And then I think just looking at, you know, what the, what the, when we find the final delivery and sort of, you know, looking at the weeks, I don't know what this is. I think it just changed. Okay. So regular committee of the whole to agree, review and agree prior to six, five. Right. And then the subcommittee meets to compile a recommendation responses due from committee template distributed to committee superintendent presents evidencing now. So yeah, I think we need to, one, two, three, four, five. I think we need like between, honestly, probably eight weeks from 6-13 start point to achieve those things. So whatever, you know, eight weeks back from 6-13 is, what would that date be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I said roughly eight weeks. If we have five items on here and we need maybe two, I'm saying seven to eight weeks back to the date from 6-13. Thank you for the calendar, whoever put that up. Sorry, my phone screen's not allowing me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so I counted two weeks on that line, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so if you present in early May, sorry, through the chair, Sharon, is it okay if I say something? Sure, of course. So if you present in early May and we back that out two weeks before that for us to get the templates to everybody, then we're talking mid-April to get our templates out, right? For a deadline for the template. So basically what I'm saying is just take June 13th, and back it up eight weeks, because I included two weeks for us to get ready. I mean, two weeks for us to have the template, say a week or so to get the template, the superintendent's presentation. So roughly it's like eight weeks, and then you just build your weeks after that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Yeah, 5A or 5-5, whatever. But what we're saying is that this subcommittee would need to sensibly, at least a week before that, so again, back in April, so end of April, mid-April, where we have a process, we begin, whatever, we do a template design. I don't know if we wanna have another meeting to review the template design or not. We may not need to depending on if it's as simple as Sharon saying, but we may. But I think we need to have the template ready. We need to be able to have time to work on the template at least a week before it goes to the committee on the 8th. So whether that's Monday the 1st or the end of April, whatever, a deadline for us to have the template done or at least be working on it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think so. I think for the end of the last week of April, I mean, before we come to the meeting, we might want to individually work on a template that you're saying if DESE has it, and then come to the meeting, maybe end of April, subcommittee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, and I would just say, if we could, if the superintendent's gonna present on the eighth, I think it makes more sense for us to be on, maybe it's on an agenda in April, for us to at least show the forum. To the rest of the committee, let them know how it works, you know, do they have any questions, you know, everything else I as opposed to just like, okay, hearing the superintendent on the eighth and being like okay we're going to send you the form and you're all set like I think it's a good opportunity to just like. share the form beforehand, make sure everybody understands how it's working, you know, and everything else. So again, I think that we need to have a meeting, whether you guys decide whether we all decided it should be, it could be a subcommittee meeting. And you know, we come to the committee on the following on the eighth, but even then people aren't going to have the opportunity to really, you know, look at the form and have questions if it's a subcommittee meeting, unless they're attending the subcommittee. or you know it's sent to the committee and they can review it as a document without discussing it with each other and come to the meeting on the 8th if they have questions either or but I guess all that to say is that I think there should be an opportunity for the rest of the committee to see the form and ask questions if they have any.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you think there's going to be enough time for her to present her evidence and for us to do the template in a committee of them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I didn't know if it was before the scheduled meeting or not. So to the chair, I mean, that works for me. If it's a Monday that we don't have it and it's just the committee of the whole for the eighth and if the superintendent thinks that that's enough time and we can do both her presentation and the forum, then yeah, that makes sense.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I would make a motion that the superintendent does the presentation for evaluation on the eighth and that the committee of the whole and that committee of whole also includes a template review for the template that will be used for the evaluation process. I need a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And do we want to vote on the rest of the dates or should we just propose them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then we need a deadline for the school committee members to get the evaluation back to us.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then we can obviously this will be in the minutes for the next meeting. So everybody has these dates. So we don't have to motion obviously for them. What's the document you're sharing? Hold on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then Monday, what are you guys talking about, the 8th? Oh, no, what date are you talking about?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I see it. So the question I have, if I can, Sharon, is for the committee designs template and instructions and plan to compile, Are we having a subcommittee meeting for that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask a question? Sure. Clarification point of information. So if I think if I understood member Graham correctly, she was going to take the, you know, essentially the template, if you will, from DESI and incorporate it into a Google sheet or Excel doc, that would be easier to populate and calculate for all of the members. Is that what I understood?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think she can send the document, but I don't think we can discuss it with each other unless I'm mistaken. And we can clarify that, but I think we can look at the document in advance. so that we can bring questions to the table, but I don't think that we can discuss it. I know that we can discuss it amongst ourselves before then, but having it to look at could be helpful. And then also, I don't know if you guys want to, if somebody, I don't know if it's you member Hays or what, but wants to sort of start with some instructions and, you know, and steps for it so that we have a jumping off point. for the meeting on the 24th in terms of filling it out, but I guess that's up to you or us to decide. But I think that we can see the template ahead of time. We just can't discuss it. Is that your understanding?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a recommendation? I would just suggest maybe having the, if we could have the subcommittee meeting earlier than 424, just like a week or so. I don't know if that's, you know, the same night as the committee, but I think it should be fairly, hopefully a fairly easy meeting to go over the template. But if we have it before, it might give us a little bit more time to think about if there's any, you know, things that we need to, work on between 424 and 58 in terms of the compilation or instructions or any reviews that we need to do or whatever. So leaving this subcommittee. Are you guys following me? Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would like that. Yeah, I would like that just because I think it gives the opportunity to sort of look at it, give it some thought, you know, think about what the compilation can be have some discussion around what that might look like, and then allow us to help contribute collectively if we can to instructions and the plan for compilation, but that's just me, I like to have a little bit more time, like I don't want to be right up against the superintendent's presentation, you know, and to have the form ready, I'd like to make sure that we're all, we have all the kinks ironed out ahead of time.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would keep the 24th as like a penciled in, to be honest, just in case. Yeah, so I would make that as a number two, just so we don't lose it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I like the student feedback. I mean, we didn't do this last year in terms of what evidence was going to be brought forward. So I do want to ask if it's okay, member Hays, the superintendent sort of, is this useful for us to go through this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What we want, or is it, or can you sort of look at the form and get that yourself? What do you, what do you think?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I like the aggregated student feedback. I mean, I think that you're, you know, we know that the instructional observations or instructional, I forget what you call them too, superintendent walkthroughs, what do you call them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, instructional rounds. But I think the student feedback would be good too, just to understand. And again, this is specific to instruction.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. So I guess that was sort of what I was saying at the beginning of this is like, do we want to defer to the superintendent about this or do we want to go through these items? And so that's what I'm trying to understand. I think that we can defer to the superintendent and I agree, we don't need to be prescriptive about what's brought to the table for her to show evidence. I do think there's an opportunity to say, these are things that I'm interested in. And what I guess I'm saying is I am interested in student feedback. And so it doesn't mean that I need to have a specific survey of students, and it is prescriptive to what this looks like. Is it prescriptive to the high quality of the instruction that they feel like they're getting, whether the instruction's differentiated, whether there's, you know, but some evidence of student feedback on instruction would be useful in terms of we have this much enrollment in these classes. We've seen that this particular class has, you know, is really, you know, always received sort of positive remarks about what's being done here and, and or, you know, we have some work to do in this particular arena around, you know, differentiated instruction or access to curriculum or whatever. And here's how we know based on, you know, student import or student, you know, qualitative, not quantitative necessarily data, but I guess. in as a whole, and sort of talking about this, this is the point is that discussion points around things that could be brought forward and things that we might be interested in. But again, we're three of seven that might be interested in these things. So obviously, I don't think it is prescriptive, even going back to the subcommittee, to the committee, when we report out, you know, I'm sure people can add things that they feel like is important, but I think it's a good opportunity, certainly to go through some of the goals and say, Oh, what does Dessie have under this? And why does Dessie have these under there? you know, how could this be captured? And again, if it's not captured this year in terms of, you know, a more quantitative process, then maybe next year we do want it to be as a quantitative process. So it's sort of a work in progress in terms of figuring that out. But I think it's good to have the discussion. And I guess what I would like to say is I do, I am interested in hearing student feedback around instruction and quality of instruction and also differentiation of instruction. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please. Thank you. I guess I just wanted to add, you know, to that, that, you know, I think the process is gonna be much improved, obviously, now that we have, you know, clear indicators and that there's some specificity and that the indicators can be linked to, you know, both quantitative and qualitative data that the superintendent will provide the narrative and the hard data around that as well. And I think that this is a really important point to point out. This is why professional development for school committee is really important. And that we understand that so that people aren't just sort of building the plane as it's flying and that we know that, you know, there's a process. And so having had this MASC, you know, course on superintendent evaluation and having us all sit together and do some of that professional development was really important. And I think really helped define a lot of this for us. So I guess I just want to sort of put that out there too, that as we're also thinking about our own goals and our own evaluations of stuff. that we're realizing and recognizing that this is an important piece that we have to have professional development for us as well, so that we're understanding, you know, what the indicators are, what the process is, what it should look like and how it can be communicated both to us and to the community. And then, you know, with that said, I also wanna just add, since we're on the topic of instructional, you know, monitoring or evaluation or guidance or what have you, that I want to make sure that really encourage people to be thinking about all of our students and all of our student learners and in that we're providing material that is, you know, the scope of all the students. So we're talking about, you know, some of our different classroom settings across standard access, you know, AP, EL, that we are really looking at the entirety of the instructional rounds and what the data is that's being collected so that, you know, we're getting those answers from all perspectives because I really obviously am interested in curriculum levels, access to curriculum, differentiated instruction for all of our students. So I think that would be great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just point of information, thank you. For the Ice Cream Social, the early part of that event is sensory friendly. So families who have children who are adverse to large crowds or lots of noise can come early on the early end of that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think it was 3.15 they were doing the early end. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the work on this, Dr. Robinson. I have a couple of questions. I know that you said this is proposed for nine to 12 to encourage communication via phone or in person for important dialogue from the key eight community. And I think that the real reason for wanting this incident report in the first place was really about encouraging communication across the board. While I understand that the form that is being proposed may not be appropriate or applicable necessarily for K-8 although I have to say we certainly have heard of K-8 suspensions among other things so I wonder about that. I'm wondering if there's a proposal for a K-8 form. My concern primarily is that families are not finding out about these incidents after the fact or worse after several facts, which has historically been the case. And so that's one issue or question I have is so how are we addressing the K-8 issue and making sure that families are made aware of any incidents? I would also just like to add that I think one of the most memorable phone calls home I ever received as a parent was for my child doing really well. And I think it's really important while I know that we're creating structure around incidents that there are opportunities to let families know when children are doing really well as well so that we are building relationships because I think that's the real concern is that sort of deterioration in relationships. So to the school brains point, so the first question is what are we doing for K through eight. And then another question is for the school brains piece. So honestly, I was never a fan of school brains. It was something that you had to, as member Rousseau was mentioning, you had to drive there yourself. We weren't getting notification on. and we were just sort of told to go to school brains. There was no training on school brains, and I wonder if there's training for families on school brains at all. Does anyone orient families to school brains? If so, how, and how is that information shared to our families who are non-English speaking families and or to people who enter the district after the beginning of the school year so that they understand that? Thirdly, I guess I would ask how much participation exists with school brains. So, you know, we know how many students we have enrolled, how many families do we actually have actively enrolled and or engaging with school brains to see if this is an effective means of communication. And then, you know, it begs the question in terms of training for families on school brains, it also begs the question for me on our economically disadvantaged families about access to technology. So I don't know that all of those questions could be answered in this particular meeting, but if we could answer some of them, that would be great. And, you know, if you have to go back to the drawing board for answers to others, I'd be okay with that too, but I'd love to just get some response. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I, thank you. I appreciate that. Those are in school brains. I guess what I'm asking is, are parents trained on how to use school brains and do they know how to access this material? Is there, you know, what are we doing for translation around that so that we're being equitable in what the access is? And what are we proposing for K through eight?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if we can have an example of a sample of that for the next meeting, that would be really great. And so that families understand that those are coming home as well. For the K through eight, that would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Wilbertson. I guess I'm just, I'm not feeling like I'm really getting any answer about what is gonna happen for K through eight. Are they getting, are families getting a form sent home if there's a disciplinary action or if there's something put, more importantly, if there's something put in the student's file regarding the student's behavior or discipline that the parents are formally notified and made aware of it so that they're not finding out five, disciplinary infractions in. So my question is, what about K through eight? And then the other is, what training and access do we have for families for school brains? So training, meaning how to use school brains, how school brains works, what school brains is, access meaning for families that don't have English as their primary language.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that. I would just recommend that if videos are being made that yeah, an interpretation service would be great for the videos or the closed captioning with another language or something. So there's an opportunity for interpretation services for that. If there's written material, translation service would be great. if the spoken interpretation services would be really great. And then for the K-8 system, I do have questions about how are the incidents being handled for K-8. And so I think what I'm hearing is they're going to be on a case-by-case basis. And I guess, is that what I'm hearing or no?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I guess that's what I'm asking is, so then when there is an elementary level incident, how are families being made aware of an incident that's being filed in the student's school record?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But if there's something that's put on paper for the student's record, that is not being sent home. It could be a conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And if they're not, what do they do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. And I guess I want to thank my colleagues for their input and particularly around the data being entered about students, particularly families and caregivers are not made aware. I think that is really the crux of it. And I think that is relationship building. And so I think sharing that information is relationship building, not sharing that information causes distrust and then a deterioration of relationship. And so that's the thing that I think is really the whole genesis of this conversation is about how are we building relationships to ensure that families know what's going on in school and can help support their child and their teacher and the school and vice versa. So there's that. And so to the point of our goals, when we were talking earlier about school committee goals, I think this is a really good example of ways in which we improve communication, when we're talking about communications across the district, also about systems and processes, and also about family and community engagement. I think this is all a really good example of that and something, you know, as I'm moving forward and we're talking about things, I'm really trying to put in, you know, parenthetical notes about, well, what goal does this actually attach to? in terms of our district and really, you know, trying to think backwards around that. And I think that that is the goal, um, in terms of improving communication, family community engagement and creating systems that are in price. And so to that end, I really, I don't think that we need to make a motion, but if you think we need to make a motion, I'd like to know that particularly around training of families and school brains, because my experience was I think probably partially in the system, you know, in middle school, that there was this, you know, school branches being used. And it was being used at that time, which I'm dating myself, it was probably, you know, six or seven years ago at this point. But at that time, it was being used by one school and not the other. And, you know, so now I think there's more uniformity around it, but really ensuring that there's, you know, maybe a, you know, beginning of the year and a big year training. around what this is for families and that it's multilingual training so that is really helpful for families. And then I would ask, do students who are in out-of-district placements and or in the 18 to 22 transition program have school brains? Okay, so those parents and families obviously need training as well, that they do. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a great idea. And I think through the chair to my colleague member Rousseau, I think that's a really important resonating point in point in point. So I think that's great and in the working group I would ask that you consider including families as part of the stakeholders of that working group so that you can have some feedback from community members and diverse community members that can share their experience both around what could work and what might not work. And I'm happy, I'm not trying to give people more work, I'm happy to volunteer in any way that I can to help move that along. But I think that would be really important. And ultimately, the goal is really about building relationships with families and making sure that there are the most positive outcomes for our kids.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I just in final, um, yeah, if there's forms that are being signed by our students, then obviously I think those should go home. Um, but, uh, in addition, I would love to know if we can have some sort of a timeline on, um, when a training can occur, um, on school brains for families and, um, when we might hear back, um, in terms of feedback from a working group. So I'd love to know what the superintendent and or Dr. Cushing and others would think would be a reasonable timeline for that so we can know when to expect more information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just also wanted to mention, especially as you're thinking about the subcommittee meeting that the Universal Safety Committee, which is, and does look at the safety regarding students of various populations, be included, explicitly included or invited to that subcommittee meeting. Thank you. So second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think that, um, you know, the point of having goals was that so that we could identify as in, it says in the, in the MASC, MASS, um, conference handout so that we can identify to the community what our work is, what our goals are and to, be able at the end to show some evaluative process about how we attended and reached our goals, much like the superintendent. And so that our goals are aligning with the superintendent's goals and that we're being very clear on what our roles as school committee members are. And again, how we can create measurable goals so that we can show at the end of a, a term or session, depending on what the committee decides, how we achieve those goals that we said, or whether we achieve the goals that we said, or whether they need to be restructured. So I really wanted to open a discussion based on the MASC recommendations for setting goals for school committee around what those could be. And, you know, I think that they are very clear about not setting many, you know, setting, you know, between one and three goals and, you know, and thinking that it could be, you know, sensibly, for the either the school year or since we're so far into this school year it could be january to january sort of leave it open for discussion with the colleagues thanks oh sounds great thank you member mclaughlin so i know i mean i can speak from the chair with regards to setting a process for the evaluation i think that meeting went really
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I think thinking about buckets is a really good idea. And so I would agree with structure and process being one of the buckets. And then I would say, I guess the other would be impact. And I think we really should be thinking about the evaluative process for ourselves as well. So first, I think we need to set a term of what the goal term would be, but then also, you know, what is the process at the end of the term for evaluation in terms of whether we've reached the goals or whether we haven't. So those are other things that I think we should be thinking about. And then in terms of, you know, structure and process, I think certainly the onboarding is something that's been discussed among colleagues as well. You know, the need for an onboarding process, Um, particularly for, you know, especially with a new election coming up and, you know, folks who, um, don't have institutional knowledge, what have you being able to have some onboarding process and also, um, the training that the MASC offers. So, you know, um, I think technically we're required each as school committee members to do the training. I'm not sure what that followup process is in terms of whether people have actually done the training or not, um, with MASC and how we follow up on that. So I would say, you know, both the onboard in terms of structure and process, but the onboarding and ensuring that the professional development slash training is actually happening for each member would be something that I would put forward. And then in terms of impact, I think as we're thinking about district goals as a whole, I think we've heard a lot of talk about equity and we've heard a lot of talk about family engagement. And I'd really like to think about those two aspects of impact. How are we actually increasing? Are we increasing? How are we thinking about increasing? What are we doing to ensure family and community engagement and equity across that? And I think there's very data driven ways to measure those things. And I think setting a benchmark for those would be really helpful. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think to member kretz's point in terms of thinking about the time frame for this meeting now, maybe even setting some ideas about what we can accomplish in this meeting in one hour and maybe what we can accomplish is how many goals do we want to set you know, when can we revisit what the goals will be specifically, maybe taking some time to think about this for the next meeting, what, you know, say your top three goals are of the things that were discussed and how we might make those measurable would be something that I would put out and suggest I can make a motion in a minute. But I also wanted to say to member Hays' point around videos. I think that that's a really interesting point. And I think that the studio is incredibly underutilized, particularly for getting information out to the community. Ideally, I would love to see videos that were in multiple languages, being able to describe what the school committee does and how we do what we do and how to contact us, I think could be super helpful. So I really liked that idea. And I guess across the board, and this is sort of the equity piece that I'm talking about folding into each of the goals is how is this information being conveyed and relate to folks that might not typically get the news or the information and how, you know, how is, whether it's through translation or interpretation or access. So for any of the goals that we're thinking about, I would, I would ask my colleagues to be considering equity as an underlying aspect of those goals. And so I would make a motion that maybe in tonight's meeting, we can set the number of goals that would like to consider and perhaps a timeline by which to one, name those goals and two, evaluate those goals. Yeah, so the motion is for tonight's meeting to identify the number of goals that we'll create for the school committee and the date at which the goals will be identified. and then the term in which the goals will be accomplished slash evaluated.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I guess to that end, I would recommend maybe between two to three goals. I guess I might say three goals, but I'd be open to my colleagues' suggestions.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think I hear the concern regarding that. I think on one hand there needs to be enough time to reasonably define the goals and enough time to achieve them and enough time to evaluate them. So I do think the 11 month process makes sense, especially starting now. This is something that we've been talking about over a few meetings in terms of setting the goals. So I think that we could define a process by which, you know, this, these goals are our first set of annual goals, if you will, are evaluated and that, and then for the January term, potentially let the new school committee decide what their calendar would be for their goals, whether they want to, you know, have end of February to end of February, the following year, since the two year terms are very different and there'll be consistent over that time. But I would, I would, lean towards having the 11 months to be able to really meaningful meaningfully address the goals.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: to the superintendent's point, that was what I was going to suggest. I don't think that a new committee should evaluate the old or the previous committees work, especially with new members. So I would do, I would recommend a calendar year, January to December. And I do like the idea of quarterly, even quarterly, frankly, check-ins. So, you know, mid-year, you know, you know, semi-annually is fine, but I think even quarterly, so that we're, you know, at least having once on the agenda of goals, and it could be under good of the order or whatever, you know, just that we are doing a check-in. to see where we are at is a great idea. I think calendar year would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd like to make a motion that we set three goals for the term.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sound great. I was just going to ask if we could get a list of the proposed goals from tonight so that we can all have a opportunity to look through them and consider them for the three and then if there's you know ones that anyone wants to add or flesh out they can and then it um Do folks feel like the next meeting is reasonable for the next opportunity to decide on those, or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And Mayor? Member McLaughlin. And then we just need to decide finally on an evaluation process for that, for the goals in November. So we said we'd discuss November, have a discussion in December, but I think we need to establish some sort of process by which we're evaluating.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was going to suggest if we could just open the document. Thank you, Sharon, for pointing out the appendix C in the 44. page document to start with. So I don't know if someone wants to share the screen or what other folks think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If someone else wants to take the liberty, if they have it up right now, they can, because I have about a million tabs open on my page. Hold on, I think I have it. So I'm sharing the screen. Yeah, here it is. Can you guys see my screen?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Let me just try to make it bigger. I'm going to actually just fix it in a second. Is that bigger for you guys? OK. Just move the grid over. OK, so this is the Appendix C. Which is. In the appendices of the whole document, so page 30. If other folks have the document and they want to look on their own, I guess.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But the let me look at my email and get that one.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm looking at the document you guys are talking about and I do see, Mayor, may I, sorry. Absolutely. I do see what member Graham is mentioning on the first couple of pages, but in the, in the rubric for the superintendent evaluate, I think for the section, the appendices, maybe Jenny, am I wrong? That the rubric looks okay. It does look like in the, in the text field, the staff didn't look okay, but let me just scroll down and say, I mean, I'm just looking at yet another document because
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I do, Mayor. That's what we have to open it first.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm going to zoom in in a second. I just got to get my head ticked because I closed it and opened it to look at the other document. So give me a minute. So this is Appendix C. And then let me zoom in. Whoops, that's really large. Can you guys see that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, good. Because it's really large for me. And may I, Mayor? I had another question. And in reading this, I also thought, and maybe this is, if others understand differently, please share. I also thought that the superintendent was gonna pick one set of goals under each of the goal piece or not. I mean, are we starting with step two to look at the four standards and then go back to step one? Well, we already did step one when we approved her goals, like at the beginning of the year, but they're not going to be related to the, the, um, the standards if, unless we have them up as well, or the, you know, we want to identify those so that, so in other words, what Dorothy was saying is that the goals that we approved by the superintendent as, um, you know, earlier in the year. The standards that we're evaluating her on need to be obviously related to those. And I think, you know, I don't know if people want to bring those up or for, especially for people that are going to view this, that they know what those are so that we're referring to them, or I don't know, how do you guys want to do that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just, this is super helpful. Thank you to member Graham for sort of going through and, you know, doing this in advance, I just want to make sure that, again for folks who are watching or want to later on that they're understanding the process too so I don't know if somebody wants to do just sort of a brief. description or introduction or what? I don't know if the vice chair wants to do that or if somebody does, but it might just be useful for folks that are watching so that they understand what we're doing and what this process is and what the attachment for the standards to the goals are and why. Does that make sense? Yeah, I'm happy to do it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't think I'm able to raise my hand because I'm screen sharing, so I just wanted to say that. I'm happy to wait. Thank you. I was thinking instruction and or data informed decision making based on, you know, the instructional leadership skills that Dr. Edouard-Vincent has. you know, talked about in terms of the goals as well for the instructional leadership, but that's sort of where I'm weighing in. I also just wanted to say, again, through the chair, I thought that was an excellent explanation for lay people and appreciated. And also that it's really important that this is done and that this is done, you know, in the future at the beginning of the year, so that the superintendent knows exactly, you know, what the evaluation is going to be at the end of the year and what it's going to be on. So it's very clear for everybody as any employee essentially would want to know what they're being evaluated on very clearly. So I think, you know, this is great and this is a huge help and tool, but I would say instruction, and I know they say one or two at most from each and not in a maximum of not more than six, but those are the two I'm leaning towards and would love to hear what my colleagues think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I'll make that motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And there, I just wanted to show the B and E more sort of broken out as Member Hays was mentioning.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also am a vote for environment and I was torn between B and E when we were looking at it. I do think it's interesting as we're going through this and good fodder as we're thinking about September, which is unfortunately right around the corner. And, you know, thinking about how the goals can align with some of the things that we're talking about now, particularly around B, in my opinion, but, and certainly obviously, you know, around E too, but I do think if I had to choose between the three, I would say A would be my top choice and B would be my second with a mind towards understanding that if we're getting too heavy in the eight or so that we're requiring, that I would be okay with dropping off B and considering it for September.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I think we can wait for B, frankly. So I would make a motion to take A for management and operations. And then obviously, if we get to the end and we feel that we can go back, we can make another motion. But I would just make a motion for environment under management and operations. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that this is something that, you know, we have been working on and talking about for a long time. I think that these need to be a primary focus. I know that we have, what is it, two from the first, one from the second, so three. if we took four, would be at seven at this point. I do feel like D can be a little bit redundant if you read A, B, and C, because I do think that B addresses family concerns. I think that the only difference that I see in D might be equitable. I don't know if I see equity in the other I don't see the word equitable in the other.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I think we can go with A, B, and C. All right, then I make a motion for A, B, and C under standard three, family and community engagement.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree that F is an important standard, and I would also advocate strongly for B. I think cultural proficiency is really important and something that aligns with our vision of equity and something that needs to be explicit.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I stop sharing the screen or do you want me to keep it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then I would like, I would, I would think, you know, not that we need more committees, but I think it would be helpful to have a committee doing this just to help ease the process, but that's my opinion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think Member Hays had her hand up first.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I did, but I wasn't called in that role a moment ago. So I was just saying, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No worries. I did want to say before the motion for the subcommittee, I actually also wanted to could ask my colleagues about the consideration for being able to, I know that the subcommittee will make recommendations to the committee as a whole and then we'll take the vote, but also that there is, while we can do wordsmithing on the narrative piece for individuals to make a cohesive statement around that particular item that we're evaluating on, I would like to have folks consider and leave it up to the committee for discussion right now as to whether, I know that the statements are public anyway, but whether we want to have the statements available if we feel like we need to look at them just to get a further understanding of the wordsmithing of the subcommittee. I don't know that folks want to, but they may want to, so just want to remind people that that might be a factor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Raw data. I think it's important for the raw data. Yes, thank you. So I would make a motion that the material includes raw data so that the evaluation includes the recommendation and the raw data at which the recommendation was arrived at.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: and make a motion that the evaluation include the raw data from all members in addition to the summary evaluation of the subcommittee and recommendations of the subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, if that's what Member Ruseau is making the motion for, I should have clarified.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We already did the one that includes raw data, right? So you don't have to include it. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just have to say that felt like the most efficient meeting we've been to. Thank you, Sharon, for calling that. We've been good at this. It only took a year, Member McLaughlin. It only took a year, is that what you said? Three, three of them. Three years, right. I would just ask that if I could, through the chair, if the superintendent is amenable with all of the decisions that were made tonight, if that's feeling okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, then Member Hays. Thank you. Thank you for this, for the action plan and for the work that's been done, Dr. Edward-Vincent. And I particularly like the, you know, the graphic and the way that it's laid out very clearly. So thank you for that. I'm curious about the anonymous reporting system. If you could share a little bit more about that, what the infrastructure of that is actually going to look like. Is this a, is this a, technology that we have that we're going to be able to use? Or is it, you know, traditional paper system? Like, what is that actually going to look like? And where's that data going to go? And how will we be kept informed of it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin and member Hays. Thank you. Just to follow up to that. Thank you. That was very helpful. So I'm just wondering, I'm sure that obviously because it's online, there'll be data collection specific to this anonymous line. So there'll be data collection. So there'll be an ability to report how many calls came in or how many, Anonymous reports were made, you know, sort of what sort of, you know, context, they were in generally that sort of thing, which department will be handling the response to that is not going to be stationed showman's department or is it, it'll be a collaboration between the counseling and school leadership.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, just one more. Thank you. And if we could think about. Ms. Bone, if we could think about some either PECS images or social stories or something like that, that will support students who don't communicate with words or otherwise that are able to access this line as well. Most students with IEPs have bullying plans in their IEP anyway, but if there could be some support around this line existing, that would be really helpful for those classrooms.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I would also like to ask if it can be included that there'll be interpretation services provided to that you're doing, if you haven't already thought of this, obviously, but that it's explicit that you will be having these focus groups or some of the discussions with individuals who may need interpretation services and that that will be provided. And that not only that it may happen, but that it will happen. Dr. Eby?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin, then Member Graham. Thank you, and just to the point of the consultation and the focus groups as well, I think that a lot of times we're framing some of the, instances, and particularly in the last few that we've seen, obviously, as student on student, but it's clear, obviously, I know that you understand as a superintendent, the bullying statute and the laws around that, that it could be anybody. And you'll share that and you'll explore that with the focus groups?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd like to make a amendment to the motion or proposed amendment to the motion that all subgroups will be included and interpretation services will be provided for any subgroups needed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Is there a timeline for that or an indication of what that will involve in terms of workload?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I mean, I think it speaks for itself. And I would like to make a motion for it to pass. I think it's important that families and caregivers are included in incident reports and understand the nature of them and that they exist and are part of a student's files. And so they should have copies of them whenever their student's names are on them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. Member McLaughlin? Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. I'm okay with that as long as we have, but not exceeding time, whatever, know, I'll defer to you folks on what you think is reasonable for that. I just think that leaving it open ended leaves that, you know, it could be that they, you know, it could be forever before someone gets an incident report. And I'm not, I guess I should be maybe a little bit more explicit about the incident reports, or at least the ones that that I've seen. I'm not talking about, you know, a full incident report, like a police incident report, I'm talking about the slips of paper that I've seen that, you know, district uses your student was involved, you know, so and so was involved in an incident. you know, this was reported to the principal, the principal has the paper, you know, they keep that or what have you. So that sort of incident report, not a full on like criminal, you know, police report incident investigation, but rather your student was involved. I can understand though, in some instances where you're needing to suss out that information about which students were involved. And so I can appreciate the timeframe that you're speaking to. So I'm okay with saying when reasonable 24 hours of incident or when reasonably possible, I think you said, but no longer than, what would you say is reasonable?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think it's the initial incident report that goes in the file. So it's just, and again, I've seen them both for families that I've been working with and others that the information is not specific. The principals and assistant principals have been doing this for a long time and they understand how they're written and certainly, any parent has access to their child's file at any time and any request, they may not know that there are these in their file. So they would see them then as well. So I know that principals and assistant principals and others are aware that these need to be specific to the student and the student's files. And that has been the experience in terms of what I've seen when supporting families and districts. So I would say initial incident report, and I would say that they are written in such a way that other students are not identified for that particular family who's receiving the incident reports in their home.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So this one's about the initial report. Initial. Yeah. And I usually think it's the administrative report. So it's not necessarily the inner workings of the investigation and who's doing what it's what. is taken from the building principle leadership perspective, that they know that this incident occurred and that is recorded and has, you know, goes into a child's file or is collected, you know, in a number of, you know, if there's more than one, there might be a collection of them. But to be really clear, I would like to be really clear, Mayor, this is not just specific to bullying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I want to make sure that folks understand that, that if there's an incident where your, you know, your child gets cut, Right, like they're doing something and they maybe have a, normally you'll get a report home from a nurse, a phone call from a nurse or something like that, but there will also be an incident report.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I think that should come home so that families know that because maybe you get the phone call, maybe you don't get the phone call, but you're there. So having that as a record, I think is really important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. One minute. So member McLaughlin. Yeah. Thank you. And I, I agree. We need you at, um, you know, the, or at least your feedback at the meeting. And I just wanted to clarify, um, to the chair. I know member Graham was saying one of the things that the rules and policy, um, subcommittee can do is change policy. And I know that's not what she meant. we can make recommendations for changes of policy. And then that will become before the whole body and then the whole body votes on whether the changes can occur based on the recommendations that we make. So that's sort of the part of the process. But I think that to her point around the, you know, what are the issues, the policy or the efficacy and the way that it's sort of been played out is really important. And I think that we can add this to, we will add it when we report out from the subcommittee. it to the agenda. And then that's another opportunity to give feedback when it's at the reported out from the subcommittee to the whole agenda, because I think there's some other things that could be addressed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Are the students- Excuse me, may I? Just for a moment. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor, number one, that I'd like to move the question in a moment. Number two, while we work to set policy, we do not get informed of the day-to-day happenings of the school in the disciplinary process, as we talked about previously. There's a law called FERPA, which is, if you know HIPAA, right? You go to the doctor, you know HIPAA, right? Even no matter if I was your wife, Mr. Orlando, and I called the doctor and I said, He needs a doctor's appointment, and I want to know whether he went to the doctor's appointment or not. They can't tell me. It doesn't matter. So it's the same for FERPA. We cannot. It's the federal law. So we don't have that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second to the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm willing to make an amendment to the motion that, you know, either for the next school committee meeting or the one after that, that a form be presented to us that would be part of that for, you know, that would be the identified form that we're talking about this initial incident report. I am not willing to so I'm willing to make that amendment. I am reluctant to refer it to committee because this has been referred to committee and has sat in committee for over a year. So I would ask my colleagues to consider an amendment that we allow the school committee, the school administration to present us with a form by the superintendent what do you feel comfortable with the January, January 23, the January 23. meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, ma'am? Yes, that's correct. And also for additional information beyond that, one would hope that the school and the families will build a relationship to have further conversation. and that that would therefore encourage relationship so that the process moves more smoothly. And that also parents know through, you know, procedural safeguards and other means that they have access to their child's file at any point, you know, that they can request the student's file. We know that. So I would say, yes, that's exactly what it is to inform the families and encourage communication both ways.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You can you can share ocean to allow it I would make a motion to suspend the rules to allow a resident to speak under the typical time that each resident has allotted to speak, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? So thank you. I'm Melanie McLaughlin. I'm a school committee member. I'm also a parent of three, two Medford high school graduates, one current Medford public school student. I've lived in Medford for 23 years and I'm here tonight specifically because I want to support the superintendent in her role and because I want to support the school committee and the parents and families and students in the city. We're all heartbroken about what has happened to our children. over the past few months, but it has not been just the past few months. And there are plenty of people in the community that know that and that understand that. It has been years. We've had a bullying problem. Most high schools have bullying problems. There's a rise in violence. It's national. You can see it all over the country. It is happening particularly because of pandemic, but also because of the politicized nature of the hatred that exists in communities between polarized sides. And our children are often mimicking what they're seeing their adults do. And what I think is really important is what we've heard from city council members who are talking about finding solutions to work together, to collaborate, to change systems for all of our children, not some of our children, all of our children. This has been ongoing. We're talking about not just the past four years of this administration, meaning this particular superintendent, this has been an ongoing problem from when other people were on school committee, from when people have been around for some time. I wanna clarify for the community and for city councilors, I'm not afraid of being yelled at, I just don't like it. I think it's inappropriate and unprofessional. And when we talk about bullying in our community, I have never seen more of an example of bullying in our community than I see in the city council chambers every single week. And I think that everybody in the community would agree with that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Ok Mr. Scarpelli. I think we both know each other well, George. We're all neighbors here. We all know each other. We all know each other. Our children play together. So the ongoing bullying is inappropriate and is what our children are seeing. And that's what I would like to specifically point out. We wanna figure out how to work, should collaborate together to change outcomes for all children. And I'm not gonna be shamed, I'm not gonna be blamed and I'm not gonna be named and neither should any of us. And I would ask that our city council members across the board and that our community across the board stand up to bullies everywhere. And we make sure that this stops in our community and in our schools. And I'm here to do that. And I'm here to roll up my sleeves and help make sure that that happens. And I think we all should be doing that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Uh huh.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The social media piece of it is really upsetting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's a huge challenge, especially for bullying, especially for videos being distributed, for videos being given to the news media, for information being shared, for people politicizing situation is terrible. And the children are the social media piece of it. The bullying element on social media is compounded exponentially. So when we talk about resources that we need, we need resources to help support our children's mental health. It is a mental health crisis right now. because of what people are dealing with on the daily.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I, may I please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So this is what we're talking about. This is the barraging. This is the sort of, you know, back and forth with people trying to intimidate people. I think it's really important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? Yes, for one moment, if you don't mind, Superintendent, is that okay? I'm not answering your question. May I, through the chair?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I just wanted to say that to Councilor Tseng and Councilor Collins remarks earlier about people who are intimidated to come up to this podium and who are not able to speak for a number of reasons publicly. to please feel free to reach out for solution oriented options, because we are willing and open to listen to community members. This is a community problem. This is not seven people that are gonna solve a problem. It's not one person that's gonna solve a problem. This is a community systemic problem, and it's a national problem. And we need all hands working together. We don't need people yelling at people. We need people collaborating. And I don't know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's the superintendent that's answering.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? So thank you. I'm Melanie McLaughlin. I'm a school committee member. I'm also a parent of three, two Medford high school graduates, one current Medford public school student. I've lived in Medford for 23 years and I'm here tonight specifically because I want to support the superintendent in her role and because I want to support the school committee and the parents and families and students in the city. We're all heartbroken about what has happened to our children. or the past few months, but it has not been just the past few months. And there are plenty of people in the community that know that and that understand that it has been years. We've had a bullying problem. Most high schools have bullying problems. There's a rise in violence. It's national. You can see it all over the country. It is happening, particularly because of pandemic, but also because of the politicized nature of the hatred that exists in communities between polarized sides. And our children are often mimicking what they're seeing their adults do. And what I think is really important is what we've heard from city council members who are talking about finding solutions to work together, to collaborate, to change systems for all of our children, not some of our children, all of our children. This has been ongoing. We're talking about not just the past four years of this administration, meaning this particular superintendent. This has been an ongoing problem from when other people were on school committee. from when people have been around for some time. I want to clarify for the community and for city Councilors. I'm not afraid of being yelled at. I just don't like it. I think it's inappropriate and unprofessional. And when we talk about bullying in our community, I have never seen more of an example of bullying in our community that I see in the city council chambers every single week. And I think that everybody in the community would agree with that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we both know each other well, George. We're all neighbors here. We all know each other. We all know each other. Our children play together.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great choice of support. So the ongoing bullying is inappropriate and is what our children are seeing. And that's what I would like to specifically point out. We wanna figure out how to work, should collaborate together to change outcomes for all children. And I'm not gonna be shamed, I'm not gonna be blamed and I'm not gonna be named and neither should any of us. And I would ask that our city council members across the board and that our community across the board stand up to bullies everywhere. And we make sure that this stops in our community and in our schools. And I'm here to do that, and I'm here to roll up my sleeves and help make sure that that happens. And I think we all should be doing that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's a huge challenge, especially for bullying, especially for videos being distributed, for videos being given to the news media, for information being shared, for people politicizing situation is terrible. And the children are the social media piece of it. The bullying element on social media is compounded exponentially. So when we talk about resources that we need, we need resources to help support our children's mental health.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I can I may I please? Sure. So this is what we're talking about. This is the barraging. This is the sort of, you know, back and forth with people trying to intimidate people. I think it's really important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? Yes, for one moment, if you don't mind to pretend, is that okay? I'm not answering your question. May I? To the chair? Yes. Thank you. So I just wanted to say that to Councilor Tseng and Councilor Collins remarks earlier about people who are intimidated to come up to this podium. and who are not able to speak for a number of reasons publicly to please feel free to reach out for solution oriented options because we are willing and open to listen to community members. This is a community problem. This is not seven people that are going to solve a problem. It's not one person that's going to solve a problem. This is a community systemic problem and it's a national problem and we need all hands working together. We don't need people yelling at people. We need people collaborating.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: you're not willing to listen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. I think it's unfortunate when a city Councilor won't have a back and forth with constituents as well. And I am a constituent and I would like to have a conversation. I would say that it is inaccurate to say that nothing has been done. That's not accurate. Number one, our police have been involved. Our school Councilors have been involved. And particularly from someone who served on the other side of this table, and you know what the restrictions are, to sit here and politicize in front of cameras is completely egregious. and unacceptable, I'm sorry, Mr. Scarpelli. And my children go to school as well, and I worry about all of our children. I'm not here because it's enjoyable, I'm here because I care as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There are laws that we have to follow, and I know that you understand that because you were on their side. But you're not explaining that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I wanted to add in terms of the isolated incident, I believe that, you know, if there are officers here and or the superintendent that wants to speak to what that actually means, it means that It was an isolated incident in the bathroom in that instance. It does not mean that there's not a systemic issue that has been ongoing and that we understand that. This was an isolated incident today in terms of what happened to this individual student in the school today at this time. That was the isolated incident. It's not that any of these are isolated incidents. We know there's a systemic issue. That's why we're here to try to help change that. But it takes more than seven people to change a school district. It takes a community. It takes a community working together to change a school district. It takes a city council that is willing to work with their school committee and not get up here and yell at them in front of TV cameras. It takes working together as a community, all of us. and being good examples for our children, not bullying each other, not yelling at each other, not fighting with each other.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just I just remember my girlfriend. Thank you. I just wanted to thank the students for their bravery and coming up and speaking I think it's really important and I think it's really important that the students know that you can reach out to us an email phone call phone number everything's published on the website, you can reach out to us anytime to we don't know some of the circumstances that you're sharing because we're not necessarily allowed to know I'm not asking that you're sharing private information about other folks. But I am saying in your own experience, if you wanted to share your own experience, we're here to listen to you as well. Because some of the things I think I knew that before I was on school committee, I assumed school committee knew everything that was going on. That's not accurate. We don't know everything that's going on, because there are personnel issue, there are FERPA, there's lots of laws that don't allow us to know specifics of what's going on. And I know people think, keep thinking, Oh, they keep saying laws and laws. No, there really is. We're not even, I don't know. There's other people from the community come to me and tell me things that they understand from their children, telling them that in high school, I don't know the circumstances because central administration is not allowed to tell us certain things because of laws. So it's really important that you guys know that we are, you're our constituents as well. You can reach out anytime. And I think it's really brave that you're willing to get up tonight and speak. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to say thank you. I think it's, I'm really sorry about what happened to your daughter, and what continues to happen to your daughter. And I think coming up and offering solutions like an example of that is a really great example of things that we can do and that we can put into place I think you're right you know we should be able to send out a letter and say if your child is not involved in email or something on our website. If your child if you weren't contacted your child was not involved, I think that's completely reasonable and I think being able to have back and forth with folks like you who have had real experience on the ground is really important. And I wanna hear from you. I haven't heard from you. I would really like to hear from you, especially when you say your daughter's different and she's being bullied because she's different. Nobody should be bullied and especially nobody should be bullied because they're different. So however we can help, I do wanna talk and think about positive solutions that we can come up with together. So please reach out or leave me your, I'll take your phone, whatever, leave your number whenever. And I'm really, really sorry about your daughter. And if there's anything I can do to help improve that, please really reach out. And I know my colleagues feel similarly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Wow. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to ask if I might speak in order. Yes. Thank you. I just, thank you, Mr. Began. for your comments. I think that there's a little bit of misinformation in that as well. And I'm sorry that people feel that we're being corny, but I do have to say that there are very strict laws. However, that said, in terms of FERPA and other things, I know people don't wanna hear it, but it is the fact, like it really is, number one. Number two, we should care about all of our kids, right? We really should care about all of our kids and we really should. And I don't know the circumstances of today. I know what I'm hearing from other people. I know what the bit that I've heard Um, from, from administration or what have you, but I don't know the details. I don't even entirely know the details from the previous event because of some of the things that I am not literally allowed to know because of the law. Now you guys do because, or I assume many do. If you have children in the high school, your children can come home and tell you who that child was. Maybe if you have kids in elementary school that you don't, it gets to the grapevine. People start talking in the community. It was this kid. It was that kid. That's how people know who that is. Number one. But You know, as a, as an individual, we can't say that, but I do want to say like going back to the bullying law, when we're talking about laws being changed, laws being changed, like the bullying law in Massachusetts, do people know how that law was created? Right? Phoebe, right from Western Massachusetts, the girl that was bullied to death, right? That was the law that happened here. We don't, none of us want to see this happen with our kids. None of us want to see a Parkland. or Newtown or any of those things. This is horrible. We know this is horrible. I'm losing sleep over it. I'm sure you guys are losing sleep over it. It's my kids too. It's your kids too. We all really care. I know people are groaning because it's like drone on, drone on. You know what? I care too. I really, really do. And what are we going to do about it? People are coming up here saying change the law. How do you change the law? Do you guys know how you do that? Same thing, I've been advocating for years for laws to be changed. I go to the State House, I protest, I do hearings, I give my story, I do all kinds of stuff. I don't just get to go. Change the law. I wish I did. We don't. But we can, as a community, get together and make a friggin' difference and change our schools. Like, we can do that. So we have to work together. We can't fight with each other. Follow the handbook. If it says, okay, if it says, if the handbook says. okay if a handbook says there's a weapon and if the handbook says there's a weapon and weapons result in expulsion if that's what the handbook says then that I assume is going to be what is going to be happening because that is what the handbook says but if there's a legal issue that we don't know about because maybe there's some presumption of innocence for something not this case I don't know I'm talking about any cases we don't know all the details nor do you so we can't just automatically and arbitrarily say this is what should happen with that kid and that's what should happen with this kid that's not how it works But you know what? I can sit here and argue with you guys all day long. You don't want to hear it because you're angry, and I don't blame you. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I know. I don't blame you. When your kid is in danger, you feel your kid is threatened, I would be the exact same way. I have been the exact same way. We should be. But how do we turn this negativity into community and frigging collaborate? Oh, just follow the handbook. That's all we have to do? No, that's not all we have to do. That's not going to change at all. No, it's not. I disagree, but I'm happy to work with anybody that does want to make positive change. Thank you. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, the specifics about who the other students were with regard to your daughter's situation, I still don't know their names.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to say it is a very complicated issue. I appreciate Gail Reggie and saying that earlier, but also all the family members and especially like the Like member Graham was saying a moment ago, the students that came out tonight, it was exceptionally brave, particularly Jacqueline on her 16th birthday was exceptionally brave. What no one should have to go through, what any of these children have gone through, both as people who have been there and seen what's happened and people who have been victims. I think that we all recognize that bullying is not something new. It's something that's been ongoing. It escalates for sure during times of stress and tension, This has been an extremely stressful couple of years for everybody. Last year, we had a family and community engagement assessment come in from DESE to talk about family and community engagement. And we weren't ready for that assessment because we were just really trying to recover from getting our kids back into school and COVID. But one of the things that they did say that these outside folks said was that we had a lot of work to do on family and community engagement. And they offered to come back again and work with us. And we were not able to do that because we were so prioritizing so many other things and family engagement has to be critical for us. It has to be something where it is a back and forth. So we're not shouting at each other and trying to figure out who's blaming who and shame and everything. We have to work together to be able to do this. I know that I've been saying this earlier tonight and most especially, most especially we have to listen to the students. So we have to figure out a way that we're gonna listen to the students too. So I appreciate member Graham's motion. I second that and I'm sure we'll have deeper conversations about how we're going to do that, but we are going to do that. We're going to find a forum. and more than one for our students to be heard as well. So I want folks that are out there listening to know that, but also I know that there are folks out there, you know who you are, who we've dealt with other stuff last year, maybe the year before related to bullying. This is not the first time of bullying in Medford public schools. It's not the first time bullying in most public schools. It is an ongoing issue. We see this, especially, I sent a family member, I mean, a community member, an article from Ed Week this week that talked about the higher incidence and rate of violence in our public schools right now. and bullying and what's happening in the mental health, major mental health crisis we have nationally in our country, both because of the pandemic, but also because we're all at each other's throats because we're exhausted and beat and tired. And the kids are watching this too. And I just hope that we can figure out a way that we're going to be able to collaborate and work together to move forward because that's where I'm at. That's what I want to do. And I really appreciate member Graham's motion. So I second that motion and thank you all for tonight. I know it was painful and it's going to continue to be painful. adaptive work, so technical work is the stuff that's the low-hanging fruit, the things you can do sort of easily, lock the doors, maybe get an SRO, things that are sort of technical. The adaptive change, the changing our hearts and minds, really being able to think about what the root of the problem is, that's painful. It takes longer, but we can do it if we're able to work together to do it. I know that we can, and I hope that we can. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. It was a great podcast, by the way. I highly recommend it. Um, but it's also sort of going back to, so that's the other thing is that the science of reading is not new. It, you know, it was one thing and then people tried something else for awhile and then they're going back to sort of what has been known to be the fundamental of phonics and really looking at the science of it, as opposed to just sort of the practice and trying new things and what's actually worked.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just want to make sure folks have the plan. Where can they locate it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And everyone has access to the chat to be able to access the plan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. It's good to see the amount of people here tonight and folks that are able to speak up. It's appreciated. I think that there's some work to do in this area for sure. And this is something that you know we've experienced personally in our family and over the years I've been supporting families that have experienced. Similar scenarios. So I think the documents a lot to digest, I will say that it's a lot for a family to sit down and read. It's a lot for probably an educator or administrator, even though you know we know it's their job to also sit down and read. So I, one of the off the top recommendations that I would have and I want to put out there is that you know, me, the visual learner, I talk about this a lot, right? Having a visual flow chart, you know, sort of image that is shared, what to do if, you know, if this, then that, what happens, what the process is and sort of a visual, you know, one page sort of chart that can help families and everybody understand what this process is and what happens. In middle school, we had a similar experience. I did not know anything about a bullying report form. Although we had gone to the principal at the time, just not a principal who's here with us any longer, but it was some time ago, but did not know anything about this, except for the fact that our CPAC, our Special Ed Parent Advisory Council, had a training on bullying. And at the time the special education director Kathy Medaglio came and helped give the training and that was when I learned that there was a bullying report form that was required to be filed in that training. And that was training for parents to be clear, professional training for parents to understand so that's the other thing I think really needs to happen in terms of I know this professional development. I'm sure there's professional development that will be coming out as a result of recent events, but also as a result of this document. And I want to ensure that there's also family training around this. And this was something that we had asked for specifically at the time as well, back in middle school, that there be some sort of, you know, they said there was an annual presentation in the auditorium or that they brought outside vendors in around this, but it was not really, you know, that I was aware of really fully understood or explained to parents. And I think it's something that should be happening regularly so that families can understand what their rights are and what the processes are. So in summary, I would say one, a lot to digest. Two, I really recommend a visual for also just for our families who have language barriers, a visual support and one that is translated to one page. visual support and one that's translated for our families, and three, that there be training offered for our families in addition to our professional development for staff. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh. It's Member McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, just as a committee member before we start dialogue with the specific other programming. I also just wanted to be clear and make sure that we point out that I know that Joan Bowen's not here tonight, understandably, but I also want to make very clear that students with disabilities have requirements in their IEPs. that they are given, you know, bullying information, that their families have bullying plans in place, and that the child has been educated regarding bullying. And, you know, it's unclear how or when or in what ways those are followed, but there's very specific training for students with disabilities and with their families, and also, you know, training around manifestation hearings and whether an incident is related to a disability or not, it's very important and very highly legislated. And I just wanna make sure that we're all really clear about that and that as we move forward, folks are provided that training or offered some training around that as well. And I certainly have resources for that. Dr. Edouard-Vincent, if you're interested in them and I'm happy to share them with you offline, but just wanted to put that out there. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate talking about the process. I think for me, it would be really helpful to have a shared Google Doc that we're editing together, not necessarily during this meeting, but one that we can bring back to the next meeting as opposed to having just elements cut out all together and having a new document that we're working from, because I really want to make sure that it's collaborative, number one, and that we understand what is going and what isn't, because something that may look non-essential to me or you might actually be extremely essential in terms of the law. So what I would recommend is that we have, this is, I love Google Docs, I think this is a great choice. And I think that we can be working on this document, as you know, simultaneously and also be keeping a record of sort of the work that we're doing and the comments and what have you that we make as opposed to having one person do the bulk of the work and then coming back to the table with it. So that would be my recommendation. I think it's important that it's collaborative and that we really understand the edits that you're proposing and being able to take time to absorb how that affects what's left in there and or whether or not there are some legal issues, as I said, because particularly with students with disabilities, there's a lot of legal matters that we have to make sure that we're abiding by. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, sorry, to be clear, I think what I'm not suggesting that we're editing it simultaneously, unless that's what Howard is saying we need to do. Howard is our attorney, the school committee's attorney, attorney Greenspan, is suggesting that we need to do that. I'm saying that we would, independent of each other, look at I guess the work that you're sharing here and be able to have our own input that potentially we could share at the next meeting so that we're not just cutting things today and not having a reference as to what was cut and why and where. I think it's important to have documents that we can follow back the thread of thought in terms of what was being done. But I agree, I think it's worth asking Attorney Greenspan about what the open meeting law requirements are. main purpose for speaking up with this is that I'm not comfortable just taking out big chunks of material without knowing and taking time to look at the document as a whole to see how or whether it affects other bits of material, particularly in terms of legal. And so I'm not really clear on what the process would be to do that because it's a 38 page document, but we should consider that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you know I was just, that was hard, a little bit for I think It sounds a little hard to understand maybe for the layperson, I guess, you know, I would concur with member Graham around maybe setting aside the plan, which is the 38 page document that folks are looking at this is what's been in place in Medford and is the currently published plan. That would be created by the superintendent and her team, essentially, and if I understand correctly, the school committee has to approve the plan. Every five years but I mean we certainly can have input into it. I don't think we create it, but we can have policy attached to, you know, some of the procedural stuff, when does the plan occur, some of the stuff of definition, what is the plan, that sort of thing. And looking towards other systems that have created this, I think are good examples. I know DESE has a ton of guidance on this. And there's lots of other things that we could do. So I would agree that we should, as the rules, policy and equity subcommittee, we should really be focusing on policy first. I think it's great to have the document of the plan and know that we have that as we are reviewing it and looking at it as the superintendent and her team will clearly need to work on the revision of it and also have it vetted through obviously attorneys and all the things that we need to do. We can offer advice like we think it needs an org chart. I mean, not an org chart, a flow chart. We think it needs, you know, translation, you know, those sorts of things that we think. But to be clear, you know, for folks who are on here, some folks know, some folks don't, you know, the school committee's role is to to hire and supervise the, sorry, hire and evaluate the superintendent, approve and plan the budget, and set policy. So those are our three specific, you know, tasks that we're given. And we, you know, do get a lot of training at the MASC around, you know, we had our recent conference, the MASC and MASS combined conference, but we get a lot of training around what We can and cannot do and how you know we should not get in the weeds too much with administration and team so that you know folks can run but that we also have obviously our authority around approving material and. and policy specifically. So I think that there is a little bit of, we're in the weeds a little bit with what's what here. So I would agree with member Graham that if we could focus on policy first, I think that would be helpful. I know that the plan obviously informs some of the policy. So that is a little bit tricky, especially around some of the definitions, but I think it would be great if we could start maybe talking about what we think policy should look like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You mean within the policy or within the plan? Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, actually, it was up again. I actually just wanted to ask if you could share, and we can also do this legwork before the next meeting as well, obviously, but it seems like you've done some in terms of looking at policies for other schools. So if you want to share some of those links, that would be really helpful in the chat that we could sort of look at. And I think that, you know, if we, I guess I would ask the superintendent or some of the administration, if you were letting the lay people in the community know, what districts would you say are comparable to Medford in terms of demographics, sort of, you know, so that we're comparing apples to apples in some ways. We can also go with, you know, best practices that we think are from districts that we think are really working well, but I'm just, as we often compare districts to districts, I want folks to know which districts are sort of similar to Medford. If anyone can sort of share that, that would be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So motion to- Motion to move the student participation to the rules subcommittee. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just a reminder that we have the meeting for the school committee goals, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you for the report. And if I'm understanding correctly, the 120 across the grades compared to the 60 at the other schools is just, it's a demand issue, right? Like there's more demand at the Brooks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But they're all at 60.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And when you do the report for the spring, can I ask respectfully that you might include data specific to our English learner population and our student with disability population?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I guess what I'm hearing in terms of the equity and I'm not sure that there's a quick answer to this, but I think what I'm hearing is that part of the equity issue is the longstanding practice of if you have the slot, you retain the slot. And then if you have siblings, then they get access to the slot. And so I guess it begs the question, and again, not one that I think could be answered tonight, but one that perhaps should be considered among the afterschool program and the district as a whole is, you know, is it wipe the slate clean and start with the lottery every year? Or what's the more equitable solution? And I don't know what that is, but I'm just putting that out there, because I think that's what I'm hearing this particular individual?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to ask if you can, can you, for folks that are listening that might not know, put in place
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And they're- Excuse me, Shanine, sorry, point of information. Can I just ask, when we use acronyms, if we can just say that, yes, so DESE, EEC, and EI, no- EEC.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I also wanted to say thank you for the presentation, for the commitment, Janine. Janine and I first met at Communitas today, at Swim Lessons for my baby daughter with a disability. She was five. She's about to be 15 for Swim Lessons. And the commitment that you have to persons with disability is really outstanding. And the commitment that you've had to this project has been so remarkable into your community. I wanted to say thank you so much for that and also to all of the committee members who have been so active and we had such good dialogue and, you know, I think good heartedness and people really wanting to do the right thing by our children and Medford as a whole, all of our children, all of our community. And it's such a relief, frankly, to have something really positive in our community. to be looking at and to be looking forward to. And I did want to share this story, and I know you folks have heard it, but not everybody has, and so I do want to share it, is that years ago, there was a family here in Medford. I was first learning about disability and disability advocacy. It was a mother who was working with a family leadership series as part of a state organization. She's a Medford mom. She had a teenage daughter at the time, who was in a wheelchair very complex medical needs and about. She had a birth injury, and her daughter was about 15 but had sort of the intellectual ability of a less than one year old and very physically not mobile. and was in Metro Public Schools, but was in a residential program because of her complex medical needs. But even in residential programs, our complex medically, complex children with medical needs come home, right, for holidays, vacations, summer vacations, what have you. This particular little girl, when she would come home with her mom, who did not have access to a vehicle, what have you, to get around as much as she wanted to, had no place to take her daughter. She had no playground to go to, and all her daughter wanted to do was swing. She loved to swing. And she was in a wheelchair, and there was no ability for her to swing. And so I knew when this project came about that I really wanted to work on it, and also that I really wanted to make sure that there was an ability for a person with a disability in a wheelchair to be able to get on a swing with their child, who really needed it. and you know this is probably the thing I'll be most proud of having worked on as a school committee member and I'm really so you know honored that you guys are part of this and that member Graham and everybody else in the community is part of this and I really want to know in terms of donating sign me up if you need you know I'm happy to donate whatever whatever we need to try to make this happen I think this is really critical so thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If I if I may from me and the chair member of the nation. How is it how is that being chosen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just had a question for, again, the lay person who doesn't understand or needs clarification or whatever. What exactly is a tentative agreement?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Make a motion to take the good of the order off the table.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. for the good of the order, which is basically us assessing how we're doing collaboratively as a school committee. And we review monthly what we need to do. I know in the past we talked about and we approved a motion for us to meet to set school committee goals. And I know that we talked about that potentially happening as a committee of the whole. So I was wondering if we could consider this as a committee of the whole before one of our monthly meetings next month. and in which case, if we do, I know that I shared some information earlier about the MASC conference, but there was definitely a session there in particular that the MASC offers. In fact, it's our rep, Dorothy Presser, that offers it specifically on school committee goals, but also aligning those goals with superintendent goals. So I'm sure that could be available to us as a recording. I think they recorded several of the sessions and or as a PowerPoint, if we want those ahead of time to prepare for the meeting. So I guess I'm putting out there for my colleagues if we can consider a meeting, a committee of the whole to address our school committee goals here for next month.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a great idea. I was also wondering, and thank you for bringing that up through the chair, member Hays, because I was wondering if there's an opportunity for them to have a microphone as well so that they don't have to come and sit with us sort of to be able to speak. So if we can get, even if, I mean, there's so many opportunities for wireless mics, whatever here, we don't have to have them wired in. I'm sure between our media center and John McLaughlin, we can get something set up so that there's a microphone where they are able to stay in their seat and speak like the rest of us. I think that would be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right. Is there any kind of a timeline on when that might happen? I know sometimes it can take a while for the technology piece. So maybe in the interim, we could start with a wireless option or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, for now. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, there we go. Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin. Thank you, John. And then lastly, is there an opportunity that we can get them just a student rep nameplate? Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be great. Yeah, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, thank you for the information. There's helpful information here. And I wanted to ask if the, to clarify if the 37H and a half and 37H and three quarter are specific to students with disability, or are there other items on here that are specific to students with disability?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So that manifestation hearing happens if there's a 10 day suspension, is that right? It's if you get more than 10 days cumulatively. Cumulatively over the year, it doesn't have to be consecutively.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then the manifestation hearing is a manifestation of whether their disability influenced the discipline.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's super helpful. I just want people to understand the nuances of the law, which obviously all law has nuance, I really appreciate you mentioning that. Thanks so much. Yeah, of course. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bowen. I know this is a lot of work to put together. This is not obviously the coordinated program review this is the annual le a correct so we it's it's Ted focus monitoring now so there's no longer the correct morning yeah yeah it's yeah so we had done that they love to change that they do they just so you see FM and that was last year where we yeah right yeah and that's the every three year one and yes the annual. to differentiate. Correct. And then the indicators, those are the SPP APR indicators. Is that what you're talking about? Yes. Yep. Would it be possible, and if not, I can go online and get it if you're not, or if your staff's not available, but would it be possible to get a list of the indicators, just indicators one through nine?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So it's a single sheet. Let me just get it for you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So it looks like this, it says IVC. Yeah, thank you. So that's, thank you, that's super helpful. And so those are all, yeah, looking at, those are all the indicators that the state looks at in terms of the special education.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So do they randomize what indicators that we report on at the beginning and the end?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so if I understand you correctly, you're saying that It's a randomized indicator list that you get at the beginning of the year that tell you what indicators your cohorts going to be responsible for reporting on correct have the 17 indicators that there are. And so you get to annually that you report no currently we have.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So that would be great if maybe at the beginning of the year, if we could know what the three are, if you wouldn't mind letting us know in the beginning of the year what the three are that are being reported on so we can kind of keep an eye on those. I can actually show you the schedule of what it looks like and what the activities are that we're responsible throughout the year. Sure, that would be awesome. Thank you. And then what was the other thing I was going to ask you? Oh, and thank you for the breakdown on the public school monitoring compliance in terms of the PRS complaints, that's super helpful. We've asked PRS for that data in the past, and it's been a little bit trickier to get, so it's nice to hear it from you. Much appreciated. And then regarding 504 and OCR, were there any, so Office of Civil Rights complaint or the procedural safeguards for 504, but also students with IEPs. So I know there was the public school monitoring, was there any OCR complaints? No, there were not. Okay. Thank you. And then a 78.3%. And certainly while there's, you know, there's been lots of great things that have been happening, I don't know what the great equivalent is just not being a teacher and having had a report card myself a little while. What would a 78.3% be a great equivalent, I would say, maybe.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if you could generalize with a B minus or a C plus, if you were talking to your student or somebody, you know, your child and you were saying, okay, what, you know, you did okay, but let's think about what the room for improvement is and what can we work on? What would you say those things?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then thank you. And then just one last thing there was what was the other one that was the 68.5% to six out of eight. So one was the two out of four, which is the annual dropout rate. The other one was the six out of eight, which was the indicators five and six, which is my indicator cheat sheet. Five and six are educational environments and preschool environment, right? Correct. So educational environment or percentage of children with IEPs, five and six served inside regular class, 80% or more inside regular class, less than 40%. So it's the inclusion rate. Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, I see the criteria. Yeah. So is that saying that there's room for improvement on our inclusion data? Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks. Super helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, I just have one more question. Thank you. I just wanted to know about guidance when we get guidance from OSAP or from DESE. You know, I know that there was the disability guidance, I mean, the discipline guidance that we had over the summer from OSAP. There's just different letters that come out from the Office of Special Education Planning and Policy and from DESE as a whole in terms of disability related issues across the country. but that are specific to our state as well. How does that information get distributed from your office?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Does the general education population teachers get any of that guidance information or does that come strictly to the tails and disseminate from them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. No, this wasn't offered. Thank you. That was great. Yeah, there's a typo. I just wanted to make note of it is college life. I see that you recognize that, so thank you. That could be reflected and fixed in the minutes. That would be great. And as the superintendent was saying earlier, this is a landmark. Legislation that representative Garber Lee was a key. driver in the macy legislation so macy is mass inclusive concurrent enrollment program and. Sean has just really represented Garber Lee has just really been pushing this uphill for several years. And as stated for our students that don't achieve MCAS passing on the 10th grade MCAS, which is a requirement for a high school diploma, this allows them to go to post-secondary education and for their, not to be impeded by their disability to do that. So these students can attend college life and be part of a college campus and all those things that are afforded to students without disabilities. It's a big, big deal for, families and students with disabilities. And I just want to publicly recognize Representative Garber for the work through a formal letter that can come from the superintendent's office. I'm happy to help you compose the letter if you feel that there's a need for that. But something that's just formally recognizing is really important. And then also the resolution that the Macy initiative is recognized in our public school district as part of our high school transition program, which I know that that's been the case. As it was being formed and before it was actually law when it was just the inclusive concurrent enrollment program it was called ice at the time. But I know that it's state law i'm sure that it will be part of the transition program I just want to make sure that it's recognized it such by this body. So if I could have a motion to approve, I would appreciate it motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. So, yes, I'm just looking for information on all of these data points. There are some of this on our DESE student profiles, which I'd like to be reviewed when we do go over the report which is indicated here in terms of the data elements and I would encourage colleagues if there's anything else that they wanted to add here to please do so but I think that this is important information that we can all benefit from so hoping that we can get this.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, that would be in comparison to the data that's here as well, because I think The question number five should answer some of that around the incident reports collected and how we're notified in terms of the data for the discipline that you're talking about, but I'd be willing to accept that amendment and make a motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, I heard you on the first three but I'm not sure what you mean by other because that can be really vast for the administration to try to address.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So, I guess I would just clarify that to say and if there are other what So did you, if you got that, yeah. Sorry, that was a mouthful. It was a mouthful. So I would accept that and make a motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, yeah, so I was curious if Shanine was asking us for a deliverable to recommend as part of what we're bringing forward from the subcommittee to the school committee that is included with the request. I'm not sure what specifically you are asking for, Shanine, and I just wanted to make sure that we had some quick clarification on that, just like one, two, this is what I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just going to add that it you know this feels like the conversation that she was having at the top of the meeting around child directed play so it sounds like there's a lot of options and opportunities for different. decisions that the child can make, you know, going from the library to whether they choose to, you know, switch out from an after school option to during the day. So I think that could cover it with a very clear definition, but I'm curious to hear what other folks think. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I don't know I would disagree with some of that, respectfully, I think that in terms of recess I think it's super important for most kids and I do believe in logical consequences when logical consequences can be understood and when there's a direct correlation. There's lots of times that you know kids with disabilities and others might not be able to understand the direct correlation between recess and having it taken away and behavior. And so that's much more complicated in terms of behavior plans and all of the things that we know go into place. But, and a lot of times our kids who we may see more behavior with have a higher need for exercise, like folks who might be identified as having ADHD or things like that. So, and we also potentially see disproportionality in, punishment, if you will, for students with disabilities and minorities, particularly. Not necessarily speaking specifically to our district and our data, but we know that that's an issue in education as a whole. And hopefully we will be looking at some of our data overall. But I think that those are factors that need to be considered as well. And back to what Shannon was saying a few minutes ago as well in terms of you know, ensuring that families have and understand home notices for requirements for their children to go outside or what have you, I think maybe we could work with the community to ensure that there are some extra, especially at the elementary, well, at all the school levels, that there are extra codes, like what we saw at Missituk with the PTO at Missituk, because there may be families that actually don't have that, or, you know, families where they're not able to provide that or don't understand what's being asked of that. whole host of situations that I just want to make sure we're thinking outside the margins for all of our children. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to just also comment on micromanaging I think that you know you guys are professionals we know that. And we know that you're got a lot of things that you're handling and a lot of balls in the air that you have to handle so and I know it takes more than one person, right? So it's not one principal, it's not one superintendent, it's not one school committee member, it's all of us together collectively as a community working on improving our schools and our BCBAs and our school adjustment Councilors and all of those things that we clearly need. And so I guess to Mr. O'Brien's point, I would say, is there data collected on that? Because I think it would be really interesting. And I know you as educators know that data tells a story. And so really looking at what your data is telling you. So if you are doing, if teachers are doing that, what is the data telling you? Who are the people that that is happening to? Who are the teachers that are doing that? Is there disproportionality there? Is there not? I think that really sort of being able to have some of the data on that too is important. And so that can help us really understand better. Because I think part of the, and I may be mistaken, but I think part of the reason that this is being brought to the policy floor. And part of it is because we didn't have one, but also because as school committee members and as community members, we hear, we do hear stories from families specifically around some of these consequences around recess. And we want to be able to bring families and schools together and families and administrators together to make sure that we're all coming up with effective solutions. I would just encourage if that was going to be the case, that data be collected and that somehow that data be disaggregated and shared so that we can understand what that is and what it looks like. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Um, yeah, so I guess to that point in terms of the data, um, you know, some families may not know that their Children are not going to recess. So, you know, we do have some Children in the district who do not communicate with words who, you know, um, you know, are not able to tell their family if they went out to recess that day or not. So the question I have as well in terms of the data is our families being notified. You know, if their child is not allowed to go to recess and how. And so I guess that's a piece of it too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, driving. I wanted to thank everyone for being here and thank you for recapping what we wanted to look at I'm wondering when you're saying the next meeting which meeting you mean, because there's lots of meetings. So that's one thing and then the other is. I love the idea of professional development and I know you know some people may grown at you know additional professional development, what have you, but having you know just come back from the mass association of school committees conference association of school superintendent conference. There were so many great sessions there and there were some sessions specific to this. and specific to just, you know, the social emotional needs of kids in our schools. And we know that we are in a mental health crisis around, you know, the pandemic and the data and what we're seeing in terms of data for increase in behavioral health supports and needs and counseling and, you know, hospitalization and suicides. And I mean, all of it, it's just off the hook as I'm sure you guys are dealing with every single day. I support very much the professional development piece, and I thank you for bringing that up, because I think it's an important piece.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, just for the rest of the room. And that's, that's all drafted in subcommittee. But then that has to go before our entire committee. And then they, you know, based on recommendations or not, vote on it. So this is not a final, you know, process. It's just one step in the next process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, now I am. They unmuted me. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excellent, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep, we will.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm sorry I'm remote, but I wanted to say. Thank you for folks who are coming forward to speak up. I think this is a really important issue. This was, we actually had suspension and discipline on the agenda at the last meeting. And that was deferred to have school committee members come back with some notifications about what they wanted to ask about suspension and discipline particular to reports. So we had had that on the last agenda and that hadn't happened. I just wanted to mention that because that's important. And it was one of the discussions that we had that we were gonna have that. Um and then, you know this incident happened, and everybody obviously. Was in a tailspin dealing with all of that. I also just wanted some clarification if I could on the on the section that says be it also resolved that the project scope. Will include recommendations to address past handling of incidents that are race, gender, or bullying biased. Just specifically around that, I wanted to make an amendment that included disability. So race, disability, gender, or bullying bias is the request I'm making for an amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The MIC is not on sorry man.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, I'm not sure if you can see my hand because it's on Facebook, sorry, or on Zoom, sorry. I just wanted to be clear that Dr. Edouard-Vincent is our superintendent, and we are all part of the team, and it's all of our children, and we are all mothers. And when we talk about our schools, the community is part of our schools, our teachers are part of our schools, the school committee is part of our schools, our superintendent, the central administration team, all of us are part of our schools, and we all As Miss Branley was saying earlier, what can we do to help? We all need to work together to be able to improve our schools. And to, I think it's unfair, frankly, to put blame on one person for anything that happens within our schools. This is a collective community environment for all of our schools. What happened is tragic. And I think we're all heartsick over it and we all want to improve our school and we're all here for the children. And I just wanna just make that point because we're a team. And I know Dr. Edouard-Vincent has been with our team for a few years now and it's not easy turning around a district after 25 to 27 years of somebody else being the lead in the district and a whole different administration. So I just had to say that, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, with the amendment, yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I did, Melanie.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to thank Ms. Galusi for talking about the importance of the improvement rating so that it's not just about what the scores are, but that it's really about seeing students improving over time as well, because that's a really important piece of data that we're seeing the improvement piece. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Member McLaughlin. We can continue.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I am, but I can't open my video.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bowen for the presentation. I was wondering, we had a family ask, is there an option for if you want to opt out of MCAS alt?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: what doesn't impact the district scores if they opt out? Yes. In the standard MCAS. Oh, in standard MCAS, right, right. But in MCAS also doesn't. So in other words, there are, you can opt out of MCAS all just as you could regular MCAS. Anybody can do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. That's what I needed to answer. Thank you. And thanks for the presentation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Seary for the presentation. I also just wanted to ask, I really appreciate you putting on the presentation, the collaboration with other departments, specifically growing the collaboration with the EL and special education departments. And it's really great to see that. I think we talk a lot about sort of breaking down silos and working collaboratively. And I really think we need to see more of that, frankly. Um, even to be able to have the MCAS alt presentations these past two years has been super helpful. Um, but I would like to know just collectively, not just from you, but collectively, I guess, and it could, I'm sure it's a bigger question, but I would like it to be part of the presentation or follow-up is how are we addressing our achievement gaps, right? So we know that our lowest performing subgroups are our students with disabilities. Our English learners are economically disadvantaged. And so what is our achievement gap and how are we addressing it in terms of being able to bridge those gaps? I know that we have a bigger gap now, obviously with COVID and the COVID numbers, but I'm wondering how we're really thinking about this in terms of equity, which is one of our core values in terms of our whole district wide plan. So not to put you on the spot here, I know you're one of several, but I just think collectively as a team, how are we thinking about this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, can I just actually follow up with one thing, Mayor, just in response?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So thank you for that. And I appreciate student growth percentiles as well. I think it's important to look at. It's important, obviously, to be positive and especially amid a pandemic and all the work that's been done. So I want to stress that I understand that as well. I also just wanted to add that I know that we all know that every student is a general education student and some students receive EL services or special education services. So we're all general students, but also just wanted to hope that even with the NWEA presentation, which is great that it's three times a year and I'll do respect to Desi as well. This is a one-time assessment annually. And part of the assessment is to look at what the achievement gap is and who is or is not achieving and what that looks like. So I guess I would just ask respectfully in presentations, if we can also, or even maybe there's another presentation, I don't know, I would defer to Central on this as well. If we can talk about what the achievement gap is and how we're actually addressing it, I think it would be really helpful. Because I think if we don't name things, then they can just be ambiguous and people don't really understand them. So I would really encourage us to think about talking about that as well. So thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I wanted to thank you, Dr. Khan for the presentation. I know you're always so thoughtful in the pieces that you do and thank everyone else there. But I also wanted to ask, if there is any intersectionality around EL curriculum and special education curriculum and the varying curriculum departments, particularly in terms of like professional development, differentiated instruction, you know, those sorts of things, how that's actually happening, or is it happening? Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yes, we have ELA. Okay, I'll wait till ELA. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um, I was wondering if you had same going back to do the chair what number was so was saying earlier just about, you know, the number percentage wise and I apologize. I'm actually not in a position where I have my, my book in front of me. But if there's a number that has sort of what is the 10th grade rate of students that did not meet expectations on the exam. And then I guess getting back to the other curriculum pieces as well, and this is what I was getting to earlier, is that disaggregated by demographics of who is not meeting expectations? You know, I just want to sort of look at, is there, you know, are we talking about, you know, trauma informed schools? Are we talking about, you know, more, of one population than the other, I don't know. So I guess it's two questions in there. How many students, if you broke down your percentage, for 10th grade did not meet expectations? In other words, i.e., unless they test and pass again, would not get a diploma. And is that then disaggregated further in terms of the demographic?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and since the numbers are different as an odd year, maybe the data next year would be better in terms of knowing what the disaggregated data is. Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Thank you for the overall summation. I would love to, there was, I had a couple of questions. One was on the second page. I think there was a listing of items that were being done and one of them was advisories. And I was wondering if you could elaborate on what the advisories are, like what is that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What are they? I don't understand what the advisories are.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then getting back to, again, through the chair, member Hays' point, and this is sort of what I've been saying throughout the presentations tonight around the demographic piece and really looking at, you know, teasing out the data in terms of what we're seeing on paper as well as we're talking about equity, because there are some schools who regularly score higher than other schools. And we all know that that's not because the students at a particular school or the teachers at a particular school are smarter or else than the other schools. There's reasons for that. And I think we need to dig into what are the reasons for that and how are we equitably looking at our schools so that all of our students and all of our teachers are being, you know, equitably represented. And so to that end, I was also wondering, I know you guys are, you know, always plan exceptional and professional development. I know there was discussion around using experts that are already within the district for professional development. And I had seen at some point a spreadsheet on what professional development is offered sort of annually. And I'm wondering if there's an opportunity for the school committee to see that as well so that we can be informed as we're looking at the MCAS reports and the governance sort of overall of the district, how the professional development is lending itself to the equitable piece as well. And in terms of resources for teachers and how we're using expertise within the district. So is there a spreadsheet or list that can be shared with school committee in terms of what special, what professional development is being offered?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And yeah, I think it's about diversifying as well. So I appreciate that. And I know that there's a commitment to equity, as you know, part of the bigger plan. So I'm excited about what the future holds for us in that realm. And I also just sort of wanted to ask, yeah, I appreciate the product, the professional development, as well, just so we can understand sort of how Again, the cultural competency just all the stuff that we're talking about how that's actually being applied so we can see, you know, because the governance does sort of go hand in hand with how that how that looks and what that you know what that is working and I just also wanted to add that when we're talking about populations and the differing populations in our school. that, you know, we're talking about our vulnerable populations. Right. And so we talk often about what equity is. And it's not that everybody gets the same. It's that individuals get what they need. Right. Everybody gets what they need. Some people need more. Some people need less based on what their backgrounds are based on what you know where they're at. And so I think I don't necessarily wanna classify or categorize our students as the neediest students. I wanna ensure that we're saying that our students can be more vulnerable in varying situations. So we wanna make sure that there's a big difference in terms, and words matter, right? There's a big difference in terms of looking at people as needy, as opposed to people that have different learning styles and that have additional resources or what have you. that are vulnerable. So I would prefer, you know, that we're talking about vulnerable as opposed to neediest. But I just wanted to put that out there as well, because I think that that words matter.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I just wanted to punctuate to the demographic piece of it. So I think it's really important that we're looking at certainly the tier one, two, and three. But I think, and again, I think that this is a very important conversation and one that needs to be ongoing and continued. And I just want to punctuate again, the demographic piece. I'm really looking at, you know, which populations are at which schools and how does that affect, you know, the outcomes in our scores. So thank you. Thanks for the report.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I also wanted to express interest, but also just to share that, you know, I'm okay, and I appreciate member, through the chair, member Rousseau, through the vice chair, member Rousseau's longstanding interest as well. And I've reached out to Dr. Cushing just to be really clear that we are, that there is at least a representative that is addressing the English language and special education need in this realm. and how the health curriculum will be adapted for those populations. If it's not, you know, me as a school committee member or, you know, in that realm or what have you, I wanna make sure that there's somebody in the community, whether it's a CPAC representative, another parent or, you know, expert, special education, somebody, an EL, somebody, so that we're really thinking about, particularly around, you know, our students in access classrooms and in connections classrooms, so students with ASDs, students with intellectual developmental disabilities, how are we going to be presenting this information to them as well?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Referred to which subcommittee, RPE?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I just wanted to let the committee know that I was looking for, based on some recent suspension and discipline and concerns. And I think there was in the packet, there should have been a handout on sort of disproportionality and discipline, particularly for students with disabilities and some of the processes that should occur under those instances. I'm looking for something about the rate of suspension and discipline, and again, the demographic data and the grade level data. specifically, you know, with concern with some elementary suspension and discipline. And so I was reaching out to the superintendent as well to see what that might look like and what a time they might be for that. And I want to put that out there. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, yes. Sorry, I had my I didn't realize I was on mute. I was responding. I was asking to respond. Yeah, I can be more specific if the superintendent feels that she needs that. I guess part of what I understood for the ad hoc report, and maybe I misunderstood, there was a lot of policy that we were going through last year, as I'm sure everyone can remember. I thought the report form request was optional. I didn't think that we had to necessarily fill out a specific form for the request, but if the rest of the committee feels that that's what we agreed to, then I'm fine with filling out a form to get the information. Essentially, what I did understand was that we wanted to present to the school committee the request for a report and have some dialogue with the superintendent around what that timeline could be like or what the labor, how labor intensive that report would be. And I know that suspension and discipline data is required annually anyway as a report to DESE, but I guess this is more specific to, you know, recent events and also with regard to recent policy, you know, as that we had last year as well around, you know, clarification around you know, are we doing suspensions? When are we doing suspensions? We, you know, had said under certain circumstances. So there's a lot of ambiguity around some of the policy as well. So I am happy to have a discussion with the rest of the committee to have folks weigh in and hear what they would like. But I think that this is an important report and I am reluctant to delay further, but I'd like to hear from the rest of the committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Superintendent, does that work for you through the chair?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you then. That's what I will do. I will look for any feedback from the rest of you and submit for the next meeting. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say thank you for the rapport. And it was really good seeing everyone at curriculum night the other night and the great turnout and the increased attendance and interest in our vocational school. So I know that you guys have all done that. or collectively, it looks great over there. I hope people are taking a tour around. I'm just excited by the opportunities for our students. So thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's definitely an ambitious schedule. It looks like you guys are going to be really busy. I did have a couple of questions about how the PCAT review team will be selected, how we'll be addressing diversity and equity for the selection of the team, and also Specifically, I don't see a family representative on there, and I just wanted to make that recommendation. And I also would make a recommendation for a special education representative and a EL representative, especially as we're thinking about how items translate, how words have varying meanings among different cultures. And I would especially think about if we could differentiate instruction and universal design for learning for students with disabilities, as you can imagine, especially around sex education, puberty, that sort of stuff. I certainly have resources that I can share with you around some other curriculums that we've experienced that have been great, but definitely want us to be proactive as we're thinking about how we're differentiating that information for all of our students. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin. Just what's the time commitment. I know it said it's two times a month that you guys plan on meeting. How long are those meetings going to be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just lastly, I'm wondering if there's any sort of pediatrician or any role like that that you guys have considered for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of, I guess I have a question. If member Rousseau is finished, I'll move on to member McLaughlin. So wasn't there an email sent out to all of us that there was a meeting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If I recall, wasn't there a conversation that if there was a meeting, you did not want to attend it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess I had some recollection of when we were discussing the possibility of attending a meeting that you didn't want to attend.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hmm, I think that's. Yeah, I guess I don't recall it quite that way but it's okay for if folks want to vote to have, I think failure to notify us a little bit. harsh language, I guess we did notify you did not have internet access, so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So did you make a motion to approve them? Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I had a couple of questions. It's good to see that mentoring program and great to see Trish Calbride and both of the mentor supervisors. I'm wondering how many mentors are there and how many new teachers are there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And as you said, some of them have more than one mentee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's what I was wondering do any have three or more.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then the. list of sort of events was really helpful in the list of the professional development right is that the professional development that they're being offered that was the list on the fourth page and i'm just wondering who provides that professional development is that internal or external that's going that's a little bit of both so we are still kind of finalizing and
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And is there any DEI training at all, diversity, equity, inclusion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then the Friday, the disability awareness, can you tell me a little bit more about that? I know that Suzanne Campbell, Susanna Campbell was doing a large portion of that prior to her leaving. And I know that they had had like a six week or something, not for new teachers, but for professional development as a whole. So can you tell me?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, my mic was off. And how long was that training? I know the one previous, and again, this is for mentors versus staff.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So that was interned as like special education or disability awareness?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I guess that just one more question, Mary, if you don't mind that our special education teachers and general education teachers integrated across mentor mentoring. I'm not sure what you mean. Are they mentoring each other or is it strictly special ed, special ed, gen ed, gen ed?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just heard I was hearing the BLB for the incident reports. We're sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to, for good of the order, since it's the first meeting of the month and we typically have it, last year we talked about setting some goals for a school committee. And I just want to think about, put it out to my colleagues about what we want those to be and when we can schedule a time to discuss what they will be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to, for good of the order, since it's the first meeting of the month and we typically have it, last year we talked about setting some goals for a school committee. And I just want to think about, read out to my colleagues about what those would be and how we can schedule a time to discuss what they will be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Third time's the charm. Thank you. I just wanted to, for good of the order, since it's the first meeting of the month and we have it, last year we talked about setting some goals.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So again, I think everybody probably heard that a couple of times, but you know, so we want to set some goals. We had voted last year that we were going to set goals for school committee. And so I just wanted to put out to my colleagues, you know, that we don't want to wait another, I assume we don't want to wait another whole month for the next good of the order to discuss this. So maybe I'd like to make a motion that we set a time, some, you know, Committee of the Whole or something maybe this month to talk about setting goals.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I'm wondering how families are able to let staff or folks know what transportation issues they're having. So for example, if there is an issue with the bus, or if there's an issue with being 40 minutes in the line to get into the school because of the traffic remediation issues that we're having, particularly at the high school right now, what's the process for people to let folks know at Central? One, and then the second is, I'm hearing some qualitative information around folks who are saying that they're being marked hardy and want to know what folks can do for that if that happens. I'm sure it's probably miscommunication or something along the lines, but just how can people address that too?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I just follow up on that? Thank you. Thank you. So I'm wondering if it's on the website too, just in terms of like explicitly around transportation issues that folks know. Thank you. That's helpful that folks know who to contact and how. And so I'm also thinking about instances where we have, you know, students who are out of district, if it's a non-school day in Medford, but it's a school day in the district that they're in, how are we addressing, you know, that, especially if it's, you know, 7 45 in the morning, you know, folks aren't, you know, is there a protocol that sort of, made aware to families either on the website or otherwise, and if there's not, can there be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Obviously the paraprofessional issue is very concerning. I know that you and I have talked about this a number of times as well, and I'm mentioning it here publicly because I think folks know that it's an issue as well. So it was brought to my attention earlier today that even postings for the paraprofessionals, if we could just go across all platforms and any platforms that are out there for postings, and I know every district is sort of looking, but The CPAC sort of alerted us tonight that there's not postings in different job listings. So I know a lot of folks go to SchoolSpring, and I forget the other ones, some of the other ones that are more popular for the world of education. But if we're really trying to cast a wide net, if we're going to places like idealist.org, LinkedIn and I mean not LinkedIn, Indeed and some other places, just to make sure that we're casting as wide a net as possible. I'm very concerned about the obvious potential legal ramifications, especially when there are students requiring paraprofessionals on a one-to-one basis in their classroom. And I know if maybe through the chair or through the superintendent, if the Director of Pupil Services wants to address that at all, just for public consumption, that would be really helpful in terms of how that's happening, because I'm getting a lot of questions particular to that. So I'm also thinking about our therapeutic learning program in classrooms, a lot of those specifically, we talk a lot about our most vulnerable students, and they're also our most vulnerable teachers and paraprofessionals in those classrooms. So how are we really working to remediate? And I know in some instances, Central's going into the classrooms, which I'm sure that's an extra burden on everybody as well. So how can we help? How can we help spread the word? What can we do to get extra help in there? And also, you know, I'm sure that we're meeting legal requirement, but just if you let folks know what that is and what that looks like, it'd be helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I follow up? Thank you. Can I follow up there? Thank you. Just to follow up to that, thank you, Ms. Bowen, and appreciate that. And obviously, if families have concerns, they can reach out to their ETL at the school, letting them know if there's concerns specifically around paraprofessional coverage. But obviously, with one-to-one, for compensatory, I know you're talking probably speech, OT, that sort of thing. you can't do compensatory for one-to-one in a classroom, so you obviously have to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, because I know some IEPs have one-to-one for the students specifically, and sometimes with the shortage, if there's a if there's a paraprofessional in the classroom and they're assigned to a student one-to-one, but they can also be acting as a classroom paraprofessional. So then it's two roles that they're trying to fill. And obviously if the IEP is requiring them to fill one, it's sort of tricky. It is very tricky. It is really tricky. I know. And so I want to make sure that everyone's aware of how tricky this is because we really, really, really, you know, need people to help support us in these situations and to figure out what we need to do. And then do we do exit interviews at all? with folks like that if people are, if we have high attrition with our paras, are we doing any exit interviews?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Our kids need you. Our kids need you. Yeah, our kids need you. Your kids are losing. I know. And thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of privilege, Member McLaughlin. I was just going to ask if there's any way that the air conditioning can be adjusted. It's freezing. I can just a little bit, if we can ask. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I neglected to say when I asked for the point of privilege for the air conditioning I didn't mean to interrupt. Mr. Murphy's end of presentation, and I wanted to say thank you for the presentation. I think the graphics in particular were very helpful and having a table for folks to see was very helpful. So thank you. I also wanted to thank through the mayor, my colleague, I echo many of his sentiments that he just shared regarding the position that we're in. And also just want to say that, you know, oftentimes to me, this feels like a dysfunctional family. I mean, some of what we're watching really I mean, the fighting and the bickering and the back and forth, it's kind of endless. And what do dysfunctional families or marriages or whatever you want to call them do when there are problems? They have counseling, I hope, to improve them. And that's what I see. No, I see the mediator. I don't see the impasse as a bad thing. I see the mediator as something that's obviously needed. We've had 17 meetings. and things are not moving forward. It's not a bad thing to bring a mediator in with someone with an objective outside point of view to be able to move things forward for all of us, for our community. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I met Erin Dowd and her family from Moms Demand Action in Medford when I was knocking doors, actually. And we started to talk about gun safety and securing firearms and all of the statistics that we just heard. And we shared how when my children would go to playdates when they were little, I would ask, people whose houses they were going to, whether they had guns, because I wanted to make sure that I asked that question because I came from a background where there were, you know, some things that had happened that made me ask that question. And more often than not, I found that people seemed offended by that question, which I thought was, you know, purely innocent and a very important question. to be asking for our children safety and so I was really glad to hear about what Aaron was doing with moms demand action and making sure that firearms are securely stored because not only it's the law but it's the right thing to do and it protects our children, and I knew Gary Klein another member in Medford had spent a lot of time. both in his time at the Attorney General's office and also as a private citizen working on the same issue. So we're able to connect Aaron and Gary and they did a great presentation at the library over the summer and several of our colleagues were here and we wanted to move this motion forward because we feel it's so important. So I wanted to thank you so much and I was going to ask the Mayor through the Chair if we can let Aaron speak for a moment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I went to school with Mia. Let us vote first, let us vote.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for these and I look forward to the update. I'm just looking at the number of out of district and thinking about those families and wondering if there's any sort of part of the strategic plan around the equity piece and other pieces in terms of trying to bring people back into the community and or look at what is having students out of the community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that. Can I follow up, Mayor? Yes. I would just love to know what the communication strategy is just in terms of reaching them. Like, are they getting the same announcements other folks are? Like, do the principals do a welcome letter to them as they are with other folks? Because we're getting sort of intermittent reports that Some people are getting like after-school information, but some people aren't. So there's that piece of it that, you know, wanting them to feel like they're part of the community is one piece. And full disclosure, you know, I have a child in and out of district placement. So I want to share that as well as I'm talking about this, but also thinking about the cost that's involved for having our students go out of district. Tom Hare from Harvard Graduate School of Education has a report that's featured actually on, it's on the DESE website, I'm sure, has been for a while. not a district placement and the majority of families that are not a district placement, you know, actually talked about not wanting to have to leave the district, not wanting their children to have to leave their friends or their community or whatever else. And, you know, there's a cost that's attached to this. So I'm wanting to know, you know, if there's a strategic plan or if there's not, can there be some thought to strategic planning around how we're, you know, supporting families in this instance?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And the Hare report would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The Hare report, the audit district report by Tom Hare.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think Member Rosohut is like, oh, no, you didn't have yours. That's a reflection, actually, of mine and yours. It's funny. Thank you. Thank you for the report. Thank you for the pictures. I love seeing the pictures. They're always great. I wanted to know if there's a way, or if you guys are collecting demographic data at all. on who's participating in the different programs, and if so, if we can get that information moving forward, because it would be really useful for us to see who's actually participating for the demographics, that would be really helpful. And I was going to ask about the food, so I'm really glad to hear that the Model Y is doing that. For the EL program, is there a cost associated with that for the students?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. And do you know, or can we think about in the future, whether there might be any opportunity for swimming instruction because I know that we see a really high incident of students that are not able to swim that come in to the schools to other communities so I know that we have the Medford pool I don't know if that's an option for summertime but just something that I wanted to sort of put out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And do you know if EL students have been attending the summer fun program at all, or have they had any support to do that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. There's just a lot of social emotional opportunity there and I know that we worked really hard with special education and the summer fun program. in the past to be able to collaborate to ensure student activity, because it's a really natural environment for students to build friendships and make relationships with each other. So I think that would be great. And I guess to that point, getting to the ESY programming, I know that Joan, you mentioned that there were two paraprofessionals in the that coordinate or that worked at the summer fund program which is really great. I'm wondering what the need is in terms of increasing because I imagine the two were probably assigned were they assigned to individual IEPs.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great because I know the director was, you know, I've heard from so many parents about how incredible this program has been for their students with disabilities and for students with identified disabilities but also there's certainly students that don't identify with disabilities that go to the program as well. without disabilities, what have you, and the additional support that's needed from the paraprofessional community has really been shown, I think, and demonstrated, and certainly the Councilors have expressed that need as well, in addition to the families. So if there's a coordinated effort as well between the special education department, ESY, and the summer fund camp, so that one of the things that we talk about is the lack of regression, right? So going forward into the school year into the social emotional piece of it is huge, particularly for those of our students who need social emotional supports. So just wanting to ensure that there's some ESY collaboration scheduling in advance with the summer fun programming yeah and we were we look at it every year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's what I think would be really great working with the directors of those programs because they don't necessarily have direct experience with students with disabilities or other students so that having them looked into get their feedback I think would be super helpful. And then just lastly regarding the hiring of the staff so first of all, the staff out there who came in the summertime. Thank you so much I'm sure that's a huge commitment to be able to do that I know I needed my summer. break, I'm sure everybody felt like they did. And so for the staff, it's an extra commitment to come in to do that. And so to that end, the paraprofessional pay rate for specifically like for I think summer fun is it or not summer fun for ESY. So is it accurate that some of the paraprofessionals may be on a pay scale for the year that is different than the pay scale for the summer so that some people were literally being asked to take a pay cut to come work in the summertime?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I just want to know if there's a differential in the ESY rate than there is during the school year. So that would be helpful for the school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you guys all. And thank you to my colleagues for indulging me. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you nominate me?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you want to be an alternate? It doesn't matter to me either way I'm going, so I just want to be able to go. It doesn't matter if I'm an alternate or a sub, but I'd like to go.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know we're about to do the condolences and we're just about wrapped up here, but I just wanted to take a moment, if I could, and thank Suzy for all of her hard work and for all of your commitment to all that you've done. This is quite a last meeting to have and we've really appreciated you. I know I've heard that from all my colleagues and the superintendent and the mayor and all of us. You've been a real patient and kind voice in this whole experience. So thank you so much for all the time that you served.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, colleagues. My apologies for having everyone reconvene, especially during the summer. The superintendent evaluation that occurred last week, I noticed after doing some comparison to my evaluation that the Google Sheets form that I had used had been incorrect and some of the numbers were incorrect and actually added some comments as well that I thought were necessary, particularly after the meeting. And the primary reason I think that the numbers were incorrect, again, was the Google Sheets, which automatically populates the form. And this is a process that's fairly new. This is the second time we've done this. Last year, I was a secretary, so I orchestrated the process last year. So it's very different when you're sort of behind the scenes doing it as opposed to when you're submitting. So I think that that was part of the problem and part of what was lost in translation. So I wanted to apologize to Dr. Edouard-Vincent as well for my mistake and my error. And I'm asking my colleagues to consider the errors and allow me to resubmit my evaluation for the superintendent based on that error.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think member Graham has her hand raised.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And thank you for the chair, thank you for that process aspect. I had forgotten that, so it's really important. So I'm making a motion, if I can, to ask that my colleagues accept my apologies and my mistake in the evaluation and allow me to resubmit the evaluation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. I guess my point to that would be if there were mistakes on the previous evaluations that other folks did that they should, you know, be able to submit their evaluation. I certainly had mistakes and I'm owning those. And my concern is that if everybody's going to resubmit the evaluation, then we would, that potentially that would require another meeting to discuss the resubmissions of everyone on the evaluation. And if folks had errors on them, then obviously I think they should be resubmitted. If folks didn't have errors on them, then I would, I guess, ask what that purpose is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, it's just the calculations because none of us saw the individual member reviews, which was part of The issue in terms of the process frankly as I was reviewing the process from last year as well we had a calculation sheet that allowed us to see each other's reviews as we were doing our own which sort of informs the process without us working in silos. I think that's a discussion for another meeting and so I don't want to overstep the open meeting laws around that but the whole purpose is that it would recalculate in terms of that process, not necessarily affect the member reviews per se. So I leave it up to my colleagues as well, I believe Member Kreatz and Member Mustone have their hands up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Again, through the chair, I can understand that concern. I do believe that before Member Ruseau left and he sent an email, said that he was not interested in changing his evaluation. You know, I do believe that, you know, anyone can make mistakes and that it's appropriate to correct them. I also believe to member pretz's point, and I believe that we're going to make it, you know, that we've discussed looking at the process come September, that there was also there's some confusion in the process. I know Member Pex just said, and I would agree to disagree on this point with Member Pex, that we're not allowed to see each other's member reviews. I thought that was super informative last time. And we actually had a sheet that was created, a Google sheet that was created, and certainly not by me, but we can see from the last reviews on the tabs, there was the current review, and then there was an additional tab that was member reviews, and then it had sections of each member and how We had all reviewed and what our comments were and that was super informative because this is not one member evaluating the superintendent, this is, you know, all of us as collective evaluating the superintendent so we should be able to see and share. information on an evaluation. And I don't know why this year we weren't able to, it didn't make any sense to me. And I guess, you know, maybe in retrospect, you know, I could have asked for the meeting to be rescheduled or something. But, you know, in addition to that, finding the errors on my part just made it even more obvious that, you know, the process was flawed. And so really the purpose I thought of the meeting today based on what was posted publicly and for the agenda was that we would review the resubmitted evaluation process and vote to see if that would be approved, that I made a mistake and wanted the process approved. So what was actually posted on the agenda, may I ask, because I didn't open it early. Does Susie or Maurice have it? Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was just going to ask the superintendent her position on this, which I believe is to have time to be able to put these together and for us to meet early in the year so that we can all be on board. And I think there was a little misunderstanding. It sounded through the chair, like there was a discussion about our goals and, you know, we have, we voted to have goals for the school committee as well for next year. But I believe, or I thought we were talking about the superintendent's goals, which of course, you know, should be aligned with our goals, but we haven't set the school committee goals either for the year. I guess I'd like to hear from Dr. Evey if we could.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me, Superintendent, I apologize. Can you just share what MASS is?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So thank you through the chair to member Graham for the clarification on The process, I think that clearly the year, June 17 was pretty packed with the budget stuff that was happening as we all know and other things that have been going on. So I think that it is important for us to have a meeting in the fall. to discuss how we feel about the goals that have been proposed and early, you know, sooner than later. And then potentially the superintendent either revise or revisit those goals by 930, September 30th. So if possible, if we could, you know, have a meeting early, you know, one of our first meetings be to address the goals that had been proposed and where we are as a school committee, but also in setting our own goals, as we said, we also passed a resolution that we would have goals for the school committee where we would also evaluate ourselves in our process or have some sort, either whether we evaluated ourselves or had someone else evaluate us, it's unclear, but that we would have an evaluation process for school committee as well. So I guess with that understanding that I'm hearing the process and purpose of that resolution that had been previously passed was so that we might have some discussion around the goals that had been proposed before they're in play. And obviously there's work over the summer, but I think there's plenty of work to be done over the summer and that will align with the goals as well, that we can afford to have that meeting early September to discuss the goals, the meeting that member Graham is mentioning for that was supposed to happen on the 17th, which again, I mean, I feel like June's a blur. I can't believe July 1st is tomorrow or the next day. It's all gone by so quickly. And again, all the budget stuff that was happening. So I think it's unfortunate that that calendar item wasn't met, but I think if we can make it one of the first items of the new year, I think that could be helpful. So I guess I, I would make a motion or ask for an amendment that we make one of our first meetings be a goal review. And then if that's okay with Dr. Edouard-Vincent, and then the response to that goal review by Dr. Edouard-Vincent could be potentially the September 30th, if my colleagues agree. So I would make that friendly amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. That was really helpful. I don't know if that's what Member Ruseau was thinking of from the macro perspective. I think that's super helpful for the process perspective. From the macro perspective, what I was thinking about was more specific to the superintendent and to the last year that we've all been through. So I just wanted to say it's been four years now that the superintendent's been with us. I was actually on the superintendent hiring committee. So I got to meet Dr. Edouard-Vincent back then during the interviews. So that was interesting to see the process and now being able to work together and collaborate. But I guess I just also want, or, and I guess I just also want to point out that it's been four years that Dr. Evey's been with us and two and a half of those years have been a global pandemic and a racial reckoning in our country. And so these have been really trying and very difficult times for everyone, and I want to make sure that we really appreciate that from the, from the start, because in addition to that, I want to point out, as I'm sure we know, but I wonder if the community knows, that Dr. Edouard-Vincent came in four years ago to a system that had been primarily a patriarchal system, frankly, and had been run for 30 years for the most part by another administrator. So all of that, I mean, imagine coming into any system as a new person taking over a position that had been filled for 30 years and run a certain way. And again, during a pandemic and a racial reckoning. So I would just like to start that macro macro view for the for myself and for the community. And then I would just welcome my colleagues to sort of offer a macro comment if they have any, just sort of big picture idea of like what this past year encompassed and coming back to school from a pandemic, you know, from remote, those sorts of things. So that's all I wanted to say. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just going to ask maybe if we, I want to ask my colleagues, I don't know, do you want to read the performance goals first, and then we can comment if we want to after the performance goals, or did you want to do that? one by one in comment, or I'm wondering sort of what, again, back to process, what my colleagues are thinking. I'm fine with doing the four performance goals and then an opportunity for comments or questions, if that's okay with you, Mayor and colleagues, I don't know, or did people wanna stop on each one? That's what I'm trying to figure out, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just a point of clarification. That's not what I'm asking, through the chair. So that's not what I'm asking. I'm just asking if we have questions when you want them, or comments when you want them. So if you want to do it after each segment, that's fine, but not on our individual comments. Thank you. Sure. Yeah, after each segment, after each five, set of five.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I make a suggestion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Also, just, you know, again, so we're not hearing the same, but it also feels more collaborative. Perhaps we could take sections or take turns reading the comments so that It's not just all coming from one member in terms of the comments. So I just put that out there as well. I'm happy to do some of the reading or if any of the other colleagues want to, but I think that would make it feel a little less monotonous perhaps. So I would just make that recommendation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Developing a district wide focus on instruction and assessment. So the overall score was a 3.69 and comments were would like to see more on differentiated instruction and universal design for learning to include all learners. We could benefit from the expertise of special educators working with general educators to create a library of sorts of differentiated material instruction. Don't feel the learning walks are as inclusive of all communities as they could be. Also wondering how the curriculum frameworks are being met in classrooms like access classrooms and out of district programs. The superintendent evaluation primarily mentioned professional development as a means of achieving this goal. However, professional development is a short duration activity. We need to see data and accountability on how these professional development topics are actually put into practice. Mention of the monthly coherent practice with principals, but not of how those leaders that incorporated that learning into their schools. If there's data on this, the school committee would welcome it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, thank you. I think that in some of this, it would look like general education collaborating with special education and others, so that I know that there's some levels where there's co-teaching happening in some of the classrooms, but not across the district as a whole substantially. And for example, I know Susanna Campbell and Joan Bowen had worked collaboratively with other teachers on differentiated programming and creating a library that's available on our website for some lesson planning that's differentiated, but I'm not sure or it's unclear what's been done in terms of PD for universal design for learning and how that's actually being incorporated into the classrooms. And then in the learning walk, sort of, you know, looking at the curriculum frameworks and how they're being used across the district and also in other districts. So for example, we know we have certain curriculum at certain levels, so elementary, middle school, high school sort of curriculums, but is it the same curriculum that is being used in the special education classrooms? If so, how are they being differentiated? If not, what is the curriculum and how does the superintendent know what the curriculum is? whether we're having high standards for all children, even children that potentially are taking MCAS ALT and don't affect our data scoring. Personally, I think that that could look like curriculum meetings with special education and looking at as a whole. We also have as a responsibility as a district, I understand, Or I've recently understood that we are required to look at curriculum, particularly for our collaborative, and seeing what our collaborative partnerships are in terms of curriculum. That's part of the school committee's responsibility with DESE, from what I understand, but also the superintendent. So I guess I would venture to say, can the superintendent say clearly what curriculum, if any, is being used in these other classrooms? how curriculum is being differentiated for all learners. Again, students with learning differences, but also, you know, students at all different levels, project based learning, what have you, and what that looks like in a variety of programming. So, you know, from the access classroom to the connections to the EL classrooms to to our out of district programs? Do we know what the curriculum is and how are we sort of trying to make sure that we have high standards for all? So again, what would that look like? I think it would be, again, learning walks through those environments and also working with your directors in those examples. So your directors of our collaborative, your directors of our special education, your directors of our EL and looking at how is the curriculum really manifesting across those different strands in terms of really embedding equity. and those in having high expectations for everyone. So I hope that was helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, I was going to say, point of order. Can we get back to order? Thank you. Not anything on any members, but I agree if it's for 42. and we have to get through the rest of them. I'm happy to read the next one if you like, or if someone else wants to. Yes, that'd be great. Thank you. Okay. So now we're moving on to the superintendent performance on standards. So there are a number of standards with subcategories. So standard one is instructional leadership. And under that, there's a 1.1 curriculum, 1.2 instruction, 1.3 assessment, evaluation and data informed decision making. So those items are sort of the subsets of the larger instructional leadership items. So if it's okay, I'll just read standard one with those items and then maybe another colleague can raise their hand for standard two and we can hopefully cruise along. So standard one instructional leadership, the overall score was 3.01. They were three paragraphs of comments. Basically, again, wondering if this is happening with special education and programming curriculum out of district placements, whether all students are in a proximal zone of learning. Are they getting age appropriate grade level instruction through curriculum throughout, of high standard curriculum throughout our schools? Dr. Edouard-Vincent's commitment to improving curriculum and instruction at MPS is clear. There's much work to be done. The work happening at the elementary level is evident across literacy, science, and math. Commitment to math excellence at all levels is clear. There remains opportunity at the secondary level to focus on remediation of students in literacy and math in particular. where elementary experience was not the same as today's standards. There's more action needed to bridge gaps because of the pandemic that existed both before the pandemic and certainly were exacerbated through the pandemic. The K-12 health curriculum needs to be a significant focus in the next year. It's not implemented consistently. and pandemic-related gaps are not closed. The elementary curriculum is not up to par, and the current curriculum does not adequately reflect focus on all the aspects of health expected from a modern, comprehensive health curriculum. I would also add, if I could just add the ring here a little bit, maybe we can add it in, is that there's nothing for special education in terms of the health curriculum as well, differentiated health curriculum. A focus on instructional leadership needs to branch out from just the core curriculum areas that are covered by MCAS testing. So again, not just focusing on the MCAS testing curriculum levels, but across all instructional levels. A health curriculum that's taught by appropriately certified professionals that covers all areas of health, inclusive of sexual and reproductive education needs to be a focus in the coming year. Sexual and gender minorities do not appear to be receiving appropriate health curriculums that is inclusive of their needs. And again, I would add the same for disability and perhaps EL, I'm not sure. This topic has been brought up many times, but continues to not receive attention it deserves for the health, safety, and happiness of our students, not covered by the heteronormative health curriculum. I'll also add DESE just modified their health curriculum frameworks. It was something like from 1999. So it's something that's a state level issue as well, but definitely needs to be looked at. And then under curriculum, the score is 3.07. So the score for instructional leadership as a whole was 3.01, curriculum was 3.07, instruction 2.96, assessment 3.11, evaluation 2.94, and then data-informed decision-making 2.97 with a comment. This is happening as it's published on the DESE site, et cetera, but growth data, student learning, et cetera, is not something that's shared with school committee or public. The SE and public would appreciate more reporting on our data, even if it's merely included in our meeting packets as informational. So if someone wants to take standard two,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I may or actually can I ask if it's okay for Maurice to ask the question. Because I'm afraid I'll forget as if we move on to the next one so if we could just stay in that at least a subset with all those categories.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was wondering if we can comment on If I can raise my left one. Thank you. I just wanted to comment and I'm happy to read the professional culture. Next, but I just wanted to sort of comment on the family engagement piece because I think it's an important one that. sort of was one of the lower scores, needs improvement sort of score. It was in between the, a little bit more than a two point, it was a 2.66. So not quite there yet with a three. And I just think that that's something that, you know, while we have a new department and, you know, that department's growing and frankly, you know, from member Hays' perspective at the beginning of the meeting as well, there's just been so much that has been done compared to the previous administration around this, just like thinking about, materials being translated that hadn't before, and a family and community engagement, you know, liaison that we didn't have before, just so many things that have been done. So I do want to say that as well. But I do think that this is a huge area for improvement. And there's lots of opportunity here. And we have so much expertise in the community, both families and community organizations. community organizations where we could really build community-based schools and be able to leverage a lot of the resources that are there. So I just sort of wanted to expand on that a little bit. And also just in terms of communication with other more marginalized communities. For example, I know that Talking Tools is a software program that I believe that Paul, Director Paul Teixeira uses, and that the district has access to that. And it was something that I was speaking with him about, even in terms of having the superintendent and school committee members have access to that, talking points, so that we could actually talk to people who are not English speakers in their native language, that we could text with them, and that it could be translated. and vice versa. And so I know that they've been using the Talking Points app, and it's been super successful with the EL teachers. And I would say, why could that not be expanded to, again, the superintendent and potentially school committee members, so that we're thinking about how we're engaging our more marginalized communities, because it does seem all too often the emails are from the same people. the same people are at the table, the same people come to the meetings. And I would really like to see that disrupted. I'd really like to be able to work collaboratively in figuring out how we can really engage families. So that was just the feedback I wanted to offer. And I was wondering if Dr. Edouard-Vincent has anything to say on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you guys want me to read the next one and when member Graham comes back on she can comment? or not, ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, hold on one second. Make sure I'm having on. Professional culture.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you want me to reach standard four, Mayor? Please. Standard four, professional culture. This is 2.88 overall. And then we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 subcategories. But interestingly, one, two, three, four of the six subcategories don't have any comments. So I actually have some questions on them because I wasn't sure from colleagues. But professional culture 2.88, the superintendent should focus on relationships building in order to further her objectives around curriculum and instruction. I'd like to see her build strong relationship with teachers and staff and begin to reverse decades of mistrust and non-collaboration that have been present in MPS. Concern about the climate and culture of high school and would like to see action to address the structural ways our organization hinders progress on achieving a positive climate and culture. The organizational structure is not optimal and needs to be significantly overhauled in order to see alignment with student achievement goals that will close gaps and serve children. School committee is available to collaborate, support, and provide resources. This work is difficult. We'd like to see more effective collaboration with the school committee and other stakeholders to move the strategic vision forward. There's been examples of cultural proficiency issues at various places in the district this year. For example, a dress code at the high school that indicate there's more work to do to create the kind of environment that we all wish to see for our children. Through her own continued professional development and the many professional development opportunities she's implemented for administrators, teachers, and other staff. Dr. Edouard-Vincent demonstrates a strong commitment to continuous learning and high standards in the area of communication. Dr. Edouard-Vincent has implemented, continued some valuable systems of communication with families, Friday emails, and staff learning walks and listening tours. While these are a good foundation, there's not enough evidence that they are being consistently and fully utilized as a means to inform and involve these groups in order to advance the work of the district. Commitment to high standards 3.37 high standards are only high standards if they're consistently applied work to be done to ensure high standards are universally applied throughout the district. The places where our standards need improvement are mostly known and therefore it's the willingness to act on those challenges across the district that appear to be the difficulty. For cultural proficiency 2.87, communications 2.69, continuous learning 2.87, shared vision 2.84 managing conflict 2.64 perhaps it's the pandemic and the ongoing disagreement and dissent but the superintendent could be more direct and a stronger leader when it comes to this standard managing conflict. And then mayor if I can ask a question on the professional culture or sort of if I could raise my hand if Yes, yes. Thank you. So for professional culture sort of as an overall standard, the way I just sort of want to explain the way that I saw the standard for professional culture was more about the again, because we're evaluating the superintendent and not the whole district. It was more about how the district and teachers and staff and others are all interacted in communicating with each other. And I do think that we have a some professional culture concerns around, what's the word I'm looking for? sort of a, I guess there's sort of a negative environment right now. And I don't know if that's an artifact of, you know, sort of whatever this post pandemic phases or pre post pandemic phases or what have you, but we definitely have, you know, a low mood at the schools, if you will. And so that's one of the things that I saw this particularly as, and I just want to be really clear around the cultural proficiency piece, which is under the professional cultural culture, which was a 2.87. I just want to just make a point here for me that that is not, in my opinion, what some might view as cultural proficiency as a whole in that professional culture. So in other words, I think Dr. Edouard-Vincent has done a tremendous job bringing diversity to our district in terms of reminding us all, why diversity is so important in our district, why equity and inclusion is so important in our district. And that cannot be easy for a woman superintendent, who also happens to be a person of color, coming into a district that's been very traditional to have to do. So lifting that weight all this time, I'm sure, has got to be really difficult. And I just want to say that from the Haitian Flag Day to the The weekly, I mean, the school committee updates when the superintendent is very inclusive of different events, not only in the community, but nationally, the need for hiring diverse staff, all of those things I think have been exceptional. So I just wanted to sort of make a point here that I feel like there was some, again, and this is an artifact of DESE, I think there's some embedded names in here that I'm not sure necessarily go with culture and proficiency under professional culture. And again, I think that might be an artifact of a privileged system, frankly. So I just wanted to put that piece out there that I think Dr. Edouard-Vincent has done a lot, and it can't be easy in that realm. And I just want to let her know how much I appreciate her for that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And may I ask member, through the chair, that any other, obviously, I think it's obvious, but just wanted to be sure that any other comment is included. And thank you for putting this all together through the chair, member Ruseau. I did it last year and it's time consuming and tedious. And so thanks for putting it together. But if any other comments could be added, and then if it's okay to just rename the evaluation as updated or final or something like that. So when we're deleting the other ones, we're not getting confused about what we have and what we don't, that would be super helpful. So I second that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I thought that, Mayor, may I? Yes. I thought there were other comments or from earlier too that had not been or had been overlooked. So if there wasn't, I apologize. But if there is, I would just ask that obviously that they can be included. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just wanted to add, yeah, the school system as a whole, the community as a whole. That's one thing, the superintendent individually, and I felt like particularly for an evaluation of the superintendent that, you know, this number was a little bit off. So I appreciate member Rousseau sort of looking, you know, mentioning the district as a whole and some things that need to be worked on. But I think that that's a community effort and a collaborative effort. both from the school committee, from our families, from our teachers, from our staff, for everybody. It's not one person that can direct any of that work. This is very difficult discussion and conversation. That's why they call them courageous conversations. But I think that this is work that we all have to do. And so I appreciate that the superintendent is leading the way in this. And I hope that we can support her and that our schools and our community will support the work as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: She said she had to leave at 530 I wonder, but she's still on. Is the vice chair available.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Vice versa. Oh.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Through the chair, it was member Ruseau who motioned, and I seconded. Roll call, please. I think, excuse me, point of information, I think member Graham was asking for clarification that the motion was to approve the school committee calendar.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, while we're waiting for the presentation, can I ask a question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm just curious about how many students, and I suppose Ms. Bowen can answer, about how many students are receiving special education services in Medford Public Schools?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I always appreciate it. I do have a couple of questions if I can. I wanted to ask, do you also advise and support parents or caregivers with questions regarding special education supports and services. Do you guys take phone calls or talk to families about any of those needs?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And next year is an election year, right? So yeah. So for people that are interested in running, what should they do or how can they participate if they're interested in supporting either the CPAC board or running for any of the positions or what have you? Is there a way to be involved?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And again, you don't have to be a parent or a family member of a child with a disability, you can just be an interested party. May I may I just have two more? Yes. Yeah, thank you. I have three more actually. Sorry. One is the next one is on have you guys done I know that there's a programmatic elements to the special education department. So there are different strands, if you will, of classrooms, of sub-separate classrooms in our district. For example, an access program, connections program, therapeutic learning program, those sorts of things. I'm wondering, does the CPAC do tours of those programs, strands at all? Have you guys looked at, or are there tours available that you guys do do so that you're looking at the programmatic elements?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess it's maybe a question for Ms. Bowen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And also the charter is to advise the district on matters pertaining to special education.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Does that need to be a motion, Joan, or is that something that can
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then if I can ask, I guess this is for Ms. Bowen, how do we address the issue, concern number two, the staff shortages? I know that it's COVID and this has been an issue across the country and I know that there's a lot of concern with Well, first of all, just having special education paraprofessionals, but also having a substitute pool for them, because in a lot of instances, or some instances paraprofessionals are specifically part of the child's IEP, whether it's one-on-one or a classroom para, and so it's a legal requirement, obviously, that we have those paraprofessionals. What's the plan to try to address that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I think just on the, and this might be a Mr. Murphy question sort of issue that was brought up, but I think on the paraprofessional, I was told, I think by a paraprofessional or someone, Um, that's, I think it's no longer with the district. If you are out sick, there's not an option for a substitute button or something like that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Maybe we can check in on that again mid-year or something next year. And then I promised my last question, colleagues. Thank you for indulging me. Actually, it's a motion. It's on your last recommendation regarding the incident and discipline reports that are created and put in students' files that can disproportionately impact students with high needs. I'd like to make a motion that this issue be referred to the Rules, Policy, and Equity Subcommittee to review. And I'm wondering if I might have a second for my, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, well, I guess it's more, not a question, but a clarification for the point of information is that- It's a point of clarification. Yeah, a point of clarification where you are asking specifically I am asking specifically that the policy for disciplinary referrals and incident reports allow for parental notification. So we can, I think it's our job to find out what the current policy is that exists in both our online policy and rules and policy handbook, as well as the student handbooks and make sure that those are consistent. But essentially I can speak from personal experience regarding incident reports. We had multiple that we were frankly unaware of until we were leaving the district and became aware of them. And that's not the way one wants to find out, especially when we want to support our students while they're in school. So the motion is specifically addressing a referral to the rules, policy and equity subcommittee to review disciplinary referrals and incident reports so that those are shared with parental notification. because that seems not to either be an existing policy in the current rules policy and equity listing and or some vagary in the student handbook. So that's my specific. Is that helpful? Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate that through the chair, member Graham, that this is a family communication. It is also policy specifically regarding disciplinary referrals and incident reports, because those policies do go into the student file. So it's a policy in terms of what's in the file, not just the family engagement. So I think that there's a step that can be missed there if it's not part of policy. I know that I spoke with one of our administrators about what the existing policy is around the structure of this. have been told that there isn't one in terms of what the process is. So I think there's a couple of issues to be addressed, but I would say, I think it's the policy subcommittee because we really need to create a policy since there isn't one that exists.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, that's agreed. You can include that. What's the policy number?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Say it again.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: CLB incident reports. I will amend that to the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes and also you know just to make matters a little bit more confusing and I know the Director of Pupil Services knows this but not necessarily all educators know you know, that the disciplinary referrals for students with disabilities has some requirements and some structure. And so, especially regarding suspension and expulsion and some other issues. So there's some nuances around this. So if there is not an existing policy, it may be that this should go to the special education subcommittee first to think about what the nuances are around the disciplinary referrals, specific to the special education law and how that can be communicated. So if I can, if my colleagues are in agreement, I think I might split the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you, superintendent. I just wanted to mention as well, though, that if the, if the document, even if it's a minor infraction, if it's going in the students, record and can affect the students placement potentially, among other things, then it does feel like it should be something that the parents are notified. But I think that this is a discussion, a longer discussion for another day. So if I might, I would like to split the motion so that We refer the incident report motion to the rules, the policy and equity subcommittee based on the policy DLB incidents that member Rousseau just mentioned. And then my second motion for the split would be that we refer disciplinary referrals to the special education subcommittee meeting to work a little bit more on the language and work with collaborate with the superintendent and director of pupil services to better understand why CPAC is specifically making this recommendation. If I could have a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I believe we have a presentation to a member of the community. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we get a picture with the school committee and Carol and CPAC? Would that be okay, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, I just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work that went into this whoever put this together did a nice job and also I think it's been addressed through. The Chair and Member Graham, but just to clarify that the the early release days and what have you are still in negotiation and those need to be marked as tentative until they're finalized in negotiation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Cushon for the report and thank you for including an incident process on the report as well. That was nice to see and the synchronicity was good to see. I have a question on the Municipal Safety Council and the MPS Leadership Safety Council. In both of those instances, I was wondering if I might make a friendly suggestion or if it's been considered that there's some sort of community representative there that is, you know, also that we're considering diversity. I'm sure we're considering diversity in the high school, middle school, and elementary school representatives, and I don't know if that's where you're factoring families in or if you're thinking about students for those. So I wanted a little bit of clarification of where community involvement can be engaged in those.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Because it's embargoed?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Because it's embargoed?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can appreciate that, and I can certainly appreciate that, you know, top secret nature, if you will, of the plans and making sure that that kept that's kept internal. So I guess the other thing I would ask is about quarterly meetings with the USC, the Universal Safety Committee. So not necessarily regarding the embargoed material, but more specific to the students with additional needs. So also going down to your next, um, uh, quadrant where you have a number of the different things that would be considered by these, um, by these councils, I would suggest adding slide 12.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would suggest adding, uh, students with additional needs, um, here because there's a lot, that the USC has considered, specifically around physical needs? Do we have the stretchers that we need if a person's not able to be mobile? How do we get them out? How many are there? Where are the classrooms located? Are they near the stairs? Those kinds of things. Does law enforcement know where the classrooms that have substantially separate students with additional needs? a substantially separate classroom so that they have access to those, they know where those are. And also the autism training that the law enforcement currently does. So I forget his name, the law enforcement officer who's currently running the autism training for law enforcement, but I would really recommend that that goes underneath the students with additional needs aspect as well. As we've been playing out different scenarios in the universal safety committee, one might imagine, for example, you know, a horrible situation in the school something's happening. And one of the students is in the bathroom, maybe as a student with, you know, a disability, you know, with a need or whatever, and, and heads towards the law enforcement personnel, because they have an uncle who's a police officer. And, you know, they're wondering if they might know them or any number of things, right? How does one recognize that that could be a student that has some additional needs, doesn't know that like, so we have to think about that in terms of the planning as well. So the USC has done some of that work. But I would highly encourage that those items be added to that specific category with some subcategories be added to the security hazard safety and security planning that you're talking about. And maybe quarterly meeting with the USC or members of the USC that you feel are appropriate in terms of the privacy concerns. And then lastly, I guess I would just ask for some sort of professional maybe, I don't know, not development, but some sort of maybe meeting or something like that, that addresses the community. So maybe it's an annual event where it's at, you know, the theater or something, but somewhere where the community does feel like they're engaged and involved in this, not necessarily around plans specifically, but around addressing, you know, safety and school concerns. And, you know, it can include a panel where people are talking or, you know, movie that sort of addresses or some experts or something, but some way in which the community can feel engaged on this on an annual basis. So those are my questions slash comments.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, I want to ask Mr. Murphy, I thought in the last slide presentation, when he was sharing the amount that was being asked, he was saying that was level funding. So I'm confused about whether Mr. Murphy would see this as a cut or not, if you could help clarify that for us.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So can you repeat the two changes to the word cut? Sorry, I heard that the first one was the plan, but the finance director for working to cut from the plan, which was the original 71. And I mean, the original 70 to the 71. And then the second one was that we, that this cut services. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes, I think that what I'm hearing is both and and not And I think that for folks that may still be here, or that will watch this later. I think so much of this conversation can be frankly confusing, especially for the layperson, and a lot of it feels like, and some is frankly potato potato. And some is kicking the can and some is a number of things. But if you think about, if I think about the lay person and getting back to knocking on doors and people talking about budgets and what have you, as we were knocking on doors, for a person who's not necessarily invested in the schools or what have you, if they hear when we're knocking doors that we went from 67 million to 69 million, 2.5, less than $2.5 million increase in dollars for them. they're not going to stand by and have a 45-minute conversation with us about what the level services were, what the difference in services were, how this worked and how that worked. And so I think that I appreciate through the chair, member Graham's willingness to be more flexible in the language and the way that this is written. And it's also true as We recall from two years ago, when we, when there was some consternation over whether or not to approve the budget and what it meant if we approved or didn't approved and whether people would get paid July 1 if we didn't approve and all those other things that were sort of blowing up at the time I want to point that back to people as well that. you know, we are all doing the best that we can here. And I do appreciate all the work that you've done to try to, to try to help us with these numbers. And I hope that the constituency also understands that this has been a really difficult time, both with COVID and with everything else. And we're doing the best we can with the budgets. And I know that our students will get what they need because that's what our staff does. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, then we can vote. But I can, may I also make a point of, I guess, information? Yeah, we also had voted in the past, just making a point, that the meetings were not gonna go over 9.30. So if they're going over 9.30, we're supposed to make a motion that we're gonna be willing to go over 9.30 to X amount of time. If I remember correctly, I know it was member Kreatz's motion, so she might recall. I don't have it in front of me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you elaborate on 3C? 3C. Would you go back to that slide, Mr. Dr. Fishman? Engagement team?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So professional support for high need.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I actually just wanted to say, you know, I think that this is a complicated issue and not one to discuss on the floor at the last meeting of our year. And I also wanted to say, I do think that there are lots of great things happening in Medford public schools, And that if there are folks watching or listening, I hope that they won't be dissuaded to send their kids here because I think there's lots of great schools. I have three kids. We had the option of sending them to private school. We did not. We wanted Medford public schools. We specifically chose Medford high school for the wonderful diversity it offers. There are over 300 countries represented in our high school. You can't buy that kind of diversity anywhere. So I want to say I think that there's a lot of good things happening in our schools. We are here to make our schools better and we all think that the mayor and everyone else included is here for that and so I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page that we are making our schools better but they also are very good schools. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thanks for including this on the agenda. I know we missed it last. meeting, which is usually the beginning of the month. The good of the order is an opportunity for us to discuss the working of the school committee and sort of any suggestions or anything else that the school committee body wants to put forward in terms of our work. And so I had two that I wanted to bring up. One is the student representative. So I know Dr. Cushon talked a little bit about some of the protocol for next year for a student representative, but I wanna know how we can ensure that we are gonna have a student representative at our monthly or bi-monthly meetings, at least, because we need some student voice. Dr. Cushing, I don't know if you're hearing me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And can we also have an alternate so that if one if a student does need to miss that there's some another student that can attend this year we had. The majority of the year without student representatives and when the students did come and were able to speak to us, they had some really valuable input, so I just want to make sure that we have a student at all of the next meeting so maybe not alternate alternate as well. Thank you. If I may, Mayor? Yes, Member McLaughlin. And then the next one is goals, school committee goals. So MASC, I was reviewing some of the MASC recommendations for school committee and some of the courses that they offer. I know that we've taken courses in the past. The past two years have been an anomaly, obviously, with the pandemic, but I really think that as a body, it would be great for us to create some goals ourselves and also have some monitoring of our progress on those goals and or accountability to the community. So I would really like to suggest to my colleagues that in a September meeting that we're able to have a meeting where we set some goals for the year, and then in the May meeting or April meeting, we have some accountability towards those goals, much like the superintendent has goals. And of course, the idea is that our goals would be our vision and goals would be close to the superintendents or ideas close to the superintendents, but it's still good to define as a body ourselves, those goals. So I just wanted to put that to the floor under the good of the order and ask my colleagues for their comments and thoughts. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd like to make a motion to have a goals meeting at the beginning of next year for school committee with some accountability measures included in the goals meeting so that we can report out at the end of the year how we did on those goals. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, point of information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just regarding the Universal Safety Committee. Thank you for mentioning that, Superintendent Edward-Vincent. It meets monthly. It's been happening for the past several years. The mission is to address safety issues specific to students with disabilities, especially during lockdowns and other items, and lots of things have come out of that committee, and they also meet quarterly with the principals. Great, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Superintendent, would you mind defining high needs for us so that we know what's disaggregated in that data, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: In the presentation, there was information on the DESE standard for the equity audit and other educational institutions.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have something else I wanted to comment on. If you want to respond.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Douglas, for the presentation. I wanted to just comment on a couple of things that were said as well for the folks that are here. just through the chair, I want to concur with my colleague that we do very much care about our children, our teachers, our paraprofessionals, our staff. I think it's really commendable that you're standing up for the parents here. I appreciated the folks that did that. I hope that you'll continue to do that. $17,000 a year is not a livable wage. $50 a day is not a livable wage. And as a caregiver of a child with an intellectual and developmental disability, I can tell you how hard that work is from a personal perspective. So I want to say that I think it's really important that you folks are doing that and appreciate that very much. I also want to say, if you're looking at a $71.67 million budget and $55 million is for personnel, we roughly have $12, $13 million to spend on the entire rest of the district. So how do we cut that pie? How do we decide who gets what, when, where, when everybody wants more? And so, you know, again, as we're talking about each other compassionately I hope with some empathy, seeing things from your perspective I'm also asking you know that you see things from this perspective as well, nobody's doing this job up here because, you know, it pays a lot, or because you know, you know, for the notoriety for the for the friends, I don't think so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I just think getting back to that point about caring about our children, I think we all care for our children. And I hope that we can move forward with that in mind together. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Mustone let folks know that she was going to be running behind tonight because she was at the high school. So she will be checking in later. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have information too. Can you put that slide back up on the proposals, the packaged, you know, each one, please? Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I wanted to just clarify through the chair, Member Ruseau's motion, if I could. So if I understand correctly, with the 72.4 categories A, B, and D, Member Ruseau, that is because you're not including C because of the ESSER aspect of funding of that. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And so that's what I thought. Okay. ABD and then E the strong consideration, which is in the, in the 73, four is not being considered in the ABD. So I guess I would ask that if we can go back to the strong consideration page for a moment, if my colleagues will indulge me, I would like to do that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to congratulate everyone on that process and thank Mr. Murphy for all of his hard work and putting this together and the presentation and giving us all an opportunity to try a new process. And I know this is arduous for all, but thank you guys, everyone for all your hard work.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, go ahead. I also wanted to ask that, and I'm assuming that this will be the case, but I just want to put it out there, ask that the deck that was presented tonight be shared on the website, as well as obviously the full budget proposal. So that, you know, in our budget books that I know that we'll be receiving, and I know there are some things pending, So I understand that, but as soon as those are ready, I would ask that they be published on the website, please. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so the public budget hearing. And then also, I guess, you know, I don't want to jinx anybody, but I guess, what is the process if the appropriation comes in less than the amount that the school committee has asked for? What do we do in that case?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham, may I respond to that just or follow up on that? So just process-wise, though, if we don't get an appropriation until July 1, at what point will we be coming back to the table to figure out the reallocation, should that be the case?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And feel free, Paul, if it's too much with the coughing or whatever, if you want one of us to read, we're happy to do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's FCK, it's not FC.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But I mean you know what it is, but obviously it's they took out the U, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Paul, Ms. Galussi and Mr. Cushing have their hands up. Dr. Cushing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I think that we're having a good conversation here, but I think that we're talking about two different things, if I might. I think on one hand, if I'm hearing correctly, on the one hand, I'm hearing Member Ruseau talking about What's legally permissible. And on the other hand, I'm hearing us talk about what Medford score values are so I think there's two different things that we're talking about we should tease those out a little bit. And so, you know, to what point is this policy is it you know what's legally permissible or is it. You know Medford public schools policy and so I think sort of answering that question might be helpful. And then just in terms of this particular word, you know profanity or whatever. I think, you know, a workaround could potentially be, you know, deemed offensive. you know, are pornographic contained threats deemed offensive? And so deemed offensive, I know, is a little bit looser than profanity, but deemed offensive, maybe we have some definition of, you know, further definition of what's deemed offensive or deemed offensive, you know, by, I don't know, central administrator or something. But if profanity is clearly not the legal term, because, you know, there was a ruling that says that that's not the issue, I think, you know, we have to think about, again, what's Medford's core value and policy around this and what is, you know, the legal piece and whether or not it gets challenged legally is another, you know, is a conversation, I guess, for another day. But I think if we focus more specifically, I guess it's a fine line, but I would say we should focus more specifically on what Medford's core values are and what we wanna say here. And then, you know, the legal piece can, you know, either be vetted through our attorney and or, you know, whether or not there's a lawsuit. But if we know specifically profanity, then maybe we just want to think about a different way of wording that and deem defensive potentially, you know, could be it. I don't know. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can Google profanity in schools and Supreme Court ruling while you guys continue the discussion, see if that helps.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I don't. I was just sleeping and messing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right. Can you hear me? Yes. I said, I actually don't, I'm leaving a message, but I have to step, not step away. I'm gonna have my earpiece in and I have to step downstairs to attend to something. I'll be listening, but I will be off screen for about five minutes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if I might add, just, is it okay? No, if I might add, just getting back to Mr. Began's point, I think, again, the synonym, which is what I was saying earlier, is fine. And I think it's just gonna be a matter of not just how a teacher interpreted initially, I think it'll be a matter of how the teacher or admin interprets it. But if it's raised to a level that we need to address, then we will. And again, whether it's another issue in terms of a lawsuit or something like that, then obviously we address it. But I think that, yeah, using a word that's just a synonym but a little bit more vague than profanity would sort of address this.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think May I remember, Marissa? Yes, yes. I think, I mean, I think I understand the intention. And I also think that when you start parsing out what undergarments means, there's going to be all this like, well, what about the front of my bra strap? Or what about the top of my underwear? I mean, I think it gets really going into the minutiae when we start to parse out what this means. And so I don't know. Undergarments too, I think, is so vague. I guess you could just say underwear. I don't know. I think undergarments can be any number of things. I think a lot of the girls, certainly I have a young adult female in my home and they essentially wear what looks to me like a bra under a shirt maybe or a cardigan or something like that with the cardigan open. And, you know, does that qualify as an undergarment? Does that qualify as underwear? Does that qualify as bra straps? I don't know. I think you're gonna like, we're really sort of getting into the weeds with some of that minutia. So I don't know. I would be curious to hear what our folks who are in the high school every day seeing this have to say. So maybe Maurice or Mr. DeLava, if you could weigh in here, it would be good to hear from you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So are you okay with the bra strap is what I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So I was just going to add, you know, I'm assuming Mr. DeLava, but I guess I don't want to assume. And for the folks who are on the call, I want to make sure that we're clarifying anyway, or folks watching that dealing with dress code, potential dress code violations or anything sort of that manner that You guys obviously think about it from a team approach so that a male teacher can address males, preferably a female teacher can address females, preferably. I'm assuming that that would be the norm anyway, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, so our- I also just want to, may I remember, so just as a point of information or as a response to that, I just want to clarify, that's not what I heard. So I think that that's part of this, is that so much of this can be subjective, and that's why we're trying to be so nuanced in so much of it. So what I heard, or certainly what I intended when I was raising that and what I heard Principal DeLava respond to me as too, was that we're being sensitive to the needs of, are individual students based on how we are presenting to them concern. There's not a male approaching potentially a female and and further embarrassing them based because of all of the gender sort of issues or norms or what have you that exist there. Not that we're targeting girls more or targeting boys more or anything like that. My point was that we're actually being more subtle and more thoughtful about how it's being approached. And that I know that certainly my child or other children I would assume would prefer to be approached by potentially. And again, this is such a gendered conversation that it's really hard to have the conversation. So there's even more nuance there, but that it's about being sensitive to the needs of people across gender that you might not understand that perhaps as women, we may understand some women's issues better. And as men, men may understand men's better issues better. And again, that's the caveat of trying not to be so gendered, but more about being sensitive to other people. So that was what I heard in the administration administration's response. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to report the language out as is. to the school sergeant may.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, everyone. Agreed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent, for the comments. And I just wanted to mention at the CCSR project exposition today, Representative Donato was there as well, but I just wanted to highlight a couple of the projects that the students are doing, because I just do think that for folks who are listening or online, CCSR is the Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility, and this is a group organization across the middle schools and high schools where students volunteer and they create community-based projects. being there today just, you know, it was so inspiring and gives me so much hope for our students and for our district to see what CCSR does and what the students bring to the table. There was an English language give back project where students help with interpretation for families who are English learners. There was a veterans recognition where they're sharing stories of veterans from the war. There's a stand with Ukraine where the students raised, I think, thousands of dollars to support folks in Ukraine, the Mystic River Cleanup, Seeds to Feed, Seeds to Feed, they built a garden with food in the quad at the school and they brought the food, the produce to one of the food pantries. Period Poverty, where they're helping other students who experience period poverty, the CCSR Memorial Garden to recognize those in our community who have passed during COVID. So much of it was just so inspiring and I just think that our students and Rich Trotter and Michael Skorka and all of the folks at CCSR that do this work should be just lauded for all of this and for the community members for next year when this happens, encourage community members to come and see these projects and see the students that are working on them because they are really inspiring and something that I think can bring us all further together.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Williams. Congratulations. Thank you. It's wonderful that we have this excellent partnership with Harvard and we're getting the best of their leaders to come and help Medford identify problems of practice and theories of solutions. And you've been really such a value added to our system. So thank you so much. I can't wait to see what you do next. And I hope that you'll keep in touch with us and we can see your growth as well as ours. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you for the presentation. And you said there was 237. And did you say from all classes or from the senior class? Senior class. Senior class, so that's good. That was a good turnout. And it was volunteer, you said?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Thank you for the presentation, Mr. Murphy. And if you could just articulate again, just sort of, and maybe it's in an email as well, just sort of specifically what feedback you want from us and when. and then also when we'll have the budget books so that we can offer feedback in sort of the, in a macro way.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? So is there an opportunity for, I know we talked last time for an opportunity for public feedback. Is that going to be the sixth or when is that going to be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But that's definitely out in the sphere, we have to have that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanna reiterate, I know the process was new last year with the Google Docs and it took a little while for everybody to sort of get up to speed on that. And I don't remember, did we, maybe one of my colleagues might remember, did we, especially for new members, did we have like a primer on the process that went along with the document, just sort of that people could understand, or do we need to create that? Does anybody remember?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I, there was my recollection described it. So if I understand this motion correctly, the secretary is going to As, as was the case last year the Secretary will sort of initiate this process with the rest of the members with a sort of description of what needs to be done is that accurate assumption to the chest.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I guess I just would ask that we have it for posterity so that in the event that member Hays, myself, you, member Ruseau aren't around, in any time in the near future, just that it's sort of there. So I'm happy to help with that too, but just that there's a description of what we're doing and that it's outlined for everybody. If I might make a friendly amendment to that, if we don't already have it, that there will be a description of the process for the using the Google form that was created last year that the secretary will initiate with the rest of the committee, if I may.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mr. Fallon, Mayor, can I just ask a quick question while we're going through? Is that okay, or do you want to go through? I just was wondering how much those cost. Those sound really interesting. How much are those? Do you know, Mr. Fallon?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fallon. It's always good to hear from you, hear about your success of your programs. Great school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And toward that end, I was wondering if the ECE, if there's an opportunity or are there any ideas for expansion on that program to our other, any of our other elementary schools? I think, you know, to that point, there are so many opportunities for this program to grow. And I know that you said it plateaued. So do you think there's an opportunity for that in the future? Just wondering as it's, you know, being raised, it sounds like a great program.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I would also just, if I may suggest, you know, partnership with or discussion with Mrs. Bowen's team as well, just to, particularly, I think of people who might be interested in early intervention or other, you know, sort of aspects of special education on that realm. So I think it'd be interesting to look at that opportunity. So thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Ms. Glucy. I missed, or maybe you were saying that it was not on here, so forgive me if I'm asking something that you said. But what did you say about the MEEP classrooms? I just was questioning this because I know that I've been told anyway that there's a substantial waiting list for the the preschool classrooms and especially the integrated, which has been a model for inclusion in our district specifically because it is a healthy mix of students with and without disabilities and has had a waiting list for some time. So I'm wondering if that's being addressed or did you say that in a different sheet or something? I'm not quite sure what, I missed something, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so it's absent special education, MEEP, and did you say the newcomers? Correct. And that is just because you were talking about specifically consolidation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And will there be numbers? So I know that I think yesterday we got some numbers around school enrollment for each of the schools, particularly, and I know last year that was definitely part of the budget book. So I'm assuming those numbers will include the MEEP special ed and newcomers programs when they're presented, is that right, Mr. Murphy or Ms. Galussi?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then there'll be another opportunity, I would assume, to ask about the MEEP program? Mr. Murphy?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Got it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I just wanted to say that if you guys, that was very helpful because I understand the language that you guys were all speaking, but if anybody was listening to that and didn't know this language, it seriously sounds like a foreign language. And I just am again asking that that be pointed out just a little bit. And so you know, if I could translate or if somebody else wants to translate essentially what you're talking about here is professional development for literacy, for reading skills, and that there are tools that are used by educators called things like DIBLS, FONTAS, and PINAL, DRA, those are all assessment tools for reading or have been previously used assessment tools for reading, right? Or perhaps you could do just a little bit of a, a concise sort of summary of what you just said that would sort of be the equivalent of a translation for the layperson, if you wouldn't mind.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well done. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So yeah, I'm still in the process, part of it as well and so I'm looking for a little bit of clarification for what's expected for next week and also just having been through one budget process previously. On the school committee, although I know colleagues here. Some have been on more and some have been on last, and certainly community members, and with this being a new process this year I think it'd be helpful to have this laid out a little bit more so. Previously, we would have department heads come and present to us with their sort of previous budget from the year before, which we could see. And then any additional requests that they had that were sort of above and beyond their previous budget from the year ahead. And then we would have recommendations from the superintendent based on those things. That was sort of the previous process. And this process has been more about a grouping under categories of items that were aligned or are aligned with the superintendent and the approved school committee strategic plan, and then further categorized on this ABCD category, but not in the context of sort of the larger budget for the community seat, what the previous budget was departmentally. So no sort of comparison basis, if you will. And obviously we as school committee members will get a budget book that has all that information but for the community. What does that look like, and what does it also look like for us for next week so I think through the chair what I understood member Graham saying was that, you know, again, in addition to not having things fall off the list that might not have been in the A, B category, that we're also not looking at things sort of in a vacuum, which I think is aligned with what I'm saying, but perhaps Mr. Murphy, you can spell this out a little bit better for me and for the community about what this will look like in terms of comparison to previous budget, proposed budget, sort of departmentally. Are we gonna see this in context?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we take this slide down? Sorry, can we take this slide down just so we, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then if I just might have a follow up on that mayor. So are we is the expectation or the anticipation that we will be voting on a number for next Monday's meeting? Or is that I mean,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And then thank you. And when are we anticipated, when is it anticipated that we'll be getting the budget books? If we're expecting, you know, some sort of vote next week and is the opportunity for public feedback essentially next week's meeting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Oh, did you say when we were getting the budget book? Sorry, did I get that answer?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It doesn't say rename. I need to rename mine. I try to do it every time, but it's not until Peter or whoever's running the Zoom gives us co-host ability.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, present.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to ensure for folks that we know that we'll get a copy of the PowerPoint presentations I know that we will but I just sort of wanted to put that out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excellent. Mayor, can I just ask a quick question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Schulman. I know you later said, initially in the opening, you talked about FBAs, and then later you mentioned functional behavior assessment. So just wanted to reiterate that those are one and the same. Yes. Did I understand you correctly that you said School adjustment Councilors do FBAs as well as BCBAs, the behavioral certified, you know, board certified behavioral analysts do FBAs as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then I would just ask educators and the central administration leaders, folks, what have you, if we can try to just, thank you so much, that was helpful. And if we can just try to catch ourselves on the acronym so that we can maybe say them fully and then say the acronym too or whatever, just again, for the lay people out there, I know that when I first came on board, it was a lot of edgy speak. So thank you and appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And did I miss the ratio and the Andrews and the full ratio for the high school and the vocational school, or are you just still getting there? Ms. Holman, I wanted to just make sure we didn't miss that. Did I miss that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And can I just ask, Mayor, is the DPH grant, is there a term on that, or is it just for the one year?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, thank you. Yes, and I also just want to know, and I know my colleagues know this, but also for those who are watching that, you know, that there's also this ratio of, there's numbers, but there's also a ratio of Most vulnerable student population right so if we're talking about specific staffing it's not as we've said so many times before right equity is not that everybody gets the same equity is that everybody gets what they need. So just again, I just want to make sure that we're saying that there's nuances in the population, so even though. at face value, it might be, oh, this school has more, or that school has less, or any of those things, that there are different populations at each of the schools as well, as we know. And I know that as Mr. Teixeira was just saying a little while ago, and obviously I know that we as a committee are, and as central administration and other administrations are aware of that, but I'm not sure that the community as a whole is. So I just wanted to point that out too. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Mayor, may I also just add to that? Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just want to point out to folks again who are watching, and I know Mike, the committee, fellow committee members and others in the field know this, but this can also be checked on Google. If you just do Google school district profile Medford, know, Mass, DESE, and it will come up for each of the schools. There's a whole breakdown, there's visuals, there's all sorts of things that are super helpful. So I would also just ask, and I'm happy to do screenshots if it helps, and send it to folks that are putting the budget book together, Dave, if it saves time or whatever. But I, as you know, I think we've talked about this before, visuals are always super helpful to me too. So there's a really great visual on the DESE cover page for each of the you know, I know you know that the graphic would be super helpful if you wouldn't mind incorporating that with the with the brief narrative. I think that's helpful for others as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I have a question? Actually, sorry. May I have a question if no one else does? Sure. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Because what was the category for the Curtis-Tufts? Because we're on a different slide, so I can see the categories for the registration and the float, which are E and B. What was the category?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: D for the Curtis-Tufts nurse. OK. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so thank you, Miss Bowen. And can you speak to why you're seeing an increase in subseparate programming at the high school level?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and the categorization is A, not under ESSER, is that right? Because is that not COVID related for the increase in the SEL? Or I'm just curious about the categorization.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just, may I am there one other thing?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just want to reiterate again for, you know, folks watching, I know there are some folks watching that are concerned. These are, these are the, uh, top priorities that we're sort of going through now. Not obviously the entire sort of department thing. So just again, for folks who I think are worried about some other things that they wanna know about specifically regarding special education, these are primarily the priorities, as it says on the top of the slide.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just when you said before we move on from the special education, the next line item is the disability awareness training. So, and that looks like it's a high priority. No, I just wanted to confirm that folks know what that is. And I don't know if Ms. Bowen needs to speak to it, but I knew it was the next line item. So I didn't want to move on until, or if she has a chance to talk about that, if folks wanted to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just point of information, I'm assuming also differentiated curriculum, that sort of initiatives that was also discussed around some of the disability awareness material, is that curriculum piece folded into this or not?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You're welcome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? I'm just, yeah, I don't know if you guys can see the hand, so I also just sort of unclick, so I'm hoping I'm not jumping in front of any of my colleagues, but let me know if I am, please. Regarding the art programming and instruction, I wanted to ask Ms. Bowen, among others, and perhaps a question to her. the director as well, or the arts teacher instruction, music teacher instruction. We have heard, I've heard from a few people in the community, specifically around students with specialized instruction needs. And again, these are often the students who are most experienced in the most sort of exacerbation by the pandemic, around differentiation of curriculum. For the inclusion, we see a higher number of occlusion opportunities in these specials, specifically music arts PE. And I know that obviously we've had adaptive PE this year, which is really wonderful. But families have talked a lot about the lack of differentiation in some music and art instruction. I think explicitly I've heard some and certainly the art. But so, as one can imagine, say in middle school, the students are learning about notes and sort of other aspects of theory and music instructions and what have you. A student perhaps with an intellectual disability or other disability not being able to access that curriculum because there's not necessarily differentiation around what is being provided in the curriculum. Will any of this sort of Programmatic elements address that need. And again, I don't know if this is for Ms. Bowen or sort of just a question that I'm putting out in the air that we can address later, but it is something that I wanted to bring to folks' attention as something that's been brought to mind. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. And computer, but that's another issue. But yes, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And but we won't know that right until July one, whether it's it's been passed in the governor's budget.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm trying to remember between the subcommittee meetings, but did that meeting say that we needed to schedule another meeting? Yes. So did we need to make a motion for that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you for the presentation and it was just a beautiful thing really does sum it up. This is a great two programs. Thank you so much for Carla and Rachel. I know that this has been a dream of yours for a long time. So It's so nice to see it actually come to fruition. And I think it's such a good thing for our community. And I did have just a couple of questions. Were there any students that, I know you said that you were at capacity for, I think, the high school. So were there any students, this is for the unified, were there any students that you had to turn away or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I was able to come to some of those and they were beautiful. Thank you so much. And also the football team I saw at some of the games and I think what was really remarkable to see the unique and natural friendships that were evolving during the team and people feeling like they really belonged. And that was something really special to see. And then I also just wanted to ask about other staff that were involved, because I know that there were a lot of other staff there, and I just want to make sure that we recognize them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Cindy Griffin came and volunteered.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: it's been really thoughtful in terms of the way that you've put it together. So I, I, as a parent of a child with an intellectual and developmental disability, especially appreciate and can see the uniqueness of the way that you put it together. So thank you very, very much for that and for being so inclusive. And there was one other thing that I did have to ask was, oh, and I also think you're setting a trend in the community. So, you know, the there's a theater program now that's an adaptive theater program. And I think it's part of the trend that you guys are setting. So I just wanted to say, thank you for that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just had one other question, because thank you to the chair, member Graham, about the budget. I also wanted to ask about, I know that you said that the purchases for AP were in the PE budget, and I was wondering if that was, did that take up a lot of cost, or is there anything that we need to know about additional cost for things that you folks might need? And I also just want to say simple things just make a huge difference, too, that I noticed in the picture. So thank you for the Velcro, and just some simple things that can be done, some low-tech things.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Miss Andre, were you saying something about some of the adaptive equipment too, perhaps through other programming or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You have a lot of great ideas. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edwardson.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Would you mind if we just have a brief explanation of what that is? So for folks who are watching that don't know what that means, maybe just two lines or something.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I just have a point of information, Mayor? Point of information, just if you could share what steps and lanes are for folks who are watching who don't know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? I don't have a question, but I did want to just say thank you for the presentation and for the staff who put all of the information into this slide deck, because you can tell it was well thought out. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to thank folks who came up to the podium to speak tonight because I know that's not always easy and also did also want to say a lot of the teachers in the audience have been teachers to my children and I want to thank you and thank teachers for the during teacher appreciation week, but and also say thank you for the invitation tonight for Mr. Heinegg and for others and You know, it's a great opportunity and welcome the opportunity, but also the invitation is really important because we can't just show up and come into classrooms. And I hope people know that. So an invitation is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: incredibly busy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I'm actually running out and I can stop at Whole Foods and get you something on the way if you want. Let me know. I'm serious. No need to go without eating dinner. That's not healthy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I do have some questions. I think I was not in this last meeting. I think that was, yeah, I think I had COVID.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. So, um, I just had a question I'm sort of reading it over and had a question. What I'm because I missed the discussion many types of legal assistance or routine and do not require specific committee approval or prior notice however when the superintendent concludes that unusual types of amount or amounts of professional legal service may be required required they will advise the committee and seek either initial or continuing authorization for such service. Can you distill that for me? I'm not quite sure what you're saying there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Can we, do you think, I don't know, is there a way to wordsmith that just a little bit more because that was really a hard read for me. I was like, I don't, and I can see it. It's not that it was more that it was a really hard read for me. And I didn't know what you were talking about. I see that. I knew that you had a purpose, but I couldn't see what exactly the purpose was if you follow me. So, um,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so if we could just say something like, you know, something as simple as you said, you know, there's a standard retainer fee for legal services. You know, if that retainer, if it's, you know, if there's an unusual amount of services needed that will, you know, exceed that standard fee, then, you know, if then something. So that sort of spells it out a little bit more because it's not clear what is being said there. In my opinion, and I would you know obviously ask other members what they what their opinions are but I didn't really understand that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't think we need to know the details, just that we have one, that we have a retainer that is a budgeted amount. And if it looks as though that retainer is going to be significantly exceeded, the superintendent will advise the committee and seek authorization for that excess. Do you want me to put that in the chat?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that would be helpful. And then while you're typing that, if you don't mind, if I could ask another question, since I wasn't here and maybe some other folks could help answer, is that okay, Member Rizzo? Sure. Um, what was the conversation around this regarding. So Howard is one aspect of our legal services, but as folks know I'm sure there's another aspect through to me and Lane Lane and I forget the third name, which is the special education representation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It does not require specific committee approval of prior notice. However, when the superintendent, the usual types or amounts of personnel may be required that exceed the budget of retainer, they will advise the committee and seek either initial... Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that helps me understand a little bit more.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: In front of budgeted, you have it twice.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and then. So, given what you just said member or so about this separate issue that this is specific to the school attorney which is a little bit vague because we technically have to school attorneys we have Howard and then we have a firm. that represents against the special education law, because it's more, I assume, because it's more complex and you need a specific license for that. But at the top and the open sentence, it says it will be the duty of the council for the committee to advise the school committee. It will be the, yeah, so the council for the committee, I would call it, instead of school attorney, I might say on the top, council for the committee, because that really specifically says it's our, essentially. It's not, because we have more than one, yeah, council for the committee. Yeah, committee, yeah, whatever. I like what you said there. Council for the committee to advise the school committee and the superintendent on the specific legal problems submitted to them. Yes. The council for the committee, I would say instead of they, because it's suggested- Where are you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. The council for the committee will attend meetings upon request and will be, yeah, sufficiently familiar with committee policies. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, so either school committee attorney or counsel for the committee, I would say one or the other. But yeah, that looks good. Thank you for bearing with me. I'm sorry I missed the last meeting. That's okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. And I'm wondering if it's not either or, but maybe both and, and I don't know, but I would put that out there. So what I'm hearing is that, obviously nobody would wanna limit the superintendent's authority and ability to consult with the school attorney, which I'm sure happens on multiple occasions in multiple ways. But it seems to me, What I, what I thought part of this was as well is that the school committee is informed should legal action be taken. And not just that it's exceeding the budget right so I thought it was both. So I'm sort of responding to both what Mr. Murphy was just saying and my impression of what I thought this document was as well. So I don't know if I'm being clear.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Remember, so I just wanted to point out that you missed committee at the top on the second. I just noticed it and I didn't want to forget. So second sentence, yeah, that sentence, the council for the committee. Second sentence.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But just as a point of information on the next paragraph, don't you say the typical consequences for violation? So it sounds like the options would be if they're staying in class, there could be a directive to cover or change the attire. So they could cover up potentially while they're in class. So there does seem like there are some options if they stay in the class, but that's you're not what you're what I'm hearing you say, if I'm, if it's, if I'm hearing you right member or so is your that paragraph that says they should not be removed from class was not the intention that you had. Or was it the intention that you had I'm not sure what you're saying because I, from what I'm hearing member Graham say is that she's wondering if they're not removed from the class, you know, how are they, then, addressing the, the code violation but I feel like the next paragraph addresses some of how they could address it within the class but I'm not sure that was your intention so what was your, I mean,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll give you an example. Say somebody has something on their shirt that has a swear on it, right? And so, you know, it's not, the kids are used to seeing hearing, talking swears. It's not gonna, the class is not gonna go, oh, that kid has a swear on their shirt. You know what I mean? Like they're used to seeing that kind of thing, but clearly it's a violation of the code, right? So that's an example. In that instance, there could be whatever, a jacket, a sweatshirt, something in the room that, you know, they could zip up, cover up until they can change or something. I guess that's the example.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to continue this policy to another subcommittee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes Member.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Same. I mean, I think we've been getting the same emails.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I did just have one question so we're gonna. So if I'm understanding you correctly you want to make a proposal to the school committee that we review the policies on the five or so policies on the current policy and make a recommendation to the school committee based on that. It doesn't have to go to like another like rules policy subcommittee, nothing like that. We make the policy recommendation. Correct. Yeah. So I make a motion that we move forward the policy review for the absenteeism and truism through the subcommittee to make a recommendation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I appreciate that, especially working on a number of family and community engagement initiatives with the mass spec at the state level talking about, you know, sort of DCF and sort of the role that DCF plays and even trying to build family engagement around DCF and other other folks right like it's a really important and much needed issue. And when people hear that obviously there's a knee jerk response right like there's a that automatically makes the relationship strained between school and family, even, you know, under any circumstances, even if it's just sort of a process circumstance. So I do think it's an important issue to address, and perhaps if it's something that the DA does need to be looped in on for whatever reason that perhaps we're unaware of, it could even be just a further discussion with the District Attorney's Office on how to consider making that a more family-centered response from the District Attorney's Office, even as a way of introduction or you know, something and saying, is there, if there's anything we can do to support or whatever, but, and also stating the policy. So if there's a procedural, you know, process that we're unaware of that needs to happen for some reason that we don't know about that we can find out more about either through Megan or Dr. Maurice or the district attorney's office, then that said, it would be worth having a further conversation about how to make that more friendly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say the appreciation for what the superintendent was sharing about and I know that member Graham and members understand this as well. But you know those those children that can fall through the cracks I mean we see that harmony Montgomery case right how many times how many, you know that school really, you know, school school systems failed her, you know, and we don't want that to happen with any of our children of course so. are students, of course. So there is a fine line. But I do think the fronting piece is the piece that we really need to get across that this is a caring community. And you know, one that wants to support the families and have the family centered message, and then the additional information. So, but I can appreciate where you're coming from as well. Dr. Edwardson, thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think this is a really interesting point and important point regarding families being involved in the process and, you know, there is the, the mass family engagement center. That's not far from here it's just in Charlestown but it's a statewide one and they offer lots of supports and services so I know, Miss fellow carry has done some training with mass spec. And I'm sure if there were, for example, what you're saying is, you know, whether there would be some folks who would consider looking at a pilot website with family community engagement feedback. I mean, there's a whole resource community at MassVAC that is just constituents that are all family and engagement coordinators and community members, but also families from other districts, you know, people that are looking and doing comparative analysis of family and community engagement across districts. So I definitely think it's something that, you know, If you guys are interested in having some feedback and looking at feedback, they'd be available to help support that too. They've been more than helpful in offering support, really trying to move family and community engagement forward across multiple districts. They've mentored programs, they have a whole bunch of things, but I think specific to the website and looking at sort of how to engage people. I just shared in the chat, the BPS example, that was from a Mass Effect training as well, but there's a lot of resources there too. that I'm sure we could capitalize on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And if, and if we can also decide accessibility to because there is a whole contingency around accessibility with, you know, not just language but around and I don't know I'm not an expert in this field at all but there are plenty that are around, you know, for people who are either vision impaired or, you know, hearing impaired any of those things there's there's certain standards that. You can go by when you're building and certainly the website people who know you know who are building. Some of them know it, some of them don't, but there are certainly experts out there who do so if I could just add that to member Graham language, language and accessibility.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just add one thing when you go to the website folks to just in terms of the accessibility. So there are options that can have you can just simple options like you can do image descriptions there are simple options where you can do text readers like they're embedded in the thing so that people who are not able to hear or see, you know, that kind of thing. Okay, thank you just making sure we understand. So motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Vice Chair Graham? Member McLaughlin? Thank you. Thank you. to come for the presentation. And I just wanted to ask, I know we've talked about this before, but I'm sure you know the question I'm going to ask. special education supplements and differentiation for the math program. Can you talk to that a little bit?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Ruseau, if you wouldn't mind sharing that information with us from the MASC, I think it would be really good to see, because I actually just received some varying information over the weekend about curriculum in another arena from DESE. So if you could share with us, that would be really great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the report. It is really extensive and really exciting to see so much more opportunity in the summer for our kids and It's great when they're through the school and they are affordable and free for, like you said, for many of them in the community schools actually even some of the cost of the community schools are pretty reasonable. I know that summer fun camp which we've been part of for many years was really reasonable and really enjoyable so I really appreciate you putting this together. I did want to just put out there. food for thought. Um, and not that I necessarily expect a response now, but I would just like, you know, folks to think about it, have some open conversation. And I mentioned this to, um, Ms. Bowen as well, um, because it's been brought up several times by a number of families about having accessible summer programming for, um, students with disabilities, English learners, obviously beyond ESY, beyond the academic, beyond the EL programming. Um, so for the camps, the, you know, um, sports activities, those sorts of things, which I know that our response, the initial sort of response is, well, everything's inclusive. And of course we are, but it's more than being inclusive. It's about being adaptive and accessible. And so that making sure that we're thinking about that for programming. So for example, we have these really great unified sports programs now that are starting with miss Andre, who's been doing wonderfully with them. And the kids are really enjoying them. And so many kids that maybe are struggling otherwise are really coming out in those groups. So it's really heartening to see And I'm wondering what and how something like that could be integrated into summer programming so that we're making sure that we're being inclusive. And I know Ms. Andre had mentioned something about, you know, even in tandem with like an ESY, right? So they have say morning ESY for students and then an afternoon integrated program with and without students with disabilities, maybe with, you know, some opportunities for high school students to participate, what have you, but just sort of putting a bug in people's ear to be thinking about like, what does that look like? And also we have a new outside, program with Spotlight Productions. They're doing an adaptive theater program now, which is great. And, you know, 800 of our students are on IEPs, which is not an insignificant number, obviously, in a population that I think we should, you know, really think about. And then I think a lot of people in the world as well, just because of, you know, everything that's been happening in the country the past few years and the inclusive nature of people's thoughts as they're looking at equity, diversity and inclusion around the globe, really. people are just thinking about how do we make this into something broader and bigger and thinking about everybody. And so I guess I just would love to be part of that in whatever way we can to be thinking about what that looks like. And, you know, there, I think it's something like 50 million people with disabilities in the world. And there's a big market out there. There's a big untapped market out there. And I think you'll see a lot of, you know, people in the disability community going to, you know, specific camps, what have you, there's a lot of opportunity for them, but also for the camps and potential revenue building. So just wanted to mention that too. Thank you so much for this. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, then Member Kreatz. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. So for the, did you say there's a timeline posted on the website for with some TBDs? So for the timeline posted, is that including the feedback session from community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I respond? Oh, sorry. Member Kreatz? Thanks. Member McLaughlin? Thank you. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. So would there be like a miscellaneous night if possible? If we need it, obviously we don't want to say that we have it, but just have a hold on a miscellaneous night in case there are any overflow items.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, may I ask a question? Member McLaughlin? Thank you. So just to elaborate on the wait list, there's no wait list for the care referrals, is that right? Um, for care solace referrals for the care program for the outside support for counseling supports, you know,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And I guess just following up on that for the provider in the community, I know that you know there's a huge mental health deficit obviously for lots of folks providers and I'm wondering if if a student is referred for outside mental health supports and services, but is not able to get them for because of a wait list. In other words, so then what's the next step?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You're welcome. Ma'am? Member McLaughlin? Member Graham has a comment. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Did you, yes. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for the report and all the hard work that I know our behavioral health team does. It has been really trying for everybody, families and caregivers and staff and everyone. So thank you for the hard work. Just a couple of quick questions. Are there any behavioral health supports for the MEEP program?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And so how do they tap into that? Cause I know they're not on this for like allocated. Do they just use this high school?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then for the access to care referral, I'm wondering, is that available also for out-of-district families?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in the services, obviously, if out-of-district placements don't have the particular services that the child needs, obviously the district provides the in-person, I mean, in the instead services. And can you tell us a little bit about the NEXUS classes? Can you expand on that just a bit?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I have a question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so if you guys are looking at page 12, 13 on the rules document that was provided in the packet and you align them you'll see that there's a hij added and then maybe the member haze can elaborate if there's more but you know if you just put the two items side by side on your page 13 of your rules and member haze document it might help clarify.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was just going to say, I thought we were voting just on this, and if we're not, we wanted to split the decision. I would like to split the motion, because I thought we were just voting on the amendment at this point. So I guess I would make a motion to, if we need to, to split the motion so that it's a motion singularly for the Rule 88 amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin. We did have a motion. It didn't have a second. So it's just pending. Member Graham made a motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, I just wanted to say congratulations to the committee as a whole for all that hard work it was arduous but it was really good teamwork and I wanted to say thanks. to everybody.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I also just point of information also in there, if we could put up the document so that folks watching or at home can see the document that we're referring to, that would be helpful if someone could put it up as a screen share, please. And then that way, I'm not switching between windows because I'm working on a laptop with an elevated foot and makes it a little tricky. So the screen share would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. And by member McLaughlin, can I actually make a comment Mayor before we do the road, it would it be appropriate if I make it just a brief comment, or maybe we can hear from. maybe we could hear from the superintendent. I mean, I know that this has been a conversation that I've had with a few of the administrators and to that exact point, I know that with COVID, obviously we had really long hours and really long meetings and hopefully we don't have to repeat any of that again anytime soon. But even with 11 o'clock, getting up so early, I know from the administrator's perspective, I've heard the same, that it's been very difficult. And I also, definitely get really tired come 10 o'clock, especially if it's an intense meeting or there's a lot of material. So just wanted to ask if we might hear a weigh in from the administration if they're able, if that sounds reasonable for them hourly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I currently emotion with a second. So if we want. So, member credits put emotion I seconded it we were debating the motion but the. If you're suggesting an amendment to member credits motion. I'm not sure what you're suggesting but there's a, there is a motion on the floor with a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also have my hand up mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate my colleagues' willingness for negotiation. And I just also for clarity's sake, wanna just say, I don't think for me certainly, and I don't think for any of our colleagues, it's about working less. I think it's about working more efficiently. And I think everybody would agree that a lot of these meetings can go on. And in some cases it's reasonable, in other cases I feel like it's not. But I do think that some of the rules that are being proposed could alleviate some of the issues that we've had in the past. So hopefully we'll see more efficient meetings based on some of the rules that are being proposed that we're going to be bringing before the committee. So there's that piece of it. And I am, again, super sensitive to the staff and thinking about an additional four hours after their long day. It is a lot, but I'm also sort of open to the idea of a six to 10 window with the full understanding that 10 is not the cutoff. I mean, it's not the sort of the norm, it would be the cutoff. But again, if folks are interested in severing the motion and looking at, you know, the start time and the end time, I think that's also a good consideration. But for me, I do think four-hour meetings. I mean, think about a business. If you were in a four-hour meeting and people were like, you know, this is four-hour to meet, you know, after two hours, what's the productivity level? I think we would think about that. Now I know businesses have more meetings than every two weeks. So, you know, the other option is, you know, meet more frequently at less times. And I think that that would also be a whole discussion that people would not, you know, there would be the pros and cons again. So I'm just trying to put a few things out there, but I want to make it really clear. One, it's not about hard work. I think we're all hard workers. Two, it's about efficiency and having efficient meetings. And three, for me, it's about the sensitivity towards the staff that had very early mornings and very packed days. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So the motion to sever, just to be clear, you're severing the start time and end time, so we'll take a vote on each item, is that correct?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But first, we're voting on whether to sever the motion, is that correct?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we get a little, I'm sorry, Mayor, may I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Can we get a little explanation of this a bit? It feels very complicated.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for that explanation. That's helpful. And I do appreciate at the end of that, of the rule having in parentheses that, you know, see Robert's Rules of Order or per Robert's Rules of Order. And, and, you know, when that's the case for this, and I guess the next one, that would be really helpful. So folks know that that is part of the rescind and reconsider. And I find that with my Robert's Rules of Order book, I often have to read it a couple of times to understand the process and also sometimes YouTube videos or what have you. So I do think that's helpful. I think it's a little complicated as one reads it. And I assume others will think the same, but if we have the Robert's Rules of Order and I might make a friendly suggestion for a hyperlink or something, that would be really helpful. to Robert's Rules, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: motion to add Robert's rules of order to the specific rules being proposed when it's relevant with a hyperlink to Robert's rules so that for posterity, people who succeed us will have access to what it was we were actually referring to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, a reference, but I would prefer a hyperlink because these will be available on the website at some point, correct?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. So all I'm saying is that I think the reference to Robert's Rules is great. And then I would ask that there be a hyperlink once this is on the website to the Robert's Rules because I am assuming our rules will be on our website. And then if somebody is reading, say, a member of the community or a new school committee member for orientation or anything, Our rules on our public school website, and they see something referencing Robert rules of order for one of the specific rules that they could click, you know, to that hyperlink and be brought there so that they could learn more about. what it is we really set our rules up on. So if that, I hope that clarifies. So I would amend my motion to say when the, you know, Robert's rules of reference for any of the motions, I mean, for any of the rules that are proposed when it's appropriate, parenthetically or referenced, and then a hyperlink for when those go live online.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: For this specific one for rescind, but it is for, yes, but there's lots of information for the others. So I think not specific to the particular motion, but in general, so that people know to what we're referring. Thank you. Okay. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So to that end, it doesn't have to be that specific to the specific roles. I am asking that people are directed to what and including school committee members are directed to what Robert's Rules of Orders actually means and where they can get more reference. And I think that by going to the home page of Robert's Rules, they can see, yes, books, they can see references. I'm sure they can understand that, oh, if I Google or YouTube this, I'll probably be able to figure it out, but at least some landing page, something that explains to them what that actually means, because otherwise it has no anchor, no meaning, especially for a lay person. So just simply asking that we include the hyperlink, not specific to each of the motions as member Graham seconded.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Shall I state it again? Please. I would ask that there'll be parenthetical information for each of the motions that are Robert's Rules of Order specific, as in example 67 part D, see Robert's rules of order. And then, you know, at the end of the document for reference material or what have you, which this doc, I would ask that this document ultimately be posted online. So that's part two of my motion. And then the third part is that at the end of that document, there'll be obvious, you know, an API reference to Robert's rules of order with a hyperlink to a website, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, I appreciate the policy in expanding on communication between the school committee and Medford City Council. So if they are voting on something regarding the schools, it is really important and great for us to know that that's been voted on and that be sent to us and added to an agenda item so that we're aware of that. So the first half of the motion makes a lot of sense to me. I think the second half, after some of our colleagues explanation makes more sense than it did in the initial read. Because you were talking about City Council obviously as a body. So, referring the request to the superintendent for a more majority vote is fine. The superintendent is not authorized to respond to City Council request to attend City Council meeting or perform any actions requested by the City Council without a majority vote of the school committee. I think I think I'm behind that, that sentence, I think that what's maybe problematic for some people is the strong wording around not authorized and I just don't know what if there's a way to wordsmith this that is a little bit more collegial, as folks were saying. So maybe it is the superintendent is, you know, permitted to respond to city council request. to attend school committee, city council meetings, perform any actions requested by the city council with a majority vote of the school committee. So just flipping the language, so losing not authorized and without, and making it more strength-based language is what I would suggest as a friendly amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Can we just merge 82 and 83? Sorry, just merge 82 and 83. Yes, I second that. And I withdraw mine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If I may, I just wanted to thank Member Ruseau for all of the hard work on the proposed rules. This was obviously a tedious project and a lot of work, and the collaboration, as was just exemplified through Member Kreatz, I think this is a really good example of how we can all work together as a team and you know, at times it was arduous, but I think this has been productive. So I just wanted to say thank you. And I do have a question about how this will be married, how this document will be married to the policy or how the policy piece will be cross-referenced to the rules. And I know that we've said there's a distinguished meant between the rules and policy are distinguishable from each other, but I do see repeats in them. So I'm wondering what folks are thinking in terms of that, because I don't want them to be too redundant and people not to be not thinking that they're repetitive and wouldn't read the rules versus the policy. So I'm curious what my colleagues would say about that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would just also ask that I mean, we did find obviously the policy rules for the website that were slightly embedded and also their formatted, according to the MSC because it was a MSC that was document that was. sort of part of our subscription package and then modified based on, you know, previous meetings and what have you. It's just, it's a very cumbersome document. It's very difficult to read. The font, frankly, is very difficult to read. And particularly if the policy, I mean, the rules are gonna be in a, I would assume, an easy to read Google doc that the policy could be in a similar sort of format just so that they're not, because they do relate to each other, they're interconnected. and so that the format is similar. So I would just make a friendly amendment that the policy document is updated to a similar format as the rules document so that they are user-friendly for constituents and candidates.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a point of information? Member Ruseau, I'm offering to do that. I'm not asking that you do that. I just think it needs to be a user-friendly document similar to this 13-page document. I've already cut in pieces.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So the point of information was, I guess, would it be acceptable if I offered to do the reformatting similar to the rules document?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Appointed custodian of record that is published, you know, on the website or something that people know who it is. Friendly amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I believe we are. Yes. Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Document out to school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and I would like to note that we are 12 minutes ahead of schedule and we're ending early. Team, thank you. Let's keep this up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can't hear you, I can't Brianna.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes, thank you. Sorry, I can't find my hand raised button here, so I apologize. I just wanted to say thank you very much for the presentation and also for the way the entire team from the staff and teachers and you know, the two of you, everybody to ensure that this was an inclusive, a truly inclusive program in our district. I think it was a great example and a great model of how things can go and how things can work. And it was a really thoughtful way that you all teamed up together. So I just wanted to say thank you. And I know my daughter had a great time and I know lots of children that did. So thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Hays.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham, sorry to interrupt Member Ruseau, sorry. Thank you. Just because I can't put my hand up, sorry. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just wanted to ask if there was a way that we could consider, you know, writing a letter to the city council from the school committee as a whole, letting them know that these are some of the concerns that we think should be considered as part of this ordinance.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just point of information I don't think it needs to be a collective letter I don't think it needs to be a meeting to draft a letter. I think we could potentially appoint a member to draft a letter expressing the concerns and ask that they be considered in a way that it's coming as a collective as opposed to seemingly from one person.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to ask if there was a way that a letter can be written to Willa, Maya, and the rest of the women who worked on this as a thank you from the school committee. I know Maya's in Scotland now and Willa's in DC, but they still have their local home addresses that I'd be happy to provide or happy to draft a letter thanking each of the women students from Medford that helped make this happen and are helping so many of our students. So, I guess I'm asking for a motion that we send a letter of thank you to the six women who initiated this in our Medford public schools.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We can't hear a member, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, thank you. Member McLaughlin. Thank you, Dr. Edwards. What time is the CCSR event?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to note that Well, this is a difficult topic for many, and folks that are speaking now, we've gotten the same in emails from both folks who want to stay masked longer than lot 14, and folks who want to unmask, and numerous emails. And I do wanna say that we are all parents here as well. And we all care about our children and we all care about your children. And I would rather err on the side of caution for two more weeks after a vacation, when children have been finally together in public settings across the state. Additionally, you know, when people are talking about science and what science, I know that 941,044 people died in the United States of America in the past two years due to COVID-19. That's the data. Is it worth one child? Really, I don't understand. And I get that we're all heated about this and that this is a political cause, but for many, but I want to defer to the superintendent and say, I thought that this was actually a happy medium, if you will, between the two opposing sides that we are hearing so much from that will err on the side of caution after a vacation, when the children were all together publicly, finally, we were able to socialize with each other. Some without masks, some with. I definitely have a student that is high needs and vulnerable, but also all the other families that I know that have high needs and vulnerable who are very much scared, and people can say what they want about that but it's legitimate and it's real and I think that You know, the superintendent and the central administration have been working and the nursing staff and the teachers and everybody has been working so hard these past two years that when are we going to finally like join together and be like, we're almost on the way out of this. We're a community. Let's get past this. Let's start to socialize with each other and stop fighting and start focusing on what's important. And that's the children. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, this is a great opportunity, Ms. Glucy. Excited about this. And when you said 12 to 15 students, I'm assuming you mean by school for the group size, or what did you mean by that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great, so like a small group instruction. Yes. Yes, thank you. And I am assuming that obviously this is available to children with IEPs and English learners.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Great. Thank you. This is really exciting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, I just have one more. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. When you get the data back for the review that you'll share with the school committee once again, can we just get some indication of if it's not exposing children, for example, their privacy, some data of the collective, how many children with IEPs and how many English learners are in the category. So disaggregated data by demographic.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we get an update on how many people did enroll and how? Absolutely. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we go to the questions there before? Member McLaughlin? I just wanted to know if we could go through the questions before moving to promotions, because there's definitely, I mean, I think this is, thank you for this report. I think there's a lot of really exciting. One second, is that okay? Yeah, I mean, I don't have a second anyways, so. Thank you. Yeah, I think this is really great. I'm excited about Ms. Fidler-Carey being in this role and, having recently been on a family and community engagement training with her. I'm excited about the opportunities that are here. And I guess I'm really interested in the paraprofessional piece. I think that obviously accessibility for students on IEPs and English learners is is and has been a concern. And I know there was an anti-discrimination clause that was created, I believe last year. And I just wanted to ask if in the anti-discrimination clause, there's also a statement that says, if you need additional services or supports to let us know, because I know that's what Medford REC sort of is doing. And we need some consistency, I guess, around some of those just to make sure that we're getting those, but getting back to the voucher program, I guess my thoughts on this are a couple of things. how many families are aware of the voucher program, right? So I know that the EEC is offering the voucher program, but do we as a community have a responsibility to make sure that families know about this voucher program, right? And how they access the voucher program, particularly when we're talking about grandfathering in people, right? So I would be really reluctant to vote yes on, you know, ending this right now and having the current folks grandfathered in because I want to give people the opportunity to be grandfathered in and get these vouchers through perhaps some, you know, outreach or education to families about the availability of the vouchers. And I guess also because we don't have a clear delineation on what the hardship application that's going to be developed looks like. it's all kind of ambiguous. And I know that the intent here is, is really on point in terms of let's get rid of the bureaucracy and the paperwork and make sure that we're getting access to our students and really being there for them. But in reality, at the same time, the EEC voucher, you know, is created for some reason to be able to get families, you know, access. So if we can create a comparable sort of system without the bureaucracy, obviously, I think that that's great, but we haven't yet, and so how do we how do we sort of make that bridge, I guess, is what I'm saying, so I want us to really be thoughtful before just just moving ahead, because I obviously don't want to and I know you don't want to. exclude folks who are economically disadvantaged. And I think it is a real disappointment that so many of these families qualify, but they're not actually using the budget program. And knowing one of the directors at the EEC, I think, you know, she would be horrified to know that that's really what's happening on the ground level. And I'm sure that the data bears that out for them. So they see that in some way, as we know, with the SNAP gap and other things, why aren't people applying? So Um, I guess I would just say, I would like to be a little bit more thoughtful and just sort of moving ahead with it. Although I, I, I do appreciate and understand the motive behind it. So I would just love to know, you know, and again, what families want. So, you know, whether it's a, the community engagement subcommittee or, or what, I don't know, but you know, what does the hardship application look like? How will it be developed and implemented with community input so that we're making sure that we're being thoughtful about this, but also really having an outreach program regarding the voucher program so that families know that they could be grandfathered in for the rest of their child's stay if they're in fact eligible. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Mayor, with a follow-up question to that? Chair? Mayor, may I follow up with a question? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. So, thank you for that response. And I think that, you know, there's a lot of, you know, what ifs and ands, and I think that I would really like the data to drive the decision, as I know you all do in the long run as well. And I guess, you know, again, reaching out to the, hopefully the LPAC that's being created, the CPAC, other organizations and entities, MFN, others that can really even have a voucher, you know, workshop program or something like that, that could, you know, help families, I think could be really useful. And there was something else that you had said that I just wanted to follow up on. Oh, that was it. So, and the other question is, and I know you said other districts are doing this and have been doing this through your afterschool network. So the other question is, what happens if a family comes in with a voucher? Like, is it legal to say, well, we don't use those vouchers, we're gonna have to do this system through the vouchers? Like, how does that work?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: EEC has some work to do.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, thank you. Yes, it's on. Thank you. And I just feel like you've obviously given a lot of thought to this and there's a lot of comparative data around what other folks are doing and your recommendation for waiting the year with a voucher program, your initial recommendation, I think is important as we think about these families and how they are accessing. So I would ask that you know, we go with your recommendation on that. And I think that you're being very thoughtful in the step-by-step process of it, which I'm encouraged to see, especially with the thinking about and wanting to know more about what the hardship application process will be and what that will look like. And again, sort of the family engagement piece of this, like how are we engaging the community in this conversation to make sure that they're feeling ownership around this too, whether it's, you know, an ability to pay more or whether it's input on what the hardship application process looks like, or whether it's, let's continue the voucher for one more year, because we need to be able to apply and get the word out to folks that you can apply, because what I'm hearing from I think what I'm hearing from Mr. Murphy is that the risk piece of it around, you know, just our hardship application may be more than with the voucher application because of the reimbursement process. So I think you guys are being really thoughtful about this. And I would like to take your recommendation that we wait on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May we have a roll call vote on that, please? I don't want to exclude families, thank you. You don't want to exclude who? I said it. Can we do a roll call vote on that, please? Sure. Thank you. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I approve the pay rate increase. I'm not for the voucher program decrease because I think we'll exclude families and not give them the opportunity for grandfathering. So I would ask that we split the motion, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. The good of the order is a line item that occurs monthly for the school committee to review our work and how we're working together and collaborating. And one of the things that I was noticing was two motions, and I didn't go that far back, but I did notice two motions that have not been abided. So these were motions that were approved. by the committee as a whole on this floor. So the 11-15 budget schedule motion and the 12-6 tour of locker rooms and the budget schedule motion was Whereas Medford Public Schools has historically conducted the annual budgeting process commencing in April and concluding in June, whereas there's a substantive increase in COVID-related funding for FY 2022, whereas hiring practices in many districts are finalized by March, April, albeit resolved, the Medford Public Schools budgeting process commenced in January and concluded in March, with budget recommendations presented to the city council in March. So that, again, that was approved by the body. And then there was also a 12-6 school committee tour of locker rooms, the female and male locker rooms, or I guess that aren't gender specific, but the locker rooms for touring in December. And so we had a presentation by, the finance director, assistant superintendent Dave Murphy about ideas for the budget and how we would approach the budget, but that did not address the motion that had been passed and also the tour of the locker room. So I'm asking my colleagues sort of how do we proceed if we have motions that have been passed by the body, but have not been acted on or had partially been acted on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? Member McLaughlin? Yeah, I just wanted to be clear that this is not a reflection on the superintendent. I actually feel like it's our body as a school committee as a whole and us sort of working together to ensure, and I do agree with Member Graham, that the numbering of the motions and having a list of motions that have been approved will help with this process. But I guess I'm asking sort of what the procedure is, and it sounds like I'm hearing from the chair, procedurally to email the superintendent if there's motions that have happened that have not been moved forward, but I would suspect that we also need to email or let our body know. So I'm looking for a process as to what that looks like so that we can let the body know if there are items that haven't been moved forward that have been voted on. as a whole, not just the superintendent. So that's the question I'm asking procedurally. And we don't have this from what I can see in any of the policies that we've had set or any of the rule proposals. So I guess I'm asking what the body thinks should be done or how can we have a procedure? So if then procedure, if this happens, then this happens. you know, if a motion has been passed and has not happened by the date that it was due, then, you know, an email gets sent to central administration and to school committee, you know, by the member, I suppose, who made the motion. I don't know if that's agreeable to the committee as a whole, but putting that out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that could be really helpful just because for everybody. I mean, I think we're all busy and things slip by, so that could be good. I mean, I think the list could potentially get long. So I'm willing to try that if folks are willing to try that and see how that goes. So then we're all on top of the dates and the due dates, if that works with my colleagues.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I think that sounds good. As member Ruseau was saying, we can't do a motion under the good of the order, but it sounds like there's some conversation around this. And I think it makes sense to have it tracked as well, just as a reminder for us. And again, I think it can get long, but at least then we'll have an idea of what's moved forward and what hasn't. I'm okay with this item if you want to move forward, Mayor, and if we feel that there needs to be a motion to have this on the agenda, we can certainly put that on the agenda for next session, but hopefully that, you know, we don't need to do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Cushing for this report. I had just a couple of questions for the professional development training specific to the bullying and harassment. I know that you and I have met on this a number of times as well. Is there going to be any training for families and community caregivers, I think you had mentioned that there might be something like that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great, thank you. And then we had also talked about a flow chart. And I know that you and the Director of Pupil Services, Ms. Bowen, were working on something that was a visual aid, at least for families in the meantime, while, or families and caregivers in the meantime, while rules subcommittee is working on some of the language. Is that available or can that be made available?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be great if we could, sorry, Mayor. That would be great if we could have a draft of that, if we could see that maybe for the next one, if it's already done. Thank you. And then for the, I'm sorry, the restorative justice pilot that I know is going to be expanding from the Andrews to the McGlynn, you were saying, is that something that's observable? Like, what does that look like? And, you know, can a school committee member observe or somebody else observe what actually Is there a curriculum attached?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if we want that information, we can reach out to you regarding, okay, great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's a great documentary too, called The Circle, all about restorative justice and something that was done in Boston Public Schools. So happy to share that with you too. That would be one?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. Thank you. And then lastly, the data on the discipline. Um, I know that we didn't ask for it, but I'm sure that it's being collected, um, demographics on this data.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be great. And then can we also include elementary data? Cause I understand there have been some suspensions at the elementary level.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that data definitely, according to Desi, as well as the case for special education, if the children are identifiable by the numbers because of the low numbers, we don't include that. So say under five or something like that, that makes sense. But could there be a process by which school committee is made aware of elementary school suspensions, which obviously are concerning, and especially with some of our very young students, it seems to me that we should know if that's the case, because it just seems that there's got to be some knowledge of that, especially because it is rare, but some understanding without knowing, obviously, who the students are at the school or anything like that. But for example, if a first grader is suspended, I think the school committee should know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I think my primary concern, and I can appreciate the privacy issue for sure, but my primary concern is obviously, you know, if the district is suspending first or second graders or kindergartners, I think that sends a message as well. And I think it's really important that we're focused obviously on the social emotional learning and responsive classroom and all of those things. So I don't obviously need to know the circumstances. I don't wanna know the circumstances, but I do think that it's valuable for, and I hear you saying that, The school committee doesn't need to know because there are two incidents, for example, and I would agree with that. But I do think if we get a call from a constituent or a family member or here in the community or other people here in the community, you know that 7, 8, 5, year-old is being suspended in our school district. I think it really sends a message to our community as well. And so I don't know what the answer is to that, but I'm really hoping that we see zero at the elementary level, just because it seems like, you know, they're children and we should be really looking at restorative justice at the elementary level, if that's the case. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wonder, I know that the committees have reported out. Does anyone know if this has been reported out favorably?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion passes. Just as a follow up, I was just going to ask if you'll let us know when the testimony is, so that if we want to go on the Zoom hearing. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. So I would say generally that that would be fine. It's just that I also want to ensure that the principals are getting the list of who the families are. So that was part of it. So specifically to receive the same communication, I would take that. friendly amendment, receive the same communication as in-district students, blah, blah, blah, flyers, clubs, et cetera, with an annual check-in to ensure families want that information. or something to that degree. But I want to ensure that, you know, the earlier stuff about the, I mean, the latter stuff about the principal is getting a list and that whole thing. And the frequently asked questions are not dependent upon families because the student, the principals still need to be aware of their out of district students. So in summary, I would say that the motion, the friendly amendment for receiving communication based on family, consent, I guess we could say, would be fine with me, if that's amenable for amendment. Okay, so motion to approve with that amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. This is to my colleagues, this is really about keeping folks informed around the school committee's policy procedures and rules, and making sure that they're accessible on the website, accessible to the community, and accessible to new committee members and others. So it was essentially to be sure that we're keeping some updated record of the policies, procedures, and rules on at least a monthly basis so that the community knows what our policies, procedures, and rules are, as well as the school committee members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I want to make sure that the link is easy to find and that the policies in there are updated regularly. So when I was looking for the link the other day, I could not find it. I actually had to go through a link from one of our memos to be able to hyperlink to it. I did not see an easily accessible link on the website. So, and I also find obviously that the paid service from the NASC is very helpful for a lot of the policies. And I know there are some of these that we'll be working on both through the rules and Policy Subcommittee and through the committee as a whole, but I wanna make sure that they're accessible now and able to be read and up to date.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was wondering if- Actually, I was just gonna see if we could speak to it first, sorry. May we speak to it, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is that okay? Sorry, I just wanna make sure that everybody understands the intent of the motion as well, is that some of these things are currently happening. So there is an ethics training that we do online. There is often an MASC training. or there was one that I did in the first term, and I'm assuming that happens regularly for other folks. It's not happening in January, obviously, or even before for new members. But our policy, current policy also has this as policy BIA, where the school committee and superintendent will assist each new member to understand the committee's functions, policies, and procedures of the committee. as soon after election as possible. Each new member shall be given the following materials, a copy of the school committee policy manual, a copy of the open meeting law, a copy of the conflict of interest regulations, a copy of the district's budget, collective bargaining agreements and contracts, student and staff handbooks. So there's actually more in our policy than what is in this school committee orientation motion. So I would ask that we include what's in the policy in the motion as well. And just that ensuring that this is happening and being scheduled is what the motion is. So it's really just putting a schedule to the policy that currently exists for orientation of school committee members. And if member Hays obviously would like to speak on this, mayor, I just wanted to offer that opportunity as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin? I appreciate member Graham's mentioning the need that's in here because there are several and especially as new members from the last term. I think we can identify with that. And I would say I guess my only concern with this being part of the rules committee of the whole meeting that we're having is again this body has not defined what they see as rules and what they see as policy. We have a current existing policy around making sure that the school committee orientation happens, which we just said was BIA. And now we're saying that this should be moved to the rules meeting to make it a rule as opposed to a policy. And again, to be clear around the policy manual, our current policy manual says that if we're gonna make a change to policy, we have to put it on our schedule as a policy change so that the community has input and that we are able to have the discussion. So again, I don't know the difference here. I'm trying to help me understand the difference you guys are understanding between rules and policy and whether we're superseding the current policy that says to have a policy change, we have to put it on the agenda, not at a committee of the whole rules meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I would agree with that, and we can have a conversation in the rules committee of the whole then about the policy for changing the policy after we make a rule. Thank you. I'll rescind the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And again, since this is coauthored with member Hays, I just wanna make sure that obviously she's in agreement. I know we'll take a roll but I'm fine with that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There was two things that I was looking at in policy around this that I just wanted to bring to my colleagues attention as well. And so one is, you know, the fiscal management goals policy, which is the DA. And the first part of the fiscal management goals policy is that we engage in thorough advanced planning with staff and community involvement in order to develop budgets and to guide expenditures so as to achieve the greatest educational returns and the greatest contributions. So, you know, I do feel like this is our fiscal responsibility to put a schedule forward. And I know that assistant superintendent Murphy was talking about a process and sort of having a different process than what we've had in the past, which is understandable as well. But I do think we need to be able to lay out what that process is and how we're scheduling that so that the community can be involved in knowing what that is. And so the original motion that was approved was, whereas Medford Public Schools has historically conducted the annual budgeting process commencing in April and concluding in June, whereas there's a substantive increase in COVID-related funding for FY2022, whereas hiring practices in many districts are finalized by March-April, be it resolved the Medford Public Schools budgeting process commence in January and conclude in March, with budget recommendations presented to the city council in March. So that was the budget. I mean, that was approved on 11.8 by this body. And then I just wanna, again, defer to my colleague, member Kreatz, if she wants.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Thank you. I have a question that I'd like to start with before we really go into the specific rules. And I guess I wanna know the difference between or what we're defining is the difference between the rules and the policies, because I know that even around this question of caucus, we have a policy on our policy, which should be a handbook, frankly, but isn't. According to our policy, we're supposed to have a handbook that's available in the superintendent's office and also that's shared with each of us. So what I'm doing now is putting it together in a Google Doc that can be searchable. And we can look at that in the Google Doc if folks want, but I think even to this point, there's something in the policy about, and we haven't been doing it, but there's something in the policy about you know, electing the chair and the vice chair and how, and how that process occurs with, it doesn't, I don't think it says caucus specifically, but I can look, I can do a find right now if people are interested in hearing what it says in our policies. And so I guess backing it up a little bit, I'm trying to understand what's the difference between the proposed rules and our current policy, and are we, are rules superseding the policy, in which case, I'm curious about that too, because we have a policy about how to change policy. So it's like, it's just, it's a lot. So I am, you know, again, I sent you guys a link to the document for policy and also to the proposed rules. So we can do a find if we need to, but I just wanna make sure that we're all clear on what we're doing. Please, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But if I may, Mayor. Yes, just procedurally to, and I don't know this is probably for Howard as well or procedurally the manual has like a procedure in place for how to change policy so that's the question are we like. And I think there's a way that you waive the rights to change policy. We have to look at the policy manual again in order to do this. But I think that it says that we have to place on the agenda a policy change. The policy has to be discussed. And then the next meeting, the policy can be changed. And again, that's in the the online policy manual. So I don't, I guess I'm trying to back up to like what's rules, what's policy, how are we differentiating? If we can sort of maybe get to that, that would be really helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Mayor, sorry. I want to get this done, too, and I think it's really important that we do have rules. I guess my point of information is, and I appreciate through the Chairmember Graham's explanation of the perception of the difference between rules and policy, and I see it the same. Rules, you know, policy is what is know rules are you know intent of what the school what governs the school committee policy is how that intent is carried out and there are some issues in the rules document that are being proposed that are affecting our policy which is what member graham was saying that somebody has to go back and true up the policy manual if the rules change it but what i'm saying is is there not a fundamental sort of issue around changing policy through rules. Is everybody following me? Am I making sense? I don't know if I am. We have policy manuals that some of the rules, not all of them certainly, some of the rules change what's in the policy manual. I guess we have to know when is the rule changing the policy manual. in, you know, how that happens. So, I mean, I'm happy to do like an edit when we're, a find when we're looking at different rules to see if there's something in our policy on them and let folks know what's in the current policy, if that's helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Abstain.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second. Oh, it has to be an amendment, right? We have to accept the amendment first for the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll pass. I'm waiting for another item, but I would be fine with Zoom if folks were fine with that for the August meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I offer a point of information, please? Point of information, member McLaughlin. Yeah. And again, just going back to the policy concern for changing policy, and I hate to be a stickler, but I really do feel like if we're going to follow policy and rules, then we have to follow the policy and rules, or we have to figure out what the way is to remove the policy, you know, to put in the rule or whatever. And right now, in addition to the policy that this is related to, there's also a policy in our handbook that says in order to change anything in our policy, we have to have the specific policy on our agenda, have a discussion about it and then change it in the next session so that the community can be aware of what the policy change actually is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I found the policy thing. I just wanted to read it. It's BGB policy adoption. So adoption of new policies or changing existing policy is solely the responsibility of the school committee. I can put it in the chat if people want. Policies will be adopted and amended only by the affirmative vote of a majority of the members of the school committee when such action has been scheduled on the agenda of a regular special meeting. So again, to member Graham's point, to permit time for study of all policies or amendments to policies and to provide an opportunity for interested parties to react, Proposed policies or amendments will be presented as an agenda item to the committee in the following sequence. One, information item, distribution with agenda. Two, discussion item, first reading of proposed policy or policies, response from superintendent, report from any advisory committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's not long, but I'm happy. I'm gonna put it in the chat here. Oh, I think I'm gonna put it in the chat.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Actually, I'm waiting for item 20 before we move on. So I just, you had asked if there was any other items on this 10 to 20. So I'll wait. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, I'm there. So, I speaking of belaboring I don't want to really belabor the policy thing but I do think that in terms of policy both. What is it both. Hold on, both BGB policy adoption and BGE policy dissemination are, you know, items of discussion now if you know we're looking through the rules right now and we're voting on which rules we are proposing. to change for that to come forward to the school committee as a whole, then I think that's different than accepting the change altogether. So I just want to clarify that that's what we're doing, because otherwise we have to, I think, procedurally, we have to override, someone has to make a motion to override BGB, which is policy adoption, and allow for policy change. So just to clarify, what we're voting on now And these rules are what we're proposing to bring to the committee in a general meeting for passage. Is that right? Is that what everybody's understanding is? Yes, no, maybe.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, good. So if that's going to work, it's going to work that way, that'd be great. And then I have a question on item 20. So item 20 was, so the budget meeting will be held in the spring of each year. So this is suggesting that it's one budget meeting and it's gonna be held in the spring of each year. And this was a conversation that we've been having. And so I'm not sure if we're talking about all of the needs that are required for our school committee to be able to help run this organization in the way that we need to. I don't think one meeting for the budget. Is that not what it says?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, well then that works. That's great. Okay, good.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just point of information, can we call that a joint meeting then instead of a budget meeting so that there's no room for misunderstanding?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So that was just to clarify that it's a joint budget meeting so that people aren't confusing it with the other budget meetings that we have.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a point of information to the chair? Yes, ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to make it really clear through the chair that this is not a reflection of who the vice chair is. The vice chair does an extraordinary job and as all our colleagues do. And so I'd really like to focus on teamwork and really collaborating with each other. I think that this is more a function of the way that the current system works and has worked and also a reflection of the superintendent statement. So I just want to make sure that's on the record. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can you give us a minute before we move on, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Also, Mayor, can I ask specifically what numbers you're talking about? Because some of the paginations changed, so sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I make a friendly amendment to number 38?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 38, it says at the first meeting, each month of the school committee will have the good of the order following the consent agenda item. The purpose of the item is to allow members an opportunity to speak about the functioning of the school committee with the intent of continuous improvement. I'd like to ask if we could add to that or whether the committee thinks it needs to be a separate role or maybe it doesn't because it's already in the policy I don't know, but also under the good of the order we're supposed to be creating objectives and self evaluations. much like the superintendent does at the beginning of the year. So that according to policy, we're supposed to be identifying school committee objectives for the year and then evaluating how we're working together on those specific objectives. Again, that's part of our policy. So I don't know if we need to add it to this, but I think it does fall under good of the order. So it's not just that the purpose to allow members an opportunity to speak about the functioning, you know, um, maybe it's something like at the first of the year or the second good of the order. We identify our objectives and you know, at the whatever, you know, May of the year or something, we do a review or something to that effect. Um, I just putting that out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm making a motion to add objectives and evaluation for the school committee to the good of the order item.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Let me see. I just moved over. I'll include a good of the order following the consent agenda item. Purpose of this item is to allow members an opportunity to speak about the functioning of the school committee with the intent of continuous improvement, maybe related to policy number. I'll get the policy number. and connected to objectives and evaluation. So related to policy number for school committee objectives and evaluation, and I'll get the specific policy number.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, so it's as is with the intent of continuous improvement as related to policy. I have to look up the policy specifically for school committee objective and evaluation. Objectives and evaluations or evaluation. So objectives, plural, evaluation, singular.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just saying that essentially the good of the order is, you know, that we do a review monthly, but that the review is also, or, you know, we have a sort of discussion around continuous improvement of the team, but essentially that it's connected to our identified objectives and evaluation that is in the policy of which the policy number I'll get you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin. This is an existing policy that's actually never been implemented. So of which unfortunately we have several, but the policy is, is something that Robert's rules also recommends, but essentially that school committee, you know, does identify objectives and has an evaluation of, I think, actually, let me double check whether it's policy, maybe it's Robert's rules of order. So I should double check. I'll back up on that and bring it up at the committee meeting if we need to. So I'll, remove the motion. Thank you. We're sending the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Just going back to the good of the order item, and maybe it's a separate rule, I don't know, but it is in our policy that we have operational goals and objectives and an evaluation procedure for the school committee. It's BA and BAA. And so maybe in the rules, we have something that says when we schedule that. So I don't know how people feel about that, but we're supposed to be doing operational goals according to policy and evaluating our procedures. And if we're scheduling the other items, it feels like we should schedule that while we're here. So I guess I'm making a motion to include a rule that schedules the school committee operational goals and objectives and evaluation procedures pursuant to policy B.A. and B.A.A.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, I'm putting it in the chat, but I didn't get a second on the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have a question on 67. If anyone, if folks are okay from where we left off to 67.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is there a motion to... What number is this again? Sorry, I wanna... 52.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I wanna read 53 again just to understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So, um, this is not regarding the, um, intent to present. This is just to speak. You have to register. You have to use a form saying that you want to speak in order to speak at the meeting. Is that right? This, this is what this is saying. I know previous. Yeah. Previously, the policy has been that, you know, people can queue and they get X amount of minutes to speak. And so this is saying that if anyone wants to speak at the reading, they have to write to the superintendent on an intent to speak form. um, to do so. So I guess what member credits saying that they should, we should not have a form that, um, folks have to fill out to speak at the public meeting, um, in advance, but they can queue and only, you know, still have the three minutes that has been allotted in the past. So I would second the admission of that requirement of a form for folks to speak at the, at the meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We had a motion prior to that, right? Didn't we point of information there? Did we have a motion prior to that to strike the sentence?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And may I just, again, for the motion to strike the sentence, can I comment on that for one second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So again, with just filling out the form ahead of time and access to the community and family and community engagement, it also just makes me think about, again, things that might be heard spontaneously at the meeting, but also, you know, folks who might have language barriers and other needs that they're not reaching out to fill out a form or maybe don't know about filling out a form ahead of time. And I don't wanna limit access either. And to that end, I think we should be thinking about something in here that might talk about, you know, offering translation support if there's any that is needed for folks who do want to speak at school committee meetings. So, you know, perhaps we offer something in that vein as well. And we could think about a process for what that is. But I am thinking about how to be as inclusive as possible around this. So I would agree that, you know, again, striking the sentence allows for more participation, and I'm also thinking about communities that don't generally get the opportunity to do that, not having to fill out a form, so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have a question on 67 and 74 so 67 is motion to rescind which most of it is, I think, probably all of it is according to Robert's rules of order but I think there's some. nuance that I wanna make sure that we're understanding is that, so a motion to rescind a previous decision that was adopted by the school committee can happen at any time other than the current meeting, which obviously would be a motion to reconsider, but there's no time limit to rescind the motion, but there is some distinction around whether any portion of the motion has been executed. And if the motion has already been executed or is in the process of execution, it might not be rescinded. So I just wanna make sure that my colleagues are understanding, this number 67.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't know why I'm... Yeah, actually, I think, yeah, I don't know. I have to review it, but there was something about, yeah, for the next... For the next day, I haven't looked at it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so, hold on. If the original motion has been acted upon and that action cannot be undone, the motion cannot be rescinded. So in other words, that will be left up, it sounds like, to the chair to determine whether action has been taken or not, and whether or not the motion can be rescinded.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: A lot of times it's two thirds vote, right? For these, for the rescinding?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: This doesn't have that in there either. So my concern is that people, colleagues take the time to create a motion, you know, they explain it, it gets, you know, the committee approves and it passes, it gets passed and then, you know, if it's to be rescinded, you know, that we could sort of be going back and forth on this all the time. If, you know, we have folks who, whatever, want to rescind motions on the regular. So I have some concern with this and I'm just trying to express it to my colleagues. I'm not really sure how to address it. So maybe I would make a motion to table number 67.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. If it's okay, I'd like to go to 74. Yep. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion, I mean, rule number 74, which is to suspend the Roberts Rules of Orders. parliamentary rules by a two-thirds vote. I just feel like Robert's Rules of Orders are really consistent around parliamentary rules. It's hard enough to learn all the parliamentary rules and procedure as a school committee member, and then finally learning them and being able to implement them is concerning if we're just gonna be able to vote them out. So I have a concern with eliminating Robert's Rules of Order by a two-thirds vote. most of these committees and others are run on Robert's Rules. And I guess I would love to hear Member Ruseau's concern with Robert's Rules for 74, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But it could be any of the Roberts rules. So that's my concern. And, you know, following parliamentary procedure is sort of the way that I understand suspending the rules for certain instances. So I'm just not sure why we have to have it written in that we can suspend the Roberts rules of order by a two thirds vote. If folks want to suspend the rules, we can sort of figured out then but even with that I would say, you know, if it's, you know, in this, you know, if we do an amendment or something that says, you know, in this one meeting or something like that my concern is you know there's lots of Roberts rules of order and there's a reason that there's Roberts rules of order so that there are rules of order. And then if we're, you know, having options to suspend the rules of order, it makes me concerned that meetings can become disorderly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I just make a comment just quickly? I just wanted to thank Member Ruseau for all the work in putting this document together. Obviously, did a lot of work, was very involved, so I want to say thank you for that, and I'm looking forward to reconvening on it. Yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for this. I'm glad to hear that it's coming for SEL funding. And I'm wondering with Ms. Bowen here as well, how we're able to support students with significant disabilities in this program?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I didn't hear your last sentence, sorry, Ms. Baum. What did you say, several?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you so much. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. And can we also ensure that that notification gets out to our out of district? Absolutely. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mister Murphy for the report. So I guess I'm wondering what the proposed process would be, because I think that the motion was that we were gonna start scheduling in January. So if there's a different process as not six COW meetings, for example, what is that process? And when do we actually think that that's gonna be scheduled? Because we were really looking at, if I understood correctly, being able to have some idea of where we were and what we were asking, especially regarding hiring practices so that we could be competitive, among other things. But I know that we also have, for example, a motion on the calendar for tonight regarding a particular class around summer programming, like, you know, what was the last summer programming? Um, how are we, what is the process that you're proposing and when do you propose it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, yeah, I guess, We need to have, I would recommend a motion for a committee of the whole meeting to discuss what the project process is going to be since we can't really talk out of school committee meetings with each other about what that looks like beyond three of us. I don't know how we move this forward without having a further discussion about what this actually looks like. So I guess I would recommend making a motion for a committee of the whole to discuss what the budget process will actually be. So that we do have a better understanding of the process and the schedule for it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I definitely hear what folks are saying about the six meetings at several hours each. One of the things that I did find interesting in those meetings was it is an edification process for community and I'm wondering how we can address transparency in the budget for the community. around this and then also just a process question because I don't remember, I don't have the minutes and maybe Susie can refer, but did we vote in, didn't we vote in January, early January that we would have a process or a schedule outlined and pass that motion? And I don't know if that means we have to have a motion to bypass that motion or what for the process question. Two things, how can we address transparency in the budget for the community, specifically if we are individually sending you what we're saying our priorities are? I'm wondering how community members know what we're saying our priorities are, among other things. But also sort of just the whole process for me when I would go to budget meetings before I was on the school committee, and I actually learned a lot when I would go to the budget meetings for the COW. I know if you're probably going to them, you know, multiple times over several years, they get very repetitive, but not everybody in our community is doing that. There's a lot of new people in our community. And so I just, how do we address the transparency and then the process question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Did we get a copy of that in our pocket? I didn't see it. If not, can we get it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And the deck that you did earlier?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If we can get those to that, it'd be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, and how many of the, I'm sorry, can you put that graphic back up again, please, Peter? How many of the, I know it was 17 EL, 32 students with disability, and then it was 60 something ED you had, which I'm assuming is just- Economically disadvantaged. It is the economically disadvantaged. So out of all of, so that's the total, is that the total student data? Is that the total that's attending summer school or are there any that fall outside of the high needs?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you know how many students don't? So of those, what was it? Yeah. So 96 students. Yep. 21 and none of those. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's what I want to know. What are the total number of students that are attending and what are the most vulnerable subgroups so that we can get some idea of where revenue is is or is not generated.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I thank you, and I would love the number of just the total, when you get a chance, it doesn't have to be tonight, but when you get a chance, it would be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Total number of students enrolled.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is that what you said? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It was 96 students with a total of 160 enrollments.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then I am willing to make an amendment. I just want to clarify for the 45 day, it was really, it's not about necessarily the period of time more. It was more about hearing from constituents who were not, or were saying that they were not really getting notification or understanding that their child was going to be requiring summer school, particularly for retention, not as much for, you know, remediation perhaps, but specifically for retention. So I want to know, or I would amend it to whatever the superintendent thinks is reasonable for students and families to be notified of the need for summer school due to retention.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: processes created, you know, or outlined on what that is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So the motion's on the floor. Just needs a second. The motion is that we, hold on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it's on page three of the agenda.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I just, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Oh, it's on page three of the agenda. So, and I'm making an amendment to remove the 45 days before the last day of school for the credit remediation to prevent retention. But I would add that a policy will be created to define outreach for retention. That's, you know, communicated to the community. into the school committee so that we know what that is ahead of time. So that, cause what part of the problem was that we were hearing, I was hearing from constituents that they were not getting this communication. And I know that each side may beg to differ, but it's still, you know, if, if people are saying they don't feel communicated with and others are saying they're communicating, there's clearly, you know, something that needs to be fixed. And I think it could be around, just a policy or something that is posted and lets folks know and lets us know what the process is to let families know a student may be retained and require summer school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, it was be it resolved, Metro Public Schools will no longer charge students identified as belonging to the subgroups economically disadvantaged English learners and students with disabilities for mediation program and credit recovery during summer programming in the academic year commencing June 1, 2022. Be it further resolved, and this is where I'm saying that I would, do an amendment if member Mustone is in agreement and obviously the rest of the committee, be it further resolved that a policy will be created for a communication policy will be created for notifying families and students of the requirement for credit or credit remediation, credit recovery or remediation without a date attached to it. I mean, without a specific number of days attached to it, but obviously before the end of the academic year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of order, Member McLaughlin. Right, so just, I believe we had already approved number two. I thought we motioned and approved and all said aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then didn't we motion to approve it to you, sure?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I have to look back at the recording because I swore we did.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second. Member Graham made a motion to approve and I'll second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was going to say, point of order. I mean, I would recommend tabling this to clarify on it because I believe that we did say that we would not read the school committee. There was a certain qualification of how we would read the emails based on what the summarization or content of them was, I think. So, but instead of trying to at 9.30 pull apart what we did and didn't do, since we don't have the reference to that with us now. Do we, do we have it in the minutes? You have it right there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, point of information, Member McLaughlin. I think part of the issue is that nobody has a policy manual, and that was one of the things that I wanted to sort of ask about and bring up is that there's a policy manual that's on the website that a lot of which was adopted by the MASC, some of which has been changed by the school committee, this body, after recommendations by the rules policy. Rules subcommittee. So I think part of the problem is that we're looking at new policy compared to, or we're not looking at compared to old policy because none of us has a policy manual. I know that in a moment, we're going to be talking about a number of proposed rules, but I think that this is just, is part of the confusion. And I would also just add, if I may, that just to be clear for residents that are listening or will listen later, that there are a number of ways obviously to contact us. One is through this group email. Also another is individually. And yes, we may or may not bring those things forward as questions in the school committee, but you can also obviously ask your school committee member or anybody within the school committee, the mayor, whoever, if they would consider putting something on the agenda that is of importance. that they feel is of importance. It's not just a matter of you can only email us, that they also, you know, can ask if we would consider putting something on the agenda or requesting that something's put on the agenda. Does not mean that it will be, that it may not be, but there are a number of ways to sort of move policy or policy requests forward. And I want to make sure that folks understand that. I don't think that that necessarily has to be written into this piece, but I just wanted to say that out loud. And I would suggest that we, get a policy manual. I think reading it on the website has been really cumbersome. And it's also the BEDH and the BEDA and the BED, it's just sort of like, I don't even think people know what the acronym stands for, which is more just a numbering system that I think MASC created.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would just like to make a point of information, though. I know, and I do, it's a tremendous amount of work, and I can see that through the Chair to Member Ruseau, and I think it does bear more thought and more time, and I know myself, you know, this came I received it on Thursday in a packet. My two children went away to college this weekend. My littlest one had, you know, a significant doctor's appointment. I did not really get to give this the attention that I would like to and do some comparison to. the policy that is posted. So while I guess I'm not understanding, and maybe member Ruseau can clarify when you say that there's been no, have traditionally, the rules of the school committee have traditionally been passed down through the experience of members, but there are rules and policy listed on the website. So I don't know, I'm not sure through the chair, I'm not sure why, I know that they need to be changed. I couldn't agree more. And I would actually suggest that this, be moved to the Rules Subcommittee so that we can actually really vet it and go through it. And I can see why you would say Committee of the Whole, but I think that that's why we have the Rules Subcommittee too, so thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think, point of information, if I may, Mayor. Member McLaughlin, point of information. I think it gives people the opportunity, two things, it does two things. It gives people the opportunity to review the document and have some time to review the document. Point of information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then it has, the opportunity for the rules subcommittee to go through and make sure that things have been covered for all our students. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would remove that motion, and I would agree, if I may, with the Committee of the Whole, I would remove the motion, Mayor, for the referral to the Rural Subcommittee. But we're talking about a multi-year effort, I guess I would say by whom, and it sounds like it was by Member Ruseau, which I think is, you know, valiant, but also it's a seven-member body and we really need time to digest. And I'm sorry if, you know, the busyness of our lives has not provided in the two weeks to read the 18-page rule document, but I also wanna compare it to the previous policy, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I'd like to, Mayor, may I? Member McLaughlin. I'd like to request, I don't think it needs to be in a form of a motion, but if it does, I can, but is there a way that we can get hard copies of the current policy that's posted on the website?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What information member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know. So I'm asking if one could be created. It's cut and paste of what's on there and put it into a document.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, which I think is more reason that we need to have a printout of the policies that we currently have up on the website for what we have to compare them against the rules, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, may I? Member McLaughlin. I would be willing to volunteer to take the document to a copy store and have copies made for the school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you hear me now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you hear me now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so I don't know. Because it's so cumbersome and there are 18 pages here, and then like as Member Ruseau was saying, there's so many on the policy, and these are rules that reflect policy and policy that reflects rules. I think we do need to do a comparison. And I don't think we're going to have, in a committee of the whole, the ability to do that, you know, with our computers and, you know, what have you, in this hard document. And so, I don't know. Call me old-fashioned. I guess I work well with the papers beside each other. But if no one else wants a copy, that's fine. I can make a copy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So just to be clear, it's eliminating antiquated policy, and it's not that a smaller number can't meet, which obviously a smaller number can meet as long as we don't constitute a quorum if we want to have coffee together or something like that. And we're not talking about school committee business, but we can't adjourn because it's not a meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think, did Member Creutz, were you before me? Sorry. Member Kreatz, do you have a question as well? Oh, no. Oh, okay. Sorry. I think this is great and it's sorely needed for sure. I just have some questions on some of the comments. And one is that I'm curious about on the bottom of page six, where it's approximate number of non-IEP referrals that are on a wait list for school-based counseling. I'm wondering what the differentiation is there, if you can explain that a little bit.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then I just, again, a process question, and I know, again, through the Chair, that Member Hays may not have, well, may not have been at the meeting, certainly, when the process was, or the policy was created around requesting reports from administration, and I just wanted to know if that was a process that need to be followed as we're talking about what the, I think this is needed, don't get me wrong, but just what the demands are on the staff and the administration. And I thought there was a whole process of vetting that we were going through for requesting reports.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm fine with taking a vote for this. I'm not sure that that's what the policy is. And again, if we're being stickless for policy, I just want to make sure that we're following it just because I don't want to have some people follow and other people not, and obviously in the interest of fairness. So I don't know. I thought, I think you're right that I'm happy to vote on this tonight and, the superintendent and the administrative team can come back on a time that's reasonable to get the report to us, if that's amenable to the members who are offering this. And I guess I would just have us make sure that we're checking the policy as a group so that we know what the process actually is. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I know that this has been sort of, especially the last portion of this resolution was a sore point in the community. And I want to know if there's going to be some clarification around how we are building the flagship committee with, I know it says comprised of representative stakeholders, and I want to know how that's being defined. and how we're going to ensure that members of the community feel included in the process, because I know that that was a real issue last time. So I'm wondering if someone could speak to that a little bit, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So I guess, so are we, okay. So we can have a conversation about that in the committee of the whole, but there's nothing in the policy that discusses or mentions how the advisory committees are built in terms of, I mean, I just, correct. Yeah. Cause I'm seeing our seven, our demographic of our seven members and it's concerning and I want to make sure that we're being really thoughtful about how we are creating the rules around how the advisory committee is built. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I did have a question on when the, will be provided with a list of its functions and duties to subcommittee by whom? Who's gonna provide that? The whole committee or is someone being tasked to provide the list of functions?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so I think maybe we can clarify who's going to do that, because I think that would be important as we're giving, you know, if we're tasking somebody with providing a list of functions and duties for the subcommittee, we should have an idea of who's going to provide those. It's number three, Mayor, the last sentence. And then, Mayor, I also have a statement from the Medford CPAC co-chairs that they asked me to read that they sent about an hour or two ago, because they're in route commuting and they don't want to do that from their car. So if that's okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh yeah. I think that it will be provided with the subcommittees will be provided with a list of its functions and duties, but I don't know by whom. So I don't know if we want to do that as a committee now to decide by whom those functions and duties will be provided.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Not the names, this is a list of its functions and duties through the chair. So yeah, the names definitely, and the assignments obviously we already have through the chair, but if we want the chair to be providing a list of the subcommittee's functions and duties, I guess is what I'm asking, or somebody else, I don't know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, this is from The co-chairs of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council, which is tasked through mass law to advise the district on matters pertaining to special education. Special Education Parent Advisory Council CPAC statement. We represent and advocate for Medford students with disabilities and their families. The CPAC has concerns about the language that is proposed regarding school subcommittee meetings, specifically on how it affects the activity of the special education subcommittee. CPAC has advised and advocated with the school committee for many years, a forum needed to be created for a closer collaboration between school committee and CPAC. a collaboration which is not optional but mandated by law per MAS statute chapter 71B section 3. The parent advisory council duties shall include but are not limited to advising the school committee on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with a disability, meeting regularly with school officials to participate in the planning and development of the school committee's special education programs. As a result of CPAC advocacy, the special education subcommittee was created in 2018 to fulfill this requirement of CPAC advising and collaborating with the school committee. Back then we had a different mayor, a different superintendent, and a different school committee. The special education subcommittee works differently than other subcommittees because it has a different role, that of collaboration between school committee, CPAC, and the special education department. Part of the assignment of the special education subcommittee is a dialogue with CPAC. An agenda set entirely by the school committee is no longer a dialogue. We are concerned regarding the proposed language that, quote, the subcommittee may only need to carry out business referred to it by a majority vote of the committee. Subcommittees will not need to conduct business brought to the subcommittee by other means or process. end quote. By the advising nature of CPAC, our mandated role is to bring business to the attention of the school committee. We are concerned of a circular situation in which the subcommittee cannot meet because there is no agenda and we have no agenda because we cannot meet. In addition, we are concerned by the proposed language that, quote, a subcommittee will be dissolved by the committee upon completion of its assignment, or it may be dissolved by a vote of the subcommittee at any time, end quote. The language suggests that a subcommittee can be dissolved for any reason, even if the subcommittee's assignment might be ongoing and still relevant. So many of you were not part of the history of the special education subcommittee. CPAC is asking the members of the school committee to reemphasize and remove the commitment of collaborating with CPAC for the benefit of the students and families we are representing. We hope everyone here agrees with us on the amount of progress that has been made in the district regarding disability-related policies since we started this closer collaboration. The impact of this collaboration was recognized and commended by DESE in their most recent special education review. We're asking that you maintain the role of the special education subcommittee, which is that of a continuous dialogue and collaboration between CPAC and the school committee, not only to fulfill the requirements of the law, but also Medford's recent commitment to family engagement and family school partnership. Thank you, Tanya Sullivan, co-chair, Alex Lorick, co-chair.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I think, you know, part of the discussion, too, is, you know, I guess, you know, what is policy? And to me, policy is organic. I have a master's degree in education policy and management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and one of the things that I learned there was that policy was participatory. So we get feedback from our community on how we set policy. That is what the subcommittees are intended for, in my opinion. And there are some things that have been brought to the school committee that were recommendations for policy. Some of them were adopted, some of them weren't. Specifically, one of the things that we had asked for for several years as policy was that there be a subcommittee created for special education. And for three years, the CPAC, of which I was the former co-chair, so full disclosure, had asked for a subcommittee and that was being said as policy and that wasn't. So this is part of the discussion is that, you know, we also have what was created through our discussions and that did not need to go to policy because it was, they were, curriculum matters or other matters was a disability-related curriculum was created as a result of the special education subcommittee working with community members and the director of pupil services and Susanna Campbell to create a pilot program for a disability-related curriculum much needed in our district and also something that we had recommended previously as a CPAC to the school committee. which was not adopted, but specifically they don't have the purview over curriculum anyway, so this was able to go that way. We've also, the special education subcommittee also helped create professional development, again, working with community members and the school. And that's the whole point of this. It's back to family and community engagement and bringing community members together with school personnel, with school committee members to have an organic discussion around what policy should actually be and what should be recommended to the school committee, as opposed to just making our own policy and passing it here among the seven members. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to clarify for the record that when I was saying policy is organic, what I'm saying is the process of setting policy is organic. It requires community engagement and staff engagement and administrative staff engagement, and that's part of the process in making policy. We do roundtable these things to see if policy needs to be set or not set or come before the subcommittee or not. Our specific goals for subcommittee, our requirements are to approve a budget, evaluate the superintendent, and set policy. So some of the things that are under the setting policy are also ambiguous. So I also feel like when we talk about things being in black and white or this is the way it should be or shouldn't be, those are subjective conversations. Law is subjective. It depends on what your priorities are. in terms of subcommittee meetings. And for me, my priority is building community relationships and building relationships with students with disabilities and staff members that are special education staff members and others, non-special education, behavioral health, mental health, sitting together, being able to discuss what is the issues, what are the issues that need to drive policy? Because how do we know the issues otherwise? Just by getting phone calls from constituents? I mean, that doesn't make sense to me. So I don't understand that. And saying a member can put together a motion to ask if we can have a conversation about a specific subject that may or may not lead to policy, that doesn't make any sense to me. And regarding the buddy system, I mean, the buddy, the Best Buddies program, that's only would become before the school committee if there was a cost, a directive cost involved. If there was something else that did not require a cost, if there was a donation, except if it was a donation over a certain amount, obviously it would need to be, but it doesn't necessarily have to be approved by the school committee as a policy issue. Maybe it does, maybe elements of it do, but how do we know that unless we're talking with the Best Buddies constituents, the special education teams that may or may not want Best Buddies in their school, the ETLs at the school, the families of persons with disabilities. And when we say, oh, we don't know about what happens in subcommittees, we have subcommittee minutes that we approve. Every single time a subcommittee meets that we go through the minutes, read them and see what's on them. And whether we agree with them or not, we have an opportunity at the next meeting to say that. So I just feel like this is more of an organic process and not one that should be dictated by black and white because relationships and relationship building is not dictated by black and white.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I would agree that there needs to be guidance on the subcommittees. When this was first proposed to the school committee, that's accurate. We were told initially that there would not be a subcommittee of special education because there were already so many subcommittees and many of them were defunct. And so there was no structure around that. That was the whole point, that there needed to be a special education subcommittee because there was no structure around the committees that existed in the in the school committee prior to that. And, you know, I'm looking back to the letter that the co-chairs wrote and the quote that they said, a dialogue set by the school committee is no longer a dialogue. And I think that's the point is that CPAC came to school committee because they wanted to have an ongoing dialogue with some members of the school committee to be able to move things forward, to have the director of pupil services participate in that process, to have family members participate in that process, to have students with disabilities participate in that process so they could see the process of setting policy and come to the school committee at the end of the year and bring policy forward. Perhaps the school committee, the CPAC meeting needs to happen at the beginning of the year and they can discuss what some of their interest and goals and what have you are, but then that's not a conversation. That's them coming forward, you know, at a podium, standing in front of folks to tell them, you know, to again, ask to be included. And I don't feel like this is inclusive. I feel like we really need to think about we later on tonight, we're having a meeting on like 18 pages of rules that are being proposed, this is among them. And I think we really need to think about how are we actually involving our community members in this process and what that is and, you know, looking at what the rules were previously, looking at what the proposed rules are, not by, you know, by you know, motions being moved forward, but by a collaborative process. So again, I mean, obviously, I would also say if people are interested in the CPAC and what their views and positions are, then, you know, they meet monthly and have all sorts of presentations. And, you know, part of the problem was that school committee members didn't come to those meetings. A few have. over the, in the years, but a lot of times they don't. And I think that's important if people really want to build relationships and build dialogue, but that hasn't happened, which is another reason that the subcommittee was created. So again, if I don't have the votes, I don't have the votes, but I want to go on the record as saying that I think that this is not inclusive and I do not think that this is engaging families at all. I think it's actually the opposite. And I think that, you know, as the CPAC letter stated, that the Department of Education and DESE actually lauded our district this year in their memo out to the community on what a great relationship building experience has happened with CPEX. Cause that's not often the case in many districts because special education and special education needs and issues are complicated. And there can be a lot of sort of issues with families and districts and, you know, building relationships is really how we move things forward. And so I don't think Desi was wrong in putting that forward. I think it was a good point. I'm concerned that this will, affect that relationship.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, through the chair. Thank you, Member Kreatz. I appreciate the willingness to negotiate. I think that's always a good, a good characteristic and a colleague and a school committee member and other politicians. And I think negotiation is a really important part of the process. And I think, you know, I question whether all or nothing is in fact, again, a collaborative process. So I'm certainly open to some discussion around negotiation on the topic, but I also did want to mention that In addition to the CPAC relationship with the school committee and the special education department, and it being recognized by DESE. We also had people from other towns coming to meetings and commenting about the work that was happening in the district regarding special education. Most recently at the last CPAC meeting, which was recorded, that was on disability awareness. And several other towns are asking the Medford CPAC to come to their town and talk about how we work with the district and how we collaborate with the district. And again, I feel like we should aim to move forward and take pride in our work and look to create an environment when relationships can thrive. So I appreciate the attempt at a middle ground in negotiation. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: potentially if the discussion, you know, creates ideas for policy and that that's what's needed. Yeah. I mean, some of the things don't fall under our purview.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I don't know. I mean, that's the whole point we're talking about. It's about bringing what we need to set policy. You know, what we would bring to the school committee is asking requests for setting policy. So what I hear you saying now is that we have the discussion and then we have to come back to the school committee and say, was our discussion okay? Can we further that discussion regarding policy? And again, I don't know. I know the director of people's services is here and I guess I would love to know what their position is because I know that They had been meeting for a month at a time, specifically the subcommittee, specifically because they had been building traction around some issues, particularly disability awareness that had been a five-year project that was finally getting some traction. And I wouldn't disagree that a monthly schedule can be a little bit taxing on folks, especially like last year when every subcommittee suddenly had a monthly schedule for reasons that are so unclear to me. And so there were, you know, three, four or five meetings a week in addition to our own meetings, which was really tricky, but, you know, through the chair and the superintendent, if the director of people's services would be willing to share what the experience has been with the subcommittee and whether that's been beneficial to the district or whether it's too time consuming or what have you, I know that we'd love to hear from administration as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So they're- Yes, that was actually a point of information. That was a follow-up I wanted to have. I didn't think we were getting to the names of the subcommittees yet or the description, I mean, the division of the subcommittees, but I'm also unclear on some of the divisions of the subcommittee. Like, I don't understand, for example, one is people services, and then we have a separate one that's special education and behavioral health, and that special education and behavioral health are people services. So I didn't understand what the differentiation there was. So I was trying to, I would love some explanation on that. And I agree, like if you're subdividing subcommittees, then that can be problematic. And I couldn't agree more that there were far too many meetings last and frankly, there were far too long meetings last year, of which I hope tonight doesn't become one, because the meetings that were last year as well were really taxing, and again, on all of us. So I'm not sure, I mean, I feel like this is a separate issue than the proposed subcommittee assignments. I mean, I think we should talk about the proposed subcommittee assignments, but I'm speaking specifically to the, what was the special education and behavioral health subcommittee? I don't know what people services subcommittee is because special ed and behavioral health is under people services. I don't know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would just love some, enlightenment around those when the chair's ready, because I don't understand. But I get it when you're saying there's now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine subcommittees, and you don't want meetings every month for nine subcommittees. I know, we had those last year. It was crazy, it was far too much. And we worked really hard to make sure that we were on time with ending ours and had an agenda ahead of time and what have you. So I couldn't agree more. But I think that this is obviously a conversation, right for conversation because, and we're not, the community might not realize this, but you know, we're not able to have these conversations obviously based on open meeting outside of the school committee with more than, you know, three individuals of the seven. So this hasn't been discussed previously, at least not with me. So I would love some elucidation. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Clarification though, one listening session is what is being proposed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, actually, what about these proposed subcommittee assignments?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But it's on our list of, it was included in the subcommittee, so. Do we have to put it on the agenda for the next session then before we can actually have?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I'm just asking, I don't know the difference between the people services and the special education and behavioral health subcommittees.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think we should define what pupil services are and what falls under that category because it is special education and behavioral health. And I really think that it's not advisable to strike special education from the subcommittee name.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would make a motion to remove people services as a subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You look like you're in a horror movie. It is gonna be a ghost story. Okay, good. Let's start. It looks good. Who's behind you? You get Cody.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. We just saw a floating head behind you, which made me, you know, it made the whole horror vibe work for you, so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Mustone, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And as folks know, good of the order is a review of school committee, sort of best practices and sort of moving things forward and I'm wanted to mention sort of two colleagues and see where folks are at. seems to me that there's not much in the way of orientation for school committee members, and I'm thinking particularly of new school committee members, but also school committee members who are fairly new, refreshers, what have you, for an orientation. And so I'm wondering, I'd like to open that up to colleagues and see where folks are on that in terms of good of the order, because I think orientation specifically with regard to parliamentary procedure, where to go when, how to get information, policies, all those things. So I'd like to open that up as part of the order.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes. And to that point, I think it does need to be spelled out in terms of what orientation exactly means. And I did also appreciate the event that Dr. Edouard-Vincent had hosted with the MASC two years ago, but I think it was also several weeks into the term. You know, at that point, there was a lot of learning curve that had already happened and so in some ways I want. committee also to be thinking about, you know, new members are elected in November, you know, is there an opportunity for a new member orientation before members come on board so that they're not potentially feeling so lost and or, you know, very much like, you know, first year teachers, a mentor position in school committee so that, you know, perhaps as a mentor to new school committee members or something along those lines, but I do think that it's something that really needs to be considered for the good of the order. And I would also just follow up to member Ruseau's comment regarding the rules that he was gonna send to us tonight. Member Ruseau, are these from what's posted on the website that you're referring to in terms of the school committee MPS policies, or is this something different that you're referring to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you want me to wait to close? I just had a question, Mayor, on that specific.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for those inspiring words, Dr. Edwin-Vincent. It's always good to hear. For the equity process, is that actually the name of the company? So if we want to Google it, it's equity process?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and so I'm from what I heard you say there's going to there's an equity audit that's taking place in this will be phase one of how many did you say how many phases.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great news. I'm really excited to hear about that. Thank you. And I know, I'm sure it was just an oversight in terms of the reading of the statement, but I know that said you were saying equity in terms of culture, gender, you know, you were listing a number of different items and I just didn't hear ability, but I'm sure that's part of it, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, great. Thank you so much. Sounds great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's me. Thank you. Thank you for this report. And Ms. Hines, thank you for all the hard work you guys are doing. And special thank you to the nurses. I just can't imagine all that you guys are going through. Those numbers are really revealing. So data definitely tells a story. Thank you for collecting that data. It's important to hear. I'm wondering about the at-home testing. So I've talked to a few community members who have had extended quarantining, having been exposed more than once and having to quarantine back-to-back which has led to a significant amount of time out of school. And in some of these particular cases for students with disabilities, learning disabilities, which exacerbates the learning issue even more, as you can imagine. And is it accurate that a negative at-home test does not qualify for return to school? It can only be a PCR test? Because what I'm hearing from families is PCR testing can be an additional week to obtain, you know, several hours outside in the below, you know, freezing temperatures, trying to wait in line to get a PCR test and what have you. So unless parents are able to get PCR tests for students, they're not able to return. But with at-home tests, I know several districts do use the at-home test for negative acceptability. And are we or are we not allowing that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so that's next week, so that's January 17th, Dave, is that what was on the slide?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just a follow up question. So if students are out, for example, getting, you know, exposure, because there's so much out there right now, I understand that we're all getting exposed, I think, and having to experience this, but for, you know, young ones who are being exposed multiple times and missing significant amount of school, in some cases, weeks, is there any opportunity for remediation or, you know, or something like that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I'll wait for Member Hays. I just wanted to follow up on something Ms. Hines said to articulate. I had a question on something she said, so I'll wait for after Member Hays. Thank you. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I want to reiterate member Hays to the chair as well for that need for communication and friendly suggestion for a visual flow chart communication for these things. I think visuals help a lot of families and a lot of people do the TLDR sort of method, too long, didn't read. And so, you know, a simple visual where, you know, if you're this, yes, if you're not, no, and sort of, you know, what the next thing is with the vaccination clinics at the bottom, one page could be really helpful. and even a ticker on Medford Community Meter on the vaccination methods. I think there's a lot of ways to sort of reach folks. But the follow-up question that I had was, I'm not sure that I understood you correctly. Did you say that it's the unvaccinated that will get the test for the test and stay or the unvaccinated will get the test for the test and stay?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and then if they have an out-of-school, that's good to know. That's a really big differentiation. It is. And so, yeah, that has to be really driven home. And so for out-of-school exposure, it will likely change, though, from what we're hearing. We don't know, Dave, but it seems like as of January 17th, it will change from requiring a PCR test to an at-home test.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Reduction to five days, you mean? Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, in conjunction with, so if they have a positive five days, if they have a negative, obviously they can come back to school, right? If they don't have a fever.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I also ask where's the, I'm on the website trying to find the vaccination clinic information and maybe I'm just overlooking it, but is it on the main page or is there a link to the clinic?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it's not on the main page for the school site. So medfordma.org for folks that want to register just to put that out there now, but on the school page, maybe we could have it in a prominent place for folks too. That'd be great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Teixeira. That was really great. As always, outstanding. Can I ask how much the Tech Goes Home costs annually? I know it's for teachers to teach to the families in the 10 hours of training. Is that over a divided amount of time? Or I'm assuming, obviously, you wouldn't train 10 hours at once, but how many?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: How long does that take?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, 10 hours for them too. Okay, great. Thank you. That will help me ballpark the amount. And then the resiliency hub, can you tell me about that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is that what it's called, the resiliency hub?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And so on that's on the district website, I mean on the city website.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great, thank you. I'm gonna look into that a little bit. And then can you just share with folks, I know that you said the 24th, I'm looking forward to the DLAC. Can you share with folks the mission of the DLAC?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so I know that before there had been some concern around participation with that, but it seems like with the other family engagement models, that might be a rich opportunity to recruit folks for the DELAC. I'm assuming you're already thinking that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, to build those relationships. Always thinking, Mr. Tichara. Thank you so much. Great stuff. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I mean, Member McLaughlin, my apologies. I think Member Kreatz had her hand up first.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, thank you, Member Kreatz. Thank you for the motion. I guess the question I have is because there seems like there's a lot of details in this that I think they're discussion. And I'm wondering if I'd like to make a motion that this be moved actually to the rules subcommittee so that we can spend some time sort of digesting and going through this. I know some of the links to the policy that was referred to in the agenda did not work as I was poking through them to see if they worked for community members to be able to have some insight into what this all meant. And so I feel like that's part of the purpose of the subcommittees is for our community members to be able to access the school committee members in a more informal setting. be able to discuss items that are on the agenda specifically. So I also think there's, you know, some of the questions that, for example, are whether they're ad hoc or standing, you know, review what other district policies are in terms of the subcommittees. I know that the subcommittees were sort of switched around at the beginning of our term last time around and you know, some of them have been more involved than others. And so I think it just begs a lot of conversation. So I would make a motion to refer this to the rules subcommittee for a little bit of conversation with the community, as well as the rules committee members. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. And I'm just thinking some of this through as well. I feel like part of what has been really beneficial For subcommittees with the community members that I've been working with is that it's, it's been a big part of community engagement and I would really, especially since we know this has already been an identified. uh, goal that is lacking in our district, um, that it would, that it would cause some of the community engagement that we have. And that's concerning to me. I feel like, um, first we would have to get, you know, the delay that it would take even to make a subcommittee meeting is, you know, first we have to get approval. Um, then we can schedule the agenda for the meeting and then we can schedule the meeting. It just feels like a whole series of steps, a little bit like the, the, um, the cart before the horse in some ways. Um, because a lot of times I feel like the subcommittee meetings too are a way to arrive at what motion or policy that you want to get on the school committee through community input and administrative input. And I also, one of the other items on the resolution was the subcommittee will be provided a list of its function and duties. And it's just unclear to me who defines what the list of function and duties are for the subcommittee and how, Are they defined? So I would amend my motion to move this to the rules subcommittee to move this to a committee of the whole because it seems like there's a lot of rich discussion here. And I'd love to see this as a committee of the whole where we can really collaborate and work together on efficient use of our time and continuing to engage the community members. So I make a motion to move this to a committee of the whole.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yes, this, this came about as a result of the number of, you know, high instances of obviously remediation both with the pandemic and Um, other issues that we had in our, you know, our most vulnerable subgroups are disproportionately, um, involved in that remediation, as we know, um, based on just some of the, um, items, mr. Murphy was talking about earlier tonight and, you know, other discussions that we've had. And, um, it just seems unfair and unjust to charge students, um, who are already in our most vulnerable populations for. remediation and credit recovery when we know that they're struggling and they're disproportionately a part of that remediation process. So that was the genesis of this motion. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, I'm willing to table it to the January 24th meeting if Member Mastone is, but I just want to reply also to something that Mr. Murphy was saying, if I may.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I also I appreciate the introspection Mr. Murphy around the policy and I also just, I guess I want to point to a few things around you know the, the identification of families who may need this type of support. While I think that that's you know. altruistic in its goal. I think that we know that there can be implicit bias in our systems. And I just want to make sure that we are ruling out implicit bias and that we can sort of offer this to it was actually three subgroups. It's the EL students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged, who are disproportionately in this group and being charged for remediation, which it just feels ironic to me that we're charging these populations for remediation when it's sort of a cycle of systemic sort of subgrouping. And we're thinking about achievement gap opportunities and narrowing those for these particular subgroups. And also just having been in one of these subgroups as a child myself, you know, sometimes parents don't ask for, you know, a break, either because they don't want to, they're embarrassed, or because they're unavailable and the children aren't able to ask on their behalf. So I think we really need to think about the whole child in this approach. And I do think that the number would be helpful for the school committee to be able to understand. But I do also want to just put forth to my colleagues that I think that this is, albeit, you know, some cost to the district, I do think that it's morally and ethically the right thing to do. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, I was thinking about that and I appreciate your looking at that for the appropriate timeframe I think that's really important, but I also think that sometimes. The communication parents might not necessarily know or think they you know they know, but or the student thinks they know, but they don't so I think that's really helpful to look at a timeframe. And then also, I just would add that I know you know, not for every student and. you know, I may have had some of these students, I may not have in my own home, but I will say that retention can be an incentive. So I think that that's a really important piece to consider too. So thank you all for looking at this and I motion to table this to January 24th meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you. Um, through the chair, I'm wondering about, um, I think that this was started because actually because of the pandemic and we had moved to zoom and it was about, you know, being able to hear people. We weren't sure how the zoom sort of protocol would work. And I think that that was why it was started, but it was Paulette that was reading them last time, which was the chair, not the secretary. So, you know, that was, Wasn't Paulette reading them? I wasn't reading them in the last two years.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think the only question I have about this is that I know that there are some community members who have anxiety speaking publicly, right? So to do a presentation before the school committee, I know several community members who just won't do it because they're anxious doing that. So is there a way that there could be an amendment to this just saying that unless the author specifically asked that it be read into the meeting so that that way we give people the window of opportunity if they really are, you know, among those folks who are anxious, being able to present before the subcommittee that they could still have input or have their question addressed or put out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That explanation was very helpful. And I guess if community members feel like there's something they want to address, they can reach out to their, any one of us and ask that it, potentially be put on the agenda or what have you. And I didn't realize that there were some that could not be read into the session last year, but I'm not at all surprised, frankly. So I think that that makes sense.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But I can call the roll to start and then I'll read our behavioral health and subcommittee announcement agenda. So roll, Mia Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So try again.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie McLaughlin here and Paul Rusco. is absent, but may join us partially through the meeting. So we shall see. So again, this is the meeting of the behavioral health subcommittee. And I'll just read our, our posting. Please be advised that on Thursday, December 16, from five to six, there'll be a behavioral health subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via zoom. The purpose of the Thursday, December 16 2021 behavioral health subcommittee meeting is to formalize the quote, problem of practice, i.e. focus of the group meetings, subcommittee meetings for the remainder of the year, which will be every other month with community input and involvement. So we posted the meeting. We let folks know that it's been posted on the PTO sites. We let folks know. I suspect it's just a really busy time of year for everyone. And Some people have spoken to me about some things that they're interested in, but previously proposed focus areas for discussion include one, identifying resources for behavioral health supports for students and caregivers in our community. That might be like wraparound services to the school and working together to propose policy around identified resources. And then two was creating a visual flow chart with interpretation for English as a second language families and others regarding how to access services within the school community. This should be playing on channel 15. You can dial in 929-205-6099 if needed. If you have questions or comments, you can send them to Melanie McLaughlin. m-e-l-a-n-i-e-m-c-l-a-u-g-h-l-i-n at medford.k12.ma.us. This meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast channel 22 and Verizon channel 43. So thank you for joining us. entertaining me through that reading. And I will, again, we want to just identify what we're calling a problem of practice, which is essentially just a focus for the year for the meetings that will be held every other month, the intent of this subcommittee, when it was initially formed as a special education subcommittee, and then it was added on is special education and behavioral health, which are obviously two vast and very different topics. So we decided this year, we would go with every other month going between the topics. So last month was special education, where we identified a problem of practice, which is continuing to work on friendships in the community, in the schools, and broke down ways in which we wanted to do that. And this month is behavioral health, where we want to solidify what the discussion was in September around what Stacey Shulman, the director of guidance, talked with us about some of the things that would be helpful to focus on. So Stacey, would you give a little bit of a background on sort of what you were saying around the identifying resources and how that would be helpful? And then I think, you know, if, we vote to move this forward to the committee, we can just let them know that this is really what we'll be working on. We're not going to be obviously voting on policy or anything like that. The idea is that we sort of do this problem of practice focus on some, you know, putting together some research and minds together around the problem of practice. And then at the end of the year, we do a presentation to the school committee with potentially policy proposals. So Stacey, if you'd like to speak.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie, you're on mute. Sorry, I said, can you tell us a little bit more about the S3LC, the Safe, Supportive Schools Learning Collaborative? You said we were included with 15 other districts?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Wow, that's really great. It would be great to get updates on that. So you said you guys meet monthly?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So is there a link to the S3LC2 or something that we can learn more about? It would be great for the December, January, February meeting, Stacey, if we can just get an update too on that again. I think that's really interesting for folks to hear about. Sure. I can send you the press release.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, see, I think I missed that. So I must have been somewhere in August. I don't know where. I think it was someplace nice, actually. Now that I'm remembering it. Good. So back to the problem of practice. So I know you're saying there's a lot of identified resources and that already. And that, you know, obviously there's an overwhelmed, you know, an issue of mental health services and supports being overwhelmed right now with requests with just so many requests, you know, in and around the community. And that but that the identified resources weren't resources really weren't getting where you wanted. So going back to the problem of practice and thinking back to what we had said at the at the last meeting about identifying resources for health supports for students and caregivers in our community and working together to propose policy around those resources. So How do you think this could be operationalized as part of the subcommittee in a way that would be useful to the community around behavioral health, mental health supports? How can we utilize this group to help identify policy towards this end that would be helpful? Do you think? I mean, the discussion that we had before was sort of, you know, starting to have community members sort of, or subcommittee members sort of look at resources and, you know, talk to constituents and, you know, show up and share what resources have been useful to them. But I think it was also about how to get those resources and information out into the community. So is it looking at sort of, you know, similar to what your S3LC group is doing around you know, best practices in terms of what that looks like for getting supports out into the community and for collaborating around these. I mean, I know that, I know that Paul Rebel at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard does a lot of work around mental health wraparound services and supports. And I'm sure that there's a lot of research and data around that. So I don't know if that's helpful. Like, I guess I'm trying to wrap my mind around what would be helpful to you and to your team and to the community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. And I would love to hear from like, you know, others on the in the meeting, Miss Lucy, Mia, if you have any input that you want to share as well. But I mean, I think It is interesting just even as a school committee member not realizing like again the Boston 25 piece and the in the press release out to the community around this particular project and so I guess, first I would say, you know, maybe it is breaking down what are the methods of communication now, you know, what do families, potentially feel like is working or isn't working so you know I hate to say, you know, another a survey or whatever around that but sort of I guess maybe thinking about what is the method of communication now and that could be something that we're looking at and maybe saving examples of the communication that's going on and what that looks like and then you know certainly I'm willing to invite people for the next subcommittee meeting to share their experience around how they're getting information and what's useful and I think you know one of the things that I keep hearing from the community particularly even in the last school committee meeting when we were talking about concerns around student health and safety in our schools, was that like, how do we know where to go, right? Where we go, like, where does the student go when they have an issue? Is it in our day, it was guidance Councilors, today it might be school adjustment Councilors or something else altogether. It's just kind of, you know, that seems sort of unclear. And maybe that gets to the second point around a visual flowchart around sort of here's where things go, here's an example of a concern, here's where you would go in that concern or something like that. Is there something that exists already for that, Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and maybe I think that again for the next subcommittee meeting, maybe it could be really helpful to To, you know, to see that flowchart to talk about like where the information was, you know that you got you know it from and how useful it's been and how we can think about, you know, what that looks like in the community and or sharing it, you know, outside of the school with the with families and whoever. and have it be sort of a repeated. And I think that's part of it is, I think sometimes we might think we got the information out and so it's out there, but again, if you missed it, or if it was at a time that was, like you said, potentially traumatic time, or if it's a traumatic time now, trying to have recall through trauma, or when you're triggered again, is like obviously a very difficult thing to be able to do. And so having it easy and at hand, I think is interesting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: uh ways to direct people to that like wealth of information it was all resources um yeah i think the varied modalities is a really good idea um and i think that like so i'm thinking like email email has now become yeah it's overwhelming oh yeah email is probably the least useful form of communication for me at this point because same thing it's it's there's so many ask me amia knows right mia you have to text me if i'm my she's like i sent you an email i'm like oh sorry There's so many of them. And I know for my student last year, who was a senior last year at the high school, that was an ongoing problem. He was rarely looking at his email. And I think that unless it rises to the surface or it's been flagged in a number of ways, different modalities, like somebody texts you to tell you we have an email, which is a pain in the neck, right? But it's sort of thinking about that. And I think a lot of our families, I mean, I certainly see this when there's a problem at the school, and I'm sure administration sees this as well. Where's the first place everybody learns about a problem in our school? Anybody?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, social media, right? So, you know, really using that platform to get information out both through Instagram for our kids or social media, or even like, you know, dare I say TikTok, but, you know, there are ways I think that we could be thinking about asking the students to, you know, sort of what are the modalities that we can get information out. So getting back to this subcommittee and, you know, sort of being able to focus on a problem of practice, you know, perhaps it's really looking taking the time to look at the resources that are gonna be woven into the website, but both from Stacy's appendage, I guess, to the website and some of the information that's on the website currently and this flow chart for the next meeting to really be able to think about, okay, here's sort of the information that really stood out to us as being useful to families and to students, how can we think about pushing that information forward based on both our personal and our professional experience in the schools and as subcommittee members? Just thinking out loud, again, going back to the problem of practice, what are you folks thinking on that? So it looks like the flow chart exists, so that's great. That can come back at the, you know, February meeting so we can look at that and think about how it's actually getting out. Is that interpreted? Has that been interpreted, Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So when you say you sent it out to family, you sent it out to families at where, the high school?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, I would. I'll definitely take a look at that. Can you send that email that you got? So I'm assuming out of district students did not get that email, which I'm assuming that services are also available to out of out of district students as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, I'll check with Joan Bowen about that because that's part of the special ed subcommittee conversation around making sure that's out. So OK, the community resource guide and the flowchart went out to six through 12.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's awesome. I'd love to see it. And maybe we can do a quick sort of visual for folks that just learned better visually, but we can figure that out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Of course. Yeah, I can forward it to you. I have them. Yeah. Um, okay. Um, and so And so it sounds like the identifying the resources for health supports for students and caregivers in our community and working together to propose policy regarding access to the services. It sounds like the community resource guide has been created. So maybe it's the subcommittee could be looking at that guide. seeing how updated it is and seeing what the opportunities are for being able to disseminate that to the community in a way that is, whether it's translated or how we can make that happen from a policy perspective. So if you could email the community resource guide, or should we just go online to get it for the subcommittee?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so when Mia sends the email, I'll make sure that the rest of the subcommittee, that Paul gets it if he hasn't already. And then maybe we can look at that for the agenda for next time as the community resource guide and the visual flow chart for the February meeting. And then in the interim, Stacey and maybe Mia, you could, and Suzanne and Maurice, if you, Dr. Edward, if you're interested or able, asking your nephew or what have you, just doing a little bit of informal qualitative data around the folks that you know and sort of how they're getting information and whether that and in what ways that's useful. Are they getting the information? Have they seen it? Have they heard it? Because I think certainly, you know, we've been hearing a lot from community members in the past month or so feeling like they're not hearing this information. So I think that it's like, okay, you know, where's the disconnect? Or maybe they're feeling like they are now more after some of the events of last month, but I think Dr. Edwin said, I'm not sure if you were on the call when there was the conversation about repeating information sort of, you know, with trauma, how sort of, it can be hard to access that information when you're in the throes of trauma and forgetting that, like where that was and sort of how to, you know, being sure that it's repeated during, you know, times of difficulty or whatever, so that we're making sure that the message is sort of being repeated over time.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I think it looks like we're sticking with the problem of practice, if you will, that we had is the proposed one in the agenda with some slight modifications based on our notes. And in the next meeting, which is February, I don't have the date in front of me right now, I apologize. I can look it up if folks want but it's February well we'll let them know before you know at the beginning of February at one of the maybe superintendents updates or something that the meeting's coming but it's in February we'll have info on the S3LC group. Stacey a little bit of an update on that if you don't mind right? Of course. And then the link the press release you'll send over to that and the community Boston TV piece. I think that would be great. That's another, I think that's actually a good example of something to repeat the messaging on that, especially since it was August. It might be nice for the community to know that like that happened. You guys were recognized for that. You're working on that and doing that. I think that I didn't realize that. I think that sounds like a really cool project and it sounds like some, you guys have a great problem or practice for next year. And I mean, I know that a little sensitivity around the screening piece. So I personally also like the wellness screening. I think that that's, that really kind of flips the script a bit. for people. So I guess the messaging you might be thinking about that, but I think it sounds really, really interesting. So I look forward to hearing from you guys again in February.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But that will be a great resource for students. It is, and that's great news. Congratulations. And I think that's the real importance of the subcommittee meetings because we're able to get into some of the nitty gritty in these meetings and to be able to think about how we're sharing this information in the community. And sometimes we're not always able to get that information sort of on the regular because there's so many other things going on. So that's great news. Congratulations. Dr. Edward-Vincent, I don't know if you've considered including that in your comments for next week, but would you consider including that? Because I think that's really great news.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's excellent. That's really good news. Yeah, and the steps and just maybe a little bit of an explanation to her on the steps thing would be really helpful. Cause I think a lot of folks don't even know that those things exist until you're in that situation, right? And then you have to find out the hard way that exists. So when people think that there's not, you know, mental health supports, they don't know because maybe they haven't had to access them. So that's great. Thank you. Okay, and it is 537 and we're 20 minutes early. Can we get a motion to adjourn? Mia?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I second that motion. So thank you all.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin? Here. Member Mustone? Here. Member Ruseau? Here. Member Van der Kloot? Here. Mayor Long-O'Karn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move into executive session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. No longer current.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. The special education subcommittee meeting meets every other month. We met to create, to advise with the community, work with the community to advise on a problem of practice for our subcommittee to work on to this year. And it was a consensus that we recommend to the school committee that we would like to continue to work on establishing friendships for students with and without disabilities, looking into the best buddies programming possibility, disability awareness programming and CCSR projects.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, can you hear me now. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I ask the point of information action there? Can we just, is it okay, Mayor? Member McLaughlin? Thank you. I just wanted to ask if Ms. Puccio, would you mind submitting that to us in writing just so we can see it as well? I had a hard time hearing some of it. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Fuccio.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What's the acronym for FERPA, point of information?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to thank the students for coming up tonight and speaking as well. I think to other members' points, if you're feel like you're speaking up, but your voice is not heard. It's a matter of re-victimization. And I am so encouraged, though, by Dr. Cushion creating the Student Advisory Council. I know it was a matter of law, and it's really wonderful that it's actually happening this year, and it's happening at the high school and expanding to the middle school. It's critical. I was able to sit in on one of those sessions with a few of the student advisory folks, and I thought it was really revelatory in terms of what they were telling us as an adult and what they were willing to share. I was so really proud of them and this generation, and I have full faith in their generation, much more so than my own, I have to say. So keep doing what you're doing, students, and we need to hear from you. We need to know what it is we need to do to make things better here. I also want to encourage folks to ask who's not at the table. So when you're having those meetings, you know, I did hear sort of in the background from some folks that certain students are being asked or you know. The same people are coming to the table, and I would say who's not at the table. And I would encourage the students to ask that question too, who's not at the table, who are we, you know, maybe not including, and how do we think about including them? And so I wanna make sure that any of the material that is being sent out, that's been talked about in terms of creating advisory groups, what have you, certainly are translated. I know that Mr. Teixeira was involved with the focus groups, and I know that Joan Bowen and I spoke about doing some, the, special education department doing some social stories for some of the students who need them around how to be involved and how their voice can be heard as well. So I just want to make sure that we're being inclusive of those voices because I really want to hear and see them see the change that they can make. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Madam Superintendent. Did we get any emails from the public on this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's very detailed. I had a couple of questions. For the PD on the Massachusetts dyslexia guidelines, I guess, what does that look like? And is there any information on that offered to families? I know that there have been concerns from families in the district around this issue, and I'm wondering how they're informed regarding this, or are they? PD on the mass dyslexia guidelines.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm talking about, Dr. Keyes was talking about offering PD on the mass dyslexia guidelines. So I was just asking how parents are informed on what the dyslexia guidelines are, or are they, and in what instance if a child is failing or seems to be failing, what is the process? I know that we're not medical, the school does not offer medical diagnosis and dyslexia is not a medical diagnosis, but in what instance is there understanding of what those dyslexia guidelines are for our families or our students who are struggling? Is there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think so, yeah. And so just, yeah, I'm not, I don't know what the mass dyslexia guidelines are, and I'm just wondering if parents or families or caregivers who have children who are having reading difficulties are aware of those or are made aware of those so that they understand what the school's responsibility is and how to get support for their child if they need it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so there's not, I'll look at the master's dyslexia guidelines, but I'm assuming there's not a link or anything like that to them on the website or is there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. That's what I wanted to follow up with the question for. So for the tier three supports, when a student is identified as tier three in the monitoring system and a tier three support, is that then in the, are those services then in the IEP grid?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that would be only through an assessment, a reading assessment that they're identified as having a meeting a tier three support?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and so then tier three would be through a reading assessment that they would- It would be through a special education assessment that would be a comprehensive reading assessment. Okay, and then so they would have a specific reading goal on their IEP.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Fascinating, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I am wondering about, first of all, I guess I wanted to ask the superintendent, her thoughts on this. And then I had one other follow up question. So if I may, superintendent, what are your thoughts on climate and culture assessment for the high school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the clarification. Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I appreciate the response from my colleague and the superintendent and. To that end, someone did follow up with me as well that said, and I don't know that this is accurate, I'm sure colleagues here know better than I do, that something similar was, or I don't know if it was similar in terms of cost or proposal, but something similar was created as a result of the McGlynn incident a few years ago, but that it actually was ignored. Or maybe there was a transition in staff and people were unaware of it or what have you. So I think to that end, First of all, I guess, is that true? And secondly, to that end, the second to the last paragraph, I think, is really important that we're talking about what the recommendations are and that they're outlining very specific ways to create systemic and structural change and thinking about the implementation of that. Because if this has happened in the past and these reviews have been done, but then have sat and nothing has happened, obviously we don't want that to happen again either. So I guess the question is, has this been done in the past and what has happened as a result of those RFPs or reports on climate and culture assessments of schools? And how can we make this time different?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me, just as a point of information, would you send that to us? Sure. Thank you. And also on the amount, what was it for that report?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm done.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Van der Kloot, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Superintendent and our Director of Pupil Services among others. So thank you. This subcommittee was started a few years ago at the request of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Our co-chairs here are here tonight for the Medford Special Ed Parent Advisory Council, Tonya Sullivan, hi Tonya, and Alex Lorick. And again, the subcommittee was started a few years ago with their request in mind to be active participate participants in special education concerns and problems of practice to work towards collaborating on policy. We're glad to have them here tonight. Our format last year, we had tried during the pandemic to split the meeting. The committee was renamed or reconstituted as the Special Education Behavioral Health Subcommittee. Last year, we were trying to do meetings that were divided between those two topics. And we've decided, based on our meeting last month, we decided to consider a new format for this year, where we are having every other topical meeting. So in other words, the current meeting is special education, next month meeting will be specific to behavioral health, and then we'll stagger each month, every other month for meetings, and that the feeling was that that would give us time in between the meetings to actively work on some of the issues and or concerns that were raised. And so in our last meeting, I can share the screen, my screen, and pull up our minutes from the last meeting. Can you guys see my screen? Yes. Yes. Okay. And so generally we came to that weren't a lot there was not a lot of participation at that meeting so I just want to go here to highlight sort of what we had been talking about as what we'll look at is the the special education proposed of practice to work on, and then I would like to put the proposed problem of practice out for discussion for the subcommittee to see if there's anything additional folks want to add or something altogether different. But essentially it was identifying ways in which to build community and school friendships among our students with and without disabilities, specifically through recreational programming, after school activities and sports organizations, as well as in school meaningful inclusion. along with developing supportive language, recommendations for best practices. So that last sentence sort of comes across what we're seeing in a number of these different entities, recreation, afterschool, sports organizations, is sort of not universal language and perhaps not, although well-intentioned, perhaps not the most thoughtful, I guess, into the disability community. So we want to be aware of how we can make recommendations around some of the printed language we see and maybe some of the other things. So I would encourage folks to just sort of, you know, unmute themselves or if it gets a little too chaotic, which I doubt, we can we can, you know, raise hands. But if folks want to unmute themselves, and if you do, please introduce yourself. Again, because I know we all know each other here, but there may be people watching. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if I might add, we had a meeting last night with Medford Recreation to discuss adaptive and inclusive programming with Medford Recreation. And there was a community member there, Shanine Pelliquin, who's done a lot of work in this area, as you folks probably know, who talked about other districts and how they have worked with recreation departments and summer fun camps to sort of integrate all of these aspects. the students are actually receiving ESY services at the summer fun camp so the kids are getting their ESY service needs met and are also getting their social emotional inclusive needs met and so that was the the basis of the discussion really around you know what what are other communities doing what does it look like how could that look here and I think what we what I heard anyway from that that meeting especially was that you know oftentimes even with the progress that we're making in having a recreation department and having an adaptive program at the recreation department and having an adaptive PE teacher that there's still not meaningful inclusion yet but we know that that's the goal around equity especially because there's so many limits to you know what those programs look like and for example that The adaptive programming host about 10 students with disabilities, you know, in one given session, because they're, they're locked out after you know they have so much enrollment. And so, at the same time we know that in the past, special education. school based special education team has been providing training and support to summer fun to ensure. Meaningful inclusion, they are so sort of it was it was this popcorn popcorn of ideas of what could this look like across these. You know issues, especially because we see the department does need training around inclusive and therapeutic. recreation therapeutic is different obviously that's more sort of license specific but inclusive, especially using CCSR volunteers and other volunteers, you know there's it's clear that there's certainly well intentioned. volunteers and also there's a need for for training and I know in the past. Kathy was really open to providing that or and or you know, looking to a marker community to us to. do that. EMARC does not look like they have, or CUNITAS, which is the local ARC, which is an advocacy group for people with disabilities, does not seem to have much going in the way of recreation right now just because of COVID.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a great question and I would love to sort of, you know, put that out to, you know, the group because I think some data around, you know, what the progress is for the group is really great and what the recommendations were certainly, you know, we had a recommendation for their disability awareness program and I know Joan can update us on what's happening this year and what the milestones in that program have been. I've been really interested in, and I think it's really helpful for us to potentially share out. And when we're talking about policy recommendations at the end of the year, data around evaluations on that program, how people are responding to it, what it looks like, how it's growing. I know Susanna is not here tonight, but she can certainly give an update. And then I'm sure you know that Carla, who was doing the common grounds, reverse inclusion model at the high school with Mr. score currency CSR Carla has taken another position as an adaptive are adaptive. PE instructor. So I think the friendship-based one is, especially if that's going to be something we're focusing on for this session, is one that needs to grow. And I think the best buddies was a really great question and initiative that Heather McKinnon, Glennon, and Marissa Isbell had brought before us. And then obviously COVID happened, but I think, you know, you know, that's something that could be worth exploring too, but I'd love to hear what other folks think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, and I would say, you know, we'll make sure that we ask Susanna to be on the next subcommittee meeting to talk about this more if you like, but I would also say, you know, that we can encourage data collection around what that's looking like so that at the end of the year, again, for the policy recommendations, you know, we have some measurable data if we want, if we intend to recommend expanding it at all.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I just want to recognize our subcommittee member. Ms. Stone has joined us. Thanks for joining, Mia. We're just discussing the goals for this year. In the past, we've worked on disability awareness and improving friendships through after school, before school, after school, sports and recreation. And we're identifying what the And what we're referring to is problem of practice that we want to work on this year as a subcommittee to move forward policy recommendations at the end of the year. And the other question that was mentioned, so we were just talking about the disability awareness curriculum that this group worked with Susanna Campbell on and has been received really well in the community among staff and just having some data collection around what that looks like. And then the other question that you had, Alex, was an update on the inclusion, meaningful inclusion in schools, which was, you know, we had been discussing last year the model that was used at the high school, which was the Common Ground Program. And Carla, Andre, and Michael Skorka were using that program, which was essentially a reverse inclusion model where the CCSR class was coming in, I think, monthly into the access class. with some specific goals. And I'm just wondering if Carla can update us on, I know Carla, I'm sure folks know Carla, Ms. Andre took a position as the adaptive PE instructor, which we're very pleased to have an adaptive PE program. But I'm wondering, to that point, you know, does Common Ground still exist as far as anybody knows?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I think one of the reasons that we had talked about as a subcommittee about, you know, the best buddy program at the middle school was that we were talking about, you know, this, and again, this is reverse inclusion, to be clear, this is not inclusion, you know, so reverse inclusion is, as we said, you know, kids without disabilities coming into a already subseparate classroom. So it's not inclusion in the community or inclusion in a general education setting. It's a reverse inclusion model. But we had talked about, you know, or we had family members who had talked about wanting to expand or see things at the middle school level. And so that was some of the discussion that we had had last year. And so I guess the purpose of this meeting really is to identify if that's something that we want to continue to explore as a problem of practice for this group and what that would look like, or if there's something else that folks want to focus on for a problem of practice this year. So just to get us back on agenda topic, I want to make sure that that's what we're discussing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I hear you. I think that if so, if we want to, oh, sorry, member Rousseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Disability Awareness Curriculum. And we did vote on it last year. So nobody's changing anything. This was voted on last year to continue the disability awareness curriculum. But I think the committee recognizes that this is a subcommittee and that we bring our discussion to the committee after this meeting with our minutes. And then if there's items that need to be voted on, that we vote on them. So I don't think anybody's getting the impression that, you know, we're just moving ahead without any school committee approval, but I appreciate your concern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think that what we do is at the end of the year, we make policy recommendations that are voted on by the subcommittee, but it's not our position as school committee to be making, in my opinion, curriculum recommendations per se. That is, you know, the Director of Pupil Services and others have worked to create this disability curriculum. It's not up to the school committee, as far as I understand, to approve or disapprove of it. But we have made motions at the end of the year that our policy recommendations that we say we think that this disability awareness curriculum is appropriate and that, you know, as experts in the field of disability both as with lived experience and professional experience we make recommendations. Remember my stone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. No, I think that's a great idea and especially with service project with CCSR and partnership at the middle school level and that was part of what the committee had been discussing how to expand to middle school, you know, some inclusive practice, particularly in these, you know, in these experiences where it was, you know, CCSR activities or wraparound activities. And we had a few family members that wanted to explore the Best Buddies option. They had met with Best Buddies. I had met with them as well. It had suddenly become much more affordable than it has in the past. And then this committee sort of was looking at the discussion of the common ground model at the high school and sort of looking at that as expanding to the middle school and using our internal resources as opposed to going outside to a best buddy program. And so that's where we left off. And what I'm hearing the CPAC, Tanya and Alex saying is that since those things have not really been moved forward, that they would still like to focus on what that actually could be and look like as a collective policy recommendation problem or practice that we look at at this school level. So this meeting is really to identify if that's what this subcommittee would like to work on. And I think those are great ideas in terms of if like we do want to work on a best buddies, you know, and suggest like do some. And, and to be clear, what we do is we research the ideas, and we come before the subcommittee and discuss them as a community group. And then if there are ideas that we think are valuable, we move them forward for a motion as a policy recommendation if needed to the school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think getting the CCSR involved would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So thank you, Mia. That's a really thoughtful idea. And I love Bread Alife. It's a great program. So, you know, I think that there's a number of, you know, issues as we were talking about before school, after school, athletics, recreation, all of those things. And to your point, Joan, you know, removing barriers for students with disabilities is a big part of what the subcommittee is really about and how to move these issues forward. So again, I would like to just put to the floor Um, you know, I don't know if folks want to, you know, again, have a couple of recommendations to suggest and then we can ask. I mean, I don't think that we need approval from the school committee to have a problem with practice for our school subcommittee. So I'm not going to suggest that. But I don't know here if you want to if there's anyone else that has recommendations on what would like to work on for this particular year. And what I'm hearing from our CPAC co-chairs, and I guess maybe we could do a raise of hands, are folks wanting to continue to work on meaningful inclusion in building friendships, and in and out of school, I guess, you know, through the programming that we discussed already, as the problem of practice, and if so, you know, maybe a raise of hands. And if there's if you are not interested in doing that, maybe a thumbs down, and people can talk about something else that they'd like to do. I'm not really sure. We did meet last month. And Joan, you know, had thought that, and I want to speak for you, Joan, but you know, in the meeting that we have last month, there was the discussion that, you know, continuing this work because we had a pandemic year, because we had, you know, the things, Carla moved on to another position and some other things that maybe we continue to explore as a group some of the options that we've discussed. So, you know, Mia gave a really great example of a, of an afterschool program model that could have some inclusion, but, or some model of inclusion, but, you know, again, we were looking at other, you know, entities and aspects and specifically the best buddies, you know, we're meeting again in two months, our next meeting is January for this group. So maybe between now and January, we can be, you know, potentially doing some research on the best buddies, we can be looking at CCSR and what they're doing, if anything around disability projects, we can also be talking to, you know, Susanna Campbell, I'm looking at what has happened in that realm with the Disability Awareness Program. I mean, these are a couple of the things that I'm thinking that are follow-ups to what we had been working on last year. And again, this culminates in that end of year meeting where we bring issues to the school committee, aside from advising them and letting them know about our meeting content, where we bring issues at the end of the year that we put forward for policy if needed. Do we wanna have a hands up, thumbs down? Yes, Mia, did you say yes?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That is a nice Mia Mustone quote. Good, well, that's good. So I think maybe we could think about, again, I wanna look at our,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: December 16th is the behavioral health session that will have a similar type meeting as we did tonight to confirm what the goal is for the year. And there was discussion that Stacey had just mentioning that maybe it goes like a January to January because we're already into the year that the goal sort of, you know, is a January to January sort of process, but we can talk about that for policy recommendations specifically, you know, because end of the year in June, then we're gone for the summer. And then it's looking at sort of How is the policy being implemented or is it being implemented, you know, starting up again so that's something to consider, but January 20 is our next special education topic driven meeting so between now and January 20, it gives us sort of two months if we, you know, are interested in working on some of these issues or goals and so I'm okay with reaching out to the two family members that were interested in exploring the Best Buddies program and doing some of the research around that and seeing what that entails and what that looks like. And I can bring that back to the subcommittee and report that out. Mia, maybe Member Mustone, if you wouldn't mind coming back and letting us know on the 20th about this Bread of Life program. how that progressed in terms of an afterschool project, that would be really helpful. Did somebody say that they were able to reach out to CCSR or were going to reach out to Mr. Skorka, was that you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent? Yes. Thank you. Particularly about the middle school stuff, but I also have an appointment scheduled with Mr. Skorka to talk about what disability-related projects the students have come up with, because I know that they've come up specifically with projects, so I would love to talk with them more. I know, Kate was on the call. Oh, yeah, Kate's on the call. Oh, hi, Kate. I didn't see your hand was raised. Let me let you talk. Sorry. Can you would you mind just introducing yourself to please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Yay, inclusion. Okay, good. Thanks, Kate. So, and Metro Recreation has, as the CPAC mentioned, been working around some of these topics that we've discussed around, you know, meaningful inclusion and how to expand that with the meeting that we had last night. And so that is going to be followed up on, Tanya and Alex, right? As the meeting was discussed last night, there's going to be another meeting Kate, I'm sure Danny and Kevin have likely looped you in around some of the questions that were really raised last night on how to improve and increase that meaningful inclusion. So maybe if I could delegate if folks are willing that Kate, Tanya and Alex might come back on January 20th with some update on the collaboration on the meaningful inclusion with the recreation. Absolutely. Would that be okay? So January 20th? Yes. And then if I understand correctly, Joan, you were going to circle back with Susanna to have her come back to us on the disability awareness piece and what the progress of that has been. And then I guess when we meet on January 20th, we can sort of think about what the next steps are for moving some of these problems with practice forward for Future discussion, is there anything else Miss Carla is there anything that you wanted to Carla I also just wanted to recognize you and say thank you so much for the unified sports program. that has been such good medicine, really exciting to watch. Going to the pizza party the other night and seeing the neurotypical peers with our students with disabilities and everyone getting medals and shirts with their names on it and everything. It was just like the best. I actually literally heard from a staff member say that it was It was the best, the single best experience the staff member has had in our schools in the past 20 months during this pandemic. And I thought that that was really quite remarkable. And I know that it's gonna continue to grow and expand and I'm excited by that and really, really grateful to have you in that role. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And to be clear, again, it is research that's being provided, not anything that we're moving forward as a curriculum issue, but thank you, Carla. I really appreciate that too. And all that Mr. Skorka is doing toward that end and seeing the folks that are really committed to not just inclusion, but meaningful inclusion. And I think one of the ways that you see that happen naturally is in spaces like recreation, which is really why we're targeting that first, because you can see that, you know, the friends. And I think Dr. Edouard-Vincent, you've been able to see firsthand with your nephew sort of involved, how it's been beneficial for our typical students.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you and thank you for your support. Thank you. Nice to see you, Ms. Coppola, too. Thank you for being here. Ms. Pirates, did you have something you wanted to add?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, anyone else want to add anything? There's something, let me just see. Okay, then we'll get minutes out to folks and I would just, I guess we have a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'll do the, I guess we could do the all in favor. Aye. Aye. Did you want to say something, Ms. Coppola, or are you all set?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Please come in January. We'd love to have you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone. Oh, here I am. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move to executive session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Democrats? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Thank you. Thank you for putting this report together, Ms. Bowen, especially in the short amount of time that we had. So I appreciate that this will be an ongoing report. It's interesting information. So 17 students in the district entirely participate in the ALT based on the grade levels for MCAS requirements. And when you say a review with the binder with the parent and that there's a signature required in March. Do you know, like, have folks, because that's sort of the first I'm hearing about the review of the binder with parent and signature. So is there communication with CPAC around how that's working and whether that's working or with your coordinators around how that's working?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that sounds like a really valuable process. I'm just, I want to make sure that it's happening for parents because it's, yeah, that's great. And we'll also, maybe we can check in with CPAC and ask. Thank you. And is the review with the binder and the signature happening? And when you get the OO at a district, can you check? if the review with the parent for the binder is happening with signatures on that as well, just to make sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I couldn't agree more. Okay. Thank you. And where did the portfolios live once they're finished?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, okay. That's great. Thank you. I think that's it. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you for this initial report. I appreciate your data. I also just want to ensure that the data collection and interviews with students and community members, what have you, are happening across all subgroups, which I'm sure they are, but I just want to make sure and put that out there that all of our subgroups, including our EL, economically disadvantaged, students with disabilities, minority students, obviously, all across the board.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the chair to my colleagues for the questions that were answered as well, because I have the same and have a few more. So I'm wondering how we have engaged. So it sounds to me like the goals for the engagement hub for this year are re-engagement around already diminished relationships. around academic learning. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So I just would say that this deck really feels heavy on the re-engagement sort of specialists working on consistent attendant, chronically disengaged from learning, attendance and residency duties. So I'm hearing that as sort of a focus of this year anyway, and I'm wondering, again, sort of stepping back a moment and asking ourselves, like, where did that come from? And how did we engage stakeholders and what that was going to look like? So how, I know you have the hub directors, which I think is great. I think you definitely need the inter, you know, departmental collaboration, but how were families engaged in that process in terms of identifying what the goals would be for the hub for this year is, is one of the questions I have. Cause I mean, I do feel like it's kind of the irony of family engagement is that We're saying we're doing family engagement, but we're not engaging families and what the engagement is going to be sometimes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. How, and how is this different? Are these engagement specialist positions differentiated from school adjustment Councilors?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And so for the, what are the qualifications for the engagement specialist?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so that's great. And so they have a college degree required, not yet required?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so it's a case by case basis on family engagement qualifications is what I'm hearing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Qualifications can be about lived experience for sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I was wondering if that was part of it. And we don't know because we don't remember is what I'm asking, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then thank you for the response and for engaging me for this moment. And then can we have, I know getting back to some of the colleagues' questions as well, it would be great if there were some data-driven goals and some flowchart for a referral process. And so maybe that's something that could be, Megan, yeah, Ms. Wilson, if we can think about what that would look like and how that could be visualized for the community in a visual flowchart sort of form so people know. So I guess I'm thinking about it from a family perspective. If you have a concern and you wanna be proactive, not reactive, right? And a family is looking for some answers, they don't know, are they going to the guidance Councilor? Are they going to the school adjustment Councilor? Are they going to the engagement specialist? So I think there's a lot of confusion around who I think it's great that we have options on who we can go to, but I think there's a lot of confusion around who we can go to and in what circumstance. So I think some clarification around that would be super helpful. I'm really excited about this and I know that The school in Maine, we'll be talking more about the school in Maine survey, but one of the biggest outcomes of the school in Maine survey was building capacity for staff. And that was sort of, they said, if we're not accomplishing that, then nothing will be accomplished really. So I thought that was really an important piece. And then lastly, I wanted to ask, sorry, building. Oh, and in addition to all of the other responsibilities, that the director has, I see that you're also doing oversight of before and after school care and functioning as the district's transportation liaison. So I guess I'm wondering how does one person do all of those three, it sounds like three jobs, and more.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, the bus vendor, is that what you said?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess the question is, and this is my last question, I guess the question is, is, is the need being met as a transportation liaison, particularly in addition to family and community engagement? I know that transportation was one of the biggest issues we've been having. And I also, I think, are you also addressing the special education transportation? No.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Krantz. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Vanden Heuvel, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just a couple of comments I guess on to the chair and some of the discussion that's been had I think that to the chair again to member band includes point about a family. Community member coming up and sharing information with us, which I think is a very difficult thing to do for a lot of people, not to mention the photocopying and everything else, but getting up to the podium and being on the screen and having your back to people and, you know, facing us can be very intimidating and so I applaud anyone who's able to get up there and do that, and especially to point out things constructively in the way that the person did last week. So I think if I'm not mistaken, and I'm not an expert, but I do believe in Robert's rules of order, which is the governance that we are held to, you can suspend the rules and ask that an imminent issue be addressed. And again, we can double check on that, but just to, again, through the chair, to member Van der Kloot's point, there are ways that issues can be addressed if they are imminent on the floor. So I think we can look into that ourselves and the training around Robert's Rules of Order is really critical for the body. And then I would also mention that the good of the order that's supposed to be on our monthly meetings is another way that we can sort of address some of these issues potentially. So that should be on the first meeting, I believe of the month. And then I just wanted to mention So for the, sorry, I just lost my train of thought. Oh, as for the building and ground subcommittee, I know that, again, through the chair, Member Mustone was talking about the work that Member Kreatz and Member Mustone do through that subcommittee. And I think that there are opportunities to work with stakeholders in the community to be part of the subcommittee for regular updates. So that's part of what I know some of the other subcommittees are doing, just in terms of regular updates for buildings. where then there could be some feedback in the report back to the rest of the committee. If that's a process that wants to be established, it could be done potentially through the subcommittee. Thank you for listening.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I guess the question to that is whether that folks knew that that leak was fixed or not, and whether that would constitute an emergency. And I think that the body votes on that, not an individual. So I would say that it could be put to the body for a question for suspension.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think the motion speaks for itself and especially after just hearing from Member Graham about the issues needed to address the budget. I think it's imperative that we address the budget sooner and get on a cycle that we have competitive hiring processes for our staff.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd like to restate the motion then so that it's that the motion is as is with an amendment that it commences with a committee of the whole meeting that will lay out a proposed process for the January through March. So that's for Susie's notification if she's taking notes over there. Is that acceptable?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We met for our first Behavioral Health Subcommittee meeting, Behavioral Health Special Education Subcommittee meeting to identify goals for the We did not have a lot of participation, just I think it's people getting back into the routine and into the groove. So we tentatively identified two goals, although we would like to fold off on those goals being shared and since they were not voted on and place this on file. But before I do so, I would like to mention that the next meeting is November 18th and we are asking community members to please join us for the subcommittee for behavioral health and special education so we can ascertain the goals for the year and benchmarks on how we'll achieve them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the report. I'm not sure if it's a question for you folks or for the superintendent to answer, but I know that I've been getting some information that on occasion, students are being quarantined more than once in the course of a month. And I know that we had discussed remote learning as an option, and I'm wondering what the status is on that and whether that's happening for families who are getting quarantined extensively.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So, and what is the parent or caregiver engagement on that basis? So in other words, how are the parent and caregiver engaging in that process to ensure that they're involved?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I guess in summary, if a family is being quarantined or if a family has a student or child that is being quarantined multiple times and feels that perhaps there's a need for intervention from a remote learning process, or what have you. I understand that you're saying it's a case by case basis but To what end is the family pursue that so that they can engage in that process. So if I understand you're saying that the principal and the teacher sort of work together to decide, but how is the family being engaged so that certainly I've had family members that have approached me or written to me to express their concern. So, should they be writing to school committee members should they be writing to the principal should they be writing to the superintendent should they be like, what is the process for them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So can we have a motion to have it on the agenda?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we have a, I'm making a motion to have this item on the agenda for the next school committee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, thank you, Superintendent for defining these goals and for focusing on equity, diversity and inclusion. I think this is really critical. I'm wondering for the monthly meetings, do they include for the MASS, do they include particularly around the inclusion piece and diversity? Is there diverse representation and for the inclusion aspect or have they started yet? Do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Wow. I can tell you, I took an equity session with Dr. Leigh Teitel and Dr. Darnisa Amante at the ed school three years ago. And they are the most fantastic group of people to be doing this so what an excellent opportunity for you and the other superintendents I'm super excited for you. Congratulations. That's great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. This is a report that is from an initiative that was created last year in partnership with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education as a family school partnership initiative, spring of 2021 so partnership with several school districts met for was chosen after we applied to the process. And they worked with a consultant to give us some feedback on family and community engagement. So I'm gonna be reading from my phone just because it's easier than the small print on this PowerPoint. But the initiative was again, in June, 2021, an opportunity for districts to look at the family school and community partnership fundamentals, which are available on the DESE website. It's about building family and community engagement And so there's some guiding practices that they have around family and community engagement using that partnership fundamental. And through the process, they created several groups in order to get some feedback on family and community engagement in Medford. And they had four focus groups specifically that they worked with, which were number one was family members slash caregivers. Number two was students grades eight to 12. Three was teachers and frontline staff, and four was school and district leadership. And they wanted to identify three priorities. What was working well in family and community engagement? What innovations did we have during the pandemic period? And what opportunities did we have to build upon family and community engagement? So the family member caregiver feedback group said that the pandemic really highlighted teamwork among teachers and family members caregivers, because of I imagine remote learning among other things, but that that dropped off substantially after the return to school. Family caregivers felt there was a huge benefit in knowing what their child was working on. They felt listened to they felt like they were partners in the process and would like to see a better approach to orienting parents to the districts initially. They also parent and family caregivers have strong ideas about professional development. and they felt that they were asked for feedback on a regular basis last year, particularly, but then felt that their feedback was dismissed and they wanted more acknowledgement of diversity in the community. The second subgroup, eight through 12 grade students, their feedback generally from the focus group was that they did not feel like there were positive relationships for the students. The students felt left out. They said multicultural backgrounds were not included from their perspective. They want teachers to reach out to their families to say when things are going well, not just when things aren't. They wanted to see family training on technology and they felt language translation was an issue because of the overuse of Google for a translation tool. They also felt there was a lack of responsiveness from feedback among family and caregivers and students. From the teacher group, the teachers said they felt connected with families through tools like Zoom, and they wanted more time to build relationships with families. They wanted to see a district-wide effort for family engagement, not through forms, but through a district-wide effort to truly engage families meaningfully. And they mentioned that they were actually shocked by how few families had access to computers in this past year. So that was something that was an innovation through the pandemic that they were able to learn that and develop compassion around that. From the leadership group, the school district leadership. School district leadership felt too much, there was a lot of information going out, but that it was one way information. They wanted relationships and two way communication. And they said, because of competing priorities, family partnerships often falls to the bottom of the list. General observation from the consultant through dusty their sort of general observation summaries was there was a lot of info going out in communication for family and community engagement, but the information is not a two way communication it's a one way communication families engage regarding recreation. There's a vocal community but limited set of voices in the community. Families view things with a partnership lens while schools tend to view things with an information lens. Data on family and community engagement is not generally shared with families and note there were not any non-English speaking family subgroups that were created. We had intended to do that and it did not work out in terms of scheduling and so We wanted to make sure that there was a note that that was not part of the engagement, which I think also speaks volumes. They recommended consider focusing on deepening staff district readiness and capacity for family school partnerships, especially around Fundamental Five. This partnership fundamentals that's available on DESE has five fundamentals and Fundamental Five is building capacity of staff. So they said they recommend that Medford Public Schools consider focusing on deepening staff slash district readiness and capacity for family school partnerships. They think that Fundamental Five is seeing family engagement as a core practice, not a program or an individual or one job, valuing families as assets, a culture that welcomes and responds to constructive criticism, providing family voice data through transparency, collaborative data use surveys, et cetera, and more systemic approaches for building partnerships with non-English speaking families. Those were the recommendations for the report. This was a really unique opportunity to partner again with DESE and this outside family and community engagement audit. The work can continue this year if the committee is interested in terms of moving those particularly fundamental five forward which was considering focusing on deepening staff district readiness and capacity for family and school partnerships, they did say that if we're not going to work on fundamental five really nothing else we do around family and community engagement is going to be effective. So with that said, I would like to make a motion that we continue the relationship with DESE on the family school partnership initiative so that we can do the next year's work and looking at how to really increase that capacity for staff district readiness. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, part of the issue is that this is a grant-funded opportunity that was created last year. So when it was published in DESE, it was applied for. So they had to act quickly through reaching out to the community and working with the school administration to have this happen. The second part of this is available this year. It doesn't last for the next year. I don't know what phase three of the project would be. I certainly think that the family that the community engagement subcommittee should and could be involved. I believe that there was reach out from Siemens school in Maine to different subgroups some during a pandemic obviously did not respond but some did and there were certainly groups and engagement that were involved. So I would love to see the community engagement committee involved in this. I don't know that moving it to the committee is going to be effective in terms of moving the process forward because School in Maine and DESE are offering the opportunity this year. So I think that there could be a collaborative effort with DESE and School in Maine and the communications subcommittee for sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can check with Desi to confirm. They've been pretty open-ended so far, so I appreciate the flexibility, but I would also say that to the superintendent's point, and I can completely appreciate how stressed out we all were in this past term and during the pandemic, but I also feel that as was stated in the report, that there are so many competing priorities all the time, that family and community engagement is always one of the last priorities, because it's one that is often pushed back for, you know, more immediate needs, such as leaking roofs, which I can understand. But at the same time, until we have a district-wide sort of hearts and minds around this issue, I think that it will continue to be pushed back. And if we didn't see I think last year was real evidence of the importance of family and community engagement. And I felt like there were some real steps forward through the pandemic, as we talked about some of the innovation and teachers and families building relationships. And I would just hate to see that put on pause. So I can check on the DESE deadline and I can make a, I can revise my motion or withdraw my motion and make a motion to table until I get the deadline, if that's, if that is amenable.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, there's a motion to table on the floor. I've got a question.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So, in summary, I will revise the motion to send it to the communication subcommittee with information on deadline and and what's involved and then we can talk next week about scheduling a time for
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, here. Member Mustone, not here. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, not here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Khan for the report. I'm wondering where does the MCAS alt data live and the MCAS opt out data live?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sure. I was just asking, I'm sorry, where does the MCAS-ALT data live? And where does, I think I heard you, I'm sorry, the mask is muffled and it's hard with the microphone, so I apologize. And my hearing is probably not getting any better either over time. But did you say the opt-out data, you would defer to Dr. Cushing?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then the MCAS-ALT data, where does that live?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that would be really helpful, but if I might, Superintendent, if we can add that as part of the regular presentation moving forward, just that we have the MCAS-ALT as well. And so for folks who are watching that don't know, can you just explain what the MCAS-ALT is?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. So to be clear this that hasn't been part of these reports before. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So I'd like to make a motion that MCAS all data is part of these reports. Moving forward. You get a second second on the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just as a follow-up on that question, Mr. DeLay, but actually, so students that were in 10th grade that had this for a competency exam for graduation, and did not take it, what was the outcome for that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I did have a follow up question. Thank you for this report. And I was just looking at the subgroup data, which thank you very much for including that page nine and 10. And so across the board for that data, which is our students with disabilities, high needs, EL, economically disadvantaged, African American, black, Asian, Hispanic, Latino, multi-race, non-Hispanic, Latino, and white, for the most part, we're lower than state standard across the board with the exception of high school, where we have African-American black are higher than the state score, but otherwise we're pretty much below the state score across the board. And I'm just wondering if you could speak to that, or I know that it says that this is not the accountability data calculation for the subgroups, but it's a measure of the subgroups achievement score by percent of students. scoring in the category of exceeding or meeting expectations compared to the states. So it's accurate that the gap has not. narrowed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is there any Thank you. Is there any way that that specifically targets the subgroups or not that you're aware of, or I'm just wondering, how are the subgroups targeted?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Keita. Thank you. Appreciate your work. I have a few questions when you were talking about the diversity and inclusivity in the curriculum and the data analysis. And I'm wondering about how we're comparing, once again, sort of curriculum for students with disabilities around these data dives, especially when we have classrooms that have three grade levels in one classroom for some of our program driven classrooms and whether there's differentiation of grade level material for the curriculums and I guess whether in fact all of the teachers are using the same curriculum.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and do we know whether they're being used across all classrooms or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and is there any, thank you, I appreciate that. I think it's really important to know for families as well and to know sort of if we're comparing apples to apples here and if we're not. And is there differentiation as far as you know of the grade level material for access? And what do we do for remediation in these issues, so I know that you're doing these great data dives into this material where you're saying you can go into a classroom and say here's what's working in this classroom yeah and do more of this. And here's what's not working in this classroom here's what the shifts are that we can make is that happening in these substantially separate. classroom settings, and if so, how?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's helpful. So then that humanities teachers are working with. For example, special education teachers that are teaching three different levels, say they're teaching sixth, seventh, and eighth, a humanities English teacher would be working with them, content teacher would be working with them around the curriculum.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So it would be great if we could have data on how many of the teachers are actually utilizing the curriculum. I will get that for you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. I would also, if there are other curriculums that are being used at the English level, ELA level, such as unique learning or something like that, it would be really great to have a report on that data as well. So I would make a motion that we include any additional curriculum if we could in the reports that is outside of the scope of the, or not outside of the scope, outside of what is currently being reported on. Can you say that again? I'm not following. Yes, the motion is that the report would include any curriculum that is outside of what is currently being reported on. So if there's any other curriculum that's in the school that's being used for ELA, for example, or for these others that are being used consistently across grade levels, that we would get a report on that curriculum as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So that's fine if you want to move it to the curriculum subcommittee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I'll withdraw the motion and I'll- Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: authorizes public meetings, and the meeting can also be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast Channel 22 and Verizon Channel 43. Additional questions or comments can be made during the meeting by emailing Melanie McLaughlin at medford.k12.ma.us. If you do have questions or comments, we ask that you submit your first and last name, your Medford street address, and your question or comment. The agenda for today's meeting is we're asking community members to join us as we determine annual goals for our special ed and behavioral health subcommittee, including proposed problem practice and how we can work together to increase meaningful family and community engagement regarding these proposed concerns. So folks who don't know a little about the history of the Behavioral Health and Special Education Subcommittee, we were formed three years ago, actually, after multiple requests by the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, CPAC, to school committee to ask for a subcommittee specific to special education needs and issues, as there seem to be many, and these were in multiple annual reports to the school committee request for the subcommittee. It was initially created by Aaron DiBenedetto as school committee while I was chair of CPAC. So that's how we originated. And we really decided on a problem of practice for special education was building friendships, is building friendships between students with disabilities and without disabilities in our schools and our community. And some of the ways that we worked on that last year is looking at issues concerning Medford recreation and the creation of an adaptive, I mean, an adaptive, some adaptive programming for Medford recreation and an adaptive PE teacher in the schools, as well as unified sports. So we feel like we're moving things forward a bit, which is nice. It's nice to see some progress. And then for special education, you know, the topic that we had addressed last year, problem of practice, if you will, is helping to create trauma-informed schools. And there was some training and professional development that Stacey, you were putting forward regarding that, right? And we had a few meetings on that. And then we had parents who are also mental health workers, licensed social workers in the community that participated in those meetings and had some really great ideas about engaging and involving family members. So I did reach out to some community members who were not able to attend tonight, but had asked that we put forward some ideas. And I would also just love to hear from maybe each of you, and maybe you could talk a little bit about the structure for the meetings for this year, how you requested that it be structured a little bit differently based on just the tight schedule everyone has under the COVID pandemic, everything that you guys are dealing with. So I don't know which one of you wants to begin, but maybe one of you could start to talk about the difference in planning for this year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Joan, yeah, so what had been originally created as a special education subcommittee with a new administration in the 2019 term. additional subcommittees were created and topics were merged. And so we became, we moved from the special education subcommittee to these two really broad topics, behavioral health and special education. So last year, we tried to do like an hour and a half meeting where we're splitting it 45 minutes for each topic. And I think Folks felt like that maybe was a little bit long and perhaps a little disjointed. So this year we will alternate between the meetings, as you said, Joan. I think it'll be interesting to see how that goes and where people feel that's useful. I think some people feel that maybe what they thought was going to be nine meetings is now suddenly four or less. So that seems concerning. But I think one of the things that you had mentioned was that you felt maybe we could build some momentum on some of the topics in between some of the goals in between the meetings that gave us more time to sort of build some momentum around that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, Stacey, do you want to add anything?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, that sounds good. See the superintendent just during us welcome superintendent. We are talking about defining some problems of practice, which when we say problem of practice, just for the community, I wanna let you know that doesn't mean there's a problem. It means that we're identifying something to work on together to achieve a goal. So it's just sort of a phrase that is used in identifying sort of items to work on to achieve some goals. So I did have feedback from some of the staff families in the special education community, families of children with disabilities who want to continue to grow and foster partnership between Medford Recreation and Medford Public Schools around adaptive and unified programming, and specifically around sports, but also just around education. and supporting students with disabilities in our community. And just around even some basic symbolic acts, but additionally, appropriate language, sort of reaching out to community sponsors. So there already is some interaction between Medford Recreation and our school system where CCSR students are volunteering for Some of the adaptive programming that's occurring in Metro Recreation right now they're currently running a basketball program I mean a yeah basketball no soccer and Wednesday's soccer and basketball starting. So there is some opportunity but I think I know that we're folks are meeting both with Metro Brock and the mayor. And tomorrow, there's a meeting with Medford Recreation to sort of start to think about the language around this and how to make sure we're all on the same page regarding language, both in our schools and in our community, and that we are working together to create inclusive programming and in addition to adaptive programming. So I guess we can write this in a more eloquent way, and I'm happy to sort of, we can either brainstorm that now or through the chat, or we can bring it back to the meeting for the next month in terms of having a mission statement, or if you will, or problem of practice specific to special education.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just so everybody knows. So, you know, Joan, I'm sure you've heard people first language, right? You sort of heard, which for some people that's appropriate and for some people it's not. Some people prefer to have their diagnosis before their, you know, so for example, some people in the autism community prefer to be called autistic, but people perhaps in the Down syndrome community, People with autism may prefer to be called an autistic person, man, woman, what have you. And people, for example, in the Down syndrome community may prefer not to have Down syndrome kid first, have a child with Down syndrome or something. So it's sort of thinking about and educating community members and school staff and, you know, recreation staff and what have you around like what is and isn't appropriate language. And, you know, I look to people with disabilities themselves to really drive that conversation. And so I would want to include self-advocates in that conversation and really be able to understand what does that mean. And so I think just in all of our language, in our school, you know, in our community and in our school brochures, but also in our, on our websites, on our, you know, just sort of universally sort of looking at what is appropriate language. So, you know, when we say integrated, what does that mean? And, you know, inclusive, what does that mean? So maybe sort of just identifying what some of these terms actually mean to us and how we define them so that we're all sort of creating a primer, if you will, on what is, you know, acceptable and appropriate language in this way. Because sometimes I think, and what I hear from families is that They see something in writing or notice something in a brochure, and it is perfectly well intended it is not meant to hurt or harm by any stretch, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know. you know, it can be considered, you know, painful to family members of children with disabilities and to children with disabilities themselves or people with disabilities themselves. So just how are we being more sensitive around some of that? I think that's one way to start. Just around, again, brochures, you know, sports brochures, you know, signups, right? Like when we talked before about having like, you know, some, you know, quote in the signups, for example, that we all know Medford public schools doesn't discriminate based on, you know, race, you know, ability, all those things, but what does that language really look like? And how do we vet that as the special education subcommittee and make recommendations to the school committee so that this is universal language that's used across the districts and, you know, something that hopefully the city will adapt as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. Hi, Heather. Thanks for joining us.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry for the last minute sort of we were just saying that it's been a little bit of a hectic month and I think we're all just been running and racing to try to feel like we're playing catch up and we're all shocked that next week is November already. So it's like, we haven't, I feel like I'm just starting to catch my breath and it's like November. It's like, uh-oh, here come the holidays.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think a big part of it is that people are, for the most part, trying to assume a normal, if you will, but it's not in a normal. I know it was a setting on a dryer, so I don't wanna sort of put it that way, but assume a regular schedule, I guess, or assume that we're post-COVID when we all know we're really not, and we're still in this sort of limbo of pre-COVID, life and post-COVID life and we're sort of not we don't really have our footing yet in terms of what's where we really are right and it does feel like at any moment it can be completely upended right any moment now any moment especially considering what we went through right and then and I think the other thing is that I was saying to somebody yesterday I felt like it's like I feel a little bit like where the Starks and the Game of Thrones, right? I feel like winter is coming. So we're all like, you know, we were closed in last year and we were all shut in. And it's like, we're approaching that time when we start to get shut in again and sort of, you know, when germs can sort of happen more rapidly or whatever. So I think people are just going through a lot. And Stacey, I'm sure you're seeing a lot of this in your work, right? In our schools, a lot of.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Interesting. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It is a lot to carry around all the time. Thank you for articulating that, Heather. So one of the things that we're trying to determine tonight, Heather, and thank you, Carmen, for joining, is, and for folks who don't know Carmen, is the superintendent intern in working with Dr. Edouard Vincent. So thank you for joining. One of the things that we're working to do tonight is to identify a goal for the year for each of these particular areas. And I know for the behavioral health piece, one of the things that I heard a lot from the community last year for those who participated in our meetings and who were specifically talking about behavioral health We heard a lot about community family and community engagement. So we had several folks who came on board and who wanted to offer support services around like how can we support the schools as professionals, not that we would have, you know, people come in and, you know, you know, volunteer in a professional capacity, but they bring professional expertise to the table. So I'm thinking, for example, Heather Rumenak, we know is a licensed mental health worker and, you know, who had identified a number of topics she felt were of concern. And so did it, you know, was it an annual event that we host that's sort of around awareness or, you know, was there some other way that we engage community members and especially around some of the behavioral health, mental health stuff. We also had a family that participated regularly last year and I ran into mom recently who was talking a lot about invisible disability. And I think mental health is often, can often be what's perceived as an invisible disability when somebody has mental health needs and they don't necessarily wear those needs on their face or have an IEP accompanying them or a 504 accompanying them, or they may, but they still don't have those identifiable factors. And oftentimes what can present, what can be anxiety can present as behavior. and can result in negative outcomes for our children in our schools and with our staff. And I think that that's a really interesting aspect as well to consider as a problem of practice, perhaps to explore. And when we say problem of practice, I think that we think about what this subcommittee can do is offer resources, some research, some ideas and then come together to discuss them around how to address this particular problem of practice, hopefully come to some resolution by the end of the year on a couple of recommendations to make to school committee as policy. So I'm wondering if we want to just popcorn some ideas around perhaps, and Joan, I don't want to assume that we have agreed on the know, language and friendship sort of community thing yet either, so I'm just putting that out there, but I want to ask folks what they think specific to behavioral health goal, problem, or practice for this year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's the thing is that I think that sometimes we think parents are aware of these opportunities. And I think oftentimes, maybe we're not communicating as effectively as we think, not you, Stacy, but just in terms of family and community engagement. And we are having a presentation, by the way, on family and community engagement. The audit that was done last year for the district on November 8th in our school committee meeting to talk about some of the things that an independent audit sort of noticed about, you know, ways to consider family and community engagement. I'm also providing professional development to staff at the Federation for Children with Special Needs on family and community engagement and have just done a really great course that they offer. You know, to schools for free as well around train the trainer and you know different ways to engage marginalized communities and I'm happy to share. you know, these resources, but that maybe the goal and problem of practice is to come up with some solid ideas on how to reach families and caregivers and students who are experiencing mental health needs around ways to engage them or educate them and people who aren't, I guess, around ways to engage them and educate them. around some of these specific school issues. So for example, Stacey, I think it's really great that you said we're doing a number of things with students in our schools. And it's like, wow, I'd love to know what those are, right? And I'm sure as a school committee member, I can find out what those things are, but as a community member, I think there's lots of people who would like to know what those things are. And so how are we actually thinking about that and sort of having that feedback and information I think could be interesting. Heather, did you wanna add anything?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. Hi, Henry. He's getting so big. Hi, Henry. Nice to see you, buddy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: He's talking great. He's doing a lot. Nice. I can't anxious to see you, Heather. So we'll After Tuesday, hopefully we can get together.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll be right back. Stacey, do you have some thoughts? For me, it's about really creating something that is tangible for use in the community. Last year, we I mean, last year was a little bit, you know, also difficult, but we sort of talked about professional development and, you know, having trauma-informed schools, but I feel like we didn't necessarily, we had a specific recommendation around funding some professional development for trauma-informed schools. Do you feel like, you know, sort of what was the uptake on that? Is the uptake on that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Like how does that actually, what does that look like?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So that's interesting. Maybe that's one of the, you know, goals that we consider is how are we actually, you know, doing the, you know, the outreach around the Department of School Counseling, right? And sort of how are we letting families know? And I think what I'm thinking, Stacey, too, is like, I would love to see some examples of the newsletters just to sort of get an idea, because I'm thinking, are they going home and backpacks or are they going to home with students that like our school adjustment Councilors have specifically worked with? Are they going home to the entire population? Like, just curious how, what does that look like?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. I mean, I, I think part of the problem is that, you know, so I had a son that just graduated last year from the high school. And I just think as a parent, like I never saw those. Right. But I mean, that's part of like part and parcel of a high schooler, right. Anyone that has a high school or knows that like suddenly. You know, even in middle school, you start to see this paperwork just you know drop off and suddenly there's not and you're like where are all those notices that used to come home in elementary school and it's like oh they're still coming, but you know, no one ever sees them. So thinking about how we could be reaching. families across platforms, I think is really interesting. So for example, I'm thinking about the studio show that we did, Medford Ed Talk last year, right? We had a couple of shows specific to mental health. And like one of the ones that I thought was really powerful was one of the last ones where the students were really talking about how they felt during the pandemic and how, and it was so sobering. for the community for the students to be able to really be able to talk be talking about this I was like wow, but I think just, you know, there are a number of ways and I know, Dr Edwin Vincent, you know, did video commercials for a while but I'm just thinking about a number of ways from the website to the, to the. you know, to the TV station, to, you know, CCSR, just a number of different ways. And how are we reaching families around, you know, increasing mental health supports and services? Because as we all know, there's an increased need for mental health supports and services with the pandemic for sure, right? The data is showing that there's so much more need for that. And so in terms of like a school committee person and budget, we're looking at even me talking to some community members. It's like when I was in, school, you know, when I was younger, there was no, there was no such thing as a school adjustment Councilor. There was guidance Councilors, right. And guidance Councilors sort of fell under the, under the, under the umbrella in my instance of both like dealing with, you know, mental health needs and, you know, any of those issues and vocational, which are like two really different things. Right. And I wonder how much of my generation and even the general, you know, you know, sort of parents that are younger than me, even know the differentiation between basics, like school adjustment Councilors and mental health outside consultant supports, if there are any, and or guidance Councilors and what their role is. Like, I just think it's interesting, because I don't know that, for example, we had somebody, a family that reached out to me last week about something, and they just didn't know where to go. They just didn't know where to go. And, you know, it's like, do I go to the teacher? Do I go to the principal? Do I go to the guidance Councilor? I'm like, have you talked to the school adjustment Councilor? And they were like, what? So it just was so interesting that I feel like sometimes we skip over some of the basic language of really, again, and maybe it's getting back to the language, Joan, around some of the understanding the basic language of how this actually works when you have a need and what those and where you reach out and how you get support. So maybe it's even helping to work together to create like a flow chart around like, when you have a need, you have this, you go here, whatever. And also maybe having some feedback from this subcommittee on the Department of School Counseling Outreach and quarterly newsletter and website revamp and what have you. What do you think of that idea?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I couldn't agree more. And so I think what, yeah, no, I have I 100% agree. But I think what happens as as we dig into the meat of the matter around a subcommittee, we start to identify what some of the policy needs are and issues around this. And so that's how the recommendation comes up. And perhaps the recommendation is for additional funding for outreach to families around these particular issues, because as we were working on the problem of practice, we realized that families didn't know the difference between a school adjustment Councilor or didn't know that there was a school, you know, counseling website or that there would be or are not receiving the newsletters or whatever. So that could be sort of the basis of the policy ask. is the research that we do around these particular things. So I think it's, again, you know, because one of the biggest concerns I heard last year from the parents that were participating, particularly around behavioral health in this arena, was the disconnect that they felt from the school community, because when your child goes into sort of a triage around some of these things, you're in a whole different mode. You don't know where to find things. You're not necessarily feeling particularly connected. And the other thing is we don't know, like we said, disability is natural. None of us knows when our child is gonna be in that particular state or a need of need. And so it's better for the entire community to sort of really understand and be educated. So anyway, anyone else have any thoughts?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's interesting. And I guess I'm thinking just to the, I guess flipping that over to the same question that you asked a little while ago, how is that, how does that inform the school committee policy ask?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so maybe it is again, back to the family and community engagement piece around behavioral health, maybe it's working with, you know, stakeholders to determine what resources have been available to them, potentially, you know, sorting resources and creating sort of some recommendations around what to do with this information, whether it's, you know, additional funding to build a comparable sort of, you know, a page or something to a website that's like a searchable database or something along those lines. But I think it could be a combination of the two around engaging families and identifying behavioral health providers and resources. Maybe that's the sort of goal. And then when we identify those and we figure out what those are, the policy ask could potentially be. And this is part of the thing is that this is part of this subcommittee's mission is that it's a process. We don't know what the policy ask is gonna be. That's the whole point, right? If we knew what the policy ask was gonna be, we wouldn't even have to have these meetings and then we could just go right to the policy ask, right? The point is that we are sort of really having these conversations around these issues and bringing things to the table to sort of consider what they are and how they're helpful to have a policy ask.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you so much, Heather. That's been really wonderful. And as we know, there's intersectionality between you know, specific disability and mental health needs, right? Just because a child has a disability doesn't mean they're all encompassing of that one disability and they don't have any other needs, right? There could be a lot of intersectionality. So thank you, I appreciate that. And I think that's really important. I'm liking this idea around a resource guide for behavioral health supports. And really, I think that could also inform some of the newsletter and or the counseling website. So what are you thinking, Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I think that's an interesting idea. And I think that, you know, I would encourage, you know, your staff, interns, whoever to participate in the meetings as well, because I think it's important for us to have some, some conversation around what this actually can look like. So not that they, you know, are going to be tasked with sort of more work, but more around this, we're only meeting for an hour anyway. But sort of what is the in between time, what can we actually be working on that's helpful? And, you know, you're the director and you've got all these other things going on, but some of the, you know, some of the direct staff, you know, could be really helpful in sort of saying, this is actually what we've seen that we really need a lot with, you know, of work with, can somebody sort of give some thought to this or whatever. So I think that could be interesting. So perhaps, you know, the, you know, problem of practices around, you know, identifying resources for behavioral health supports for students and caregivers in our community, working together to propose policy around resources or something. So I'm just putting this in the chat as sort of an idea. And we'll craft something, you know, a little bit better to bring to school committee. I probably either will report out on November 8 and November 15 on this meeting. And then because we don't have a Well, even if we did have Paul and Mia here, we would still bring forward to the school committee to vote on as a whole. They don't necessarily need to vote on what we're, what we decided our problem with practices, but just, you know, to report out to them on what we're working on. Do you want to look at that, Stacy? Is there anything you wanted to add? No, it looks good. Okay. That's good. And then Joan, maybe I'm just getting a Word doc. All right, Google, yeah, Word doc, I guess you're gonna just put this in here so I don't lose it from the chat. Bear with me one second. It's interesting. Somebody else made a recommendation yesterday. I forget who it was. Oh, it was somebody from admin made a recommendation yesterday saying like maybe we need to have instead of like a one year subcommittee sort of goal that we're actually doing it on an 18 month basis so that we're taking because we're kind of carrying over some of the stuff, but that we're doing, you know, until November and I was wondering what you guys thought about that sort of carrying over so that we're not starting a new in October and finishing in you know, may and only had X amount of meetings, but we can talk about that more at the next meeting. It's just giving it some thought, like, do we actually think of this over a year and a half process just because, you know, it allows more time to sort of work together, but I guess we can just sort of see. Joan, what do you think?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, well, we did a summary and we did a report, but we are working. One of the things that we're proposing, Heather, is that we continue and expand those goals around identifying ways in which we build community and school friendships. among students with and without disabilities, or children without, yeah, students, I guess, with and without disabilities. Identifying ways in which to build community and school friendships among students with and without disabilities through recreational programming, after school, activities and. You know sports. Organizations, I guess, as well as in school. Inclusive meaningful inclusion or something, so I'll share this with you guys in a second and.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm going to write, as well as provide clarifying language for inclusive practice. Or how about developing supportive language? As well as developing supportive language. Recommendations. Recommendations for inclusive, for best practices. Recommendations for best practices. For best practice.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Which, just so you know, Heather, these are sort of like, these are sort of like a evolution of conversations that we've been working on for some time or actions that we've been working on for some time, right, Joan? I mean, this goes back to multiple CPAC meeting conversations and sort of multiple just like making sure CPAC meetings are included in the city calendar, right? Making sure that like, we're not, you know, having to constantly remind people to consider, you know, people with disabilities, you know, in either conversations or what have you, that we orient people to the concept of ableism, right? And sort of what that actually means. And I have to say, I'm really pleased to see that, you know, the mayor, we've been doing some work with the mayor around this, Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn, and recently she was really happy and proud to share and happy to have her come to one of these subcommittee meetings or ask her to come to one of these subcommittee meetings. She was really happy to share some inclusive artwork that they've created at the hockey rinks, at the Medford Hockey Rink, where she actually, on her, she initiated the, it was pictures of children, and she was like, we need to include children with disabilities in these pictures. So there's this great image of a child, I think, with a walker, you know, who's using that to be able to participate in hockey. And she talked about how it had been such a great conversation for her family when, you know, the artwork was created. And so, you know, symbolism really matters. And I think also I'd like to see some cross communication with some of the city organizations like the Medford Disability Commission. And so, you know, we have talked about. know that they had offered, you know, they've offered some of their resources to the superintendent around identifying some ways to be inclusive in our schools. But I also just think about, you know, how we can, I think it could be really good that maybe we make a policy recommendation that we have a, you know, liaison from the schools that, you know, also participates with the Disability Commission, right. So something that as we're defining and understanding what it means to use this language and to be inclusive, that we're including our stakeholders, our very important stakeholders, people with disabilities themselves, around what this really looks like, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yay! You're a commissioner on there? I think I forgot that. You're a new commissioner, right? Yay! So see, we already have crossover. See how far ahead of things we are, you guys? Heather, you're the best. I don't know how you do all the things that you do, honestly. Neither do I. Well, I guess there's a whole movement, advocate like a mother. That's what we do, right? So, all right. Well, did you guys look at that chat or the sort of ideas in the chat? I mean, I'll create something a little bit more refined. I have a Word document. I'll run this by you guys in it. In an email as well, but I think perhaps we have identified some goals for our school our behavioral health special education subcommittee for this year. Our next meeting in my right to folks feel comfortable that we've identified.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely. Um, absolutely john I think that's a great idea what I'll report out to school committee is that. We came up with some ideas, but we want to run them by, you know, the community in our next meeting. And, you know, we're also sharing them, you know, at school committees so that if people have feedback, here's how they can reach us and so on and so forth. I think that's a great idea. Yeah. And so I just wanted to share that our next meeting. I'm just looking at the email that we just looked at that I just had so this will be in all of our future agenda feature agendas, I just said future. Um, with my Boston accent, um, and all of our future agendas, we will have. A list of the meetings, um, so that folks are aware ahead of time. And we apologize for the, I mean, we're obviously met the requirements of hosting our open meeting and all those things, but it's nice to have outreach, you know, a week before or more to let folks know. So maybe, you know, Heather, if you want to share these dates with, um, your, you know, your fellow commissioners, but also. Let them know it's an open invitation, obviously, but also let your autism support group know. We'll certainly be letting CPAC and other stakeholders know, Stacey. Likewise, if with your staff, you can let them know these dates, which I've emailed to you. November 18th is our next meeting. It is special education specific, but we'll start the first probably 10 minutes with these goals in mind. you know, if we've had any mailers or anything else specific to behavioral health in that goal, we can tweak that as well a bit in the November 18th meeting. So November 18th, from 530 to 630, we'll have special education. December 16th, behavioral health. January 20th, special education. February 17th, behavioral health. March 17th, special education. April 14th, behavioral health. May 20th, special education. There'll also be a presentation to school committee in May with a recommendation and recommendations for policy. And June 16th, we'll have our combined meeting end of year. So, you know, perhaps I think I'd like to see this year some sort of an evaluation from folks around what worked, what didn't work, how we can improve, you know, in the upcoming year, that sort of thing. Um, does that sound good? Is there anything I missed? No. Oh, good. It's five 58. So, um, we did pretty well guys. Thank you very much. And, um, look forward to seeing you all soon. All right. Stay, stay healthy, everyone. Take care.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that's one of the things that, you know, we had talked about in terms of the friendship building as well, when we were talking with the autism support group who were, you know, actively interviewing the Best Buddies program. And they were talking about the Best Buddies program really being implemented at the middle school level because that's when students are struggling, all students are really struggling with identity and friendships and all the things that middle schoolers struggle with. So it's actually the prime time and place to make sure that those things are happening and also gives an outlet for the students there to give all students an opportunity to build those friendships outside of sort of the regular school day. So it seems to be a good fit there as well. And then back to Carla, your point around, out of district students, obviously I know that they are welcome in the life of the school and should be participating in the life of the school and offer the opportunity to participate in the life of the school. The question is, how is that information actually getting pushed out to them? So now that we have a unified sports program, and this is great, how, I guess, Joan would be the best person to answer that question or one of the coordinators, how is this information being shared with our out of district families?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I would assume that would be, I mean, since it's at the high school, it would be the high school out of district students. So whose role would that be? Would it be the principals, the assistant principals,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That would be great. And I think, Joan, at some point, you know, and again, I'm sure this is a CPAC related question too, but just thinking about data collection around this, like really checking to see how much participation there is, if improved communication has happened, that sort of thing. And maybe this is the year with things happening and, you know, the training around staff and what have you to really be able to check in or do some data collection along the way so that at the end of the year, we have some idea of whether that's, how that's working and why that's working. I know we have Anne, myself, and Jameel, I think, right? At least three of the eight, how many families are on here? Of the families that are out of district here. I'm not in the high school, but you guys, no, no, Anne, you're not in high school either. Jameel, did you get the info?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And wait a minute, the kids in access didn't get the notification. And is that true? Huh?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then I just also want to add, Joan, that I don't, just so you, just as an aside, like I know this is not the high school, but for us, I get, you know, the principal at our school, the McGlynn, emails me directly as a parent. I'm on the parent list. It doesn't need to be Gracie's Gmail. And maybe it's different at the high school because I know the kids are sort of more, but also for kids that aren't, you know, you know, able, if you will, to respond on their own email or to use their own email per se. It seems like there could be a workaround or should be a workaround. So to this point, getting back to the unified sports piece, to this point, you know, if there's only 33, you know, families in the entire district out of, you know, the 4,000 something, 33 is not a lot, you know, divided by three people, five people, you know, that's 10 phone calls or less. to call the families and to really do some family outreach on how do we actually make this happen? Because it has been an ongoing concern and especially, you know, because families, and I know, you know, full disclosure, folks know that my daughter's out of district, but, or, and one of the things that families sacrifice, that students sacrifice when they go out of district is community, right? We don't have any community. And so it's even more important that families really get this information. And so I think I'm really excited about going to the game tomorrow, we're gonna bring Gracie and we'll see how that all goes, but I'm looking forward to it. And Jamil, I encourage you if you're around tomorrow at 3.30 to come down to the game. And I also think it's about building personal relationships. And when you're not in the school and when people don't see you, it's hard to build those relationships. So this is one of the ways to do them too. So Carla, I'm really excited about this and I'm really excited about seeing it expand. And then last plug I wanna put forward is that the 28th. So normally we would have our behavioral health and special ed subcommittee this week, but things are really crazy this week. So it's going to be next week, which is Thursday at six. And this is where we'll talk about priorities for the year for a special education and or behavioral health. So, you know, come to that meeting that'll be posted zoom and we'll ask CPAC to post it as well. But this is where we can talk more as to about unified sports or expanding programs or, you know, any of these issues that we're talking about now. So thanks guys.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We will work to improve communication. And I apologize, Jameel, that this continues to be an issue. And I know that, you know, Joan has reached out a number of times. So, you know, as a school committee member, but also as a parent that's concerned about this, I'll follow up on this too. And then Jameel and anyone else who's on this call who doesn't already follow your school's Facebook page or PTO page, every school has their own Facebook or PTO page. MHS slash MVTHS is the high school's Facebook page. And they do post a lot of information there. So definitely join that if you haven't. And if you don't like to be on Facebook, you can always create an account just for that. But there is information shared there. And then the superintendent mailings will make sure that you're getting that, Jameel. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just wanted to add, if I could quickly, the Medford Recreation, we're actually, again, this is part of the Behavioral Health Special Education Subcommittee work because community is part of the life of the school and community for our students. And so we are establishing a meeting with Medford Recreation and the mayor, currently scheduled for November 17th at 5.30 p.m. If you can join us, it's gonna be likely via Zoom and or in-person or hybrid. If you wanna join us, that would be great to have families there. We are advocating for additional funding for Medford Recreation to have more inclusive integrative programming, because right now they have pretty much two adaptive classes and about 20 or so other classes. And the reality is with the Americans with Disabilities Act, students with disabilities are of course entitled to go to any of the classes and there should be supports across all of them. And the adaptive program is really wonderful and great. And we want to make sure that that is highlighted. But you know, we also want to make sure that we're not creating subseparate programming, which further divides our kids instead of being integrated or inclusive, or integrated and inclusive and unified. So that's part of the work we'll be doing with the mayor November 17. We have a meeting with Metro rec several families are already coming if you'd like to come please email me and we can talk again about how we're moving this work forward. But I think the exciting thing, and I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that it's happening, right? How long have we been wanting this and looking for it? And it's happening now, right? We have adaptive programming. We have a rec department, first of all. Now we have adaptive programming. And we'll get to inclusive and integrated. And we have the unified sports and adaptive PE. And this is the first year for that. And it just means it's gonna grow and get better. So I'm excited about the change that's afoot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Super exciting. And Carla, I guess I just want to add one of the things that I used to be really sort of against like adaptive stuff, because I wanted Gracie to be able to just be able to be with the other kids. And I thought, you know, she has the right to be with the other kids. And of course she does. But she also deserves the scaffolding and the supports to be able to teach her how to do that. And that's really a big piece of adaptive PE and adaptive programming. And Shanine Peliquin, who used to be with EMARC, now Communitas, and is a community member in Medford and works really hard towards inclusion. was the person that really helped me understand that, that adaptive is about building a bridge to be able to support kids in the community in all kinds of settings. So I think it's really great to be able to look at it that way.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And how lucky Medford is to have you, Carla, and how much we appreciate you. Thank you. And the work you're doing. And all of you, Denise and Joan, and we know we're preaching to the choir when we're talking about inclusive practice. and meaningful inclusion for our kids. So it's nice to be able to work together toward that end. And thank you CPAC for all you do.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And Jamil, we got you. We got your back, girl, okay? I'm sending out an email right literally as we talk. I'm sending out an email. So, and I'll touch base. I'll circle back as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And- I know, I've been scarred for life over dodge ball, Jamil, so I can totally identify with Courtney.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Or having to like sweaty, try to get ready for your next class, like without taking showers, how gross that was.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then, can I just add, if you guys are going to the Unified tomorrow, I'm planning on going, if you're going, you know, take pictures, share on social media, invite your, you know, candidates, your representatives, your whatever people that put it out there on social media, maybe someone consider writing something for the patch or, you know, the transcript, it's really good to get the word out and to celebrate this in our community and let people really understand the pride that comes in this. And I'm excited to watch how the kids interact with each other tomorrow. And, you know, Gracie's funny, because she's like, I was telling her that we were going to go today. And she was like, No, no, no. And I said, you know, it's not today, it's tomorrow. And I'm still trying to get that concept and everything's right now, which in a way can be a good thing, being mindful, I guess, in the moment. But I was saying, you know, tomorrow, and then she finally agreed that she would go, but then it was like, but I wanna play. And I was like, you're not playing, you're watching. So we will see how that all goes tomorrow, but you know, I'm just gonna, you know, roll with it, take it in stride and, you know, let her enjoy and have fun. One of the things that I think we really need to encourage and celebrate is the beauty of imperfection among all of us. So I look forward to seeing you guys in whatever state tomorrow.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's awesome. And I did invite the, what time, how long does it last? I invited the mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I invited the mayor, but she teaches, she does girls on the run tomorrow. So she said she wouldn't be done till 4.30. So she was wondering how long it lasts, but you know, I'll try to do, maybe I'll do some Facebook live to share with folks. And then also, you know, I'm inviting the candidates too. So, you know, that's always interesting because they'll post. All right. Thanks guys.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks for joining.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Six working. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Bye. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member Laughlin. Here. Member Mustone. Here. Member Van der Kloot. Member longer current I mean Maryland current present seven present here to, I'm sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just wanted to ask, in what instance, can you explain to me, in what instance would a classroom be required to test if they have not been notified of a close contact? Is there, I had gotten a constituent who said that they were asked to test their classroom, but had not been notified of any close contacts. So I'm just wondering what instance that might occur.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy, for this report and for the summer programming that we'll be needing to take a look at. I just want to bring up to our colleagues, through the chair, our colleagues here, that the ESSER funding specifically being for remedial support for funding, I want us to keep in mind the credit recovery program for the summer. And I know that in the past, students have been charged for credit recovery. And I think that's something that we'd really like to take a look at. So especially as we're planning for the upcoming budget season, we wanna be thinking about that as we're thinking about remedial funding and the demographics of folks that are being charged in our credit recovery.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor Rhea. So I think given that it would be really helpful when we do have those conversations to just have some of that data that we discussed. If you could bring that to the table, that would be really great. Thank you, as we're looking at the summer program. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion for approval by Member Vandeclude, seconded by... Mayor, can we hear from the folks who are offering the motion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone absent. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just have a couple of questions. For the comprehensive documentation of the COVID protocols, that is on the website?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The comprehensive protocol for the COVID protocol?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: On the website?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And when students are out for the 10 days for quarantine, when they come back, do they, I know that they need a negative COVID test, but you also talked about whether or not they had something else, mono or strap or anything like that. Do they, do you guys require a note from their doctor when they're returning or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, but they don't automatically require a doctor's note is what I'm hearing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They don't automatically require a doctor's note is what I'm hearing. If they show a negative test, they don't also need a doctor's note. Some schools actually also require a primary care doctor's note. And so I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They do need a doctor's note then.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And regarding the data, have we dug deeper in the participation rates? I know you said you were gonna look into some of the disaggregation of what Member Ruseau was pointing out regarding absenteeism, but just in terms of the participation rate, I know that we have one or two buildings that have lower participation rate, and just wondering if there's any reason behind that, any narrative that you guys might be able to look into, or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it just would be good to know, especially if we see this disparity in the numbers ongoing, like, you know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I understand, but a snapshot over time will start to tell relevant data if it's the same. So that's really what I'm wondering is how, if we continue to see low participation rate or lower at a particular school, it would be helpful for us to know why. Is it a matter of translation? Is it a matter of, you know, just anything? I don't know, but I think it's worth asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I understand.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So are we going to get baseline data over some time?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Will there be baseline data that you'll be providing to us over an extended amount of time instead of just a snapshot in time? Are you going to be taking multiple snapshots to essentially provide baseline data or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So then we'll do a comparison of the two. Okay. Thank you. And then for students who are receiving special education supports and services and have to be quarantined as a close contact, what are we offering to them in terms of services and supports? Are they getting in-home services? Are they getting compensatory services? What's happening with those services?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm actually asking about special education services though. So like speech, OT, PT. So in other words, if it's on a student's IEP, that they're supposed to receive speech three times a week, but they're out for 10 days because they're being quarantined as a close contact. Will the school be offering compensatory services so that those students then get the three speech sessions that they missed? Or will there be in-home services for the three speech sessions, for example, that they did not receive?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so for PT, OT and speech, Ms. Bowen, they're not coming into the home if they're testing negative but still have to quarantine?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They're not coming into the home?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And they're not offering any remote or Zoom for those?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so there are some instances where families are receiving remote services.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So there's an opportunity for that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. Right. Um, okay. And what would that look like after school or extended school day if they're in quarantine?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Interesting. Okay. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, may I ask another question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I am wondering about also the consent forms and whether they're being sent home hard copy and backpacks, because I think there are families that don't have printers and or whether the consent forms are also translated for families that need them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if they haven't gone home in backpacks, they will.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thanks for this report, Ms. Bowen. I am wondering if there is any cost analysis attached to these 35. So there is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And for the least restrictive environment. I know that the students remain Medford public school students, and I am wondering, in addition to considering how to provide the least restrictive environment for them by. providing opportunities within returning to Medford public schools. I know that they're also allowed or should be involved in the life of the school. So each of the out-of-district students is actually assigned to one of the public schools in Medford. And so they have a principal and administration there. And so they're able to access the life of the school between field trips, dances, after school activities, anything like that. So who would coordinate that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. I mean, I think you and I have spoken about this before. One of the things that happens for families that go out of district is they lose community. They lose their involvement in Medford community schools, Medford public schools. So how are we offering them least restrictive environment outside of those schools? So it would be really interesting to see data around what families are actually participating in. Has there been any, as far as you know, has there been any data or survey of the out of district families in terms of I know the hair report for the state level talks about Massachusetts special education in Massachusetts, and a lot about a district students, families were pulled by Dr hair and Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a lot of those families actually did not want to leave the district, they felt like they had to. And so I'm wondering if we've done any sort of data or survey of the families, you know, for those who either, you know, perhaps did not want to felt they had to would like to come back would like to be more involved, anything, any activities that are specific to these families, anything that we can offer them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So maybe that's something we can
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, the. Yes, and what the added district involvement is in for the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council would be great. Oh, and then just in terms of like school events, such as curriculum night, that sort of thing, also obviously welcome to attend, even though they're not necessarily assigned to a classroom or a specific.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bowen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: make a motion to- Point of order.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What my motion was, I wanted to- You can't make that motion tonight. You have to send an email.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if I understand the process correctly, then it's two weeks for somebody to be able to get something on the agenda if that's the case, if they bring it if they in this instance, it will be two weeks because we would have to. This is not related to this particular question. This is related to our policy, which is on the agenda. So if I understand this correctly, if somebody in our community were to come up here, which I understand, Member Ruseau, your position on the policy that if it's not on the agenda, coming up to speak publicly is out of order. But what I'm saying is, should somebody do that, and we want to make a motion to put it on the agenda, we then have to put it on the next agenda in two weeks to make the motion, which would be another two weeks out before it would actually be on the agenda. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. We have two motions on the floor right now. So we need to clarify where we're at, I believe. And I would make a friendly recommendation that perhaps these motions could be merged.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Absent. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Member McLaughlin, thank you and I just wanted to make a last point that was made to me also specifically about this playground that the playground is used, not just by the McGlynn school, but it is in fact a city playground that is often used by community members. So again, that convergence between city and school really need to be recognized as we're seeing in the motion and across a lot of our business in the city that we're considering both of those items with respect to the playground.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm wondering a little clarification on the motion if we can. It's saying the protocols for contact tracing and communication for close contacts will be presented. So I'm unclear if member Ruseau is asking that additionally the vaccination rate will be included or whether that's being asked for to be part of the presentation tonight, number one. Number two, the protocols for contact tracing and communication for close contacts. I feel like we've had the conversation a couple of times tonight, but I feel like it hasn't really been presented to the community in terms of what that looks like. And I think that's what I'm understanding this motion to be, but would love a little clarification from my colleague, if I might.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just if I can, is that not, I mean, I know that this, I believe that this is what that, this document was attempting to do, is that right? Mr. Murphy, I think there's a step or two missing regarding the physician's letter, which certainly I would recommend, but I'm wondering if that's what the intent of this was.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If I could make a friendly suggestion regarding this graphic, if we could, if you may consider Because some of it is also just a little unclear to me as I'm reading it just in a narrative, for example, unvaccinated with or without symptoms should test immediately if experiencing symptoms, which I get that. If not, then test after five days and quarantine for seven days until student has a negative PCR test. It's a little bit difficult for, you know, I'm not fully understanding that. So if not, then test after five days. Does that mean that student is still in school for the testing after, you know, until they test after five days? And then if they're found positive, they quarantine for seven days. So it's a little bit unclear, and I just would have a lay person read this with you, perhaps, or a parent or somebody to make sure that, you know, it's really explicit because I think it might be a lot easier for folks that have been doing it for a long time to understand than perhaps lay people.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin if you're finished I'm going to go to yeah I just I just and to your point there it is hard to condense and so I think the budget, the bullets could be helpful but also just in terms of translation. I do find some of this and you know I consider myself educated, but I find some of this a little bit confusing and I understand, you know, I'm glad that there was collaboration cross effort. So I just want to simplify it or ask the staff to simplify it as much as possible and then perhaps also run it by the folks who speak the languages that we'll be translating it into to make sure that it's translatable as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tisha always good to see you and hear about your program. Can you just for the, for the community and myself as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then is there, How many, I'm really happy to hear about the in class tutor and aids that we're doing the family and community engagement outreach to the community members and has there been much progress on the alpac know because last year everything was tabled just to the pandemic right because of the pandemic and I don't have my calendar with me but
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And can you, again, with the acronym, let us know what the DELAC stands for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then for the curriculum, is there a name for the K-12 EL curriculum and pacing guides?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. So it's not a purchase curriculum. It's a curriculum that you folks form based on those standards.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's very helpful. Thank you. This is great. Congratulations on your successful summer program. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, now it's on. Thank you, Miss Andre for this information, Medford's lucky to have you. And I would ask, specifically, I felt like the graphic the previous graphic with the different levels of modifications accommodations and specialized instruction for AP was a little. I was, I was concerned about the top graphic where it was strictly AP, do I understand correctly that AP does not meet the requirements or does meet the requirements for phys ed requirement for a visit.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And just for FAPE and the least restrictive environment. So FAPE, you know, is the free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment when supports and services are, you know, when a disability prevents from otherwise. But one of the concerns I know the previous director had around APE was that we were going to be creating a substantially separate program for kids with disabilities. And obviously that's not what we want to do. We want meaningful inclusion. And I hear you saying that. But I just also want to bring it to the committee's attention into the community's attention that this is not what we want to do we are not looking to further segregate, especially in opportunities when there are ways to meaningfully include our children we're really looking about accessibility and so as somebody was sharing with me at a point when we did not want to participate in sort of adaptive programs because we wanted full inclusion, they were saying that adaptive programs help the child access or the student access the full inclusion at some point. So it's a scaffolding and a support, but it's not meant to substitute, right? Thank you, I just wanted to clarify that for the community as well. Thank you, I'm excited about this program and we're looking forward to your- Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I was also just wanting to mention, thank you to the chair, thank you to my colleague. I also wanted to mention, I know that we're, as we're thinking of remote instruction or whether there's an opportunity for remote instruction, clearly we have medically fragile students who are unable to attend school at this point with the variant. And so, I'd like to just, for the public's sake, let folks know how we're addressing that need right now, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and I just would I would just would follow up with that that I know that we're all talking about the social emotional needs of our students right now and understandably so. And I just think about the isolation for those students, especially if they're not able to participate in a classroom setting or with peers. So as we're thinking of these, after school, before school, other aspects of social emotional support for our children, I want us to be thinking about how we're including students that we wouldn't necessarily otherwise automatically think of.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have a couple of questions. Thank you, Mr. Murphy, how many students beyond the two mile or two miles plus are getting MBTA passes you have a number on that yet.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excellent. Thank you. And then, um, I just wanted to know because I know that we personally have had some issues with transportation, just at the start of the year and there's a couple of things that we discovered. that I discovered that was sort of surprising to me, and I want to make sure that my colleagues in the community understand is that there's no central dispatch for transportation within the district. So right now, if I understand correctly, for the Eastern bus, the newly hired family and community engagement coordinator is managing the transportation from that standpoint. And for students with disabilities receiving specialized services. One of the special education secretaries are managing dispatch and transportation. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I just respond before Ms. Bowen, just to say, may I, Mayor? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Murphy and I just, I just would respectfully ask my colleagues again to the chair that we recall this information when it comes budget time because it is, in my opinion and from what I've seen talking with families and especially if your child is, you know, not available for an hour or two and you're not really sure where they are and the angst and all the other things that that can cause this can be a full time job. for one person, never mind, you know, a family and community engagement coordinator newly hired to really engage families around a number of issues so I think that's really important for us all to consider. And then I would just also before Miss Bowen responds I just also want to mention that You know, my concern around silos as well, Mr. Murphy, and I know you and I have had this conversation before and you've been very gracious in this conversation, but I do want to make sure that we're, you know, that it's not always sort of when there's a special education question and no reflection on you, but that it's deferred to, you know, to Ms. Bowen, because I, again, want to just remind folks, and I know that it can sound like a beating a drum, but all of our students are general education students. Some of them are receiving special education services. And I really think we need to be thinking about how we're breaking down these silos so that we're not having. different segments. And that said, Ms. Bowen, before you speak as well, we also have this out of district element. And so in my instance, I have a child who happens to be out of district on our recent holiday that we had revised our calendar. Medford didn't have school on this particular day. My child is not a district placement. They did have school. There's confusion around transportation. The transportation didn't show up because they were confused that Medford didn't have school, what have you. And in that instance, there's actually no one to call because, you know, Medford's not in school. So how are we really thinking about a general program across all of our community in terms of dispatch and transportation and being thoughtful about all of these ideas instead of still compartmentalizing or making subsections of people's jobs that already have full-time jobs. So with that said, I guess I would ask Ms. Bowen, and I know Ms. Bowen, you and your staff have been remarkably responsive to a number of concerns that families have had, and especially for our more vulnerable students, where the risk can be heightened and the fear can be heightened for families. So I want to thank you for that first. I just want to make sure that my colleagues are fully aware as we're considering the budget around these issues. One, that we're thinking about a person for this position, and two, that we're thinking about how we are breaking down silos to create a more equitable and inclusive school district.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so may I may I just what's the plan for Thank you. So what is the plan for out of district families if in the audience since that our schools are closed, but an out of district placement is not and then there's a transportation issue? How do what what do families do in that instance?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So even on days when you have off, you guys are sort of also having to work the transportation as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Yes, member McLaughlin. I am fine with observing. I don't have to be the second for the delegate. So I would nominate member Graham to be the alternate if that is acceptable.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: alternate delegate is their motion on the floor make a motion to nominate members so as the delegate and number Graham as the alternate for the MSC convention November 3 through November six, seconded by circuit member Vanderquist all those in favor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone. Present. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Long-Term.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes, through the chair for member Kreatz, in the last occasion, I had tabulated the numbers and I did do different sheets for each of the members, which I think is helpful. And maybe, you know, later we can see the evaluations in that form as well. Again, through the chair for member Ruseau, because I do think it's helpful to sort of see each other's feedback as well. I know that this is a remote meeting, so it's a little bit different, but just wanted to sort of put that out there as well. But regarding Dr., and I also want to thank my colleagues for the process, for helping to create this process, to create this form. It's made it so much more streamlined. I know when I was putting the data together, it was really interesting to look at the data and also to see the tabulation and have that form already created. I think that could be marketed, frankly, Member Ruseau. to the chair. I think you could get that to other school committees and they'd be really valuing it. It's a really helpful form. So thank you. And then to the superintendent, I also just wanted to reiterate the leader that you've been throughout this process and how much I value you and how lucky I think our district is to have you. And one of the things that I thought was really notable about our experience this past year with you is the way that you remain steadfast in your morals and your values. And I think that's what differentiates individuals. I think that's what differentiates politicians and leaders and what have you is, you know, who stays with their morals and their values. And you do that even when the going's tough. And I think that that's a sign of a true leader. And I thank you for that and I want to, you know, tell you I know that and I recognize that that has not always been easy. And then also I wanted to say and just share with the community you know last week we were at the middle school. graduation ceremony. And we have the privilege of being out on, in this instance, out on the field, and we're facing the audience, but the students are facing us. So they're back to the audience, but we have the opportunity to look at the students and watch the students during the ceremony, which is really quite remarkable as well. And I was so proud when you were speaking to the students, because I could see so many of the students sitting up in their seat and listening to you and really watching you. And I think that they've been doing that. some time and to have a leader such as yourself, a woman, a woman of color in this role and have our students to be able to see you and look up to you in that role I think is quite remarkable. So I think we're very fortunate and I want to say thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the evaluation. Oh, I'm sorry, Paula. I'm sorry, nevermind. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. It's very helpful. I'm particularly interested in the summer programming, especially as, you know, I have been talking to a lot of families regarding ESY, ESY for folks who are watching that might not know, the extended school year program is often affiliated with IEPs, students on IEPs or other programming, summer fun, the EL enrichment, the camp Mustang, the SEL supports. I'd like to hear more about that. And then the, the health services, oh no, you're saying health services and what have you will be involved in early July. I'm really curious for both the superintendent and Mr. Murphy, as we're thinking about how we are including all students in these opportunities, both the summer programming and the enrichment programming after school for next year and others. And I know that you said there's 25K for EL and 25K for unified sports to sort of be thinking of the inclusion opportunities, but out of 2 million, I wanna be thinking about, or I wanna be asking about, how are folks being trained to ensure that our more vulnerable populations are actively participating in these programs? For example, Summer Fund just started receiving training, I think it was about three years ago, from the Special Education Department. The Summer Fund counseling and staff were receiving training from the, expertise of folks in the special education department to ensure inclusive practice and best practice around both the American with Disabilities Act and also, obviously, you know, IEP supports, what have you. So as we're thinking about these expanded school days, these, you know, wraparound environments, the enrichment programs, I'm wondering how are we thinking about all of those programs being accessible to our students that are most vulnerable from our students who are currently enrolled in access programs to students, you know, with autism to English learners to, you know, all of the above sort of What is the strategic and proactive plan for making sure that we are truly being an inclusive school district? As I know that equity is one of our big aces in that we're looking at how our staff is receiving appropriate professional development and training to make sure that these programs are all inclusive so that all families and all students are able to access and be enrolled.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And if I may, just as a point of privilege, may I just respond before anyone else, if I might?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. And I appreciate you saying that, Mr. Murphy, and you're always really thoughtful about that. And I appreciate your response. And I guess my sort of response to that would be with effective training, right? So there needs to be training to make sure that these programs are inclusive. It's one thing to say we're inclusive and everybody can come, but then when you have children who need supports and you show up and their supports aren't there or staff hasn't been trained, it's not really. So, you know, where is this sort of effective, you know, the planned training around how to make sure that these environments are inclusive? And so I think to just the after school program, there's a lot of times where, you know, families are unfortunately, you know, asked to leave because there's not enough supervision for the child with a disability. Or I think about you know, the enrichment programs where the academic enrichment programs, some of these students might be, you know, seventh grade students working on a second grade level. And, you know, there's enrichment opportunities for them too, but there has to be teachers and staff that are trained to be able to do that participating in these programs. So I'm wondering how we're strategically thinking about that. I think that I'm glad to see that the hearts seem to be there now. And now I wanna make sure that the minds are there. So the hearts and minds in terms of thinking about this in a way that, we're being thoughtfully inclusive.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: just to follow up to that? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Can you explain to the community camp Mustang and the SEL component or you or Mr. through the chair, either Ms. Galusi or Mr. Murphy, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And if I could also just ask how parents or how families engage in that process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Ms. Stone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van de Kloop?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member, sorry, Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Member Van de Kloop. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin. Here. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Here. Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Langer-Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We met today about summer school and it was really hard to say anything, but we did it. So I did write down, and I'll be brief, but I have to, Tony. Thank you, Superintendent and Dave and the administration for including me in this, because I'm really happy to recognize your leadership, your hard work, your dedication to the staff and students of Medford School Department on the occasion of your well earned retirement. Six years ago, we became colleagues in protecting the health and well-being of the Medford Schools community. Whether it was meeting as part of the School Health Advisory Committee, implementing youth risk behavior surveys, tackling behavioral and mental health issues facing our students. You remember all the work on the vaping public health crisis? We thought that was challenging. Then along came COVID. You immediately went from being my colleague to being my partner. You jumped in with contact tracing and offered your staff to assist from day one. metric meetings, reopening plans to testing, we quickly became attached to the hip. Your leadership, your support, your counsel on tough positions will never be forgotten. Most of all, the numerous early morning meetings and late night phone calls where often I just needed a friend to vent to and you were always there and my partner became my friend. I can't thank you enough. When I was wavering, you always reeled me in and you stuck with the science and the data and the facts. So in closing now, I just wanna mention something that sticks out in my mind still. On one of many ridiculously early Saturday morning calls regarding testing results, I remember calling you while I was still in my pajamas, looking at the results coming in. You picked up the phone and said, Let me call you back in two minutes. I'm just checking out at the grocery store. I remember thinking, wow, she is amazing. And you are. Enjoy your retirement. You'll be great in this. Congratulations.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: personally because you were so gracious taking care of our little girl when she had to have a body cast in a wheelchair for two months and you and your staff with her open wounds and everything else, you just made us feel confident handing her over to you. And we know that you make every family feel that way. And that has been really special. So thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can I make a motion for a five-minute recess, just so everyone can get out and we can go to the restroom? Motion for a five-minute recess.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Member Ruseau? Member Van der Kloot? Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. I'm sorry. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Vanden Heuvel. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to thank the members of the Columbus Renaming Committee for the excellent presentation. Three fascinating and incredibly wonderful choices, and it's a great position to be in to be able to have three choices to choose from. I did want to note that the beginning of the presentation, I believe it says that the vote to rename the Columbus School was six to one, and if I'm not mistaking, I think it was unanimous.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It was not it was six to one. So my mistake. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin? Thank you. First, I want to thank the committee for all their hard work. I know that was a lot. I watched several of the meetings as well, and I know that it's been a rough year for everyone in multiple ways, for sure. And I'm going to speak my heart like I always do, and I'm going to speak my values. First, I want to say, I wish I had known your sister. She sounds quite remarkable. And I want to thank you for being here tonight because I know that that wasn't easy. And I also watched her husband at the city council meeting. It was very powerful. Thank you. Yes. Thank you for being here. And it was really good to hear you. And she does sound quite remarkable. And I think that the division in the community has been really something to watch. especially as a first time school committee member and also, you know, deliberating in my own mind and debating at night and staying up at night over a lot of this. I think the one thing that will sort of stay with me tonight more than anything else was the individual who mentioned that we had neglected the children. And I felt really, I took that to heart and I have to share with you guys, you know, and I sometimes overshare, I guess, whatever, but I was a neglected child. I was awarded the state and I know what it means to be a neglected child. And I have not neglected the children of this school district. I have worked really hard for the children in this community and especially the marginalized children in this community having been a marginalized child. And I will continue to do that whether I'm on the school committee or not, I can promise you all that I will do that because that's just my nature. And I wanna say that I know we all feel passionate about things here. And I really, really, really hope that we can come together as a community because Medford is an amazing community. I am so fortunate to live here. I have raised my children here. I've been here 24 years. I have three kids who are lifelong Medford residents. And I'm proud to be here. And this is my community. This is my city too. And I do have to see you all tomorrow. I understand that. And I wanna share with you for my reasons and for the things that have kept me up at night and for all of the things that I'm sharing with you now, I'm going with the children and I will be voting Mr. Tuck. And I wanna thank you all for being here tonight and thank you for listening to me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a motion to vote on the name change for Columbus school.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to vote on the name change for the Columbus school
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I didn't I thought we were going to do a roll call, no?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Missituk. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to, well, it's the, so this motion was, Mayor, what was the total?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So motion to change the name of the school to...
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to change the name of the Columbus School to the Missituk School.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do I have a second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We just got a second there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, Member Graham seconded.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes 70 from it is in the negative minutes are approved. Number 9 approval bills transfer funds and approval of payrolls.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, there's not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? And we're so yes. And we're going to come along the car.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Abstain. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I was just going to try to clarify, because I was having some questions similar to Democrats during the meeting. And I think we really just wanted to differentiate having been on the other side of the podium and having done presentations and also having participated in the three-minute sort of thing. And I think people don't realize for the presentation, you submit that a week ahead to the superintendent so that everyone gets them in their packet, what have you. three minute you can come up on the agenda. And as Member Ruseau was saying, you may recall last week at the end of the meeting when the gentleman was upset because he felt like he didn't have the opportunity to speak, we just felt like it wasn't really clear to that person when the opportunity was available for them to speak. So this is really, again, delineating public comment versus public presentation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kroot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. As amended. As amended.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? No. Mayor Logo-Kern?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I am going to be very brief actually. I was assuming that we were gonna be able to have this final report because we had a meeting last month that we had expected to have, but was rescheduled due to a family emergency. So we are actually scheduled to have our final meeting this Thursday. So this is not exactly a final report, but I'll just give you folks an update. I think you know that we've been working on From a behavioral health perspective, we've been working on trauma-informed schools. Stacey Shulman and several members of the community have been regularly attending these nine meetings over the course of the past 10 months. And one of the recommendations that the subcommittee had was having annual training on mental health needs slash issues that Stacey can be more specific about, but regular two-hour training around suicide prevention, among other things. And then the special education portion of it, we've been working on building friendships and community for students with and without disabilities and a disability awareness curriculum. So regarding the building friendships and community, We've looked at a number of options and we are talking about expanding a high school program and the staff there are looking at how to work with the middle school to extend the program, which is currently a reverse inclusion model where general education students are going into for example, access classrooms, but having that as part of a class, as a curriculum, as opposed to every now and then occasion. And then a disability awareness curriculum. So they're piloting a disability awareness curriculum with Susanna Campbell, and we're hoping to expand that. So those are the recommendations at this point and as I said we have one more meeting for the year. So that's the not quite a report but maybe something more of an update.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Oh sorry. This is a motion to approve the semi-report on the Special Education and Behavioral Health Subcommittee member cuts.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lange-Kern? Oh, absent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Should I put her down as absent for now for this vote?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, excuse me, we have a motion on the floor. Yeah, there was a motion by Mia and seconded by you to accept the report of the retirees.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Vanden Heuvel. Yes. Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. No. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. No. Member Mustone. Member Ruseau. No. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Longo-Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member van de Kloet. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just wondering about how we're, I want to ensure that we're addressing the heat issue around the ESY program that will be housed at the Medford High School over this summer. I realize that this resolution is not until the fall, but it does beg the question of how we're addressing for our most vulnerable students who will be in the high school over these hot summer months. They're staying cool during this ESY period. And I know Joan Bowen is still here. I'm sorry, Joan, that you're still here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. You're welcome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't know what I was thinking. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Superintendent, for your self-evaluation. I was just noticing on the family and community engagement, I would encourage the addition of the ongoing exceptional relationship with the Medford CPAC. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know, how do you figure who's next? Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Thank you. So yeah, I was going to ask one, if there needs to be a motion for that, but also that, you know, we have a schedule. I would make a motion that we move to the rules subcommittee, a schedule for next year's evaluation process with a month advance notice of our evaluation that needs to be presented and dates on the calendar for each of the timeline items. Can I have a second? Second that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Timeline for the superintendent's evaluation process referred to the rules, equity policy subcommittee, so that we have a laid out timeline for the future with a month advance notice to school committee members to prepare our rubric. and a date where we have the superintendent's self-evaluation and our response to the evaluation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, the week of June 27th this year. I'm talking about for the future.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. I'm sorry, Member Mustone. Yes number or so yes, I'm a van to clear. Yes, 7 in the affirmative the motion passes there may ask a question is make member mclaughlin the member van de Kloet are we doing the on favors I mean didn't we make that that we don't have to do roll call and I'm sorry yes. What was that this number.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin? Two things. One is I'm wondering what the process is for identifying us. Do you want us to just put our mics on and say Mayor? Because I know when we have people in the queue, I'm not sure that you can see or can you see on this edge. So I know this microphone process is different. So if you could just define that. And then before I shut it off, I just wanted to also thank the superintendent for this year. It's been It's been very interesting and it's been really good to work with you. And I especially appreciated your communication around the commercials and your willingness to go into the studio and give that a shot. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Van der Kloot, yes. Mayor Long-Kourn, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, member Rousseau, I'm actually not able to thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make the motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you hear me, Paul? I said motion to approve. I can, yes. Yes, thank you. Yeah, second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau, we also have Mr. Kane again, but we do have a motion on the floor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But anyway, so- Can I make a point of information, member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What is the difference or how are we differentiating for the community those things that have been pre-requested the week prior for public comment and those that are individuals who want to talk on a topic or who have something that they want to bring that night? How are we differentiating that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that was exactly the point. I would like it to say presentation as opposed to participation. I think that will help differentiate for folks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I mean, I think we've been looking for language like this across the district on sort of all of our documents, what have you, sort of it's this, that we're a welcoming community and that we don't discriminate and so on and so forth. So I would add this, you know, that blurb that we are hoping that is going to exist across all platforms. And I believe that there's a draft of that that we have worked on and that we should be considering. So I don't have it with me, but do you know what I'm talking about? Basically, I'm sure the superintendent does. I do.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I mean, sure, I mean, but for me, yeah, I hear you. And I and I understand the point. And we all you know, we'll all be, I'm sure very glad to have the hopefully the long zoom statement that we've been reading for years. You know, Fade away, but I mean, not for years, but for months paid away. Um, but I do think that we could work towards, and I don't know that we need to wordsmith it now, but you know, I think we could work towards something that's just feels a little bit more inclusive. Um, for me, um, I think that I would like it to move us towards this goal. We, um, acknowledge all residents have the same rights and responsibilities, regardless of the duration of their residency in our city. you know, and that the school committee does not discriminate on the basis of blah, blah, blah, and that's it. I think it's just five more words.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It seems... And I get, thank you, member Rousseau, may I?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And I guess for me, I feel like this seems out of place without that. So I don't understand sort of why we're stating that without something regarding our inclusivity of all. And I think that that is what the intent is, but I'm not sure that it comes across that way. I feel like it might be a little bit more pointed in some ways, and I want to make sure that it is And it's not that we're saying we don't discriminate, which I think is not the strength-based language that we talked about the other night. You know, maybe we can do the flip of that, which is that we are inclusive and, you know, and accepting or something of all, you know, individuals, something like that. I just feel like it's just really pointed in this particular piece. And I feel like I want it to be broader. And I guess as I'm asking my colleagues how we make this feel inclusive for everybody. And I think that that is what the intent is. And so, yeah, I just want to give you my two cents. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: exactly. And I think may I remember or so and I think that yes, Graham Yeah, to member Graham's point, I think, and thank you for articulating member through the chair member Graham. I think to the point is that that's what this is. That's what the intention of this is, is that it is an opportunity to offer constructive, respectful feedback that we can really chew on and think about in terms of how we can implement around policy. And to that end, I would even, and again, and this maybe could be in a footer or something like that, but to that end, the same thing, that if you require accommodations for public speaking, please let us know, right? So there might be an instance where a person needs a chair to be able to publicly speak, you know, because they can't stand for a sustained amount of time or, you know, they need, you know, just I'm thinking about, you know, any number of things in terms of our ways of being inclusive. A microphone that is a handheld microphone instead of one that, you know, especially if an individual is in a wheelchair and needs to come up to that podium, you know, it's going to be difficult for them to, to access the microphone. So I think just, you know, again, thinking about how we're being the most inclusive across the board is really the point and so that we can welcome participation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I remember Rousseau, I remember McLaughlin, sorry. Yeah, I really also, I do, I really like that. We need your help, you know, we need your help doing this. And I'm not sure that I said it, but I do think that, you know, the superintendent articulated it. And then I think it does feel more welcoming and realizing, oh, they value, you know, we need your help and value your, you know, opinion or something, but that they value me speaking right now. And they really do want to hear from me, I think is the important piece.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: member Ruseau. Yes. So I think the first, yeah, I think you repeating it is fine in achieving this goal or our goal, because, you know, you're repeating what you're referring to it. I think that that's fine. I can see your screen now. So I think that's, that's good. Okay. We ask for your help in achieving this goal, you know, and value your opinion. I mean, I would just, opinions are opinion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, it's curious because sometimes people are waiting for the agenda item to be able to discuss it because they want us to sort of present on it and then they want to respond to it is sort of my inclination. But at the same time, I feel like we don't want people sitting there until 10 or 11 at night because they're waiting for some agenda item that, you know, we've addressed. So I'm a little bit, I guess I'm asking my colleagues how you would handle how you would suggest we handle that situation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. All right. I don't have a raised hand option with my thing, so I apologize. Yeah, I think, again, it's just context. So I think if you are, say, new to the community or if you're watching online or what have you, and people are all getting up and commenting about something, but you don't know why, It's sort of confusing or what the background is. It's sort of confusing or where you're at. It's sort of like getting the end of the story first, but I do hear what you're saying about having it, you know, sort of having the feedback before. I mean, we're not actually, well, we could be voting, but we're not deliberating obviously with the community. So I guess it's a little chicken and egg, but I feel like there are times when there needs to be some context. So maybe there's an option that we could say, Sarah Silver, PB.: : You know, prior to public participation. If there's if there seems to be an agenda item that is clearly, you know, Sarah Silver, PB.: : A public concern or something we could offer a little bit of context or something. I don't know. I'm trying to think about how we we address that so that there's some context so people know why these comments are happening or what the comments are about. Maybe, you know, I know that they have the agenda, but some people might not look, you know, forward that forward in things, or, you know, maybe watching online and not having the agenda or not looking online to get, I mean, watching on TV and not looking online to get the agenda. So I don't know. I just, and so also, I just wanted to ask you, this isn't, I just want to clarify for the community as well that the public participation here. And again, you know, we haven't said that there's a specific time limit, but previously it was that you had three minutes to talk on any of the individual topics that we had on the agenda. And is what this is suggesting is that you go into this block for public comment. And if you missed that block during the meeting, you don't have the opportunity for the three minutes during a particular item.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's current practice. No, I know, I think you're misunderstanding me. What I'm saying is that if the agenda hosts this item, you know, public comment, okay, that's its own standalone item, okay?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, perfect. Yes, perfect. Okay. Yeah, excuse me. I'm sorry. I was misunderstanding. I thought the question was, I thought you were talking about a segment where it was public participation, not on each of the items that she's reading that. So that's great. So then the question, now I'm confused about the other question. My apologies, where the committee, the chair is saying this and you are saying, we are asking now, will the chair say this prior to the presentation or agenda item or after the presentation or the agenda item? Is that correct? Is that what we're asking right now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So what are we debating now about whether the public participation comes before or after? What are you talking about?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I think, I'm sorry. So yes, I agree. I'm getting this mixed up in terms of topics and having public participation as an agenda item. So I would agree with the chair and with member Graham that we would hear the public on the agenda items after the chair asks, is there any... public participation on this comment, what have you, and then we act as a school committee and do the things that we need to do as a school committee. Is that what is being suggested? Yes. Okay. Yes. And I am in agreement with that. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and to that point, I think that's where the confusion lay in my understanding of the proposed changes. So, you know, in the past, as I've understood it, both as an audience member and a school committee member, there was a portion that was labeled, you know, public participation or whatever it was called in the past, and now we wanna call it public comment, which makes sense, and then presentation for the other one, or whatever we end up deciding, but to differentiate between the two. Um, and, and having something, I really do like the chair's statement about, you know, are there questions on this topic, but, and I think being a little bit more explicit about what public participation is, is our comment is, is really important. But in the past we had both, it wasn't either, or it was both and. And so there was a section where, and I really liked the idea, the purpose that I'm trying to get to is what the superintendent is talking about as well, is having this at the top of the meeting so that people aren't sitting. I mean, there were plenty of nights when I was in that audience where I would be there till right with you guys, till 1130 or midnight. And that was a long time for a parent to wait to talk about something. So I think having it at the forefront is really important and having that designated time You know, like we've had in the past but frankly we've also had that, you know, if there was also an item that was of importance to an individual, you could, you know, approach the podium with three minutes of time I mean that was sort of the way it was historically so what I'm understanding you guys saying is that the things that are on the table here either. do a block at the open and a block at the end to give people a block on either end, or at every single item, do that, or do what we're talking about, what we've done in the past was the public comment section. And if there's a particular item that someone feels strongly about on the agenda, they have three minutes or something to come up and talk about it. So are those the three things that we're talking about on the table right now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: point of information, though, Member Ruseau, we did have, there was a block that was public participation or public whatever, historically.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, it's not how it's been, but technically you could and that's how that was what the policy was and that was what the understanding was. So I remember clarifying this very, you know, very explicitly when I was actively engaged as an audience member because I wanted to understand the difference between you know, doing a presentation as a CPAC presentation or wanting to comment on an agenda item. And the misunderstanding that I had that I needed to be able to let somebody know 48 hours in advance or 72 hours in advance or whatever, if I wanted to comment even on an agenda item, right? And that's not the case at all. People can comment on the fly in the audience with three minutes. And I think that that's on any agenda item, frankly, or that's how it, you know, that was what the understanding was that I had been given by school committee members and by the former superintendent. So I'm asking is that if that's not what we're suggesting, how are we being explicit in that? And if it is what we're suggesting, is it both and or either or with these public petition patient pieces? And then what I hear you suggesting is this statement, or I think I hear you suggesting is this statement being read not on the reports obviously, but on any of the other. items and frankly I want to just add for the reports. I disagree there could be somebody that wants to comment on a report or report if there's a report that comes up and it's a, for example, the dyslexia report that was given, I think a year and a half ago by administration, you know there was a parent there that did want to get up and comment on, you know, whatever the the difference of opinion in either the scientific evidence of the report or what have you. So there are instances where people will wanna comment on the report. So again, I'm not sure I know what I'm thinking the solution is, but I just wanna point out what I see the issues are. Thank you. And there's a member of the community that has their hand raised. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I just make a clarification member? So I'm not suggesting that I want longer meetings and I'm definitely not suggesting that I want, you know, a public comment on every single item. I'm suggesting that I'm seeing a couple of different issues or questions raised and I'm asking what is it that is being proposed to us as, and equity subcommittee to bring forward to the school committee, because frankly, I'm not clear on that right now.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Remember Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm not sure that that addresses the issue of not having, it doesn't address the issue of not having people wait the entire evening to be able to offer public communication. So I guess I'm just asking, is there a reason that we couldn't do new business before reports?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we could do report of the superintendent new business and then any other, you know, district-based reports, but that's just, I'm just saying, how do we alleviate the issue?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I never saw that as report of the superintendent. I guess I see the report of the superintendent as the superintendent's update.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So how do we address the issue of the public not having to wait till the end to comment?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. So, I wanted to say that I think under the top public present, can you go back up to the top, the presentations of the public. So I think, again, you need to have a clear, you know, definition of a presentation like a under six, I would do a presentation and it can say constituent presentation, you know, individual presentation, whatever. and B, public comment, right? So this is an opportunity and maybe we define what those are. And I know that we've been talking about definitions for all of these other glossaries for all of these other things. I think these items need to be added to our glossary that's gonna be on the website, our sort of master glossary that we've been talking about so that people do understand what these are and what the differentiation between them are. So there was that and then I did just want to add, I want to make sure because I know you remember Rousseau and I know that you spend a lot of time getting emails from people and talking to people on the phone and. doing any number of those things. And I don't want it taken out of context when you were saying earlier that public participation or public feedback is not really our job. I don't feel that way. I feel like it is our job. And certainly we respond to that and we listen to that. And that's why we're spending so much time coordinating this. So I just wanna make sure that people are clear that that's not, or maybe, I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I think that you do value that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And point of information, may I ask the three items that a school committee does do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I do, but I want the community to know them. Yes, I know, sorry. So this is restating them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And this is... Sorry, member Ruseau, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Back in.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin, here. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy and everyone else for putting all this work together, much appreciated. Regarding the special education outside costs, circuit breaker and external funding that offsets the money that we were talking about, when does that get sort of backed out so that we can see what those numbers actually are? And where does the money go that was allocated towards special education?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So thank you. So is there a reconciliation process? So is there a process at which point we see what there actually was an IDEA funding and what there actually was in Circuit Breaker and sort of how that was applied and what the reconciliation of those numbers are?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think a reconciliation process would be great to be able to understand where that money actually goes. And then I'm assuming one-to-one aids for individuals with IEPs are under the paraprofessional allocation for special education. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and, you know, our concern is obviously that we're not taking when you're saying building based professionals that, you know, I know that historically what's been happening and I don't know if it's because of the allocation of substitutes or the difficulty in getting substitutes that, you know, at least anecdotally, we're hearing that paraprofessionals are being used for substitute positions within the schools, and then, you know, being taken out of specialized programming, which obviously is problematic. And so I wanna, two questions about that. One is instructional tutor paraprofessionals versus the other paraprofessional. I know that there's a pay rate difference, but I'm wondering what the, qualification differences on that? And maybe that's a question for Ms. Bowen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for that. And obviously, you know, I appreciate that, Mr. Murphy, and I just want to also clarify, and I know that you, you know, intended this and mean well by this, but for folks that are watching, all students are entitled to the least restrictive environment. I know you know that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And then for the, I know that we had had trouble historically with, you know, acquiring, I believe substitutes. And I see that the budget has gone down about $11,000 in the substitute budget. And I was wondering why are we going down in that line item? If it's been, you know, difficult historically to get substitutes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, it's a higher number. Sorry, Mr. Murphy, you're right. It's a higher number for FY22. That is exactly what it is. So thank you. I was looking at it wrong. I appreciate that. Um and I think that's it for my question. What do you say?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, you did very well. It was a good guess with all these pages. So thank you. I will, um, yield to my colleagues for now. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I want to thank Miss broker for bringing this topic up and I'm wondering, I know that this is complicated and that we have to do some homework on this but this is definitely something that has been an ongoing discussion for years and is definitely something that's a priority. and something that I'm very concerned with. So I'm wondering if we could have a June 14th deadline of what we are actually doing, what those numbers are, and we make a final decision to that end, because we do need to know for the upcoming school year. And this has, I do feel like we keep kicking this can down the road.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and I appreciate that, and I can appreciate that the time that it takes. So I guess what I'm asking then is, can you give us a time frame, either Mr. Murphy or the superintendent, so that the community and Ms. Rocha can know when we will have answers to these questions and some data? So if it's not June 14th, is it July 14th? Or when can we expect that we could have this information that's a reasonable time frame for you guys?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: When?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Oops, sorry. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Congratulations. Sorry, congratulations to our seniors too, everybody. Class of 2021. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I agree, this is really interesting report and really thank you all for sharing lots of exciting things. I love seeing the drill down and I definitely have some feedback and some questions, if you can bear with me, because it was so comprehensive and also just trying to think about it from a lay person's perspective. I think more of the polling definitely, Maurice, I felt like I was in grad school again. And that always gets a good reaction from the students. So I think you should do that more with your even school committee. They'll probably really like that. A little technique. So the strategic plan, I just wanted to ask about, I appreciated very much that you guys were going to do the glossary at the beginning. I think that's important. I would strongly recommend that you guys have a non-educator read your documents before you do that, because there were a couple even on this one that I was like, oh yeah, there's a couple here that, you know, and just because you're so fluid in the language, you're not, in my opinion, you're not really thinking of it. And again, going to grad school three years ago, I was totally initiated into this foreign language. And I was like, what the hell is going on with these acronyms? I mean, with these acronyms, they're almost like, it's almost as bad as special education or as bad, you know, it's just another layer, I guess, of it. So I would just really recommend that. There were a couple that I noticed along the way, but whenever you see, you know, initials, I would just encourage you to define them in the glossary. And it's I was so happy to see the equity piece later and all the things that you put under equity, because most of the issues I had under achievement came under equity later, so I was really glad to see that and namely around you know accessing curriculum. Assessing curriculum for access right, so you know I appreciate that you're assessing curriculum, but I also want to be thinking about. for access for all learners and I'm sure you guys are, as was evidenced in the equity piece which I was glad to see and so I wonder about those crossovers and how you, I guess maybe when people see the whole presentation they'll understand but there are things that could go under multiple buckets obviously so there was that. Oh, I would also say for the curriculum frameworks, I would really encourage you folks to get the frameworks for students with disabilities to all your educators. So I know that that was a project that we had undertaken a few years ago, and those were paper copies. I don't know if those frameworks have changed recently or not, but in any case, I would say just to your special educators, but to all your educators, because I think that's a really important component, and a lot of people don't even realize that they exist. I felt like the PD fell into this bucket under A2, and I would just really say for PD, I was so fascinated, Bernadette, when I sat down with you, I think it was, was it pre-COVID? It must have been pre-COVID, I can't remember, but when we sat down and talked about curriculum, and you were sort of showing me I'm in a curriculum about PD, and he was showing me all the PD pieces. And I was like, this is so fascinating. I had no idea I was such a nerd for PD. And helping families in the community know what is really happening for PD in the community. Because it's really cool to know, oh, my teacher just went to, or the staff had PD on X subject, and I know something about this. So I can talk to my teacher about it, or ask them about it, because I want to know something about it. So I would really encourage. I know that we had a motion that a PD list would have a biannual report on PD, but I just want to again sort of say that I think that's really, you know, great and important I'll be quick initiative a three. Again, modifications to current curriculum. I was, again, asking about sort of access for curriculum. And when you're talking about modifications to the current curriculum, just some clarification or maybe even a better wording there, because I think what you're talking about is changes to the current curriculum. And when you say modification to the current curriculum, it sort of can confuse the aspect of accommodations and modifications. So I would just think about that. Are you following? Yeah, OK. And then initiative equal technology plan family training and technology I think is critical. I know that we've mentioned that a number of times but we've got to figure out some way for giving you know technology we're going to have to have some training for families that don't sort of understand that collaboration. Let's see ensure all families are welcome. I was happy about the collaboration. Oh, Munis was an example of not knowing what that was. So in your glossary. Equity whole child data cycle screenings. I have no idea what you're talking about. So screenings I can, you know, deduce data cycles. I'd like to know more like sort of what you mean, you know, you don't have to answer that necessarily now but know if you want to email me that because I want to make sure that member Graham has her questions addressed as well. E2 curriculum disability awareness lesson plans. So again around curriculum I was just thinking about I know that Susanna has been building a bank of books and adapted and modified books which is really great for access to curriculum and I'm just thinking about again there's lots of resources for lesson plans what have you. Racial equity, let's see, disability awareness. Oh yeah, so the disability awareness curriculum for the students, the pilot program for K-1 through high school. I guess I was a little, and I was excited about the MTSS. Oh, I wanted to ask, under NTSSE, do you want to include athletics in there? I know you have enrichment, but I was thinking about the equity around athletics as well. So I don't know if it would be under enrichment, but something to think about. And I just wanted to say, for the individual education response, emergency response, all those things, I didn't know the difference between the Universal Safety Committee and the Comprehensive Safety group that you want to create. So I wonder if there's some intersectionality there. And I would definitely just say, you know, that group should, you know, be considered because they've been doing a lot of work of which I'm a member, just to be forthcoming, but they've been doing a lot of work over the past few years on exactly this issue. And I love, love, love the fact that you guys are saying we wanna create a community that sees diversity as a strength because it is our strength. Medford, one of the reasons I sent my children to our high school is because there's so much diversity at our high school and I wanted our children to be familiar and comfortable with diversity and to encourage it. So I think it is a huge asset for Medford and I love that you guys wanna highlight that. So that's my feedback. I hope it's helpful. And any questions that I had, if you wouldn't mind emailing me so that I don't have to take your time up in this. meeting. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, yeah. I just wanted to ask what the process was for next steps, but I think maybe member Graham was okay. What's the process for next steps? Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, yes, I'm sorry I can't tell if you can see the raised hand or not because it's against this white background so. I would raise my hand as well. I also just wanted to sort of, you know, think about, I mean, I'm looking forward and I, to members Graham's point, the racial equity task force, we haven't heard from and we need to, and I thought that is a really good point. So thank you for bringing it up. And also an equity audit, I think is really great idea. Something that CPAC has been talking about for a number of years and just something I'd like you to think about, you know, as you consider, I guess, the next strategic plan or sort of where we're going with things is an inclusion audit. So also to be thinking about sort of what we're doing around inclusion in our community in our school. And, you know, I think some people often think of that as like, you know, just literally how much time is spent in a gen ed classroom, but it is so much more than that. And I think we all know that. So I think we also talk about, you know, disability is diversity and equity is inclusion. And so it's, you know, I know we're dealing specifically with race around the anti-racism task force, but I just want to also add that because it's something they've been asking for for some time. And I think it addresses equity on a number of levels too. So I'm so glad that these things are moving forward. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to bring this to the school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone. Absent. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Member Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move to executive session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mastone absent. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, absent. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Rand Klute? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, absent. Member Ruseau? Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, good. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: She can give us a thumbs up if she approves. Motion to approve the bills.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We didn't finish the roll on that motion to approve bills. Sorry. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, there's no report of secretary, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Uh, member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloof. Yes. Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Logo-Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Miss Williams. I want to say welcome from another HGSE grad. We are so lucky to have you. And I know the EDLD program and I know what the rigor is involved. And so I know how great you're going to be for our community. And I feel really fortunate that Medford is being selected to be part of the EDLD program. So please tell Paul Revell, we really appreciate it and Drew and the rest of the folks that we need you and we're glad you're here. And Tom, you know, led the way and we're happy to have you. So see you in July.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank the committee for all their hard work. This is not an easy task, and we appreciate what they're doing. And I also think June 7th is a fine date for continuation. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: To say I make a motion to refer to the, um, communication subcommittee family and community community engagement Communications subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I wanted to also echo the sentiment that, you know, any accessibility issues are considered for, you know, going back into chambers. So the closed captioning that we've had, those kinds of things, you know, are important that we maintain. And then also somebody had asked or mentioned the concern over sort of the microphone cleanliness, right? So if everybody's going up to the mic as well, like what the protocol is gonna be for that. And I know it's so interesting, it's things that we haven't thought about pre-pandemic. I think everybody sort of just did that and now they're a whole different, I know I'll never look at a door handle the same way again, but I think we need to, I think we need to think about those things too. So I would second the idea that we should be creating some policy around what this is gonna look like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I didn't have my hand up, Mayor, but Member Ruseau does. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Logo Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Here. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No? You guys can still hear? Yes. Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Now I can, but I'll say Mayor, excuse me, Mayor, he dropped off for me for a good minute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: On this motion, thank you. I just, for clarification, perspective, I would like to just, I guess, sort of point of clarification if there's such a thing but the issue has the long standing issue has been that we are having students who are paying to support to school, many of whom are economically disadvantaged, and who are potentially over a two mile radius, or at least at a two mile radius. And if you think about even the cusp of the two mile radius, which would be, say, for example, students in the, you know, McGlynn vicinity, McGlynn Middle School vicinity, walking to the high school or to have it because they couldn't afford or having to choose to, you know, pay $30 a month for the reduced pass that could very much impact their families. I think it's just, an ethics value it's a statement it's a it's a our budget does reflect what our values are and I think I have been stunned that that has been the case in the history even sitting in school committee on the other side of the podium that that students were having to pay. to transport themselves to school and especially having been a student myself who would not have been able to do that and so then you think about what the absentee rates are what the hunger rates are what you know just so many there's so many impacts so to that motion I would you know I would prefer that it's the MBTA passes but I would defer to the finance committee to do it to provide us a cost benefit analysis that we can look at a little bit more even, you know, in the next session or in the final session as we're evaluating this. But I would like to move the question and I second member Graham's motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a point about information, because I'm not sure that we're clear on what, at least on what I felt like was being discussed as well, and I want clarity. Mayor, may I do that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that my issue specifically was around economically disadvantaged students having to pay transportation to school. And so, whether that is within the two mile radius or, or, you know, I guess the two mile radius is, you know, or one mile radius or what have you that we're offering. I know in the past teachers have been paying for students to have access to MBTA. transportation passes. And so to your point Mr. Murphy and this is something that can be for further consideration not necessarily for this particular motion or addition you know the motions have been passed but to your point that this allows MBTA passes allow for accessibility in the city, they can allow for the classroom in the city, they can allow for job opportunities, they can allow for transportation to school. And my biggest subset that I'm concerned with- Are you going to ask a question? Yeah. Are we focused on the economically disadvantaged in this consideration?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have a few questions. I guess I'll start with that one since that was the last topic of the conversation. I guess I'd like on the next agenda for the MHS vision committee to be included so we can understand what the status of that is as we're considering spending money. I just don't want to throw, you know, good money after bad. There's been so much discussion about the high school and we haven't convened the vision committee. So I'd like that if we can have that included on the next agenda, please. And then going back to the transportation, did the chair, I was gonna ask Mr. Murphy, what you meant by tying programmatic opportunities to their procurement?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't know, I didn't understand what you were talking about. You were talking about transportation and I'm sorry, but I quoted what you were saying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I thought that's what you meant, and I wanted some clarification because I'm imagining, for example, vocational students transporting to their site, CCSR volunteers, sort of all of those things. So it would be interesting to know what the programmatic opportunities are as we're considering this cost analysis for these different options. And then I know that it's not just Eastern bus that we have is our transportation vendors. We have multiple transportation vendors and there's been multiple issues across the transportation vendors. We've personally been experiencing some issues with transportation vendors and I know that it's difficult to maintain or retain staff. especially under the current circumstances. But I'm wondering about a centralized opportunity or almost like a C-click fix, you know, sort of, or option or, you know, complaint line or something where we can collect data on what is actually happening in the community for our transportation, because we are paying a lot of money to our vendors, and I feel like there's no accountability to the vendors. There's no sort of consistency around what the vendors are providing, and even in some of the contracts I've seen Letters come home to parents saying that if you miss the bus in the morning, you're not going to get picked up in the afternoon, which is a complete violation, right? You can't do that. But this is for special education transportation, for example. But that was a letter that we specifically saw. So this is what I'm saying. There has to be some consistency around the contracts, around the budgets, but also around the sort of complaint process. Because if one administrator's hearing complaints on one section of it and another's hearing another, like who's centralizing these complaints for us to understand as a school committee what the bids are on these vendors and whether they're reasonable.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just if I may, Mayor, to be clear, the Director of Pupil Services has always been incredibly responsive, but I have also always been a squeaky wheel. And I think about the folks who aren't and how they're being responded to and how they're able to sort of demonstrate that the transportation is working. And I think it's around data collection, frankly. and children coming to school late and sort of what that looks like. But again, looking at our vendors I think is important. And then lastly, I just wanted to again also laud the superintendent's direction towards more professional development and targeted professional development, both around implicit bias and social emotional learning. And I have heard from staff and community members two points on the professional development that I wanted to sort of raise. And one is that Some of the specialized staff I think is not necessarily feeling as though that there is targeted professional development for, you know, very specific licensing or needs and so I wanted to sort of present that and then also you know just concern about ensuring paraprofessional participation and professional development and or that is that is related to paraprofessional and certainly it sounds like the social emotional learning piece will be part of that but I want to ensure that and I know in the past I think that they a lot of times the paraprofessionals have gone where the teachers go. they're they're partner teachers, which I understand, you know the reasoning around that, too. But I think it would be also nice just to be able to let people have some flexibility and choice for the professional development. So those are not things that I expect any answer to tonight, but I just sort of wanted to bring that up so that you guys are aware. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, thank you. Sorry. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Here. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's so low that it's not bringing you up as the featured speaker.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you all for the presentation. It's nice to see some clear commitment to diversity and equity across departments. I can see that there's some cohesiveness around that and, and I want to say that I appreciate that consideration because it's, it's critical and something that our district really needs and I think needs to work on. I wanted to mention the Yale program mentioned and thank Mr. Teixeira. I think that you've been doing an exceptional job, frankly, and I look to you for a lot of role modeling and leadership. And I think the adaptive literacy program is a really important one and one that I'd like to have folks think about sort of in a bigger perspective. I think we often just tend to put ourselves in these silos and these buckets around, you know, this is this department and that's that department and that's that department. And I remember two years ago going in and sitting with Mr. Tisher and being able to look at some of his material and what that actually looked like and what that meant. And, you know, universal design for learning is something that goes across every single one of our departments. And so when we're talking about adaptive literacy, you know, and we're thinking about all of the discussions we're having around dyslexia and You know, it's important to look at well what is the EL department doing around adaptive literacy, how are they actually collecting data around that, how could this apply somewhere else and and what is being done and I just, I just sort of wanted to put that out there because I think that people often. just put themselves in silos and aren't looking at each other necessarily as models. And I think we should. And especially also around cultural competency. I really appreciated Mr. Teixeira's request for professional development and cultural competency. And frankly, I think that's something that we could use across the district. And I know that it's a lot to think about for every department, but I do think it's something that we need pretty much in every department. Technology, I wanted to ask Ms. Layden, I know Mr. Murphy mentioned briefly the assistive technology and adaptive technology is sort of, you mentioned microphones and what have you, but I would like to hear a little bit more about that, especially this year with having gone remote, with all of the access that students needed to have, with our population who is you know, who does have learning differences and others are English learners are, you know, just folks who struggle with technology in general. Not that English learners do, I don't mean to imply that. I'm just saying generally that, you know, families, parents that were struggling with technology, like what is being offered to the community around assistive technology and adaptive technology to obviously to students that require that. And additionally, training and development around what this looks like for families trying to figure out, you know, this whole world. And again, we may or may not be remote in some capacities moving forward, but has there been any sort of group development around these things.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and just to clarify, I'm not looking for a whole lesson on what technology was purchased for students and accessibility. It's more sort of just the bigger picture looking at how these things are being presented. I think it's actually been a blessing in a lot of ways. We had a lot of students who did need iPads and I think can benefit from that obviously, but I would like to hear Ms. Bowen just a little bit about how big picture, not micro, just macro sort of you're looking at this, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. And I just, for example, I just, I guess I wanted to share with, you know, folks in our instance, you know, we have, Grace has a reading disability. And so she has access to Bookshare, right? And a lot of people, frankly, in the community and in the district don't know what Bookshare is. And anyone with a reading disability qualifies for Bookshare. You can have access to a library with thousands of electronic books. for free once you have a diagnosis of a reading disability. And I think that that's something that's just sort of a general understanding that people across the district should know. And I think that unfortunately what happens, it certainly did in our case, is we have to bring that nugget of information that we've learned from parents or from a Federation for Children with Special Needs group or something else to the district in our IEP to sort of share that. And I want to make sure that these things are more universal. And know experience across the board for folks and and and I guess I don't necessarily think there's an answer to that tonight I guess I'm just trying to put that out there for everybody that we're thinking about what this looks like from all perspectives and that's part of what I'm seeing tonight and it's refreshing because Frankly, I hadn't seen that a lot before. And so I would ask people to continue on that path and to continue thinking about how do each of these departments apply to these marginalized populations. And same with the math programs. And I appreciated David saying that Mr. Murphy saying that it's a multi-tiered summer program and you know I think that that's great it's a multi-tiered summer program and that it's going to be accessible for all students and I think we have to think about what those supports look like obviously and I'm sure as the experts you guys are thinking about that but I just have to put that out to the community as well that you know every student should have access to all of these programs and And I'm sure that, you know, with our, with our equity as being our driving force that they will and so the unified sports to I think, again, this is something that's been asked for for a while, Malden does a really good job with their challenger team and. Medford hasn't done this. And frankly, we have the Special Olympics hosted at Hormel, but it's hosted by Malden, which is ironic. And so it's good to see that this year. And I would really, again, and I'm gonna circle it up with the family engagement position. I think that having the family engagement position person would have you looking at these things across departments in a macro way about how are you actually involving, especially the marginalized communities that aren't coming to the table is what we really need to To be thinking of and I guess Lastly, I want to put out there and I know tomorrow we have a meeting that will discuss some of this but I guess you know all of this comes down to money right we all know that all of these things that are our wants and our different needs in this. Zoom box that we're all in tonight, representing our own interests and the interests of constituents, all comes down to money. And the one thing that we haven't addressed, and I'm not sure why, is the need for a grant writer in our district. We need somebody who can help us bring some money into this district in the formation of grant writing. And you guys are dividing that job among so many people. And I know that grants have come in, we've been fortunate in a number of ways, but I feel like if we were really targeting these objectives that we say that we have that our priorities that we say are so important. And we're thinking about how we actually targeting these for money and grants, then we would be in a much better position. And that's my soapbox. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member van de Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Mayor Lago-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: here. Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here. Here. Present. Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I actually have a lot of questions, so you may, I want to defer to you to let me know when to stop and let another member go, and then I'll get back in the queue again, if that's okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. Let me just see here. Thank you for the presentation. This is always, I feel like a very complex aspect of the of the budget because it does the Director of Pupil Services obviously carry so many different departments. I wanted to thank you also for providing the program descriptions that you provided to us, and I hope that obviously these will be shared with the community and the public and also the breakdown of the programs within each of the schools which I think is really important for us to discuss and also for the community to see and. I think it's a little bit unfortunate that wasn't part of the introduction, but I know that in the interest of time, there's a lot to cover here. So I can appreciate that that hadn't happened and why. But I am going to be asking some programmatic elements because they do relate to budget as well. And so if you'll bear with me on some of those things, I appreciate it. I just want to mention that in the programmatic piece, the language-based definition of the program, the Medford Special Education Programs, in the language-based, it's mentioned that there's grade-level access for the students. Language-based program uses grade-level content for ELA reading, math, social studies, and science, so on. And I just wanted to clarify, the access program says that they use Massachusetts curriculum frameworks. And my question is, aren't all of these programs and segregated classrooms and substantially separate classrooms, aren't they all grade level?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. But in other words, I understand that. Thank you. But in other words, a fifth grade student learning about the American revolution means the access classroom for fifth grade students are learning about the American revolution. It's just an access point that is different than say, you know, the general education classroom. But in other words, the content is grade level content. Yes, yes, that's what I wanted to clarify thank you I wanted to make sure that that's the case because I'm not sure that that's all always understood in resource room opportunities at other schools and all programming levels, what does that look like I was curious, there was some narrative in here that there were resource room opportunities at all schools. and all programming levels. And I just, there was no clarification on the programming piece either on what the, or there was for the resource rooms, but there, oh no, was there for the resource rooms? Yes, resource rooms. But here it's listed only at the high school. So for the special education program sheet, where you have all of the different program divisions, there's a resource room learning center division and it says Medford High School and voc tech. But then if you go back to the presentation itself where we're breaking down the different settings schools that you did, which was very helpful. Thank you. I found this to be extremely helpful document. It says resource rooms on all of the different schools with an asterisk, but it says provided at all programming levels. And I'm wondering, what does that look like? Can you explain to us what the resource rooms are and how they look at the different schools, if you don't mind?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And that's across all levels of disability? Correct. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then do I get one more there? for now? Yes, please. One more. Okay. And so, when I was doing the math on this document, again, this is the special education programming by schools, broken down by students on IEPs, programs, special ed teachers, paraprofessionals, and the co-teaching slash inclusion model. When I was adding up the paraprofessionals, it said that we, I got the number of 80 paraprofessionals. Is that right? We have 80 paraprofessionals currently?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have a point of information on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I still had additional questions that are on some of these recommendations. So I don't know if we want to go through those or how you want to handle it. But I had questions on the behavior specialist. I had questions on the training for paraprofessionals. And I had questions on the additional special education teacher for the Brooks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so for the Brooks program for the special education teacher at the Brooks, what classroom would that be for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Resource room students. So for the resource rooms, that's another thing I wanted to ask you. So those staff people are full-time dedicated to those resource rooms, including the powers, or are they moving in and out of those rooms?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Less than eight, you don't require a para, but are those, okay, thank you. And those teacher positions are full-time specifically for those resource rooms, or do they move, are they counted twice in other places? In other words, are they counted as resource room and teachers elsewhere, or are they just resource room?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And not elsewhere?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then for the, so that's for an additional resource room teacher is what that recommendation is under the superintendents, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and that would be eight students, or I mean, under eight students since there's no para in those classrooms, is that right? Correct. Okay, thank you. And then the developmental classroom there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't know, it's called developmental on the Brooks spreadsheet and I don't know what that means, developmental.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, okay, I know the classroom. I just didn't recognize the developmental as the name of the program because it's not anywhere else. So I didn't realize what that was. So that's Katie's classroom? Okay, so that's, okay. Thank you. And then for the training for the paraprofessionals, the licensing, can you tell me more about that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And that, is that going to be offered to all Paris? Yes. Okay. And that is going to be, is that going to be a contracted service or in-house training?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. And then, Okay. And then the behavior specialists for just the four across the district. So I guess for folks watching as well, and I think I know the difference, but I want to make sure that the community understands the difference between adjustment Councilor and behavior specialists. Can someone share that with us?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and it's quite different from a BCBA. So how many BCBAs in the district versus the behavior specialists that we're asking for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, that helps me understand that better. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes, this is a question. So I guess I am a little confused in the process because I felt like I thought this was the draft and discussion and then later would be we would be voting on sort of the decisions and maybe I'm just misunderstanding because I do feel like there's a number of additional questions that I have. So what if I'm understanding the motion. Correctly, it is to accept the superintendent's recommendations with the understanding that we are continuing to negotiate and draft other recommendations. Is that what I'm hearing? And I think Mr. Murphy sort of clarified that, but I just want to make sure that I'm understanding, because I really just, I guess I thought that these were questions and answer time, and then, you know, the sort of voting on what was going in was going to be, further down the line.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. That was helpful explanation. And I do have concerns that I think should be brought up. And I would ask my colleagues to perhaps let those be heard so that we could all think of them as we're thinking about all the budget in a big picture way. I did have one more question on the contracted services increase for low incident services not requiring additional full-time staff to the design of several unique student programs offsetting the need for out-of-district placement. Can somebody explain what those contracted services would be for helping support less out of district placement and in these programmatic elements? What is that line item?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, as opposed to staff contractors. Okay. Mayor, do you want me to wait on these other questions? I do have, you know, just basically, I just wanted to say regarding member, through the chair, regarding member Graham's question, I thought was really pointed around the narrative to describe rationale and how our staff distributed among buildings. I think that that's a really important piece as we're looking at this, because it is really difficult in the complexity that is special education around so many of these items. And specifically as we're looking at, you know, student supports and we're talking about equity in the district and how students are supported. So, you know, if we're looking at our paraprofessionals, I think it's great that we're providing additional training and professional development for them. I'd like to know, are we providing additional salary for them? Is there going to be salary increase to account for that additional training and additional responsibilities? And if we have 80 paras right now on our staff, And there's currently 76 employed, because I know this has been a huge turnover piece as well so when we're talking about allocation of staff under one of your buckets Mr. Murphy, and I'd like the narrative to describe the rationale for the allocation of staff and also how we're addressing the high turnover rates for some of the staff members so we know that the have been, you know, there's been a lot of turnover in those positions and I think, you know, exit interviews and other information I'm sure will give us data around why that is but I would ask, you know, with some classroom narratives how many parents are in the classrooms. How many are actually one to one and assigned to an individual student versus, you know, in the classroom. You know, asking to be substituted for active substitute teachers in the school and then not allocated to the classroom and what kind of data collection is there around that, you know, how are we tracking para absenteeism and what are we doing about that when there aren't enough Paris like and what we're hearing what the community is hearing and families are sharing with me is that, you know, when this issue is brought up and staff when this issue is brought up with central administration, there's a there's a yeah there's not enough powers, you know point but there's not sort of okay then what. And so, again, for the allocation of staff, I think this is really important and if we're not looking at, you know, in the big picture. You know how we're allocating the support people to these classrooms to allow for so many of the things that we're talking about are important to us, such as equity. Across the district and as Member Graham also noted, you know the gen ed inclusion that's noted on the right of our program elements in our schools. And the CO teaching and you know, as you can see, I think the differentiation for that there was that. there is no co-teaching at the elementary school level. There's what you know is is labeled as gen ed inclusion but again it takes the coordinated program review or whatever that's called now the audit basically of the programs to understand what that actually looks like. So it's a very complex department all of this to say is a very complex department. So I would be asking for these sort of big picture things that I think are really important based on my communication and contact with this community. And the para distribution and allocation, I know that, for example, in the McGlynn school, in the middle school program, you know, we have two classrooms, there's a sixth classroom with one para, you know, and a 7-8 with no para. And so while it looks like there's paras assigned to those classrooms, there are two different classrooms. And so we don't understand that there's actually zero paras in one classroom. So we need to be able to disaggregate that a little bit to better understand, especially as we're talking about equity across the district. And then the other big things I'm hearing is that there's no unified music or art or adaptive PE. So the rare opportunities that are being provided, frankly, right now for inclusion, meaningful inclusion in the district, for our students with low incidence disability and higher need are generally in these specials, which are, you know, art and music and PE, but they're not adapted. So, in fact, the students are actually not able to participate, especially imagine music class when you're learning the complexities of instrumental notes and you have a student who is, you know, in an access classroom or language-based classroom, that lesson's not appropriate for them. And so how are we differentiating curriculum or how are we looking at that? So I think that again, gets back to PD for our teachers and our staff. So there's some bigger sort of elemental pieces that I think we're not talking about here. And I don't know, I guess I'm deferring to my colleagues and to the staff on how do we address those issues?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If I may.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I have, okay. The note about the collaboration with MFN and Shelly Gross, I was just wondering what that was and if there was any sort of financial implication on that with either grant funding or what that actually is. I think this is for Ms. Bowen.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That'd be great. Thank you. I wanted to know what that was. That's very helpful. And it could even, well, depending on, yeah, okay, for grant money, that could be interesting as well, just to, you know, sort of put that into the grant writing. That's great. Thank you. And then let me see the shifts, roles and responsibilities as one of your goals. What does that mean under the special under your request, Joan, Ms. Bowen?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and then for the enhancing the portfolios, getting back to the training that's happening for the paraprofessionals, again, is that gonna include a pay increase for additional roles and training that they've received?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I know. I don't want the specific details. I appreciate that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's fine. Thank you. And then I guess I would ask, you know, back to member Graham's point, Ms. Bowen, if we could include the narrative for the schools with, you know, some of that disaggregated information, that would be really helpful. And I can, you know, clarify offline with you if that's useful. And then under the Curtis-Tufts, I'm wondering why 22 students and no paraprofessionals at the Curtis-Tufts?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I think I think that might be it between everyone else's questions. I'm sure if I have more, I can email you. So, and the adaptive PE in unified music and arts, we'll just, I guess, continue that conversation is what I'm hearing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I think I'll carry over some of these questions for that then. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was, yeah, raising my hand because I couldn't unmute. But I also wanted to apologize for being late. And I had the chance to read through this. And I think those changes make sense as well. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, sure. I'm sorry, I didn't see, did you guys discuss the aspect of the full address consideration that we talked about?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I guess, thank you, Member Ruseau, and I guess I would also just like to think about, as I'm thinking about that, just to sort of think about language around presentation, you know, when we talk about how people need to reach out or if they want to do presentation or what have you that, you know, the policy just includes something that, you know, if accommodations are required to let us know, right? So basically if I'm imagining somebody who, you know, maybe doesn't communicate with words and uses a, you know, maybe has cerebral palsy, is not communicating with words, needs a device to be able to articulate, or not needs a device, but needs a system technologically to be able to communicate with their device, right? Like any sort of accommodation like that for public presentation, I think we should just be thinking about, align like that in all of our policy, right? Like if there are combinations of, yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So can you tell us what BEDB stands for? Maybe we could spell it out the first time so folks know what that actually is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, it's an alphabetical in order numbering system. I see.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I wonder why they don't, why don't we use numbers then instead, because it just begs that with all the acronyms that exist in education, this sort of opens the question for me, like, well, what does that acronym mean? And if it means nothing, like, why are we not using numbers? And maybe it's just because that's the way it was done before.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm wondering about, and maybe this comes under the suspend the order, but I'm wondering about when we know that there's a lot of people to speak on a particular topic. Do we want to wait until sometimes there's a, you know, there's a, the superintendent is discussing the topic and then people want to respond to this discussion of the topic. So I'm just thinking about times in the past where I've been in meetings and I'm sure you guys have been there as well. I know you have member Rousseau where the room's been packed to speak about a particular topic. And so I wonder if in that instance, it makes sense because there's a ton of people talking about that topic. And then we just sort of go on to the normal procedural stuff as opposed to having this community conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So maybe we could articulate that so that we are the presentation specifically not public comment yet. So we're gonna need to include this community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I guess this is, and I can understand sort of the questions around this. So I'm thinking about in the past, before I was on the school committee, you know, when we would come on multiple occasions, either presenting as part of the special ed parent advisory council or concerns from the, you know, annual report or concerns from the special ed parent advisory council about things that, you know, we were hoping would be discussed or communicated. So this is a huge, and it had- This is not those though. Huh?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I see. This is strictly non-organization, individual participation presentations. Is that what you're saying? Or it could be a community group, I guess, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and I think just making it if I may and I think also just making it really clear. If that's the case if somebody is coming before us to present and I know that this will be read at every meeting but also just either the chair through the chair I would assume, making it very clear that we appreciate the presentation and we want to let you know that, you know, we appreciate And, you know, it can be put on an agenda for discussion in the next meeting. But we're, you know, based on our policy, we can't discuss it at this meeting. So that I just think it's going to be awkward if somebody comes before us with a presentation, and then we're like, okay, thank you. And nobody responds, right. So I think we need to make it really clear that it needs to be because we need to allow members of the community to understand and give us a time to review the presentation so that we can respond? Is that why this is here?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So that's an interesting distinction. So does that mean that if we're in the consent agenda and we don't ask for a division of the subcommittee meetings, we're not sharing with the community what occurred at the subcommittee meetings as we have in the past? I mean, I know that we are on paper, but we're not actually explaining it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So what do you mean by special meetings?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: M-A-T-H-S, Paul.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We also need to include Curtis Tufts.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you go back to the top, Member Ruseau, sorry? Sure. So was this formally, just if I may, was this formally referred to in any other language, i.e. bullying policy or anything like that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm wondering how they differentiate it. And maybe again, it's a Howard question, I don't know, but I'm curious.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's definitely intersectionality. So I guess sorry. Yeah. No, that's good.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wonder if we should include some language to that effect, just that there may be overlap and intersectionality between this policy and blah, blah policy, and both should be referenced or something to that effect, because I think one might assume that this supersedes another, which was what I was wondering when I was looking at it, because obviously I'm not an attorney. So, yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess I would want, what I'm suggesting is one line somewhere that talks about the intersectionality of policies, you know, regarding harassment and bullying and, you know, should be referenced. or the individual policy should be referenced around intersectionality for bullying and harassment, something along those lines, just a one line so that people don't. So I'm imagining, say, for example, you're a parent or a caregiver and you've had the unfortunate situation where your student has experienced something along these lines, and you come into or are looking at the policy online to figure out under which category, you know, your situation falls. And again, even around training for staff, you know, are they differentiated? If so, how, you know, in you know, where is the intersectionality? And I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to me that there are some. So, you know, it's just a similar situation. It's just interesting because it's a similar situation when you're thinking about, you know, special education complaints. I mean, there's a special education complaint system for procedural guidelines for IEPs. And then, you know, there's intersectionality with civil rights, right? So you have one office that handles one thing and another office that handles another thing, but there's certainly intersectionality across the two. So I just, you know, in the interest of being informed, I want to make sure that the community understands that, and the staff, frankly, understands that there's intersectionality, but I'm not exactly sure what that sentence should be. And it sounds like you're saying it, you know, may fit in the bullying better than it fits here because of the federal administration's guidance. So I'm okay with that. I just want to be on the record that, you know, we need to do that in one or the other.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I would also just offer potentially procedural guidelines for special education as well as an intersectional policy, but related policies.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'd have to look at the actual document, but it's procedural guidelines for special education We get them in every mailing of everything we get from the school. I'll ask Joan exactly what the name is, but.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I found it member Ruseau. Oh, you did? Okay. It's, um, parents, sorry. Um, parents notice of procedural safeguards.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, shall I do attendance? Roll call, sounds good, thank you. Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes, here. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here I thought I had everybody.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member van der Kleef?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Thank you. I just want to actually expand on the last question as well. I'm wondering about, first of all, I just want to sort of ensure that the community knows that least restrictive environment starts in a general education classroom and is only changed when the nature or the severity of the disability is such that the student is not able to be educated in general education. So that's the free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. So we should be starting there obviously first. So I think that begs the bigger question of how many substantially separate classrooms we have and what that is for equity in our system as a whole. But that's another conversation that we'll have I'm sure over the course of the budget overall. And I know that the departments themselves we'll be speaking, I mean the, yeah, we'll be having this continued conversation. So we're going into the, you know, bits and pieces of the schools themselves, but I would also ask of the schools that we're talking about for additional paraprofessionals, which I've seen the bulleted list, and I think you mean in the individual budgets, is that right? The bulleted list? Because I'm looking at the cover sheet and it's not the bulleted list that you mean, you mean within the individual budgets, correct? For each of the elementary schools? Yes, Mr. Murphy. Yeah. So, I would also ask, you know what the special education programming looks like at those schools and again, you know, just for to sort of ask folks to start off on the appropriate mindset if you will is that you know there are. No special education students, as our special education director Kathy Medaglia would always say, who I really appreciated for saying that. Every student is a general education student. Some students receive special education services. Same with English language, right? Every student is a general education student. Some students receive English language services. So just that we can put it in that light would be super helpful. you know, as we're thinking about these additional paraprofessionals across these schools, I would like to know if there's an equitable distribution currently, and it doesn't have to be for tonight, we can have this for the next meeting in terms of the departmental, but within these schools, are there equitable special education programming in the schools? So that would be something that I would want to, you know, know as well if we could.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. Member Ruseau, then Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, make a point of parliamentary procedure, please. Ma'am. Thank you. If we could just ask for name and address on the record for any speakers, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member McLaughlin. Mayor, my question is not related to the motion, so I don't know if you wanted to move that business forward first and then refer to me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, I gotta get my spreadsheet. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, Mary actually know would love to be referred if I can I have my hand up I deferred to the motion. Thank you, man. I was just wondering if for the in the. I want to thank everyone for all their hard work first of all the principles and everyone that put all this work together it's clearly a lot of work. and a lot for the community and all of us to digest, of course. And I know that it gets smoother over the course of these meetings. So I want the community to be patient in the literacy aspect of it and understanding sort of what folks are talking about. But to that end, I would love it if we can have some definition, if we might, of some of the terminology that, again, the community might not know. And I'll do this, obviously, next week with some of the special education programming. But for instance, What is the designation of instructional support staff? What is that defined as?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Instructional.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I don't see any with, I don't think I see any with a one, but so far I've seen them with zero. And so I was wondering what they meant, but is that what they mean? It substitutes?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so it's not related to reading specialists because reading specialists, I don't see disaggregated in these.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I find them super helpful, and I want to thank you for that. I'm definitely a visual learner, and I find it to be very visual, so I appreciate that, and the disaggregated data in terms of breaking it out of the narrative. So it's a nice sort of, what do you teachers call it, the graphic organizer, right? So thank you for those graphic organizing skills. But I also guess it would be helpful, and not obviously tonight, but moving forward. And I'm sort of building a spreadsheet right now Mr. Murphy that is doing sort of the comparisons between the schools based on those based on these items, but also delineating you know that teacher category because it's big right because it's like it would be good to know like how many special ed teachers how many gen ed teachers how many EL teachers how many reading professionals right so like how that breaks down and I know that That's again, a little bit more of a disaggregation of the data, but I just wanna be able to compare apples to apples. And so if we could do that, that would be super helpful. And I know that just even working on the spreadsheet as we're talking tonight has been really helpful for me again, as a visual learner to get a macro picture of the district, which is what you're really, if I'm not mistaken, asking us to do because we've been so departmentalized. So how are we looking at this from a macro perspective? And I just wanna say, I really appreciate that tonight. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Khan?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, hold on. Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone. Here. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Lungocorn, I mean Mayor Lungocorn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I was gonna ask if we could, well, there's no rule that says we have to do it in ABC order for the roll call. So I was gonna ask if we could do it that way on the first and then on the second choice, if we can go in recurrence alphabetical, so then folks that are last aren't feeling left out, or is that an issue for people?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just do it. I would say do it. Okay, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Whatever you guys want. Hold on one sec. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Nicole Donato Jr. Member McLaughlin. Brianna Brothers. Member Mustone. Ken Mallon. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, and then we do want to Mayor Wango Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just wanna let you know, Superintendent and Mayor, I am also doing the tally like we normally do. So I'll send that to Susie and those folks as well. So we have that too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Not hold on one second. OK. I have to. I'm sorry I have to look at my list too because we have to if others choose them. So I'm trying to multitask here. Bear with me. OK member Graham. Seth Hill. Excuse me, member Kreatz. Lou in Tapa. Member McLaughlin, Henrik Gideon. Member Restone. Pat McCabe. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, can you say that again?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Kristen Scalise. Marilonga Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you need me to read those back, Superintendent, or are you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham chose Seth Hill. Okay. Member Kreatz chose Lou Intapa. Melanie McLaughlin chose Henrik Gideons. Tell me when you're ready. I'm ready. Okay, Member Mustone chose Pat McCabe.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau chose Leroy LaFleur. Okay. Member Vanderclue chose Kristen Scalise.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn chose Dan Puccio. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I missed member Van der Kloot, excuse me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin, present. Member Mustone. Present. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, we got it now. Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member Laughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. He said yes, I heard him. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm a Kreatz. Yes. I'm a McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Mayor. The good of the order is a category under Robert's Rules of Orders that we had voted in earlier in the year, essentially at our first meeting of the month. And I think on occasion, it's been dropped, but moving forward, I would ask that it is included on the first meeting of the month. And generally, it is to check in with the school committee as a group, as a whole, to check in on the good of the order. Essentially, how are things going? Are things going well? Are there things that folks feel we need work on? you know, are the meeting scheduling's going fine? Like, it's an opportunity for the committee to offer up anything they have, both positive or, you know, things that need to be worked on. So that's the good of the order.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think these are, you know, both through the chair, my colleagues I think these are both things that have been talked about, certainly, you know, individually or amongst less than a quorum with folks over time so I think these are both items that need to be addressed. Training and Roberts rules of order is, you know, highly recommended it's a really important, it's what how we operate and how we run and, you know, I know when I came on as a new school committee member there was no orientation there was no indication of how to do things. We had to seek out training and. I know MASC has an event. I don't know how many folks have gone and you know I went to it that one time pre pandemic and learn some things certainly there but I think a course in Roberts Rules of Order is definitely in order and I would also say we've talked about the length of our meetings in the past and there has been some conversation about you know, more frequently meetings for less time and folks sort of tend to say that they think that that would just mean more frequent meetings that are longer. So they don't necessarily wanna do that either. I don't know what the answer is there, but I think that clearly when we have to go two, sometimes three weeks in between talking to each other, it makes it very difficult because the items on the agenda get longer and longer, understandably. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I'm sorry. I forgot, Mayor. Our new rules have asked that we include the student rep in attendance, and I did have it. I actually reached out to Colin Bailey to ensure that he was coming today, and then I get caught up in the roll call, and I apologize that there's the student rep here, so I will add him to the attendance roll. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. I think the mayor's not here now. Maybe she got booted out by mistake. Will we go with the vice chair in the meantime?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. through the chair, I would also agree. You know, I don't want more frequent longer meetings. I just want to clarify that I am looking for, you know, I'm hoping that as part of the good of the order, perhaps we can come up with some suggestions of how to how to, you know, make the meetings less than six, eight hours, especially as we're coming into budget season. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just was gonna say that I had the agenda in front of me as well. So the report of committees, behavioral health and special education subcommittee meeting, which is myself for the report and bear with me one second, because I was going between tabs, it's gonna take a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. The Behavioral Health and Special Education Subcommittee met on April 15th. That meeting was for, there were several members present. My subcommittee members are Member Ruseau and Member Mustone. Member Van der Kloot was also present in place of Member Mustone. The Director of Pupil Services, Joan Bowen, and Director of Guidance, Stacey Schulman, attend these meetings regularly. as does CPAC and several parents and other administrators. We have scheduled a presentation to the school committee for May 24th, where we will put forward what we hope we come to terms with a recommendation at our next meeting. for proposed policy in our next meeting is, sorry, it's the meeting right before our May 24th meeting. So I don't have the calendar in front of me right now. I thought it was at the end of these minutes. It usually is, but I can get back to that. And so we have been talking about building friendships and community and schools. And so we've had a lot of meetings over the course of the year where Members have come to the committee with various ideas and resources, and we've been talking about those. And one of the things that we're talking about is the common ground program that currently exists at the high school, and potentially using that as a model of building friendships. They use a reverse inclusion model right now. And so we would look to this next year at sort of showing what's happening right now, because it's not actually a course, but potentially creating a syllabus, but having the teachers, obviously, Mr. Skorka and Ms. Andre, potentially create a syllabus for an actual course that will work around building friendships and community. And we're still going to be pursuing the best buddies and a number of things now that hopefully will, you know, be getting better through the pandemic and being spending more time, being able to spend more time within the school and in the community to build those friendships, which are so important. And then we also had the latter half of the meeting is behavioral health. And again, we will be presenting as part of our May 24 presentation on policy recommendations for behavioral health. So we were talking about the Sandy Hook promise, which currently exists in schools and requirements by DESE for mental health training in our schools and behavioral health supports. So we are looking forward to presenting to the school committee on the 24th, our recommendations. Any questions or comments? Can I get a motion to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, roll call. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I also wanted to ask, I know we had the opportunity to speak last week to the chair, Nurse Ray, and I know that it had been mentioned that it'd be helpful to share if we have vaccine information. Do you want us, is there anything that you're asking for students to do that or not do that? Like, I'm curious.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and I guess, may I, Mayor? I had a follow-up. So I guess the question is, shall we send vaccine records to you or to the nursing office if they would like them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I just wanted to add for members of the community, obviously the committee of the whole budget meetings are the place where a lot of this nitty gritty detail comes out. And I wanted to ask, I know with the pandemic last year, it was difficult to get binders around this stuff. And I don't know about my colleagues, but for me, I work much better with the tactile budget binders with the ability to move back and forth during the meetings, what have you. So will we be getting those this session?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That'd be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the PowerPoint. I was going to ask if it could be, I didn't see it in the drive, so I'd love to have it sent to the members if you would as well. And then I know that we've had discussion in the past, and I just wanted to double check because of the conversation around the process again. And we talked about a flowchart, and especially for the community that is trying to understand the process, I think you know, we have meetings ourselves and we have a lot of conversation that we may understand things more than, say, the layperson does. So I really do think we need this visual. And I don't know if that's in the presentation or where that is, but we need a visual of a flowchart on what the process is and how it works. So I know to remember Graham's conversation earlier around, you know, when's the appropriation? What's the appropriation? How does this work? from the city, what have you. I think the flowchart really helps with that. So I'm wondering what the status is, if I can. Will people be getting that? I know there was some discussion, we'll be getting it before the budget meetings, which are May 3rd, but that means the public didn't necessarily get it in tonight's meeting. So that's the point is I really wanna make sure that the public understands the process, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we go back to the side of the flowchart that's in the presentation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think the process of how the decisions are made. So in the flow chart that we had worked on together, I was under the impression that the process around when the city appropriation, how it goes, what happens if the school committee votes yes, what happens if the school committee votes no, whose decision it is, where it goes, because we don't have any information on that. And we had this situation last time where it was a very where there was a closed vote on there was a potential no vote on the budget and the community you know wanted to know what the impact of that would be and it was not clear and it wasn't clear to committee members and it's still not clear to me so I would like to know that yeah I think it's a fair question it's one that at least in the abstract has been um discussed that I've certainly been part of the conversations a few different times and uh including in recent months as
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, so do we know what the status is going to be on the cost of the summer fun camp this year, what the staffing is gonna be, you know, sort of how that's gonna, I'm thrilled that it's happening. You know, we're definitely gonna be going.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, may I may I follow up question or do you want to let okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so I know that in the past, we've worked with community schools to ensure that there is a obviously clear statement on all applications that Medford Public Schools does not discriminate based on ability, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth, so that the community members know that if you have a child with a disability who you want to attend summer fun camp in our school district, they are fully able permitted should be allowed to attend summer fun camp, because it is a community program community based program which is obviously accessible and open to all individuals so. We had something similar. I know Mr. Petrales is on the line and he was very thoughtful about how that was written into the applications in the past, but just want to make sure that that's really clear to the community because it's an important program where another opportunity to build friendships between children with and without varying abilities. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. One last question. And when are the applications available?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and so may I ask again, Mayor, one more question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And so are there opportunities for camp Councilors or what have you? I know in the past, Mr. Petralos has been really great about recruiting phenomenal adults to be Councilors within the camp. And I'm wondering where we are at on staffing with that and whether or not there are opportunities available for our rising seniors, rising juniors, folks who may be looking for a summer job, what have you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if individuals are interested in applying for a camp Councilor position, what would they do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: know, it's a great example, another shining star in Medford's crown or shining jewel in Medford's crown of, you know, an example of diversity and affordability and accessibility. And Anthony has really led the charge on that. And I want to say thank you to Mr. Petrales and Mr. Droschke and others who have been so critical in that program. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Mr. Murphy, for putting this together. I appreciate the time you've taken to meet with me on this as well. I would love to know, I guess one thing was, I understand that in the past, teachers have been funding some of these passes. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So Mayor, may I get in the queue again after Member Ruseau for a follow up? Or however you want to do that. Did we lose the mayor again? I think we did.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I'm in the queue, Mayor. Member McLaughlin, I think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I was going to say regarding the budget meeting, thank you for folks that mentioned that. Mr. Murphy, thank you for this report. I think that the information we need is really important for the transportation budget meeting so that we have it. And so I would ask that it be disaggregated so that we have both the, I know that you gave us the numbers, but I'd love to know how many economically disadvantaged at the high school if we do that initially, or if we do all. So those numbers specifically would be really helpful. And then I would also like to know which students, if possible, which students are actually outside of a two-mile radius, if there are any, because I know that the law requires us to provide transportation to students outside of a two-mile radius, if I'm not mistaken. I was under the impression that that was required. So I was also told when I asked this question in the past that we didn't have students that were beyond a two-mile radius or that for those that we did, transportation was being provided. So I would just love that issue addressed through the budget meeting. And if I'm wrong around the legal requirements that that be addressed as well. And clearly we all know from McKinney-Vento students, which are homeless students, we are required to provide transportation for those students. So I know that you put them on there, but that is clearly also a legal requirement. So I guess my question is for the budget hearing on the transportation where we will have this topic, can we please have the disaggregated data on these numbers to include any student population beyond a two-mile radius. So the three disaggregated pieces would be economically disadvantaged at the high school, total at the high school, and any students outside of a two-mile radius. If that would be acceptable, I would appreciate it. No problem. Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Yes. Never hand a clue.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, now I can. I also can't rename so Peter if you could, Dr. Cushman, if you could do that, that'd be great. Member Kreatz, Member Graham, I'm sorry. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Audio weird for you guys? I'm getting feedback on my audio. Are you guys getting that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. OK. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Marilyn O'Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the information member. I wanted to ask, so I know that you talked a little bit about the equity in ELA and some of those variants about inclusion and other materials, and I don't know if this is a topic for the subcommittee or whether it should be a report or what have you, but I'm curious about An update on a disability curriculum and an update on the anti-racism curriculum, both of which have been discussions for this year. So I don't know if that's going to be happening later in the year or if that's been a topic.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, that'd be great. And I would ask that for all of the curriculum, whether there are supplements for EL and special education. So I know that for journeys, and Dr. Chiesa and I have spoken about this in the past, that for journeys there are supplements for special education and for English learners. And when we were in school, you know, in elementary school, we were unaware of that until about third grade. And so, you know, I want to make sure that there are supplements for special education and EL and that families and teachers are aware that there are supplements. So if we could, you know, ask that as well in the context of the curriculum, or again, whether this committee thinks that there should be a presentation, I'm open to either, but I'd like to know What those are and then I would also like to add that this Wednesday at 6 o'clock the Special Education Parent Advisory Council is having a two hour session with a general educator and a special educator where they're addressing differentiated curriculum. So how we're taking grade level curriculum and approach in in helping differentiate it for students who have different levels of learning abilities so. that will be happening this Wednesday, but I'd also like to know, again, an application to these various curricula that we're talking about, how that is differentiated or in which way we're considering those things. So I'm not sure. I guess I'd defer to my colleagues in asking, should that be curriculum subcommittee? Should that be an individual separate report? I'm wondering what folks think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's very helpful. I'm wondering, is that something that is expected for the end of this year? And I guess my concern is I don't want to find out after the fact that a certain curriculum has been chosen and it doesn't have a special education supplement or it doesn't have any L.A. supplement or what have you. So I'm just wondering what that process will be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Superintendent. That's helpful. And also, I just remember Mustone and I had put forward a motion some time back for an anti-racism curriculum, and I'm wondering if the task force is working on that or how that's going.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, some time ago this year, Member Mustone and I put forward a motion for an anti-racism curriculum, anti-white supremacy, anti-racism curriculum. And I was assuming that the Anti-Racism Task Force was addressing that, but I guess I'm wondering if that's the case now or where that's at.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Seconded by member. I didn't know, I'm not sure what the motion is, sorry. Just to accept the minutes from the curriculum subcommittee meeting. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second. Motion to approve as amended.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Grant.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the minutes. With the may I make a wording for the Director of Pupil Services and I need to review for the individuals with disabilities. So I would say a motion to approve pending additional language from Director of Pupil Services regarding students with disabilities. Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to table?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, not the policy, right. Sorry. Second motion to approve the minutes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. No. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van de Kloop? Yes. Mayor Logo Kern?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I have my hand up. Oh, yes. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I just also wanted to mention that we had commentary from families who felt like that they had not really been aware of the of the roundtables. And, um, I know that that had come out on the Friday, um, mailing from the superintendent, but there was some family feedback that they felt like there could have been more engagement around. how parents were being reached. And then we had also asked for some demographic information about who is actually attending these round tables, whether there is diversity represented at the table and in what way. I know that there was great coverage for translation and really appreciate that from the district. But I know that a lot of the translators were sitting in empty rooms and I just wanna make sure that we're collecting that data so that we're able to inform as we're talking about the strategic plan, who is not at the table and how we can work to get them there. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: McLaughlin seconded by actually, the motion is to approve the motion for the meeting agenda portion. Regarding that. Okay, just clarifying. Um Yes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van de Kloop.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Khan.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just, I was gonna help with the clarification of that, but I think Member Ruseau did a good job, so I, nevermind, thank you. I have a motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that there should be some, and this is a conversation that we've had before and I'm sure the rules policy and equity subcommittee of which I'm part will address this at some point, hopefully before the end of the year, where we need to do some orientation for new school committee members so the other piece of it is that it's never really been clear to me what the report of the Secretary is. And so generally you hear me say no, there's no report of this unless somebody has a question typically what I've seen is if someone has a question about the, the bills and they want to ask a question of the Secretary maybe just, you know, in that context, but that to me seems like it would be under bills and I think this is really timely because I was not at the RP meeting when you guys were discussing this but Tonight I was thinking to myself, why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep asking for a report of the Secretary and there's no report of the Secretary? But maybe you guys have some history I don't know about. So please feel free to share. Member Kreatz, then Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, let me get my sheet. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have a question. Member McLaughlin. Can you not, the public that I don't believe has the packets or access to the packets, can somebody read the motion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I do. Read the policy, please. Sure, one second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, I would say, can you summarize the policy for the public, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve, and we're going to post this on the website, obviously. Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Kreatz, I mean, sorry, Member Vandekloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Van der Kloot, yes. Mayor Lengelkern, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to second member Ruseau sentiments and thank the superintendent and we're fortunate to have you. This has been a hell of a year. It's been really good to know you and I look forward to continuing to work together. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I guess I would also just put out in terms of getting the information out. I appreciate the superintendent's weekly correspondence but I'm not sure that everybody reads all of it and so I think I don't know it might be worth at some point asking families what the most effective mode of communication is. And I know in the past when that question has been asked, we've been told all of the above. So, you know, social media, robocall, you know, the superintendent's notices, the classroom. So I would, you know, say all of the above if possible. And then backing it up a little bit, I'm wondering if there's any data on the numbers for the student, for the remote population and our in-person students now that things are starting to, I know that we're not there for the high school yet, but I'm assuming that for elementary and middle, there must be some data there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Across all of our schools, it's 60 to 65% in-person? I think the number is 62%, but there's
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Um, I'd like to hear from some from some parents before voting on the motion if we could because I'd like to hear perspectives and I'm going to forego my place in line right now so I can hear from a number of folks and then I'll circle back around. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I want to thank the parents that were here tonight it was really good to hear from all of you it's really encouraging to see you all coming together, asking for to first eat the table, and to be a part of the community, and I think that you deserve that and I think we have to figure out a way to make that happen. And I want to get back to what another colleague was saying, several folks were saying about some of the definitions of the items that folks are talking about. Clearly, you all have put quite a bit of work into your organizing and your discussion around this. So I'm sure you've had a lot of discussion around a kitchen table or Zoom or what have you around these issues. And equitable access is a huge part. As I hear you talking about this, I'm really, really encouraged to hear people talking about offsetting costs and sliding fee scales. And I know we had, you know, a colleague talk about hundreds of thousands of dollars that some people make, but and there are people, you know, in our community that don't. And so how we're figuring that out is really critical and equitable access for all. I think I know that Megan has been really great about ensuring that students with disabilities are included in the program, that there's that there's a statement right on the application that families know that the program is accessible and that there's hiring of staff that should be trained to work with students of all abilities, students of all languages, and that those factors are being considered as well. So I am encouraged by the community rallying around this and the participation, and I would love to take a vote on member Graham's motion around the wage. a motion and I would also like to ask what the next steps forward could be in terms of sliding fee skills because there are very much families who can't. I know that access around building access and room is obviously one issue, but also the sliding fee skill is another really big issue and I want to know what training is going to be available for staff or students with disabilities as well in our individual learners. So.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Connor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I would like to make a motion, Mayor, if I might. Yes. I'd like to make a motion that there's a meeting that can be held with the parents that have supported this process and the administration and school committee members if they're interested. that we could put something on the books for that maybe within the next month. So I make a motion that we schedule a meeting to meet with the parents of the Medford parents for better after school and before school care and that within the next month or month and a half. So April 12th, May 12th, by the end of the day.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I didn't ask for a school committee meeting on this. So for clarification, I am fine with a, you know, a working group task force group, but what have we, whatever, you know, sort of is, is most workable for folks. What I want is that the conversations and the data and the information that the parent group is collecting is shared with administration and is ultimately shared with school committee so that we can see what their recommendations are. So we heard from tonight what the administration's recommendations are. I am looking for family and community engagement for this family group. So whether that's a work group or, you know, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter to me. I'm happy to be involved in it. I'd like to be involved in it. And I'd like it to happen, you know, by the end of May.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I would like some idea of what the process is gonna be for getting feedback from the families. So I made a motion that we have some process by which we're getting feedback from the families for the before school and after school program. And I appreciate that we all have a lot to do in the next couple of months with budgets. And I also appreciate that families are putting a lot of thought into this and clearly I know that the rest of my colleagues do as well. And so whether it's end of May or in June, not really, you know, I want to make sure that we're getting data from families, that we're understanding what it is their experience is. I know we've heard from some of them tonight. We haven't certainly heard from all of them and, you know, what this will look like, whether it's with, you know, Megan. And I don't, I never said that the superintendent had to be at this either. I think the superintendent certainly will get feedback from her staff and you know we can come back around but we've had round tables we've had discussions this is clearly an ongoing issue and I think that this is something that we need to have a discussion over that's not at 10 30 at night um you know in bits and pieces so I'd like to move the motion forward I'm sorry what I just what what is no we're just waiting for a second and I don't know if I don't know if there is one is there so
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have no doubt. I don't think that it's a matter of trust through the chair to member Van der Kloot. I think it's a matter of structure and putting things in place so that it actually happens. And what I heard from families tonight is that, you know, they were wondering why they weren't, you know, incorporated into the presentation tonight they were wondering why they didn't have feedback on that tonight. And I think that we hear this a lot from families and then we hear that they are going to be spoken with or you know this will happen. And what I'm looking for is something. a little bit more concrete that families know that there's actually going to be a session where more families can come at a reasonable time and share their concerns and those concerns can be documented. We could collect data on them and we can have that to inform our decisions moving forward, not just with relation to pay, but to all of the other issues that we heard tonight.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of privilege, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of privilege, Mayor. So I understand this, but what we're hearing is that we're hearing from some folks who are saying, we do family engagement all the time. We've been doing family engagement. Our family engagement is great. Our door is open. And then we're hearing from other folks who are saying, you're not including us, and we want to be part of the conversation. And the motion that I've asked to put forward is that before the end of the school year, I'm willing to make it so that it's not May, but the motion that I've asked to put forward is that before the end of the school year, we have a listening session with families about the before and after school program so that we can collect data from families about what their needs are above and beyond this school committee meeting. That is what I'm asking for in my motion. Thank you. And I'd like to move the question, please. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I just like to ask, through the chair, I'd like to say thank you to member Graham for that information. And this is when it would be helpful to have data from the feedback session. So I'm assuming that we were gonna be getting data from the round table session so that we understand what the feedback was at the elementary level, because we weren't all able to be in the different sessions. So that would be very helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm going to table that and ask that we include that as part of the agenda for the next meeting so that it's not old business, but it's rather part of the agenda. That's what the motion is. It's supposed to be a monthly aspect of our agenda. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Longo-Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn. Your humor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It looks like the superintendent's trying to unmute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Can we also just keep a record of how many people are in each of the rooms in terms of respondents for all of the different divisions so we know what kind of demographics we're getting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And Roger Cashman needs to go to middle school. I also can't choose, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, thank you. So we talked a lot about sort of, you know, in the sort of language of IEP actually, what are the measurable benchmarks, current performance level, right? So, you know, knowing what our current performance level is, you know, based on this mission and vision, and we expect to go with measurable benchmarks and how the data is actually going to demonstrate that was a big part of our conversation. and having some more specificity around, you know, what sort of some of these, how do you define, you know, what it means to be successful in the 21st century, you know, and also that we're sort of thinking about when we say all students, what does that mean? You know, students regardless of ability, background, ethnicity, et cetera. So being more specific in the wording. And then we talked a lot about the partnerships that we've really appreciated in this past year with the pandemic and being able to see what's actually happening in schools and teachers really relying on parents and vice versa and us being able to appreciate what they're doing and be included in what our children are learning has been really valuable. Is there anything anyone else from the group would like to add?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, just regarding the data, which is also what the special education subgroup was saying is that, you know, the quantifiable piece is also, you know, again, you could say MCAS scores, but also getting back to that all students, how are we disaggregating the data by subgroups, right? So if we're looking at, you know, how all students are doing, if we're looking at quantifiable data, how are we doing that around subgroups and reporting that out so that we're thinking about all students? Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, actually, I was pointing, we did not end up doing the roll at the beginning, so I didn't know if you wanted to do that now. Please. Member Graham. Here. Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin, present. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes, here. Member Van der Kloot. Present.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham was like, I do? Thank you, Member Ruseau. I just wanted to say welcome to Colin and David, and it's nice to see you. I know we've been exchanging email and having a little bit of email tag, so I'm really glad. And thank you to Member Ruseau for convening the meeting so that we can hear from you guys publicly in this meeting. So it's good to see you. Thanks for coming.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, point of information member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Would you mind also just sharing what the, I know that you said regarding the, what had happened in the Boston school committee. So maybe for folks who are watching or who don't know what you're referencing, maybe you could share that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. No, it's good to hear this, and I'm glad that you really felt incorporated into the site council. Colin, one of the things I am wondering about David and Colin both, as we're thinking about the vice president and president, I'm assuming you mean the class officers.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So yeah, that are elected by the class, which again, I mean, I think that's a good starting point. But I also want to make sure that we're thinking about our students that are outside of those regular sort of spaces. So students that might not necessarily be elected to the class officers, right? Or, you know, haven't run for office or don't want to or whatever. It's like, how are we thinking about and I know that The class offices represent all students, but I think it would be nice to see a mix too. So yes, so that's my point member or so. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That was pretty profound, David. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's something that we have to look at data-wise as well. You know, when we talk about subgroups and, you know, the classism, and ableism, frankly, that exists in our culture and in our community. So I think that that's really important. I appreciate you naming that. And I think that that's exactly what I was addressing in terms of the diversity and thinking about outside of the box around that, but also, you know, what kind of how data tells a story for us with that. And I know for me, even last year, going to the To the curriculum night, there were a number of experiences I had where there were comparisons made at curriculum night to standard classes and students versus honor and AP students. And it was literally by staff, right? They were talking about sort of, well, our standards class sort of doesn't, you know, may not listen or may have behavior or whatever, just sort of, and it was really right in the presentations. And I thought that was really interesting. And I did bring it to the principal's attention and I'm sure it wasn't intentional and I'm not trying to call anybody out on it, but I think the implicit bias is really real in that way. And so I appreciate you naming that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And just backing it up a little bit. If you guys can tell me how were you selected in your liaison roles? What is that process to the school currently?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to also say to Colin and David, like there's a million ways to sort of think about this, right? So I think one of the things that I was reading about in the, with the Boston School Committee student members too, was it seemed like the individual that resigned was part of a group of students that resigned, right? So they had another group, whether it was their own, you know, school committee themselves. I forget what they called it. I hadn't seen, I don't remember in the article, but I think they did have like a school committee or something, right? So they have their own group that basically, I think, you know, the representatives probably went back to and met just as you were saying right in a group setting like after school group that is created at the high school, you know where you have representatives that are doing this that are part of the student government, if you will, and to the superintendent's point. I'm sure you've seen your predecessor, Justin Tseng is running for city council in Medford, right? And he was an excellent school committee representative and we enjoyed him and listening to him and his perspective. And he was also on the superintendent hiring committee. So I think that when students realize how valuable their voice is and when they realize that their voice is heard and does have a lot of social capital, then they really start to, I think, come to the table right and rise to the occasion and your voice is so critical, it's the most critical voice in my opinion. And when you guys really, you know, can articulate that and express that then I think that's, that's really the key and figuring out how to do that right. working around, if you will, the legislature, right? Because this is the law, we have to follow the law, but what other options do we have, right? So if we have a representative, you guys meet with your schools, you come back with a statement from this organization to us, any of those things that you can think about as workarounds. And we're all, I'm sure, happy to talk to you about any of these things. And so to the superintendent's point as well, superintendent respectfully, I love the idea of liaison to the students. The only thing about that is I think all seven members, maybe six members would be clamoring to be the liaison to the students because we all very much care. about of course about your opinion and your perspective. So I think that there could be a way that you know maybe we think about liaisons per class or liaisons per school or sort of anything like that so that every member can be included and have a voice a conversation with the student but also you should know many of us have office hours that are open, obviously, but also will meet for coffee anytime with any constituent yourselves included, because you are constituents. Even for those who are not voting age yet, but I think you know you guys are either 18 or coming up on 18 right. Yeah, so there you go, you're constituents. And the other, anybody else are pre-constituents. So we work for you, right? We're elected, we work for you. And remembering that is super important. So I want your voice to be heard. And there's a lot of ways to, I don't wanna say skin a cat, cause I don't like that image, but I guess that's sort of what I'm talking about. There's a lot of ways to get things done.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, also it was something that was noticed in chambers because I'm assuming at some point will we be back in chambers and this was something that I had mentioned last year to. the tech people is that it would be nice for the student to have a microphone. So that would be something else that I would add. Instead of having to saddle up to one of the members and squish over and speak through their microphone and feel awkward about everything, they should have their own microphone. And so I'd like to see even if it's a handheld, we can do that once we're back in chambers. I like the idea of the, of the advisory and sort of going back to your constituents, which are your students, your cohort and the other grades. And then I would also just encourage folks to really be thinking about how are you representing those most marginalized communities, right? Our subgroups and how are you, you know, are you, you know, either through the CCSR, are you part of the Common Ground Program? Are you going into any of the access classrooms or the EL classrooms and talking to those folks and helping, ensure that they have a voice as well. And so that's something that I really, you know, I'm happy to talk with you guys about more, but that I, again, would just ask you to think about as you're thinking about these issues and these questions. And then I don't know if it's the law or not, but I was actually wondering this myself, Member Ruseau, about the voting order, because I, as the Secretary, I'm always like, as you can see, the past couple of times I stumble until I write it down in my Excel spreadsheet and do my tally and all that stuff. But Is there anything that says it has to be alphabetical? Because, you know, I'm smack in the middle, which is convenient, frankly. I don't mind being in the middle. But it is tricky, right, when you have those tough times, right? And so I'm curious about that. It's another question for another day, I think, but it's something that I would ask my committee members, my subcommittee members as the policy subcommittee that we look at that, because I think it's reasonable. And why should people always be put in that position?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just gonna say, would it be too much to ask that we think about a schedule just right now that we can I would like to see, you know, since Colin and David and you sort of, you know, came up with this idea in this process, it would be nice for them to be able to have participate in this process before graduating. So in some context, so could we give ourselves a deadline of say, you know, beginning May that were and last meeting in April or whatever, that we have this recommendation to come before the school committee as a whole to vote. And then, you know, there will be still some opportunity for Colin and David to participate in the process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I didn't realize that this was from MASC, but I think it's interesting that there's nothing in here about IEPs or IERs, the individual emergency response or individual education plan. So I would obviously assume if it's on a student IEP that they are not wearing a mask or that they are working on wearing a mask, because some students have mask wearing as part of their, individualized education process and some students, you know, are not there yet. So I understand it says has trouble breathing, is unconscious, is incapacitated, cannot remove the mask or face covering without assistance. So that says nothing about, you know, has a disability or has an IEP that sort of suggests that. So I'm wondering why that might be. Did you have, yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so it is the state mandate for a student with a disability on an IEP who's not able to wear a mask has a doctor's note that they cannot wear a mask. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's interesting because I would imagine that you know, um, therapists or others, but I guess if they're an MD, they can get it from their, um, From their medical doctor. So that's important, but I know that they say challenge. I just, I'm just in, so this language is from who this is from Desi. Mass association of school committee. Okay. So we can let mass association of school committees. Now, if we have any issue or concern with the language, is that what I'm hearing?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I guess I would like to make a motion that we include a sentence that says something to the effect of, you know, is a student with a disability, you know, where an IEP indicates is unable to wear a mask, and if we want to put in parathetical notation, doctor's note required or something, that's fine, but I think it's an important point both for families of students with disabilities and for self advocates and others to understand that category so a student with a disability may look at this and say, you know, especially someone who takes things quite literally might look at this and say I don't have a problem breathing I'm not unconscious. I'm not incapacitated, I can take the mask on or off, but I can't because I feel like whatever, I have a stimulus, I have a sensory thing, I can't, whatever, any number of things that happen for individuals with disabilities. So not being classified in that, I think is important. So I would respectfully request that we include the individual as a student with a disability who has a doctor's note or IEP notation that, you know, precludes them from being able to wear a mask, right? So we want to remember about that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I would be happy to do that. And I would be happy to consult with the Director of Pupil Services regarding that. And I fully understand that people with disabilities aren't on IEPs necessarily, but IEPs can also drive training around wearing masks. And so that's sort of part of the issue that I'm discussing right now. And so that's the nuance around some of this. So, but I'm sure the Director of Pupil Services and I can come up with something that will feel appropriate. So sure, I'm happy to do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Even- Don't doubt that for a second, Ms. Ray. I don't doubt that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, what are you looking for in terms of a motion, the motion to send this to the school committee as a whole?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve the policy with an amendment forthcoming. Um, sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll do it on the floor motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I take your three minutes away from your last 20, Paul. No, I'm just kidding. I'm not keeping notes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Member Mustone. Here. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is there a- Move to executive session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Longo-Curran?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. And can I also ask that in following Robert's rules of orders that anyone that is addressing any member of the committee speaks through the chair. So again, that's Robert's rules. The requirement is that you speak to the chair. We do not speak directly to members. Thank you. Less personal. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Randeclute?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Bandiclute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Milonga Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, there is no report of secretary, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-O'Karn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for sharing this. I just wanted to say to members of the community that it's really worth and worthwhile and interesting to come to these budget hearings if you really want to understand the sort of behind the scenes machinations of how things are decided and in what way things are funded. So I really encourage participation for folks who want a clear understanding of what is being funded in our schools and how. Thank you, Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. And Mr. Murphy, I just wanted to say thank you for the flow chart that I know that you're revising. So if we could maybe have that for the next meeting, that would be really helpful. Would that be okay?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me, Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-Klein?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We met on March 18th. As people may know, we divide the meetings 45 minutes each. One topic is behavioral health and specifically trauma-informed schools. And then the latter half of the meeting is special education specifically. building friendships in school and community among individuals with and without disabilities. And then we swap the order each month. So this month behavioral health was first. And the question that we really were asking our director of guidance Stacey Shulman in this meeting was, how are we addressing the social emotional needs of our students and families as we are having a return to school to full, you know, full in-person school and remote for those who choose to have remote. And so Stacey shared with us that there's increased group counseling, there's pushing counseling in some classes, supportive groups in middle school, more individual in sixth grade. We did talk with some parents that were in the meeting that were really concerned about the social emotional needs of our children, especially as compared to academic recruitment. And people are feeling like, social emotional needs to be addressed in order for academic recruitment to even begin to happen. And so Ms. Schulman shared that the Sandy Hook Promise campaign is starting up again and Medford has signed on to that. And that's a program that we've had in the past and their slogan is start with hello. It begins in the first week of April, I believe in the middle schools. We asked that families or school committee members be invited to see what that actually looks like, the Sandy Hook Promise Campaign. And there were some more comments about like just what is it gonna look like for our kids being overwhelmed? What about kids who have anxiety in the six feet to three feet? How are we addressing this? Stacey talked about group for anxiety. There were families, specifically a parent who is a licensed social worker as well. has been really committed to these meetings and she was just really sharing as the parent of two students currently in the Medford public schools and you know sort of as a message that she's been hearing from a lot of students and families is the real need for for our children to have some social interaction, our students have some social interaction with each other. And how can we do that? Like, you know, what are the opportunities, whether it's, you know, being able to go for a hike in the fells as a group or, you know, teaching on the field or, you know, and we had one day, I guess, last week of not having homework and, you know, just sort of thinking about what their social and emotional needs are. And next month we will be doing, we'll be reviewing what policy recommendations the subcommittee wants to make for our May presentation. So there was also, you know, rethinking homework was another question around sort of, again, this these these academic requirements when people are still trying to catch up to the social emotional so that was the crux of the behavioral health and then building friendships and community in schools. We talked with Susanna Campbell, who is the Director of Speech and Language and who has built a really great reserve with our colleagues of resources on Google Doc around social stories for families and teachers and others to use in returning to school, social stories for a number of different situations and books and what have you. So anyone interested in the link to that Google Doc can reach out to That Google folder I'm sure can reach out to Susanna Campbell and she's also partnering at our request or collaborating, I should say, with Paul Teixeira from our Director of English Language to work on identifying social stories that can be translated into other languages for students that need those. So that was really exciting. I was happy about that opportunity. We talked about the Universal Safety Committee website. This is the website we're talking about on the social stories. Update on Common Ground. We're hoping to expand the Common Ground program that's at the high school to build friendships. Among students with and without disabilities. It's a proven program that's existed at the high school would like to see it expand or they would like you know the committee wants is interested in seeing expand to an elective, and we're exploring options on what that might look like. CCSR is having a disability awareness focus on the 27th, April 27th. Historically, the diversity week for Medford public schools has not included disability, interestingly. So this is the first year that disability will be included in diversity week and we think that that's a really important note not to point out what hasn't been done but to remind people that disability is diversity and that obviously they should be included in any conversation around diversity. And then an update on Medford Recreation, there was conversation around adaptive versus inclusive programming and right now we're really happy that we're starting to see some adaptive programming at the recreation level And again, there was discussion about what peer-to-peer relationships look like and that they're horizontal, not vertical. And adaptive programs, it's often the individual with disability being served by the peer as opposed to having a unique and authentic relationship with them. So we're eager and looking forward to helping Medford Recreation with the support of community members and stakeholders that attend these meetings and others to move into adaptive and inclusive programming. And then we did an update on the inclusive playground. So for folks who are not aware, there's a playground restructure that will be happening at the McGlynn Elementary School Playground, which is a central location in the city and accessible to many members of our community outside of just our school community at the McGlynn. So that playground is being restructured with a real eye towards inclusive play space and expertise in that. And so we're lucky we have some community members that offer unique expertise in that area, and we're excited to move that project forward. So our next meeting is Thursday, April 15th, where we'll be talking about policy recommendations, and the following meeting is May 20th. So April 15th, we hope you'll join us, 5 to 6.30, and obviously these will be posted online. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I long go, Karin?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just as a just a clarification on that, having attended previous meetings again before I was elected and also looking into the policy. I just want to clarify for folks that five minutes that is presented as a request and public participation in our minutes the Wednesday before the meeting, but you can If you have not submitted a request for public participation, you can speak on any topic for up to three minutes one time, just for clarification, because I don't want people to think that if you didn't submit a request for public participation the Wednesday before the meeting that you cannot participate. It's just if you want more minutes to speak about something in particular, you would submit that the Wednesday before. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um, yes. I also just sort of wanted to mention that hearing from folks in the community as well, I know that we've heard in the past that, um, our remote families sometimes feel left out or excluded. And I'm sure that's a byproduct of also, you know, being at home. And so that I think we need to make that extra effort to make sure that they feel involved and included. And so I guess the other question is that, you know, are the students, again, around consistency, are the students' teachers gonna stay the same, which is, you know, I think important for our students. And, you know, whether there's going to be what the homework situation is going to be with more kids going into school so for the remote learners a lot of stuff has been able to be done during the day in the classroom and you know if they're getting more computer time at night it can be really problematic so wondering about that consistency as well, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent, for that thorough update. I also wanna just thank you for the example that you set around testing and for being part of Ed Week, which is such a great magazine. And it's exciting to see Medford highlighted in that way for positive exposure and no pun intended for positive exposure in the media. And then I also just wanted to add for the emergency preparedness event that is Wednesday at six o'clock that is being hosted by the Universal Safety Committee Although it is being presented by the Mass Office on Disability, to be clear, it is open and available for everyone. It's emergency preparedness in all situations for anyone, for example, with young children, elderly parents or grandparents, individuals with disabilities, any of those needs. We found it exceptional in the past, and everyone that has gone to it has been really impressed and moved by it in terms of their own preparation in terms of emergencies. And if the pandemic has taught us anything, the importance of being prepared. So thank you for sharing that information.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, actually, I do have a question, if you don't mind, Mr. Fallon. Can you tell, I know that you said they rotate through the program. How many children do you generally have that have been participating in that? on that programming and I'm assuming children with and without, or children on IEPs and not on IEPs for that program as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And is it all day like a regular school day?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, Mayor, excuse me. Mayor McLaughlin. Thank you for the, did we miss the summer fun program or was that not? I'm sorry, did I miss something?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Mayor, may I?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I respectfully would ask that we move that agenda item to the next April 12th meeting then please. What's happened historically on the summer fund program is we're not finding out until very, very late. families aren't finding out until very, very late in the year when they're needing to make these decisions. And I know that a lot has been up in the air, but we're starting to put in motion other programs and really, we're getting our kids back to in full time. I think we should be really giving some serious consideration to our summer fund program. It offers a lot of social emotional opportunities for our students, for our students with and without disabilities. It's been a really successful program in the past. And it's something that I think is really an important community building aspect of our schools. So I would ask that we include the summer fund program on the April 12th agenda. And hopefully Mr. Maloney can make that, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Weber, Mr. Fallon, and Dr. Cushion. And also to the advisors, Ms. Jones and Ms. Giordano and Ms. Fitzpatrick and Mr. Glauck for your work with our seniors. I know that this has been a really tough year and I appreciate Mr. DeLave, are you sharing the senior conversation for the ed talk? And students produced that show, I executive produced it, but I walked away from that show feeling really concerned and upset and really actually also moved that our students were willing to be so forthcoming and sharing their feelings with us, right? And what they've been going through. And this senior class is unique from any other senior class. The previous senior class had, not that we're diminishing what was taken from them, of course, but they had from, you know, September through March. This class didn't have their junior prom and did not have this year at all. They've been extremely isolated as I know that you all know, and really feeling forgotten as they shared in their conversation in the ed talk and lonely and a number of other things. And I think we're all to some degree feeling that. And I think it's easy to forget when we see really children in, you know, 17 and 18 year old bodies that they're not, adults yet, right? They're still children and they're still developmentally, you know, figuring things out. And it's been a really, really tough year for them. And I want to know how we're addressing the social emotional needs of our kids, of our seniors specifically. We have nine weeks left with these kids until they're gone for good from our district. And, you know, we, many of them have been here since, you know, preschool or kindergarten. It's been You know 12 years that we've you know that you've taken care of them nurture them brought them this far and then we were all gobsmacked by this pandemic right but we literally have nine weeks left and. I know that there are community members that are willing to help. I know that there are students that are willing to help. I know that community members have come to the BH, the behavioral health and the special education subcommittee meeting to speak specifically about how they'd like to help and what else can be done for our seniors. So I think it's great. I mean, it's so important that they have a prom and that we have a date for graduation and we can get excited about that. And I know that Dr. Christian and I had talked about some of the things that have happened in the past around even just signage congratulating our class of 2021 and those sorts of things. But, you know, and I know that there are also our student advisors and the class officers that are working on things. And I was really glad to see Mr. Blauck and others posting both on Facebook and Instagram and, you know, every means possible as suggested by the students, because initially it was, you know, the students needed to check their email and, you know, this generation of students are not email students, right? This generation is not an email generation. I think they're really feeling overwhelmed, frankly, by their emails. I think that they've got thousands of emails in their inbox. I know my son does. I don't know that they know that they can delete them, but I think it's overwhelming, right? And I think that we need some guidance. So I wanna know, and if we don't have an answer tonight, that's okay, but I would like to know when we can have a meeting to brainstorm some ideas about what we can do as a community to uplift and celebrate these children in the next nine weeks. Graduation and prom and the leadership event, aside because those are the things that we normally do and they're wonderful and I'm happy about them and I don't want anybody to think that I'm not, you know, genuinely pleased that those things are moving forward, you know, again with the, with the, with the hope of a pandemic, and I know what happened last year. We were headed that way, and it, you know, things turned suddenly, and that just was so sad for so many, I know. But I just, I want to know how we can, what else can we do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I just want to make sure you know, so I haven't heard about that. And and I don't know that it's on that. Well, we'll circle back. But I'm not sure how these this is part of the issue that we're experiencing. And I appreciate that's great that you guys had a meeting and talked about that. But I think that that's part of the difficulties we're hearing from families that they're not getting information or from students that they feel like they're not getting information. So we have to think about how we're coordinating the communication about what that was.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The administration share. Do you guys know what that's about? No.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, definitely.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, that's great. And I would love to hear more. And I did see that she has a, I think there is a Facebook page that's specific to her event. I don't know that it's that we need to merge. There's a couple of different Facebook pages going on. So I guess I'm looking for somebody in the administration and perhaps PTO in school committee that we can collaborate.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I see. We have a community member also that has their hand up. So thank you. And thank you all. I appreciate the dates. And you know, I know that we have a lot of, you know, smart people in the community and in the room here. And I'm sure we can come up with some great and interesting ideas about what we can do for prom and I'm excited to have the students start shopping for their outfits and things as well. So, and I'm sure, you know, Kelly Catalo would welcome help from the community and others so it would be great to know how people can get involved and I know that the meeting will, I'm sure, share that info. So I look forward to that. And if we need to discuss it at the next April 12 meeting to update people, we can put that on as an update as well. I'm sure maybe in the either in the superintendent's update or another agenda item. Is that okay, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Vanden Heuvel?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yeah. Member Van der Kloot? Present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Come on, 50's the best. Best decade ever. 50's the new 40, right? Wow, 50's when you like, I think, come into your own and you don't stop caring about what everybody thinks. I think Paul doesn't care. That's not new for me. Paul's there already? Yeah, well. Yeah, just saying. Yeah, no, I think we evolve. I think it's a good decade.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I guess just getting back to the cooling and heating. I know, Dave, you weren't here for this, but a few years ago, we had to, prior to my being on school committee, we came to school committee, I came to school committee as a result of my daughter in the summer fun camp and who was getting really overheated with the summer fun camp. And I had gone in there, we had actually several community members donated portable air conditioners to help students in those environments. They ended up having to go with like an administrative room that they created as sort of a cool down room for the kids because they were just getting super overheated. My daughter has Down syndrome and gets overheated more quickly than neurotypical children, but still, and I would go into the building to pick her up or drop her off. And the, I don't know what it is along the building, along the community school sort of aisle, but I did bring it to the assistant superintendent's attention at the time, there were these look like radiators. I don't know if that's what they are, but they were just like blowing heat. know in 90 100 degree weather and hot air was just coming out of them as well um but the administrative offices obviously were all air conditioned so the kids were just in this state of like real it was a couple of summers ago when we had that really bad heat wave so to remember russo's point i guess you know especially when we're you know having know, younger vulnerable kids or any kids really sort of in that setting, especially when it's so hot. I know that I've spoken with teachers in the past who have said that they can barely teach with the heat in their room and trying to figure out fans and what have you. So I guess, again, to remember Rousseau's point, sort of Is this on the radar? And if so, how? I know that, again, the HVAC stuff was primarily to assist with airflow for COVID, but this other issue has been a longstanding issue.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor? Just respond. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah. And that was, these were all suggestions. I assume my colleagues here remember this conversation from a couple of years ago, but these were all discussions from a couple of years ago of things that could be done. And so I would just say that, especially as we're looking toward the summer fund program and whatever else we're thinking about, you know, for over the summer for those buildings or anything else that we're thinking about this really thoughtfully because it was just unbearable in the past. And they did end up creating, like I said, one room that the students could go to, but it was sort of isolating as well. And we literally were on the loading dock with like portable, you know, those ones that you wheel around, those air conditioners that you can wheel around to go into rooms. So alternately, you know, I don't know, potentially there's, you know, wheel around units that, you know, can be considered for people or what have you, but it's a big consideration. And I know, you know, we'll talk about this at a future meeting on the vision committee for the agenda, but I'm just putting that out there. So folks remember that, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know this is really elementary, and I hope people don't judge me for this, but can somebody tell me what air compressors do? Because I imagine if I have this question, there must be people in the that are watching that would have this question. So what do the air compressors actually do in the buildings?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You got to let that awkward silence sit, Dr. Cushing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We'll get started in a minute or two. We just give folks a moment to come in.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, so I'm going to call this meeting, subcommittee meeting to order, and I'll give people more time with me reading the introduction to the agenda. So I start with attendance. Melanie McLaughlin here, Liam Stone absent. Member Ruseau? Thank you. So two present, one absent. Melanie, I'm sitting in for Mia. Oh, thank you, Paulette. Member Van der Kloot? Present. Three present, zero absent. Thank you for being here, Member Van der Kloot. So I'm Melanie McLaughlin, for folks who don't know me. And this is the Behavioral Health Special Education Subcommittee meeting. The co-chairs for this meeting, I mean, Yeah, other members that are part of the subcommittee are Member Paul Rousseau and Member Miama Stone. Tonight, we're having Member Van der Kloot stand in for Mia. So thank you, Member Van der Kloot. And I am just going to read from our agenda with our introduction. So please be advised that on Thursday, March 18, 2021, from 5 to 6.30, there is a behavioral health and special education subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom. The purpose of the Thursday, March 18, 2021 Behavioral Health and Special Ed Subcommittee is to address best practices and policies for creating trauma-informed schools under the behavioral health category and building community and school-based friendships for students with disabilities under the special education category. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, and the governor's March 15th, 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Medford School Subcommittee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information in the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a right and or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Medford website at medfordma.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein, accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the City of Medford or Medford Community Media websites an audio or video recording transcript or other comprehensive record of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast channel 22 and Verizon channel 43 at 5 p.m. Thank you. So a map of our agenda today, you can expect from roughly 5 to 5.45, we'll be focusing on behavioral health and trauma-informed schools. Director of Guidance, Stacey Shulman, We'll talk with us regarding mental health and behavioral health and returning students to school, including immediate need for trauma-informed care, social-emotional health in comparison to academic recoupment, school counseling and mental health considerations for revamping the system. And then 545 to 630, we will discuss with the Director of Speech and Language, Susanna Campbell. She had shared some, or we had shared some online resources for use by general education, special education, English learners, and families that we'll share a little bit on. We'll have an update on the Common Ground program that we've been talking about in previous meetings, an update on Medford Recreation and some conversations we've been having around building friendships and inclusive recreation. and an update on the inclusive playground that's in the process. So that's our agenda, and we'll finish at 6.30. So I'd like to start, if I could, let me just see for a second. Sorry, I have to go between screens. How many folks we have on? I think everyone here recognizes and knows each other, so we're not gonna do, introductions again if that's okay with everybody. Is that okay? Thumbs up? Yeah? Okay, great. So I'd like to have Stacey Shulman maybe start the conversation, if you would, Stacey, on what is happening for being trauma-informed as we're returning students to school, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Stacey. I guess I wanted to ask, I did have the opportunity to speak with a parent today who is interested in being engaged on the matter of sort of mental health and behavioral health and was asking just sort of about some of the social, emotional needs of our students right now and how, you know, how they might be addressed, not just through school adjustment Councilors necessarily, or even guidance, but even more so sort of just collectively in the school setting around social engagement and being able to sort of interact with each other in some ways. I know, I don't know if any of you had the opportunity to see the ed talk recently with the seniors, some of the seniors sharing their experience. and feelings of isolation. And I mean, it was a really poignant, I thought, presentation by the students. And I think that they, you know, being the age they are and the grade they are, they're able to articulate a lot better than maybe younger kids would be. And so certainly from families, we're hearing a lot of this isolation and loneliness and sort of need for community and engagement. as a group, not just Stacey, obviously, because Stacey, I know it's not just your job, but as a group, how are we thinking about the social and emotional needs of our students and being able to sort of address that for them? So for example, somebody was saying, like, can we not do like a barbecue in the, you know, in the parking lot or just anything to sort of have them get to be able to have some social engagement with each other? And I thought, you know, obviously it's an interesting idea. And I know everybody's super swamped right now with the return to school. But I think the family engagement piece is a really important piece of it, because I think that there's a lot of community members that have some great ideas and probably would be also willing to volunteer in those projects. And I guess I just want to put that out there for folks and see what the response is on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's really good to hear. And will that be offered or will the families or school committee members or others be invited to be part of that or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that would be great. I should also say that I think probably a lot of you know if you're in the school committee meeting, you know that Medford is one of four districts that is partnering with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on a family and community engagement project. So we put an application in for that, and we were one of the four districts across the state chosen. So that's really exciting. And we're working with a group called School in Maine. think school and main streets and the convergence of community and school, that's sort of how they're named, school in Maine, and that's why they're named that way. And as consultants for really helping us build our family and community engagement and outreach. And one of the things that I certainly want to continue to be putting on the table as part of the planning is the mental health component and the social emotional health component on that. So we'll definitely be able to include that. And that's why I'm looking for sort of some recommendations or some discussion around this here. If other folks want to chime in, you can unmute yourself if you like.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, Paulette, member of NDQ.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Heather, thank you for that. I also think that like, as we're thinking about, you know, again, you know, looking out for these signs of social anxiety and loneliness among our students, you know, there's also, there are also our students who can't communicate with words and communicate with behavior. And so really being able to train staff to understand that, you know, behavior is a form of communication as well. And, you know, I know for us this morning, just getting ready this morning, getting, helping our daughter, our 13 year old daughter, Gracie, get ready this morning. And she burst into tears quite unexpectedly. And I was like, you know, what's going on? And, you know, trying to start talking with her about it. And then she said, you know, she was able to articulate and it was so moving, she said, know, I want COVID to go away. You know, and it was so sad, because it was like, oh, you know, yeah, of course you do, like we all do. And, you know, it's getting better or whatever else. But I think that the community as a whole, especially maybe with the one year mark, you know, the anniversary, I think a lot of people, I mean, everyone I'm talking to right now is feeling overwhelmed. And, you know, just out of sorts. And so I think especially as we're thinking about bringing our are kids who are our most vulnerable population, whether they have, you know, a disability or don't, I mean, children are our most vulnerable population community. And so thinking about that, in a broader context, I think is so important. And I, I guess, having listened to one of our community members yesterday, too, and I hear that, you know, the social anxiety and the isolation and also sort of maybe introducing it in in scaffolding right like if you think about special education, you can sort of scaffold steps to before you get to the step that. You know you're hoping to achieve, but even scaffolding some of the the social and emotional around the relationships like somebody was you know, suggesting. Like why not offer hikes right instead of like even like, and this is to the next subject in our agenda, I guess, transitioning to the next subject in our agenda, which is. social emotional health versus academic recruitment, right? And sort of how those two are pulling at each other and what we're doing around that, right? Because if we're, everybody's so hyper-focused on academic recruitment, and we're not really looking at the social emotional and mental health, like our kids can't show up to learn if they don't have the first, you know, Maslow hierarchy of needs, right? If we don't have our basic needs taken care of, we're not gonna be able to show up for higher learning. And I think that that's a really important piece. I know there was a community member who said like, why not like have a class or, you know, instead of having the class remote, which is, you know, the kids are so tired of anyway in school, um, reverse remote, like why not have an opportunity to, I don't know, make a hike in the fells or what have you. And I know that's thinking outside of the conventional box of education, but I think that these are extraordinary times. So I'm wondering sort of what people think of that idea.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Heather. I think that's really important for us to be thinking about the social emotional and the kids are telling us that this is what they need. I mean, it's not like it's just that the families that are saying this, but.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, you're muted. Introduce yourself and sort of, you know, your role here, if you would.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Shanine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Ms. Galussi, I just also want to point out we have about seven or so more minutes left to this behavioral health section of our meeting. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for sharing that Ms. Galussi. And I guess from a broader perspective, is there any sort of, I know that you said you have the Sandy Hook Promise program that's coming up. Stacey, is there any sort of broader training or anything that's happening around, you know, the trauma piece for the return to school specifically? I know that there are these individual programs, but there's anything, you know, addressing sort of the specific COVID you know, resulting trauma and returning to schools that you guys are aware of for the staff.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So next month we were talking about, you know, really sort of solidifying, you know, what recommendations the behavioral health subcommittee wants to put forward to the school committee for the May presentation. So next month would really be thinking about how our conversations and our meetings translate into policy and what we actually want to put forward as potential recommendations for, not potential, as recommendations to school committee for our March, I mean our May presentation. So that will be our next meeting. Are there any last thoughts before we transition?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I think I'd like everyone to sort of take a moment, take a deep breath. We're gonna transition to our other identity in this subcommittee. If you want, you can reflect on what zone you're in right now. And we are going to transition over to building friendships and community for students with and without disabilities. Our topic under this from 545 to 630 will be, would love to hear from Susanna. I did, you should have received a link earlier today for the online resources that Susanna and her team and staff at our schools have helped create. They're really remarkable. And maybe Susanna can give us an update on that in a moment. And then we're going to talk about common ground with an update on that. Medford Recreation and Inclusive Playground. So Susanna, would you like to sort of start us off on the online resources a little bit, maybe the sort of origin of it and how it's working and how and whether people are accessing them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, Susanna, I think that's excellent. It's so exciting to see all those resources. Thank you for sharing them with us. And I'm really excited about the collaboration between you and Paul and getting some of these resources in various languages and thinking about how, you know, EL and special education and general education work together and bringing down some of those silos that can typically, you know, happen in those in districts. So I'm excited. I think it looks great. Thank you so much for all that hard work.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then I wanted to, sorry, bear with me one second. update on common ground. And so Mr. Skorka and Ms. Andre were not able to join us today, but I wanted to share just a little bit of an update on some of the things that we have been discussing. So for folks that may not have been in previous meetings, we have been talking about, you know, a program that could be created or exist in our school that is really being mindful in terms of fostering friendships between students with and without disabilities. Because again, while they were talking earlier about play and the importance of having individualized or free play, it is also important to be able to have some guidance around building friendships for students, especially for whom that can be a little bit more difficult. And so I did send you all a copy of the toolkit that the Arc of Mass created. It's a friendship. um, building toolkit that I really want to think about as a foundational sort of, um, document as we're thinking about what this looks like. And so we, we had a couple of parents, um, reach out to us from the autism support group, um, Heather and, um, Marissa, uh, a year or more ago, pre COVID anyway. So another lifetime ago, actually, we, um, met with, um, best buddies. And we had a conversation around what that could look like in schools. And then, you know, COVID happened. And then sons have been talking about programs that already exist in our schools and what those look like. And so Common Ground is a program at the high school that Ms. Andre, who is a special education teacher, and Mr. Skorka, who is a general education teacher, have been working on together in a co-taught sort of way. where they do reverse inclusion, essentially, which is bringing students without disabilities into the classroom with students with disabilities and having them foster friendships among themselves and, you know, with the syllabus and, I mean, with a goal and a sort of more coordinated effort. And Mr. Skorka and Ms. Andre and others have been talking about really incorporating this as not just HAB-Charlotte Pittsburgh.: : An option, you know, something fun or interesting for kids to do, but actually HAB-Charlotte Pittsburgh.: : As a course and looking at, you know, potential syllabus. So, Joan, I know that you are from our last meeting notes. I know you said you were going to HAB-Charlotte Pittsburgh.: : Speak with Mr. delay. But if you want to talk about that in a moment. And I can also share when you're done Joan HAB-Charlotte Pittsburgh.: : Conversations I've had at the middle school level because we were talking about we have this at the high school. So maybe expanding it beyond, you know, just an optional sort of thing into a course option and then piloting a similar idea slash program at the middle school, a common ground. So Joan, would you like to speak on this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's really exciting. And also I had a conversation just directly with Mr. Downs and Mr. Tucci based on our last meeting last month, just to sort of generally let them know about this project and gauge their interest and talk with them a little bit more about what this could look like in a middle school setting and how it might work. And so Mr. Tucci in particular, had some really great questions. And I think that, you know, looping Mr. Tucci and Mr. Andrews in on the conversation would be really helpful for them because they were talking about, I know Carla and Mr. Skorka, Ms. Andrea, Mr. Skorka had talked about, you know, it is a possibility in the middle school level in the wind block. And so that was something that Mr. Tucci seemed to think was possible. And he was also wondering if the students are taking this because unlike high school, when you have course selection, In middle school, you don't. So if the students are taking this, you know, what would they not be taking, for example, so those are some of the logistics that need to be worked out to think about piloting this. in that way in the middle school. But so I guess, you know, so I'd be interested in hearing what folks here have to say or want to add to the conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's really exciting. Thank you, guys. I'm really, isn't it, Tonya?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Tonya. And the thing about it is that, you know, first I just sort of want to add that Obviously, disability is diversity, right? And these are all equity issues. And so thinking about, you know, building friendships. And one of the things that I feel like the pandemic has really given us, if you will, is the understanding of loneliness, right? And so really, you know, for neurotypical people to really understand the loneliness too of kids with disabilities who don't have friends. and making sure that we bridge that gap for them because it's our responsibility and it's the right thing to do.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That is really lovely, Charlotte. Thank you for sharing that. And I think the natural course of the friendship is really sort of thinking about what it looks like. It's not a client-based model where the students with disabilities are clients and the students without disabilities are giving a service. It's authentic friendships and really fostering those, which is the goal here. So I appreciate. you sharing those stories. The next item on our agenda is to talk about an update on Medford Recreation. So I'll share that Gracie started going to the adaptive bowling on Wednesday nights through Medford Recreation, and she is having a lot of fun with that. Terry's been taking her, so I haven't had the benefit of actually seeing her yet. He's taken some pictures and shared some of the bowling with us and it's been really neat. And it's a high school student that is her sort of partner in that experience. And that is an adaptive program. And one of the things that we really want to do, I see Kate Quinn from Medford Recreation is in the meeting as well. One of the things that we really wanna do is in addition to adaptive programming for recreation, we wanna ensure that there's inclusive programming for recreation. For those who might not know, the difference adaptive is sort of modifying the recreation aspect. But again, it sort of might be more like a client based model where students are delivering a service and the kids with disabilities are receiving a service. And so inclusive recreation is sort of along the line. Shanine was sort of helping me with this definition a little bit. Thank you, Shanine. is along the lines of the same thing that we're talking about in authentic friendships. So that, you know, each partner in the relationship is gaining something from the other. I really liked, I just wanted to share this quote, and then I'm gonna open it up to you guys to talk about Medford Recreation a little bit. But I wanted to share this quote from the Arc of Masses book on friendship. And, you know, I liked that they defined what friendship is. You know, despite its universal nature, friendship may mean different things to different people. So it's important that we start with a common definition. Friendship is a voluntary and reciprocal relationship in which two students exhibit mutual attachment to one another, frequent proximity and companionship, and evidence of enjoyment or affection. And I thought that was really important as we talk about, you know, a reciprocal relationship, especially in terms of recreation as well. And so I think we're well on our way with our adaptive programming. I'm excited about that. And I'm excited that our hearts are there. So that's really exciting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Shanine. And you know, Shanine actually used to also work at EMARC, which is now Communitas, which is the North, our regions, um, that provide services to, um, children and, uh, individuals with disabilities. And it was really interesting because I know that many of you know me and know that, um, I am and had been a really hardcore inclusionist. Um, and I remember, um, way back when Gracie was a baby, um, she was, yeah, she was little, but not wanting her in. you know, adaptive swim programming, right? Because I was like, no, she needs to go to full inclusion and that's, you know, her right and everything else. And the reality was like Shanine shared with me and it was very important. She's like, you know, and with adaptive programming, we can get her to the point where she can get to full inclusion, right? So it was like the scaffolding piece of it as well, really helpful. And so that was, you know, that was like an epiphany for me, Shanine, to understand like, oh, and you know, and I also was denying her the right to have friendships really with and without kids with disabilities. So it doesn't mean just with kids without disabilities, they, you know, need friendships with kids with disabilities, right? Like, and so thinking about that is really important too. So thank you, Shanine. I don't know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know that we do. And I know that we do with people like Kate and you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: on board and, you know, Kevin Bailey and the mayor and the commitment to all of this. So I'm excited about the possibilities in the future, because frankly, these conversations weren't even being had, you know, five years ago, three years ago. So I think it's really great to see. Thank you. And to that end, I want to just talk a little bit about the inclusive playground and play space as a discussion as well. So and maybe Peter, you can talk about it a little bit as well, but, you know, actually Peter, would you mind talking a little bit about it first?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just want to add, Peter, one of the things that Peter and I were talking about was like ADA compliant is like the base, right? Like that's starting at the lowest expectation. for a playground and we've had these discussions. So, you know, that's really helpful in that. And, you know, one of the things, one of the stories that I share, and I know mom wouldn't mind me sharing, and I know I've shared this with Peter, but I don't know if I have with the rest of you, but we had a student here in Medford Public Schools that was a student with significant disabilities and was in a wheelchair and was not able to communicate with words. was in a residential school and would come home for weekends and during school vacation weeks. And mom would literally have nowhere to take her because there was no place that was accessible for her. There was no playground that she could go to. There was no place that she could take her. And this beautiful little girl passed away actually when she was 15 years old and she was her mom's only daughter. her mom had dedicated really her life to taking care of her and advocating for her and remained an advocate in the disability community is quite a remarkable woman. And, you know, I've thought a lot about this little girl over the years, and the fact that, you know, we didn't have a place for her to play. And I want to make sure that we can change that. And Denise, did you want to say something? I see you waving. Hold on one second, Peter. Hold on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great, Denise. Mr. Cushing and then Shanine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, we're gonna make sure that you guys are involved, Denise. Thank you so much. We're gonna make sure of that, right? I know, you know, Dr. Cushing will make sure of that as well. And I think that, you know, just getting back to the point of the subcommittee, right, it's about building friendships between community and school for our kids and an inclusive playground, what better way to build friendships, right? I mean, this is really back to the scope of what the subcommittee
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot, just one moment. I wanted to just respond to also just put this, HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Planner & Co-Leader:" You know, little bugging or be in people's bonnet is that there's also space over by the slave while in. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Planner & Co-Leader:" West Medford and you know actually a community member and myself when I was the co chair of the CPAC had gone to the previous mayor and met with them about. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Planner & Co-Leader:" Creating some inclusive space and some opportunity there, and so there is some you know they're going to be doing an architectural dig over there, I know, and at some point, I think they're hoping to. make some more accessibility over there and opportunity there. So I think getting back to just even in any of these projects that we're looking at this with both, you know, with the lens of equity and having disability as part of that conversation and diversity. I just want to say we have seven minutes left. I'm going to let member van de Kloot speak and then Shanine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Shanine, so much for that. And that's so exciting with OCD and having the national expert come in to look at our playgrounds and be able to do an audit around inclusivity. I think that's amazing. I know that, I think it was you that shared a story with me of a playground, I don't believe it's Medford's necessarily, but of a playground where they had an accessible swing, so a wheelchair accessible swing, but there was no access to get the wheelchair to the swing. And these are the kinds of things that realistically happen, right? So the other thing that's really important, and I'd like to end with this in our few minutes that are left, is that the disability community has a saying, nothing about us without us. Right. And I think it's really important that we are thinking about students with disabilities, you know, being a part of this as well. And so I think, I think even to like our wonderful presenter that Susanna has had several times, Nick Kerenge, right, who is so eloquent and amazing and, you know, also happens to use a wheelchair and other folks that I'm sure that could help give us some insight on what their experience is like. So I just want people to think about that. Nothing about us without us. It is 6.28 p.m. So if I have no other questions or comments, I would like to just review quickly that what we discussed today, we had, you know, Stacy talked to us about immediate needs for trauma-informed care, and we spoke about some of the issues around that. You'll see some of our, you'll see our minutes from next time around that and how we're moving things together. And then today we reviewed Common Ground, Medford Rec, Inclusive Playground, and Resources. online. So we got a lot of business done in the time that we were here. So I want to thank you guys all for being here. And if I can get a motion to adjourn, that would be great. Motion to adjourn. Second. Roll call. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Was that, I'm sorry, Mayor, was that a motion and a second? Because I'm trying to keep the tally.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um, can I also have a wording of the motion just so I can record it in the tally sheet accurately? Please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I just want to let the community know that part of the role of the advisory committee, I believe will be researching the cost or we could include it in the document, so I don't want people to think that. You know, we won't be aware of what the cost is as we're moving this forward. And again, I just want to some time ago, and we have been working on this for approximately a year. So this is not the first time that we've been thinking about this document or looking at this document. And this is not the first time we've had this long school committee meeting. And it's not the first time we've heard from a number of people that are here, both publicly, privately, phone calls, emails, letters. So just so folks know, we have been listening. for quite some time, and we will be certain to know what the cost is and to make that public as part of our advisory committee. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Remember McLaughlin? Remember Ms. Stone? Sure. Mayor, I will share that myself. I was one of the people who signed the motion, the original motion, to move this forward for all of the reasons that have been discussed here tonight. And I am sorry that the individual that is speaking feels like this hasn't been discussed. It has been discussed. and shared and shared out. It's been on the television. It's been in the newspaper. It's been in social media. It has been, you know, any number of places. But I, with a few of our colleagues, put this motion forward almost a year ago. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'd like to make a motion. I wanna hear from everyone that wants to speak tonight. And I'd like to make a motion that we move public comment till after we go through the document. So that, cause a lot of the questions are really relevant to the document and we haven't gotten the opportunity to go through it. So if we could move public comment till the end of the document so that people can actually see the entirety of the document, I think that would be really helpful. I'm wondering if I might get a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One clarification, I'm not interested in shutting down. I know you're not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? No. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Um, I just have to say that I'm sure that everyone is, um. You know, feeling really riled up now and a lot of energy around this and I am, you know, I personally want to apologize to our bipoc community that has been on this call for all of this time. I think that this is really, um, hurtful and, um. and embarrassing, frankly. And, you know, I do feel that I'm voting my values here. And for people that know me, I think you know what my values are. What I learned about Columbus was, you know, akin to pedophilia. In my opinion, they were rapists of, you know, rapes of children and what have you. And people say it's 15th century compared to 21st century. And I don't think that was ever vogue. I don't think cutting people's hands off was ever vogue. I mean, these are the things that I've learned. And in good conscience, I felt that. And also, and most importantly, listening to people who have gone to the school and who feel really disenfranchised and left out and upset about someone who enslaved people being named on one of the buildings in our school. And that's where I'm at. And that's why I agreed to put this motion forward, because I think it is a reflection of my values. And thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so I just wanted to ask- Actually, Member Kreatz has had her hand up, Mayor. Sorry, point of privilege. She's had her hand up and she just unmuted and tried to start talking, excuse me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Not at all.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Kathy, we can't hear you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: She should be able to unmute herself, member Kreatz. She's unmuted, but we can't hear her. There's no, there's no.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Another option for this could be that we do like we did with the with the superintendent search, where we basically made the applications blind, for lack of a better word. And so we didn't see, you know, the individual's name necessarily, what have you, but we could see the narrative around it. And we could sort of, you know, go from that perspective, if you're thinking about, if people are thinking about the implicit bias piece. And to, I mean, I'm hearing both sides of the argument right now, to member Rousseau's point, it has to be pointed in terms of being diverse, and the lottery won't do that. To member Retz's point, it can remove the implicit bias, but again, doesn't account for the diversity. So I'm wondering if there's some compromise there for the, you know, to have a blind application.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think to member Rousseau's point, also we are selecting, but the administration can finalize. Cause I was going to say to member Rousseau's point, it's not part of the policy, but if we're selecting and they finalize, it could be another workaround.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I excuse me?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just wanted to echo Member Graham's sentiment around not putting this on school administration. I think it's both unfair and I think to the point that we've heard from many individuals is they are focused on other things right now as they should be with the commissioner's requirements and the specifics of what is being requested of them in terms of getting kids back to school. And a lot of people, I think, think that the school committee is in the weeds with that, and we do that, but we do not. The administration does that, and we set policy, which is what we're doing tonight. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hold on one second. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: My longer current.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I took some notes and wanted to answer some of the questions that I've been hearing repeated, and I hope that this is helpful. I'm hearing often, you know, why aren't we having a community meeting on this? And I am asking because I'm confused here. What is this? This is a community meeting. People are saying we've been talking for over four hours and we have been talking for over four hours. And we've also had previous meetings that were talking for over four hours about the same issue. So I don't understand when people are saying, why aren't we having a community meeting? That's exactly what this is tonight. When people are saying, slow it down, I also feel like we voted on this in June, 2020. It's March 2021, a year almost has gone by. I don't know how people don't think that that was a slowed down process, frankly, with everything that had been happening. And I think if people remember from back then, the question was, if not now, when? And that was over a year ago. And the other question is, if not us, who? And I think that that's a legitimate question. Budget will be part of the advisory committee. Having people participate in the name change, that's also part of the advisory committee, which is why we chose an advisory committee. Again, the vote was already approved. When people keep talking about whether or not we should do this, I think that, again, we have to note this was already approved a year ago. And then what was the other thing? Oh, and again, the administration is working very hard and has been working very hard this past year to get our children back to school. And they're continuing to do that. And we are involved in the process, but we are not the people who choose the process. Again, our role as school committee members is to decide policy, to approve a budget, and to evaluate the superintendent. It is not to do the daily work of getting our kids back into school, although I believe it is also very much a priority in our community and has been a focus. And the administration has been working very hard on that. So I hope that was an answer to some of the questions.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know we have been for a year, Mayor, and I appreciate that, but we also voted six, you know, six to approve it. So everybody here, you know, voted to approve it. And everybody, again, to member Graham's point earlier, has to own that. And then, you know, and also having a commitment to anti-racism in our city and, you know, having an anti-racist task force at our schools. I mean, I think that this is the point that we have to, this is hard work. This is messy work. It's painful work. It's not easy. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. When people address the members, it becomes very personal. Excuse me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would say 13. Or 11. I would say no more than 15. I was at 15.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. I also like that idea, just because I like the idea of the, you know, again, the students understanding the process, you know, seeing this having gone through, you know, a certain way, their involvement from the beginning all the way through the end, and ultimately, you know, their vote. So I forget who the community member was that suggested it, but I wanted to thank them for the suggestion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Bruce, may I?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What point of privilege? Yes, please. Member Ruseau, your audio is not working. It is going in and out, and it's very difficult to understand you. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I think it might be related to your posture. I don't know what your microphone is, but just FYI, it's very difficult to hear you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm fine with that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Fine with me. Fine with me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, through the chair, I wanna say again, I hear my colleagues, but I also have to say that I disagree respectfully and I agree to disagree. I don't think that this process frankly has been rushed in the sense of we've been talking about this as again, since June, 2020, we've had several meetings over this. I think the advisory committee process is being tightened. I wouldn't necessarily say it's being rushed. We've had discussion and discussion and even tonight we're still having discussion over whether or not the name change should happen when that was decided a year ago. And now people are talking about postponing the advisory committee process again for more. you know, for a longer period of time and more discussion and more sort of putting our community members, frankly, through this. And I feel like causing more divide and more pain. And I feel like it's, you know, sort of like ripping the bandaid off and getting things done and having people have a solid deadline and looking at, you know, again, there's some, you know, I'm willing to be flexible around some of the, you know, July 1st, July 31st sort of thing or whatever. But I think that we have to have a hard date of, you know, of know, end of May, end of school year, and then a July decision, and then it's done. And that's what we have voted on and worked on and talked about all year long. But we keep, and as a school committee too, I feel like we keep bringing people through this process, and through this process, and through this process, and just stirring in this pain. And I am voting to move this forward with the respect of asking people to please apply to the committee. If you feel this strongly about it and you're this passionate about it, apply to the committee so that you can be part of the committee that is part of the change that can move our community forward and help our kids celebrate this new name. Thank you. Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor. Member McLaughlin. Yeah. Oh, I lost my train of thought for one second. Hold on. So maintaining, yeah, maintaining the name for July 31st, but again, to I would consider. But again, to member Graham's point, I would say that should the advisory committee not have a name by July 31st, then the school committee will choose the name.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Whatever. I mean, We'll choose the temporary name and then no, that we'll choose the name because we're giving the advisory committee the charge to finish. We gave them till May or June and then July we're giving them an extension. So if they don't choose the name by the end of July, we will choose the name. Not we will give them more time so then we can name a temporary name. Not that we will choose a temporary name thereby giving more time to draw this process out more. No, then we will choose the name.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Period.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And if they don't, yeah, exactly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: our colleagues on board.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I agree. I think it puts us back the responsibility. I think it also motivates the advisory committee because I think, you know, they've done all this work. They're going to want to have the input on the name. They're not going to want to give it over to a school committee decision or, you know, a South Medford school decision or what have you. So I say, you know, here's the first deadline, you know, may, if you cannot make this deadline, you know, and you need to request an extension, here's the process for the extension. we will give the extension till July 31st, as has been suggested by my colleagues. And if there's still not a decision by July 31st, then the decision reverts to the school committee and we vote on a name by August 15th. And that's what I would do. I mean, I think we have to have clear guidelines clear marks for where the expectations are and if they don't occur, what happens as a result, frankly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's the wonder of Zoom or some other remote option that we can still access things wherever we are. On vacation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I think what I hear through the chair, I think what I hear my colleague saying is he is worried about ambiguity. And I don't necessarily agree that what we would be asking the school committee to do is what both sides on this issue or all folks have not wanted. I think Or if that is the case, it's even it incentivizes the advisory committee to to do this really important work that we've been asking them to do. But that said, I also do want to point out to my colleagues, and I know that everyone is aware of the time, but I'm also very concerned about, you know, our administration and our staff and our colleagues and friends and neighbors and everyone else that have been on this call all night long. and some of whom have to get up in a matter of a few hours for school starting. So I would like to encourage my colleagues to come to a decision with this so that we can move forward and let people get to bed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So what are we going to do if there's no recommendation though?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree with the mayor. I agree with the mayor. I would agree with the mayor in that case. I don't think we can decide on a name.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know, I liked Galileo too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we leave them the latitude to let people come up with, I like the idea and we can put that as a recommendation if we want, or send them on their way or give them their charge or something to say, it would be nice if you would consider something to that effect. But I also think, especially with the kids and everybody, let them have their imagination and let them, I would agree.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I was just going to ask Member Graham if she could highlight what part we're talking about right now, because I am also starting to... Oh, is this still the whole part? We're not going... I think we're done. Yeah, I think we already did all... Oh, good. So... Yeah. Okay. That's it. Thank you. So then, Mayor, may I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. I just wanted to thank my colleagues and everybody that has been on the call this long and everyone for this whole process. I know it's been incredibly arduous and I know there have been things that we have not agreed on and I hope that folks can agree to disagree and move forward to support Medford and our children and thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that I would add to that. Yeah, the process started June, 2020 that we've had, you know, several committee meetings, several hours coming into the, you know, midnight out passing the midnight hour tonight and several conversations. And I think that there are people in the community that are just going to have to get to the point where we can agree to disagree and be able to move forward. And I think the timeline is important to continue the process and progress in our city and to give our children and families who have had struggles with this name for some time, some relief and to be able to stick to what we had said we would do for a deadline.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Let me get my little handy dandy roll call sheet, please, so I can have this all. Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Yes. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Miss Stone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I longer Kern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloop. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Here. Member Prince.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin here. Member Bestone. Here. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm trying to put it on gallery to see if I can see. Oh, she's asking to unmute she can unmute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, there is no report of secretary.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 7 in the affirmative.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Longo-Klein?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent for this update. I have a question on the confirming the cohort by this Friday for the grades six through 12. I did get a robocall about that today, and I wanted to ask more about that because I want to make sure that the community is understanding, if I'm understanding it correctly, that if you can confirm your cohort, so for instance, if you're in cohort B going in on Monday and Tuesday, and you confirm that cohort this Friday, that there's no changing that cohort. have an option to go remote again for the rest of the year. Is that accurate, Dr. Edward-Vincent?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, she-her, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she- For example, you know, I just noticed, say, five absences on the last quarter, and it was like, that was a surprise. And so previously, obviously, pre-pandemic, families would get robocalls home. Your students are not in school today. I understand that's not happening right now for a number of reasons. You know, the process is part of it, I think. So if I'm understanding correctly, the way that attendance is happening now, it's a period attendance, so whether you attend HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : An individual period. So that's the first part of the question for the unpacking and the second part of the question is that HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : Looking towards the commissioners new HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, City of Boulder, COB.: : Mandate, for lack of a better word of students going in person in April five days a week. Does that mean that cohorts that were currently in person will be required to go five days a week if they were at two days a week or if they are two days a week currently
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in other words, if you're in person currently in a hybrid program, and the commissioner says that students need to come back in person five days a week, will we be eliminating the hybrid program, making those in-person students five days a week? So therefore, whatever decision parents make, Friday, February 12th, is going to be essentially not necessarily a hybrid, but an all or nothing at some point, five days or no days. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The high school that is making HAB-Charlotte Pitts, moderator, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just a point of privilege if I might first. So I appreciate that, Dr. Edwin-Vincent, and I just want to clarify so that we don't have to spend a lot of time talking about the need for the consistency because I do very much understand that and I very much understand the attendance protocol that needs to be put in place and the issues with flexibility, not having the flexibility so that there's accountability. What I don't think is necessarily made clear to families and what I want to ensure is made clear to families and caregivers is that choosing in-person is not just choosing in-person two days a week. It is choosing, it is leaving the option open for your five days a week in-person because that's where we're headed based on what Desi was saying. So that part I feel like has not been made clear to families. And I think that that's really important because it's not just a matter of, you know, making a choice to go hybrid or full-on or remote. It's, you know, there's nuance there. And I think we have to really be able to articulate that to families in a way that is useful so that they understand that if they're making a decision for two days a week, they are making a decision for full-time in-person as well based on what DESE is currently recommending. And again, it may be staggered. I understand that we won't all be coming back potentially all at once, that that needs to be made fully clear. So thank you, Dr. Cushing, for letting me have that point of privilege. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I just wanted to say thank you. Those are beautiful and good medicine. So thank you very much to the students.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mr. Murphy. So I want to know also some clarification on the sports contingency. So was it that you had to have, you have to be in attendance to participate in sports, meaning you are in attendance either remotely or in attendance in person and you're remaining to your cohort, or as some people, I think mistakenly thought, do you have to be an in-person student to participate in sports?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mr. Murphy. That's very impressive.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member McDowell. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, this is a tally sheet, Excel spreadsheet. I've been sending it for the past couple of meetings. If you haven't gotten it, let me know. I sent it through Google share. So it's actually a Google spreadsheet, not Excel, and it's a list of the motions and how each member voted on the motion, whether the motion was approved.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That was actually what I had asked during the executive session when we were in session. And so I can amend that motion. I mean, yeah, I can amend this motion to keep a separate tally for executive session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Please. Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, I also just wanted to mention that I had a previous commitment to talk on a panel for the Special Education Parent Advisory Council that meets the second Wednesday of every month. So I have to excuse myself from the meeting for one hour, six to seven, but I will be there from 545 to six, and then I will return at seven o'clock. So my apologies, please excuse me, It had been a long time commitment that I need to keep. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, on the motion to move the motions to our committee of the whole on Wednesday. Let me just get my, sorry, my handy sheet. Oops, sorry, bear with me. Member Kreatz. Yes. I'm sorry, Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member, I mean, Marilyn Gokern.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor? Member McLaughlin? Can we make a motion also that this is, or can we, I guess it doesn't need to be a motion, it could just be a request that the Committee of the Whole is put into the patch tonight or tomorrow so that people are made aware of it, and on the Medford Community Media Education channel, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's Melanie member McLaughlin made. Can we just add for the condolences for the Van Winkle family also to, um. Maddie and Katie Madeline Catherine, former, um. Medford public school students who were Scott Van Winkle's Children are are Scott Van Winkle's Children as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Krex? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van de Kloop? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn? Yes. Seven in the affirmative, zero in the negative.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I was over trying to get us on YouTube. Just give me one second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I am curious. I think that for the, it would be really helpful for these breakouts to be able to see the data from the last session that we had and where people shared their ideas and thoughts with us about what they wanted done and what they, you know, thought we needed to work on from last time. And I know that this is sort of a different ask in terms of like focusing really on the mission and vision so that we're backing into these questions and that it's not sort of this abstract, but I'd love to see, you know, a summary of sort of, I feel like, you know, we spent a good amount of time at these round tables last year really talking and I thought did our group, you know, had some great suggestions and we did a lot of that work shopping. And it would be great to have sort of a summary of that. you know, either as part of this presentation before we start or something to ground us for where we are and what people have already said they wanted so that we're not feeling like we're starting from scratch.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm thinking, what was the one that we had at the library pre-COVID? Not Zoom.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think it would be really helpful just to have that as a ground and you're right. I think the one you know in between those was certainly very specific to the back to school and COVID and you know yeah I think you're right about sort of having us you know be specific so that we're not being derailed on a lot of the you know back to school questions and concerns because those are going to be a big part understandably. But I think we need some grounding too. And also I think it's really helpful and I'm happy to reach out if people want me to whatever to the mayor for that info and also even for the others, the second round table. I think it's just really helpful for people to see that we value the work they've already put in and that we've heard them and we have really summary of that information. So we haven't forgotten about that because I feel like if I was a constituent and I was being asked to come to this again, I'd be like, you know haven't we done this like a couple times already like we you know and and although this is different um and it's you know post a year's long pandemic um i want to see that we that that we we've been heard and that you know the constituents feel like they've been heard so i'm happy to reach out to jackie or the mayor for that um round table for the mayor's uh specific to education if you guys want so we could see those And then, you know, maybe there could be a summary sheet for the back to school as well. Because I think there will be some crossover, because I think there are some themes that are universal outside of the back to school piece, which, you know, again, just sort of whether we're meeting, you know, equity, for example, right? That's universal across all three of those pieces. So. Yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Jenny, I guess sort of the only questions I would, you know, just sort of in thinking of the question of the survey with some of the questionnaires, I'm wondering how well, and I don't know this, because I'm not another language speaker, but I would want to, you know, I'm wondering how well these questions are translate, like, are they easily translated? Because, you know, in some languages, there are not the same or some things are not easily translated. And I don't know the answer to that. So it might be worth just sort of, I don't know if maybe Paul might be able to take a look or share with some constituents who might be able to take a look or to just consider that. Because again, I don't know about, I know, Dr. Maurice, are you bilingual in Haitian Creole?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and I guess I'm also talking specifically about the ladder survey questions too. And so that's exactly what I mean. Like I know, you know, just, I don't know, for example, with, and this is just a minor example of my own home, but like with Gracie, we don't often ask open-ended questions, right? We ask multiple choice questions for her.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, okay, so you can choose something that's already a pop-up. Yeah. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I know it does. I remember.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Do they offer not sures in any of those? I know I see a right there, but they have that. Yeah, OK, I'm sure good, OK. OK, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We are meeting one more time before this, right? Before the.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm not advocating for more meetings, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, believe me, definitely, I hear you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Do you need a motion to approve? I think so. Okay, make a motion to approve these proposed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And you have 36 minutes left. You won the prize this past week. That is great. That's a big one. Logging all my points. Yeah, exactly. Oh, do we get to carry them over? I didn't know that. Hold on a second. Um, all right, so I make a motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Just actually, sorry, excuse me. Did we do a roll call on, I mean, did we do a vote call on the motion to approve? Yes. Oh, we did? Yeah. God, I must be getting tired. I'm like, did we fund the roll call? All right, good, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, Lisa Evangelista has her hand raised. Oh, yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You're welcome, Mayor. And also, Member Ruseau, for creating the templates, because it would have been double the job had those not existed. So I'm happy that they exist. Thank you, Member Ruseau. And we'll have them for next time around to guide the process. So that was really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Would you like us to screen share, Mayor? I can do that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm wondering, based on what Member Ruseau was just saying a moment ago, do we need a motion that these forms are used and moved forward in the future through DESE, or are you just saying that this is part of the process that already exists within DESE that they get these forms? Do we need to formally accept these forms now that they've been created? I'm wondering about process as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So can you guys see this? Are you seeing my screen now? Yeah, okay. I know it's hard to read with the feedback, so I can just collapse the files on the feedback. So we're just looking at, if you guys want, Mayor, we're just looking at the measure and the score, or do you wanna leave open the feedback cells as well, and I can just scroll over for each member? Like, how do you guys wanna do this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Do you guys want me to collapse the cells so that it's easier to just see these or do you want to, are you fine with just leaving them open? Give me some direction.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I also wanted to say thank you Dr. Edouard-Vincent, it's been a pleasure working with you. And it was really interesting to be able to put this data together I actually, you know, it was tedious for sure, but it was really interesting because it let me do a deep dive into the evaluations and really see sort of where the members were and be able to do some comparative sort of, you know, layperson analysis, if you will, or what have you, and the narrative was really helpful as well. And, and I think the message is very much that, you know, we're, we're fortunate to have you. You're doing a great job in a lot of areas. I think this evaluation certainly shows your strengths. And I also think it does show us where we have some work to do. And I'm looking forward to working. I think that for every member here that was able to share where there was work to do, there was full confidence that you recognize that and are capable and able to be a leader in those realms. So I'm excited about that, especially with a review like this again on year number three. So I think that this is great. And just for the record, Mayor, also, I'm assuming this is, I know that the superintendent was saying that this goes in to the file, and I'm assuming, you know, these are public records, obviously, we're showing them in a public meeting, so folks can see them if they want to look further. Is that accurate, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just in response to that, I do also want to say, if I could, Mayor, is it okay for me to just respond?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep. Just in response to that too, I just want to, again, I think that this is a really great example of process and, you know, what didn't occur in the past. And so I think both having a narrative that explains what this process is, and as Member van de Kloot was saying, having some discussion about these you know individual items and also as the superintendent is evaluating herself knowing that this will be the form um when she does her self-evaluation that will be um the rubric that we'll be working with so that it will help inform that and the process as well I think is really critical so I think also for those who are watching the good news is is that there's a process in place there's a form that you know is existing we'll be using moving forward and um I think rules policy and the equity subcommittee is a good example of sort of really getting these policies moving and putting things into place. So I'm very happy to see this. And again, I want to thank the committee for putting the processes in place and making them transparent. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Roll call. Yeah, roll call. Kathy Kreatz? Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, may I make a suggested motion? it. I guess I think that it would make more sense to have it reported out at the, um, regular school committee meeting as opposed to another committee of the whole meeting. That is Monday night. That's right. That's right. That's Monday night. Sorry. And may I
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And then also, again, if we could, I would like to make a motion to move to the rules, policy and equity subcommittee, a process, a narrative process for the evaluation moving forward. So in other words, a step-by-step written, you know, here's what we do first, here's what we do second, we look it all over and then bring it back to the committee as a whole to either pass or not pass. But I think for posterity, in addition to these forms that were created that were very helpful, there needs to be step-by-step guidance.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, I seconded member Ruseau's. I'm sorry, I should have taken a roll call for that before I made the second motion. My apologies, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-Kourn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hey, Tom, congratulations.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Big stuff. It's nice to have you right next door. Reading's lucky to have you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. I loved how they said in the article too, that it was so clear in their walkthrough, how valued you were in our district. So I hope that you'll relate that too and share that article with Paul Revel. And hopefully we'll have more EDLDs coming our way, Dr. Ebay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I'm happy to send Paul an email as well and just tell him how great things were. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Member Van der Kloot. Here. Mayor Long-Wakai.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move into executive session. Second the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, she and her team, say aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm sorry, I apologize. My Zoom screen keeps, I don't know what's going on. I'm figuring out, sorry. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, Mayor, there is nothing. in particular to report. I do have a new tally sheet that I think I sent to you all last week. I'll be sending at the end of each meeting to the committee and to Susie, just of the tally votes nightly. So that's it, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Yes. Yes. Member Miss Stone. Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Member Ruseau for poking around on that website. I'm sure it's a bunch of dead links, but I am fully confident in saying that Our students are students until age 22 in the transition program for our students with disabilities and should qualify for everything that our K through or pre-K through 12 qualify for. So I would recommend to the committee that we vote to move this forward. And if there are further questions, I would also recommend that the administration could reach out to Mass Advocates for Children, which is a free legal organization that can offer advice or the Federation for Children with Special Needs that can offer advice in this capacity.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, we can. Thank you. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Krentz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Long, O'Connor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Vanden Heuvel.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you, Mayor. a good number of parent participants and staff members participating. We had some conversation about the EPIC Leaders Presentation with the Common Ground Program at the high school. And the EPIC Leaders Program is about disability, civil rights, ableism, and person first language. And we further discussed the Common Ground Program that currently exists at the high school. The Common Ground is currently a reverse inclusion program where general education, non-disabled students, for lack of a better word, join disabled students in their classroom, which fosters friendships and continued community relationships. It's a program that has been very successful at the high school and we are having discussion about expanding this program to the middle school. We have been engaging the middle school principals and other staff members at the middle school to find, to garner interest there. It was suggested by the director of people's services and others that, and educators, teachers, both special education and general education, that we look at this as a potential elective course. And we look at what a syllabus would look like. And Susanna Campbell, who is the, I believe, Director of Speech and Language, has been presenting a disability awareness course and shared her syllabus with us to be thinking about what a syllabus might look like for a course like this. We had several staff members that had been part of the disability awareness curriculum and raved about it and said how important they think this is at a middle school level. So that was really good to hear. And then from the behavioral health component, we had a parent who was a lot of parents who are very concerned, of course, about social, emotional needs of our children, particularly through the pandemic. and there was a parent who was asking specifically about art therapy for the district. We shared that there was a music therapy grant that had existed at preschool that was driven by a parent and that we believe that that was not available currently, but asking about how we might pursue that and whether there was even also potentially community members that might be able to or interested in providing art or music therapy within our district and what that would look like. Dr. Cushon talked about initial stages of planning some summer work and hoping to build more outside activities through nature. Let's see, sorry. We are going to do more research into the art therapy and social emotional piece, Stacey Shulman talked about Lesley University's art therapy program and how excellent they are. We also had a parent who was very concerned about behavior supports for children in our schools and how that really alienates our children who are struggling with social emotional needs and exhibit that struggle through communicating by behavior. We noted that there are four behavior specialists in the program in a district of 4,000 students, which was very concerning, understandably. So we will be continuing this conversation and recommending policy by the year end. Our next meeting is March 18th from 5 to 6.30. we will do behavioral health first, 5 to 545, and special ed will be 545 to 630. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we please stop sharing the screen? So we sure
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So is there, what I was hearing during that conversation was there was no process for supplemental budget should the, in the, you know, odd occasion that we are reallocated additional funds. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I, Mayor, just respond? Yes, Member McLaughlin. Thank you. So I hear you. Clearly, we were in need of that million dollars and more, and so I understand that you know, there were expenses that were already there for that to be allocated towards, but, or, and to member Ruseau's point, our charge as school committee members is to approve a budget for the school and how the money that is allocated to us from the city is spent. So in the off occasion, in this extreme circumstance where there is an additional allocation, it seems to me there needs to be some process getting back again to that flow chart that we have a meeting to approve a supplemental budget before moving forward with any spending.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm also still looking for and maybe Mr. Murphy can help with this or my colleagues. I'm also still looking for a process regarding this. So I still want some process of when this happens in addition to, I think it's great to have in a budget addendum posted on our website. That sounds good. But I think that I want to see this at some sort of process in the budget flow chart or timeline for when this occurs, what the community and the school committee can expect that the process will be around the understanding and notification of Supplemental funding.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Fully understand that, Mr. Murphy. Thank you. But you're right. A formalization of the process would be helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Firstly, I want to say thank you so much for being open to the opportunity. I think it's a really exciting opportunity for Medford. And we will have an orientation with DESE on Thursday, the 26th. So we'll be finding out more. It'll be an announcement of the four districts that were selected. And I think it's primarily going to be an understanding of some frameworks and some training and a look at best practices and implementation and strategy. But we will be hearing more and can report more out after the orientation on the 26th.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Katz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Do you, is there any indication of, um, I know it might be, you know, sort of digging down into the details a little bit early, but I'm wondering if there's any indication of which bathrooms I'm specifically thinking of, um, the bathroom that the public uses whenever they come into the high school facility. And it's also an accessible bathroom. And every single time I go into that bathroom or I bring my children into that bathroom, I cringe and I think about all of the community that is one of their first introductions, frankly, to our school, that bathroom right in the entrance way. So I'm wondering, is there any priority list for which bathrooms would be renovated first?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McLaughlin. And I'm fine with taking a vote or making a motion to take a vote to send out an RFP. And I guess I would just like it on the record that I think that that bathroom should be a priority for bathrooms that we're doing, especially with it being an accessible bathroom and meeting ADA compliance as well. I would just put that out there as well. But I'm happy to make a motion to move this to an RFP for bathroom renewal, if I can have a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I can withdraw the motion for that information, if we can have it between now and the next school committee meeting. And then I would ask also on any ADA compliance or accessibility issues that are there, that those are shared as well, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Wendy Gaertner?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 5.02 PM. Thursday, February 11. Welcome to the Special Education Behavioral Health Subcommittee of the Medford Public School. I am going to read our usual. So bear with me one minute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: First, I should take attendance, actually. Member Mustone? What did she go? Oh, she left. I mean, sorry, I wasn't looking. I was trying to find our itinerary. So, all right, we'll just wait a second. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I didn't hear you. Can you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, wait a minute. Maybe I'm turned down. Sorry, I was. My volume was down. I was just taking attendance. Member Mustone? hear you. Yes, number McLaughlin present three present we have a quorum. Again, welcome to the behavioral health special education. I mean, special education behavioral health subcommittee. It's 504pm. Please be advised that on Thursday, February 11, from five to 630, there'll be a behavioral health and special ed subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom. The purpose of this meeting is to address best practices and policies for creating trauma-informed schools, behavioral health, and building community and school-based friendships for students with disabilities, special education. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, and Governor's March 15, 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting of the Medford School Committee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and our parties with the right and or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the City of Medford website. at medfordma.org. For this meeting, members of the public who wish to listen or watch the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so, despite best efforts, we will post on the City of Medford or Medford Community Media website audio or video recording, transcript or other comprehensive recording of proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. The meeting can be viewed through Medford Community Media on Comcast channel 22 and Verizon channel 43 at 5 o'clock p.m. So if additionally any questions or comments can be submitted during the meeting by emailing Melanie McLaughlin at medfordk12ma.ma.us. Those submitting must include the following information, your first and last name, Medford Street address, and your question or comment. Where our agenda is, we'll do a brief welcome and introduction to folks from roughly 5 to 545. We'll discuss where we're at with our special education, process of informing friendships for students with disabilities in our community and schools with an eye towards likely an end of April, early May report out to the committee of the whole and roughly 545 to 630 for behavioral health trauma informed schools. Our next meeting is Thursday, March 18th. These meetings come up quicker than I realized, to be honest with you. And I, you know, I think, you know, I tend to. get a whole bunch of things done in the interim, and then the meeting's here, and it feels like it's already on our shoulders. So I don't necessarily think we'll go the entire meeting tonight, but I could be wrong. So I just wanted to start, I guess, with special education, because we started with behavioral health last time. Special education, we are working on friendships and community in school. And if you were able, I apologize for getting the last month's minutes out to you all so late today. As I was saying, for those who just joined, I just got a new baby puppy who's like three pounds and eight weeks old. So it's literally like a baby mommy day thing going on. So I apologize. We've been preparing for that. So my apologies. Next time I will get them out to you sooner. So there are a couple of things that happened in the last, between our last meeting and now. We had Charlotte Heim, who's here. Actually, since we have a minute or two, maybe folks wouldn't mind introducing themselves. I know some of you know each other, but I'll just call on you to introduce yourself so that people don't have to guess who's first. Charlotte, if you wouldn't mind just introducing yourself and letting folks know what your role is. Are you able to unmute? All right, let me see. Can I unmute? Yeah, ask to unmute.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Denise Desjardins?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: What our subcommittee has been talking about. Thank you so much, Denise. I'm excited for you to give us an update on that as well. We'll talk more. Susanna?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Carla.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Tanya, do you want to say hello?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Let's see. Dr. Cushing, do you want to say hello?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And Ms. Galussi.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Let me see.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, Labradoodle, a little girl. We named her Delilah. She's so pretty little sweetness.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know. I'm telling you. Thank you, Lisa. And we have Claire. Claire, do you want to say hello? Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks for joining us, Claire. And we have Joan Bowen. Joan, would you like to just?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you all for joining us. I know that you have back-to-back meetings constantly, so I appreciate it. So we've done a couple of things from, oh, I'm sorry, Paul and Mia, excuse me, Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: My apologies, Member Ruseau and Member Mustone. Mia? So me, member Mastone and member Ruseau are school committee members on the behavioral health special education subcommittee and colleagues in this work. Thank you all for being here. And so what we have worked on from between the last meeting and today is a couple of things. One is Charlotte, maybe could you talk a little bit about the EPIC presentation that you had?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And maybe, do you want to share what ableism and person first language is just for folks who may not know? Charlotte, would you mind?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, a lot of times that there was a big sort of person first movement for a while. And then a lot of the folks in the autism community definitely said, you know, they preferred autistic. So it's always good to obviously defer to the person with the disability.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: is the, Tom Hare taught me, is the idea that it is better to see than not see, hear than not hear, walk than roll. That's not his quote, it's one of his colleagues that sort of started the idea of ableism, or founded the word, but ableism is essentially believing that it is better to live without a disability than with a disability, so inheriting discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Thank you. I was at that presentation. It was really nice to see. And what a great class Carla and Mr. Skorka have with the common ground. And Epic was a really great organization for them to be part of and listen to. So it was just nice to be able to see that. And what I really liked about my observation anyway, and I'm sure that Mr. Skorka and Carla have extended the invitation to folks here to observe the common ground. was just the natural friendships that exist without having to really be facilitated so much by the adults. And that's really the goal in all of our schools. So it was a good model for being able to start.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Nice. That's great. Well, I'd love to put them in touch if they want with Dr. Tom Hare, who, you know, he's retired from Harvard now, but he always also taught us disability is natural, that we are all disabled at some point. So again, whether it's by COVID, you know, pregnancy, Alzheimer's, anything, ultimately old age, whatever, we're all disabled at some point. So disability is really natural. And Tom, I know he wouldn't mind me sharing because he's been sharing himself publicly. Tom was actually just diagnosed, he retired last January and he was just diagnosed last month with ALS. So again, disability is natural and Tom, if anybody is, you know, is prepared for a life with disability for the remainder of his life. Um, hard diagnosis for sure, but I'm so glad he's, um, he has a great community surrounding him. So, um, but I'm sure he would love to talk to your student about ableism. So if they're interested, um, Tom's Tom's their guy. So great. I'm in touch. Sure. Sure. Um, and then, um, I was thinking maybe, uh, Uh, Denise, we could talk a little bit if you wouldn't mind, uh, or maybe Carla. You might talk first a little bit about some of the discussion we've been having around the common ground program. I know that we have some folks that are new to this meeting tonight. So maybe you could just orient them to the Common Ground, if you would, and what's been happening at the high school, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Carla, for sharing that. And maybe, Susanna, if you wouldn't mind just telling us a little bit where you are in your disability awareness course as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. And Susanna, I know that you shared your syllabus with the curriculum subcommittee, but at some point it would be great if you wouldn't mind sharing with our colleagues here, member Ruseau and member Mestone, just so they might have some awareness of the program that you do. Thank you. I would appreciate that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I want to let folks know if you have questions or you want to interject, please feel free to do so. So Denise, I would love it if you wouldn't mind. So one of the things that we've done, we've had this evolution of this conversation around how to build friendships. with students with disabilities in our community and schools for all the obvious reasons, both related to equity, related to student achievement. Both students with and without disabilities do better academically when they're integrated, as the research has shown, among other things. So that's part of the initiative. And so Common Ground has been a really great model at the high school level. And we have had some parents from the autism support group and also from C pack that had been exploring best buddies and I believe that exploration kit is continuing. But we've also looked within the district to see you know what model currently exist and how may it be expanded or improved upon and common ground is really been that model and so we've had some discussions both with Mister And Ms. Andre, Mr. Skorka, teaches the CCSR. His exact title is escaping me right now. And also general education teacher at the high school. And then Ms. Andre is a teacher, special education teacher at the high school. We have reached out to we were thinking about a pilot model at the elementary school. I mean the middle school as sort of a next natural step and what you know what that might look like. And so I did some initial reaching out to some folks at the middle school that at least the McGlynn that I know I still I have a preliminary email out to both of the principals. at the middle schools to discuss with them a little bit more as well. Staff and people who may be interested at each school, the Andrews and the McGlynn. But Denise Desjardins, who is a physical therapist who introduced herself a little while ago, has talked to some folks at the McGlynn. And I understand, Denise, there's some interest there. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can hear you now. Yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. It was really helpful. You know, I also, again, if folks have questions or want to interrupt, please stop me and let me know. One of the things that was also talked about in this sort of process is if this were to happen, You know, what could next steps look like? And again, these are, these are just sort of ideas that have not been solidified by any means, or just sort of putting things out there right now, but. One of the suggestions was that this was actually a course, potentially not just a club or a group, but that maybe it was something that could occur, for example, in the middle school level during the wind block, for example. And again, I know that this is just sort of putting it out there. It's not necessarily anything that's solidified, but it's just sort of what the buy-in looks like for that and how it's actually, implemented and that there's a curriculum that exists and that there's some relationship to the disability awareness program that Susanna is implementing, but also the infusion of disability awareness into materials. As I know, Alex Lorick and Tonya Sullivan, co-chairs of our CPAC, have really been talking about in terms of lessons. And as we're also talking about in other groups such as Sarah Silver, PB): The anti racism group and how we're looking at how we're doing these things organically. So, um, so that was also an idea with a common ground and in some next steps clearly would be, it seems to me, some professional development or understanding of what common ground is at the middle school level and buy-in, obviously, from the principals and staff there. It sounds like we've got some good buy-in at the McGlynn right now. It'd be nice to cultivate that at the Andrews as well. And then thinking about how this relates to the community, you know, once these friendships are cultivated too, as we're looking at, for example, we had Kate Quinn on from the Medford rec department last month and you know, this natural friendships that exist will, I think, then facilitate people wanting to be, you know, to extend that to the community as well and be involved with students with disabilities in the community and beyond our schools. So it seems like a natural, you know, outcrop potentially of this common ground. initiative. So I'd like to sort of open it up to discussion. Now we've got another say, 15 minutes before we switch over to behavioral health, but I'd like to have some discussion around this topic and idea. And Carla, maybe, you know, if you want to talk a little bit more or or not about sort of the the syllabus idea and sort of just exactly, you know, Susanna did this syllabus with the disability awareness. And obviously when we have a roadmap, it's easier to go by. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Carla. And I also think, Ms. Andre, and I also think, like you said, it's universal design for learning, right? So like what you guys were doing, Susanna, and I love that you're utilizing the disability awareness course to then work on how to apply this to curriculum and in the classroom. And I think that that's critical. And so that's really exciting and building this resource that we've talked about in the past of these pieces, and I know that the CPAC is next month doing, or April has a presentation on differentiated curriculum that Carla is going to be a part of. So I encourage you guys to attend that as well, because then you can really see how it applies to all learners, you know, when you're able to use universal design for learning, every learner can benefit the, you know, the visual learner, the tactile learner, the, all of those. So I think it's a great example across the board. So thank you, Carla.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's encouraging. And I think, you know, as we're thinking about the middle school model as well, thinking about, you know, cost, obviously, because that's another part of the piece of the picture from a policy and school committee perspective. And so there had been some discussion about, you know, you know, CCSR offers stipends for for their folks that are involved. I know Megan CCSR just went from, I think I was talking to her the other day, cause we're interested in having Gracie enrolled. And I think she just went from Megan Olson at the middle school, went from like 22 members of CCSR. She just got an additional 40. So she just, you know, expanded really quickly. So they're looking at a second person on a stipend position to support her and CCSR. So thinking about what this actually breaks down to at a cost level for the element, I mean, for the middle school pilot as we're thinking about that as well. And then it sounds to me that we, I know that Susanna and CPAC did a really great presentation with the curriculum subcommittee, I think two months ago, if that's right. I would also just encourage and I would ask my colleagues their opinion in encouraging, you know, the curriculum subcommittee to, you know, be aware and or, you know, involved in some aspects just so that they also know. And I like seeing the crossover between the committees. I think it's really great for us to work together and communicate with each other across things. So I think this would be a great opportunity, but I would also defer to member Ruseau and member Mistone to get their opinion on that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Anyone else want to comment or ask questions?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's so exciting. And can you send us the website in the chat as well? I'd like to push that out on social media and perhaps see Pat Ken as well. And I also just want to really thank Alex and Tanya, our CPAC co-chairs for moving all of this forward in the past couple of years. It's been really great to see the collaboration with the district and moving forward on a number of these issues. And so I'm excited about that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, that's super helpful. Thank you. Disability is diversity is what I hear you saying. And I think a lot of times, you know, as all too often happens, it gets left off the table. And so, you know, again, you know, being inclusive and thinking about it in that light is really, really important. And for those who don't know, for the first session, what Susanna does is she intros the class with Judy Heumann, who is a, you know, disability pioneer. I love that her last name is Heumann because she has more humanity probably than anybody I've ever known and she, you know, you should look at her TED talk if you get the occasion, H-E-U-M-A-N-N is her last name. And also she just was featured in Crip Camp, which is a Netflix film that I highly recommend to everyone as well. But in the first session, Susanna does talk about disability rights as human rights, as civil rights. And it's a very important point in grounding disability for the community. And so, I really appreciate the opportunity, Susanna, to come and share what I know about the history of disability and the civil rights movement, and also a very personal experience. So thank you for that opportunity every year. It means a lot to me. And then I see Alex Lorch has her hand up and Claire Flaherty. Claire wants to also talk about art therapy, Claire, and communicating support about that. So I'd love for you to do that as well. So Alex, let's start with you and then Claire, please. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Alex and Claire. I'm gonna give you an opportunity to speak now, if you would just sort of wrap up the special education section of our session. And we are gonna circle back around after February vacation, Carla and Joan and CPAC, and we'll keep our subcommittee members informed of what's happening there. And then Claire, if you could share with us your perspective, please. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Claire. Yeah, um, it was brought up in the PTO. And it was funny, because I think Mr. Tutu was saying that, yeah, you guys had, you know, he had been emailing or something with Amanda Gorman. And then suddenly, her people started contacting him, which was really funny. But Miss Galussi, just in one second, but I wanted to say thank you. And I wanted to say, that we did have a parent, as we mentioned in the PTO, who worked on a grant for the preschool last year for music therapy. And it was really, really well-received. I also just wanted to circle back to Susanna for one second. Susanna, and I know Carla has one more thing to say. And then I think, Claire, you provided us this really nice bridge from special education or through special education into the behavioral health piece. So thank you very much for doing that. I know Stacey's going to jump in in a second as well. So that was really helpful. And I'm so glad that you were able to be here and talk about this because it's super important. And again, for every kid, for our neurodivergent kids and for every kid. And the music therapy went, I know really well, personally, we've had outside music therapy for Grace. It's been exceptional. um, in terms of self-regulation and, um, behavior regulation. So again, for every kid, um, and Susanna, if you, I was going to say, um, if there are evaluations or exit interviews from the disability awareness curriculum, it would be really great for, um, this subcommittee to see them. And I think also for the curriculum subcommittee to see them, if you would, that would be really helpful, um, if you wouldn't mind. And then, um, Carla had one more thing to say, and then I'd love to hear from Ms. Galussi and, um, and Stacey Schulman. So. Susanna, did you have something you wanted to respond to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely. Self-advocacy is critical. And also, I have to be reminded often that Gracie's 13 and really coming into her own with her own voice and I should not be speaking on behalf of her. So I want to qualify that when I speak, I'm speaking as a parent, not as a person with a disability in this particular role. So thank you for that reminder, Carla. And then I apologize, Ms. Galussi, Tanya has been trying to get me through text because she's not able
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry, I just saw it. I'm like, what? Sorry, thank you. And so Ms. Glucy, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Claire. I also think that it's really important, as Miss Glusi was saying, for student engagement and student involvement and family and community engagement, around this and I was listening to NPR earlier today and Paul Revel was on with Jim Brody and Marjorie Egan and he was talking about the new level of family and community engagement and how he wants to see it be sustainable and evolve and that any district that thinks that they're going to be able to go back to the way that it was pre-COVID is wrong and that they're just not going to move forward, that the parents have become you know, the teachers in a lot of ways as well, with the remote learning, especially, and that to really good leaders are gonna capitalize on that family and community engagement, and they're gonna really figure out how to move that forward. So I think that's a really important piece, and the student piece is a really important piece. So I also wanna share that the student education talk show, Medford Community Media's Ed Talk will start up again next week, and we are gonna have seniors come in And they're going to be talking about what their experience has been like from a pandemic perspective in class. And I also think, you know, advising sort of the other students, the juniors and the sophomores and the younger sort of kids, too, is to going back to school starting next year, I think that they look peer to peer as well. So I think that piece is really important. And I'd love to hear from Stacey Shulman on some of this, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, Alec, Dr. Cushing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Cushing. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Edward-Vincent. I think it's really critical to, as Claire was mentioning around the, and as you guys were mentioning around the listening sessions, I think it would be really great to also have student listening sessions. I know we're having family listening sessions, but it just, you know, as we're, and again, it's a bigger committee thing, and I know it's more time for folks as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. So I'd love to hear more about that. I won't take people's time up now, but I think that that's really critical. So thank you for that. And then with regard to Claire and the art therapy piece, I think that being able to even do a little bit of research, I can definitely know, look at Roman music therapy and sort of talk to the previous parent and some of the grant that was created around that. I'd be curious about what that is. But again, I think about building resources like Susanna has been doing with the disability awareness, right, is building resources as well as Stacey is around the mental health, thinking about what grants are available for, you know, the social emotional piece. And, you know, social emotional has been the big, you know, buzzword both at the federal and state level, right? So there's got to be grant money around this. And so, you know, building sort of an understanding of what those are and how they might be applied is, I think, a great approach. I'd love to hear what you think, Stacey.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think that's really great. And I think that there's, you know, opportunities I would love to see too, as we're talking about family and community engagement, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, thinking about the expertise that we have in the community and tapping into some of that. I think that there's certainly, Heather's not on tonight, but Heather Ruminap, who is a licensed social worker, Stacey, who has been on these meetings, all of our meetings in the past, you know, has offered support, advice, services, you know, multiple times in the past. I don't know that we've taken her up on any of it, but especially as we're thinking about, you know, afterschool programs or what have you, there's a lot of people in the community who are very invested in our students' mental health and thinking about, you know, I think it's partly around the organizing and what that could look like. And then thinking back to my policy class, you know, from graduate school a couple of years ago too, it's sort of tackling this in the, in the, in the trifold, if you will, sort of, what are the, what are the barriers to this happening? So schedule certainly always, you know, financial and organizing and resources. And so if we're looking at that sort of triangle of how we answer those three pieces, then it's sort of a way in which these can be tackled. But I appreciate hearing, especially the listening sessions, but I also appreciate hearing what's happening In-house, I think what I'm also hearing from Claire and from others is how we integrate the family and community engagement piece into it so that the communication is, again, really loud and turned up, and they feel like they're being involved in the process. But again, I'd love to hear what other folks think. That's just my perspective. Is everybody talked out now? Pretty much right before vacation. I feel Yeah, I gotta go. I have a little girl puppy downstairs to cuddle and love. So I'm feeling the same guys. I'm just gonna put it out there again. I know somebody just came in. I don't know if They want to say hello or not. But Sarah, if you want to say hello, please feel free. If not, we can update you later. Welcome, as always. Is there anyone else that has any sort of final comments as we're going into this February vacation week? Okay, so I'm getting that the final comment. Oh, Stacey, I was gonna say I'm getting that the final comment is let's get a motion to adjourn. Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate it, Stacey. Sarah, did you want to speak for a second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Sarah. So Sarah, you're a parent of two children. What grades again? Excuse me? What grades are your children in again?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, you have two kids in the district, right, Sarah? Yes. Yeah. I'm talking only about one. Yes, I understand. So but Sarah's a parent in the district with two children. And Sarah, what I'm hearing you saying is that the behavior Support as consultant is much harder, especially during pandemic and mental health and all the behavior that we're seeing an increase in because the behaviors are coming in and out and not there on a more regular basis or a part of the district. Is that what you're saying?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I just wanted to make sure that I understood. So I'm wondering if anyone wants to speak to that from administration.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Sarah. I think, so what I'm hearing from administration too is for full-time BCBAs is that a student ratio of roughly 4,000, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for that. And I guess if parents are feeling like they're, I mean, it sounds to me like there are more parents, obviously, Sarah than just yourself that are feeling, you know, the difficulty around this. And I think so many of us are with the COVID pandemic as well and seeing this exacerbated behavior in particular, exacerbated with all of this in the pandemic. So if families are feeling like they really need more support and more help, what would the next steps be? Joan or Dr. Edouard-Vincent or Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Tonya. And I also just want to say, Sarah, how much I appreciate you coming on to the call and speaking up because I know it's not easy, especially, you know, working, taking care of kids, you know, coming in and being here and letting people know how you feel. I think it's really important and your voice is really valued and we need you. And so I would agree if you're able to participate in the March listening sessions, it would be really valuable to have your voice. We have asked that specifically cohort A, who can have more individualized needs, you know, has some direct listening sessions, because they will be more specific. But I agree with you, I think that this is a broader problem, as a whole, and extends beyond just special education and into into the, you know, other otherwise, and once behavior becomes, you know, more and more problematic, it's you can, you know, friendship suffer, mental health suffers, family suffer, you know, it all sort of really goes to nothing. So I really value and appreciate your perspective here. And we have five more minutes, four more minutes. So thank you, Sarah. And we're also happy to reach out to you. Anyone else have anything they want to add?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's very helpful. We'll get these minutes out to for the they'll be at the next once they're approved at the next school committee meeting. I'll, I'll send them out right after that meeting. So folks aren't waiting, you know, to the day of unfortunately, like today. to see the things that we've discussed tonight and where we'll go in the next meeting. The next meeting also, I know I said it a minute ago, but I'm just going to double check it again. The next meeting for next month, just to let everybody know, is March 18th from 5 to 6.30. We'll start with behavioral health first, and then special education will be from 5.45 to 6.30. So I want to thank you all for your patience today and for your time and for speaking up and letting us know your perspective and hope you have a nice February vacation. And look forward to seeing you all on the 22nd.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Free puppy kisses.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. I can bring her to the next meeting for sure. Right now. She's a little freaked out. I'm sure with my three, two teenagers, giant dog and everything else going on here. But she is pretty cute. So I'm about to get some puppy love. I can tell you that much right now. I want to thank you all again. And I am looking for a motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can second that. And I'll take a roll call on that. Melanie McLaughlin. Yes, Mia Mustone. Yes. Thank you, Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Three in favor, the Special Education Behavioral Health Subcommittee meeting is adjourned. We look forward to seeing you next month. Have a great vacation, everyone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, excuse me, Paul, just for a second. Would you mind doing the same, increasing the font on this, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, PBI's Office of Communications and the Communications Committee. Thanks, Paul. I don't mean to interrupt, but now that you're speaking of it and I'm looking down, thank you for making these alphabetically as well. legal issues as well. So for grievance report, and I don't know if it would be again, executive session or not, but I'm more interested in data. So specifically, things that have gone to hearing or that when a hearing has been filed to a legal report when there is, you know, case, you know, when there's legal action, right? Thank you. And expenditures. Thank you for both. For Yeah, And whether it's civil rights, special education, anything like that would be really helpful data-wise, again, not specifics. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I would concur. I was gonna say it's both and I think it's, this would be, you know, what was presented the other night should be, I think the beginning of the budget sort of pre-budget. and in the future, I would like to see that sort of consistently every year that that's sort of the beginning. This is how it all works. And then when we wrap it up, this is how it all works. Sort of a good, you know, teaching best practice that we do that. And then I would agree with member Graham that the pre-budget meetings themselves were meetings with each department was sort of, we had the big picture overall and they were more than one meeting, but.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I would concur. And so I think that I, you know, I'm looking for the aggregated and disaggregated data on the added district placement. So, and if any of them obviously are revolving accounts, then I think that should be, you know, made known. And then member Graham or through the chair, if member Graham would clarify for folks who are going to be watching this in a recording or who else are on the line, how would you define a revolving account, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I think going back to the, you know, the idea of definitions, you know, that is one that I would be adding. so that, you know, the community as a whole knows what that actually means. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so let's move on to- Member Ruseau, I also just wanna say thank you for putting that together. That was a lot of work.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry. Can I have a reconsideration of the motion? My apologies. Physical and intellectual abilities, if we could.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Maya, excuse me. Yes. Yeah, I also would say, you know, what about our transition students, superintendent, so our 18 to 22?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's the pending confirmation, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Transition program, I think is, yep. Transition to adulthood. I would just call it transition program, Paul.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: or including, yeah, the transition program 18 to 22. I think transition might be capital T, but just, yeah. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second. I was amended.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to report. Quiet.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'll second. Well, let me just ask a question first. Um so just again for the viewers, um, two things one when you're talking about the audit, would you mind sharing what that is? And then the other is for folks, um, HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator): I'm the original is all on the website and most of which was procured from the mass association of school committees regarding policy that we have currently existing and for the ones that we're changing, right? I just, sometimes I feel like we, sometimes I just feel like we get ahead of ourselves and don't, I know it's the end of the meeting, but maybe next time, even for the beginning of the meeting, we can just sort of give a little bit of a lay the groundwork or for lay people that are out there that where this is coming from, because it's occurring to me now when people are looking at the JFABF and the MASC and things like that, that people might be wondering what the heck this is and where it's coming from. just a little orientation. And I'm okay with moving this forward since it is from the Mass Association of School Committees and is recommended by them for their policy. And then if there are things that need to be changed, as you said, this is the first pass and can be changed on the floor of school committee as well. But thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And can you just clarify the audit? Are you talking about coordinated program? Well, it's not called that anymore, but what is the audit that you're referring to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in other words, did the Department of Education does an annual audit with our school district on tiered monitoring, right? And tiered systems of support you're talking about? I'm sorry, can you elaborate, Dr. Cashew, just for a moment?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And again, for ESSA, for folks who are listening, that's the Every Student Succeeds Act. And so that's a federal act that we're required to be compliant with. Thank you. And I'll just try to remember when we do the acronyms, I'll just be calling out just so again, nothing personal to anybody else, but more so having gone to graduate school just a couple of years ago and feeling like everybody was speaking a foreign language. It's good to remember just when we're talking tiered systems and ESSA and MASC and we could go on and on. I think somebody needs to, I think Randy Rainbow needs to do a whole education acronym video.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Kreatz? Here. Member Graham? Here. Member McLaughlin, present. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Present. Member Van der Kloot? Present. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to move to executive committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, just bear with me one second, I'm just gonna find the minutes. Yeah, there was a, I think it was on page, let me see. It was around the discussion, I'm sorry, it was around the discussion of whether we actually got notification from the district about our students testing, whether they had tested or not, because we received their, and there was just some comments that I thought were missing there, which essentially, Toni Wray said yes, that we do receive that information, and that does act as a notification, unless I misunderstood.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Long-Gokarn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, unless folks have questions on any of the bills. But no, just been going on Wednesdays at 9.15. And if there are any members who care to come by and see the process, I'm always happy to meet you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's me again, ma'am. Yeah, thank you. That was a request that we have for the first of the month as part of Robert's rules, best practice, just a good of the order, check in with the school committee members to essentially ask how they feel we're functioning as a team, if there's anything that they wanna bring forward or any concerns that anyone has or any positive things they wanna say about how we're functioning, but it's basically a self-assessment The first of the month. Okay, Miss Mayor member cuts has her hand raised.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right. Thank you. Member cuts. Um, I appreciate that. Um, and also, um, I wanted to add, um, I know that we were doing the superintendent's evaluation. Um at the next meeting, and I would just ask that for the good of the order, it would be very helpful for school committee to have a self evaluation as well in a process for that. So I believe rules, policy and equity may have that as part of their function coming up or unless I'm mistaking, but I would like to put that forward to my colleagues as well, that we have a self-evaluation process for how we're doing and how we can improve and what our goals are for the year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, Mayor, I guess I would ask that maybe, I don't know, do I need to put that in a motion for the good of the order, or can I put a motion out that, or we move that to subcommittee? I'm asking for advice from my colleagues regarding this matter.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: For the school committee, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I guess I just like to have some regular schedule. So let me just say, I make a motion that we have a self-evaluation process for the school committee where we set goals and we also offer a self-evaluation of our achievement of the goals on a annual basis, similar to the superintendent's self-evaluation and goals.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Long-Klein?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Marilyn Guggenheim.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes, thank you. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to say, I feel like the CCSR is a real jewel in Medford's crown. It's something that we should all truly be proud of. It has taught so much about kindness and gratitude as Sam was saying a little while ago. And I think our community as a whole could learn a lot from the CCSR, especially in these days. And I wanna thank Rich Trotta and Michael Skorka and the foundations for contributing and also Rich very interested in hearing more about CCSR's work in the social-emotional realm, which is also a much needed aspect in our district and in our community. So thank you all so much. And to the students who presented tonight, I know it can be really intimidating presenting on Zoom, and just wanted to say that you guys all did a great job. Thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, it looks like people have their hand raised. I don't know if it's regards to CCSR. Oh, great. Amy?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Uh, member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just I wanted to say thank you for the presentation. I think, um, you know, for the I did feel that the word appropriation sort of does let us know that there's an amount that we're given that, you know, we need to work within for the superintendent's allocation. But I think I agree. I do agree with member Ruseau that that can be made more clear in terms of what an allocation is and or where it comes from. I would also recommend in an in sort of a appendix, if you will, Dave, any acronyms or, you know, anything that sort of needs to be spelled out like know I think it was earlier I dismissed it was um maybe a you know link to title one title four Perkins grant that kind of thing just an appendix I would really be helpful this is real I found this really helpful and I appreciate you doing this I definitely think there's some work on the flow chart but I'm more than happy to um to give some suggestions if you'd like but um I appreciate the effort and for folks to be able to be seeing. And I think it's going to be even more helpful when we have numbers attached to the flow chart so that we can see, okay, this is the money and this is sort of how it's getting allocated and what we are working with and what the process is with that number. So thank you again for the effort and look forward to helping out if I can.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be amazing. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, I also have a question. Maybe we could stop sharing the slide so we can see hands.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation, Dr. Cushing and Ms. Galussi. I am wondering if there's going to be consideration specific to the Cohort A model because it's more than sort of a hybrid or remote situation. It's our most vulnerable students, as you know, and four days in person, one day remote. So is there gonna be any listening sessions specific to those populations?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that I'd like to see more specifically because I think, again, the most vulnerable students have different sort of subset. And so instead of them having to attend necessarily two meetings, going to both, whether there's an individual meeting specific to that. So just a thought, food for thought, again, with the time constraints that our families have, as you can imagine, having to go to one general session and then one individualized session might be a little bit tricky, but I will defer to administration, but would love to be kept into the loop as to what you all decide that will be most meaningful for the most vulnerable cohort A population. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I appreciate that very much, Superintendent Edward-Vincent, and I know that your inclination is to be inclusive and kind, and I do appreciate that. I do also think that is why I'm raising the matter, because as we're thinking about different subgroups and, you know, cohorting, but, you know, according to hybrid and remote, and then further by middle school, elementary school, and high school, I think as a parent of a child with a significant disability, oftentimes being in those meetings, there's a lot of time that is spent talking about things that do not relate to my child. And I think that there's a lot of times that parents have to sit in that. And also, you know, in instances where even when you said everyone is included, you know, also to ensure that our out of district families, our English learners and our students, families with disabilities do feel included, that there is some sort of forethought about how that's being addressed, I think is really important. That's conscious in terms of the thought, because I do know that there are are families who have children with significant needs who would not go to, say, a two-hour, if you will, meeting of a listening session for elementary school if they're in a very different place. And so maybe there's just the opportunity to offer something that is smaller and more appropriate for that cohort. And so I, again, in the interest of inclusion, that is why I'm bringing that up. So I appreciate the fact that you are always willing to listen. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van de Kloop. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I know that there's a committee of the whole meeting Wednesday for further discussion on this. But I also know that there, as you can see, several folks on the call and we have not done public participation. So I just wanted to be clear. Are we having public participation tonight? Or are you suggesting that we wait until Wednesday? I'm unclear.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Um, so I'm I'm a little bit confused. Maybe it's just getting late. I need a little bit of clarification, especially being as a first time member and not knowing previously approved field trips. Um, is there going to be some list that were made aware of what the previously approved field trips are so that we know that they, you know, if they're moving forward by the superintendent, that we have some context here, because this institutional knowledge bit is tricky. It would be nice to have. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that were postponed because of the pandemic. Is that what you're saying? Okay, thank you. Correct, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, sorry. Who was the second on the motion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so urges, thank you for putting this forward. And I just want to clarify for the community urges to whom. So I believe MASC put this out as a recommendation. So is this something that we're putting back to MASC and adding our name to a list? Are we sending this to the state delegation ourselves? Like what actually are you suggesting who this goes to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham? Yes. Member Gretz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um, Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, yes. Kathy Kreatz, member Kreatz? Here, here. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie McLaughlin here. Uh, member must own their member Ruseau. Hasn't never been to clue present.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Uh, member Kreatz here. Yes, member Graham. You guys see Jenny at my screen? I can't see her.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Jenny, can you hear? My apologies. I had not made her a co-host. That's on me. OK. Member Grant? Yes. Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van de Kloop?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Mungo-Kern?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I'm sorry, I'll let member Van der Kloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have my hand up. Oh, you are on the right. Sorry, no, I didn't wanna, I don't wanna repeat what everyone else said. I just wanted to say, getting the most vulnerable students in on a four day schedule as early as was done comparatively to so many other districts around us is so appreciated. And I know that there are many, many families that are very grateful for that having happened as early as it did in the negotiation. So just wanted to echo that as well. Thank you, Charlene. Thank you to the team and to the teachers.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member Graham. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, She, Her, Hers HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, She, Her, Hers
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, everyone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, yeah, no, I think it's really important to be able to have some. Buy in in some empowerment in the family sector to the strategic plan, so I'm not exactly sure how folks want to accomplish that, but I think it is a really important piece in terms of, you know, looking at that at what that. Would look like and how we can actively show families that. You know, their concerns and needs are incorporated in the strategic plan, both short-term and long-term. And then I wanted to ask you, under the initiatives, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, it looks like those are hyperlinked, but they're not hyperlinked, right? Or are they? Are they hyperlinked to these documents?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we back up just one second, Maurice? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but that's what I wanted to ask you was that within those bullets, they're hyperlinked to these documents. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. And so that's really useful with the hyperlink, because I was looking at this last week or two weeks ago when you were sharing it. and I noticed that they all do look like hyperlinks and being able to access the hyperlink is really helpful and then having the breakdown in these documents is really helpful. So can, is this document shared with us in a way that we can also look at the hyperlink so that we can just, I would love some time to just sort of sit with this and work with it and you know sort of link to the hyperlinks just to sort of understand the process because it's a lovely document and I think you've put a ton, clearly a ton of work into it but or and you know, the color coding and the hyperlinks and everything, it's just, I feel a little bit overwhelmed and busy with it. So I feel like I just need to be able to wrap my mind around a little better, but please do continue with the hyperlink that you just clicked on. So show me which one that you clicked on to go to the- Fostering collaborative relationships, bullet number two.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. And thank you. And can you do me a favor and click on the hyperlink like you were going to for number two?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And the goal is that this would be available to the community?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. And so might I suggest that, you know, I think data is really great here too. Two things, Dr. Edwin would have said that I think would be really helpful. One is I think, you know, thinking about how, you know, there is a, even a family engagement opportunity or event, or I defer to my colleagues as well on this, on how we are actively engaging families in this process. So whether it's again, you know, longer presentation to them with feedback from them or some, import or even, I don't know, small, you know, videos of families saying things that they want. I'm not really sure, but sort of thinking about how that's a two-way communication I think could be really helpful. And then I would also respectfully suggest that the parent education piece, you might want to include the Medford CPAC there just around the sessions that they, the monthly education sessions that they host that a lot of administrators and teachers and families go to. And then Lastly, data. And so I think that for me listening to a lot of the strategic plan, as I imagine it can for you, It can feel like a soft science to some degree. It can feel like, you know, it's like nailing to a wall a little bit. Like how is it quantifiable? As you were saying at the top, can you scroll up to the top for a second? Sorry, I have this document. Yeah, the indicators of success, right? Like what does that actually look like? So any opportunities to include data, I think, is really helpful. So whether it's, you know, two family engagement, you know, surveys a year, you know, where we're collecting data on how we're actually doing or I mean, that's just an example. But I'm thinking about how are we how are we actually qualifying the two way communication, if you will. So certainly, it feels like There's a lot that the district is sort of putting their arms around saying, okay, this is what our plan is for family engagement. But in order for family engagement to be effective, it's gotta be all stakeholders so that families are feeling like they're participating in this as well. So I'm wondering how that might be achieved. And again, sort of just throwing out some ideas for folks on the call and my colleagues as member Graham suggested.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I found a lot of value in the round tables as well. I mean, that feels like a lifetime ago, frankly. But I did find that they were valuable to be able to have these. It's another reason why, you know, when campaigning, I love going knocking on doors, because we really get to hear other people's perspective and what they think and, you know, with all the nuance to it that you don't get from a regular sort of questionnaire. So I think that that's really helpful. But I also, you know, am just really feeling like I want our community to be able to have an elevator pitch that they know that we know that we all are on the same page of like, what is happening in our school district? Oh, anybody in the community would be like, oh, our, our school district in the next three years, we want to do this, you know, and in the next five years, we want to do that. And, you know, maybe two or three items under each of those and everybody sort of understands it. And we're all working towards it. And I feel like You know, to distill it all into sort of a couple of goals is, you know, I know tricky but I think it's something that is really important that everybody in the community knows what the strategic plan is. and can contribute to it and feel like they're on board for it. So I don't know, again, if that's creating a graphic or something that's sort of the cover of this that everybody feels like they know. I think the acronyms always help, Maurice, Dr. Edwin Vincent with the ACEs. I think that's always very helpful to have those for people to remember. But I think it's also sort of repeating and drilling and you know, getting that home to the community that everybody knows that this is what we're tangibly, you know, going to achieve in the next, you know, three to five years is I think important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that sounds good. I'm sounds good to make a motion to adjourn. But also, um, no, it's not just a, um, an effort. Jenny, we're gonna have we are having a little competition. We need a little prize at the end of the year. Really, really get this rolling.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I am no motion to adjourn. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, everyone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Here. Member McLaughlin here. Member Mustone? Here. Member Ruseau? Present. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Mayor, I think you mean six to seven.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Roll call, Member, sorry, I'll get into the swing of this, Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Member, I mean, Mayor Langevin-Kern?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Uh, member Kreatz. Yes. Member Graham. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van de Kloop. Paula, we can't. Member Van de Kloop. Did she say yes? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I said yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We couldn't hear you. I'll leave it off. Okay. And Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member Graham. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, there is no report of secretary. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz. Yes. Member Graham. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. We met on January 21st for behavioral health. We talked with Stacey Shulman, director of school counseling and behavioral health. Our goal for this year is to address trauma-informed schools and stress and to make recommendations, policy recommendations to the school committee in a presentation in April or May of this year. Stacey Shulman talked about the NAN project, which is a partnership through Elliott Health and Human Services created as a way to talk about mental health and behavioral health and their sort of mentor partnerships for students who have been through some mental health challenges and come out the other side to support students who are currently going through mental health challenges. And there was also talk of a homework survey that Stacey Shulman did a presentation on. There were 781 student respondents to the survey around how many, whether there's a hypothesis that students were feeling that they were having a lot of homework. but that perhaps it's actually a carryover of asynchronous work and so the survey was created to sort of look at that hypothesis and what it did discover was that there was a divide between students and faculty. Students did feel as though they were having more homework and teachers were feeling as though it was the same or as in prior pre-pandemic. So there was some question around clarity for students around what is asynchronous work and what is actually classified as homework. So that discussion will be continued in our next meeting on February 11th. And then the latter half of our meeting was on special education and our question of our policy, our question of practice is how can we facilitate meaningful inclusion, inclusionary friendships for students within school and community? So we've been talking about best buddies programs, sibling support groups and participating in community activities like Metro Recreation. Metro Recreation was on the call as well as many other parents and individuals and teachers. And we talked about inclusive recreation activities and how we can support them, building a volunteer list. So Metro Recreation is looking for volunteers to support students with disabilities and form friendships and support the Recreation Center for Inclusive Recreation, and we're building an Excel spreadsheet around that. If people are interested in supporting that, they can email me at melaniemclaughlin at medford.k12.ma.us, and we can get you on a list to get to Kate Quinn over at the Recreation Center. And then teachers Carla Andre and Michael Skorka at the high school shared with us their Common Ground program, which is really about building horizontal friendships. Those are friendships that are equal footing between students with and without disabilities and how that might be achieved in a thoughtful, meaningful way district-wide. And so that conversation will continue as well on February 11th. So if you are interested in any of those topics, please join us February 11th from 5 to 6.30. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I actually we had asked Stacey Shulman. I don't know if she's on the call if she would if she could do that, but I can certainly send an email again to share that it was a good presentation. It was useful information and a lot to be said around defining sort of the terms of the survey. So sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. And also just want to mention that the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council is having our presentation Wednesday, February 11th. I think it's at 6 p.m. on dyslexia. So I don't know if that was in the, I don't wanna supersede it, the superintendent's announcement. So I just wanted to mention that when member Van der Kloot was mentioning the other, but we have a motion on the floor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Mr. Murphy, during the testing for COVID test, don't we as parents get results from our children's tests within 24 hours, a notification of their results so that we would therefore know whether they were tested or not? And if we don't get the results, then we can assume that they had not been tested?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so that was confusing for me. So then we do know who is and who is not getting tested.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you Dr. Edouard-Vincent for presenting these goals and I'm eager to you know look more toward the equity and aspect and some of the... items that you mentioned. I'm wondering, I know that we have it on the agenda to vote on these goals tonight. And I'm wondering if it would be acceptable to you and to my colleagues if we might digest this and vote on them at the next meeting. I feel like, you know, with it being 10 of nine and this sort of being the end of the meeting, it's a little bit, it's a lot to sort of digest right at this point. So I would respectfully ask if we might be able to vote on these for the next session.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There is motion to table the superintendent's proposed goals for the 2021 school year until our February 8th meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham, I mean member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you to Member Ruseau and to Superintendent and to my colleagues. I actually am, you know, as tired as I am, I'm actually really enjoying this conversation. I think it's a nice, healthy conversation to be having, to be listening to other perspectives about sort of even perfectionism and sort of, you know, lack of and all of the all of these other aspects. And it had me thinking even earlier, and I didn't speak up then, but this seems like an opportunity to do so now is thinking about, again, the concept of ableism. And so, you know, so much of what we do as a district is often centered around as well, you know, not just perfect attendance, but, you know, spelling bees and reading contests and poetry contest and, you know, just all sorts of things that people who are fiercely competitive and all of those things, and I think we really need to be thinking outside of the box about how all of our children are feeling valued and receiving accolades for any number of things, whether it's perfect attendance or, you know, I would love to see the poetry competition be in either another language, I was saying, or, you know, somebody using a a device who doesn't communicate with words or you know just really thinking outside of the box on how we're doing these things so I think this is important and I don't think it's either or I think it's both and which is something I've been saying a lot of lately I think it's how do we figure out how to make the student who maybe has nothing else but the ability to come into school every single day because that's their safe place and they've been able to do it for 180 years and they really like being there and they get that award and it's the only little you know, plaque that they have at home and that they're sharing or whatever. And it's something really substantive to them. Or maybe it's, you know, we don't know all these different scenarios. But I think how we are thinking outside the box is really where I want to see our district going and how we're thinking about how are we really valuing every child in these situations. And, you know, not just perfect attendance and not just spelling bees or reading contests, like, how can we think about all of the children in these cases. And so I appreciate Member Ruseau and Superintendent and Um, and my colleagues for doing that. So, um, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so the motion is to move it to subcommittee, correct? Yes. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I had assumed, I didn't think that it was strictly saying that we were only able to talk about prohibiting. I thought the discussion was about whether to prohibit, which would then naturally have a discussion of whether not to prohibit. So I would like- That's not what it does.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. It's good to hear from all our colleagues. I would add, you know, that also I don't think that we can assume that, you know, there's a couple of assumptions I feel like are being stated that I'm not sure that I would assume that, you know, kids who have perfect attendance are lucky already. As I said, I think I certainly knew kids who it was their safe space and that's where they went and they certainly weren't lucky. And I also don't think we can assume that all privileged, you know, people have perfect attendance or that not having perfect attendance award is going to stop people who are sick from coming to school. I mean, I think a lot of these sort of conclusions, I'm not really understanding, which I think is another reason to have a conversation where I can understand better and we can have a healthy conversation. I don't think referring something to subcommittee means that we're talking about doing nothing. I think it means that we're exploring conversations and different opinions and really trying to understand each other's opinions. And to the point regarding IEPs, Mayor, I would say, I would agree that probably a lot of students on IEPs do not have perfect attendance, which is again, another reason for my discussion earlier around ableism and what kind of awards are we offering for children with IEPs. And not having perfect attendance, Again, would not stop kids who are sick from coming to school I think. And also I don't think that it's a zero sum game I don't think that by saying a child who's coming into school with perfect attendance is thereby risking the death of an adult or a child in our school I think that's a really. dramatic statement and one that I would like to explore more in subcommittee. So I would support moving this to subcommittee for a further healthy discussion with community members and colleagues. But I would not be able to support not having a discussion, a healthy discussion, to review as a whole, not just one side of the argument. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Yes. Number cracks. Yes. Number McLaughlin. Yes. Member of my stone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Number Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor logo.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second. Thank you, mayor. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm tired, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. This is something that's been an issue that I've been concerned with for some time and I just want to thank members so for bringing it forward but also want to ensure, for example, the example, the example that was used a moment ago that you know when you say if it's a field trip for third graders. and all third graders go, you don't need to disaggregate the data. I just want to have a qualifier on that to say, you know, that we are being inclusive, of course, with regards to accessibility, so that this means all classrooms, all students, if every student in the third grade, you know, had gone, then that's one thing. But if there's any subset of the students that aren't going, that we know that and, and, and, you know, what, if any reason, there might be. So just the disaggregation part is of particular importance to me. So I want to make sure that we say disaggregation by subgroups or something to that effect, if you don't mind. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just was going to second member Rousseau's comment for member credits that I think that, you know, again, it's another issue of putting systems in place and having it, you know, be an hopefully easily done task with a with a, you know, pre created form. So we will definitely be discussing those things. We certainly don't want to give more work to folks, we really just want to be able to disaggregate the data and make sure that everybody's having an equal opportunity.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, Member Graham has her hand up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz, I'm so glad nobody told me I was on mute. Member Graham? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just think it's important that we have accessibility, first and foremost, both for the obvious reasons and for the symbolic reasons. And so I put this motion forward in that vein. I ask for a second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Roll call, member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone, yes. Member Ruseau, yes. Member Van der Kloot, yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn, yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. Member Graham? Here. Member Kreatz? Here. Member McLaughlin, here. Member Musil?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau? Wait a second. Mayor? Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So six present, one waiting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So as a new member, there hasn't really been a lot of orientation around this. I would second Member Kretsch's concern or need for some clarification. So can somebody lay out the process for us explicitly and for those who are on the call so that we do understand what the expectations are? Thank you, Superintendent, for this self-evaluation and for the thoroughness of it. I appreciate that. So I'm just wondering sort of if we could lay that out.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for sharing that information, member Kreatz from back in September. So it's been a little while. And thank you member Graham for reviewing it and sharing it with the rest of us. I'd like to make a motion that we use this document to create a process of evaluation for our superintendent now and moving forward so that there's a system in place for evaluation and a rubric in place for evaluation for the future that we have both for posterity and for this current practice. Can I have a second? Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Ultimately, I would assume that it would need to go to the rules subcommittee to be part of the policy handbook. But for now, I would like to see that we're using the guidance that was just shared that Kathy has shared that she can share with the rest of us to have a rubric that we're creating for this purpose and then subsequent to this purpose, if we want to defer that to the Rules and Policy Subcommittee so that it is memorialized into our policy handbook, I think that that would be very helpful for future school committee members so that we have an established process in place.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, ma'am.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I need to call the roll.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if we want to further clarify the motion, may I? Yes, Member McLaughlin. So if we want to further clarify the motion on the floor that, you know, we can break it down into specific steps, if that's helpful. I remember Rousseau that we, the motion on the floor is that we are taking the rubric that has been, what is the organization that the document originated? Is it the MASC?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So that we are taking the MASC standards for superintendent evaluation and applying them to this current, evaluation and that we will review that rubric and that information between now and the next meeting, right, and provide written feedback, each member, based on the rubric and reconvene at that time for the feedback. So then to further the motion, the amendment to the motion, That that would be the process added to the process as well moving forward as we go, you know, as a referred to the policy subcommittee where, you know, there will be that rubric in place, it will, the superintendent will present on one meeting. and then between that meeting and the subsequent meeting, the school committee members will have the opportunity to evaluate the superintendent's self-evaluation and respond to the rubric. Is that sufficient, Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, as the secretary, I'm willing to do that if my colleagues are looking for somebody to incorporate the information and create a narrative that is a cohesive narrative that takes into consideration all of the different members with attribution, of course, and their feedback, and pulling together, assuming that the rubric, I have not looked at it, assuming that the rubric is um, explanatory and certainly conferring with colleagues, although not, um, enough to require an open meeting, but, you know, conferring or asking questions if I have to, um, I'm happy to put something together based on information that is shared if that's helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: If we give ourselves a deadline of the eighth, then we'll have it ready for that. Yes, that's fine, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So this extremely, oh, I'm supposed to be the one that's recording this motion too right now. So I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to give this some thought, but to sort of distill it a little bit. Yes, I will write some. I'm sorry, guys, this is my first time having to do this. it up. So I think we get the gist of the motion, but to be explicit once again, the motion is that a rubric will be created with best practices, um, for evaluation of Superintendent Edouard-Vincent. Um, and each of the school committee members will apply that rubric to the self evaluation that, um, Dr Edouard-Vincent has sent us and give feedback to the secretary by, um, February 8th, and we will respond to the superintendent self-evaluation in a public committee of the whole meeting on September 25th, did you say? I mean, February 25th? February, our meetings are February 22nd. 22nd, sorry. So that's one part of the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I can. So the most I think, excuse me, Mayor, may I? Yes, Member McLaughlin, then Member Ruseau. Yeah, I think that you know, based on our discussion, if people want me to articulate it more, I want to take a moment for me to write it. I'm fine with doing that. Member Graham, thank you for the offer. I think that we're getting the gist of the motion, but if people really need it spelled out right now, I can certainly take a moment to type it up and hopefully articulate it clearly in this motion. But I can also articulate it again right now that we are, the motion is to create a procedure for evaluation of our superintendent that is a current working procedure for the January 2021 evaluation that will be due on February 22nd back to the superintendent. And then the addendum to that motion is that after February 22nd, the procedure will be, the recommended procedure will be moved to the policy subcommittee for review before being memorialized in our pending policy handbook for 2021-2022. And I have a second on the floor. Is that sufficient for folks to take a vote, or do you want me to type it up right now for everyone to see?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Jenny. You're faster typer than me. I'm like trying to listen. Typed it. You know, thank you for doing that. And thank you, member. Um, so and so the rubric just point of information members. So the rubric that you shared in the Google Google Docs spreadsheet is from the M. A. S. C. Recommended rubric procedures. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and in the interim, Mayor, I will do that for our evaluation due back to the superintendent on February 22nd. So there's a motion on the floor. Thank you, Member Graham. For the purpose of evaluation of the 2019-2020 school year, the committee secretary will compile a template for school committee members to use to provide feedback in compliance with the MASC evaluation process. The committee will respond to the secretary in writing by February 8th. The compile evaluation will be the subject of a meeting on February 22nd. In addition, the rules policy and equity subcommittee will establish a standing policy and timeline to govern the superintendent evaluation process in subsequent years. And I have a second from member Gretz. Correct. Roll call. Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Muson? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know that we have 10 minutes left of this meeting. And I also just wanted to say to Dr. Edward that Medford has been very fortunate to have you this past year. And we've all been through something remarkable together. And certainly who would have known on a first term that I'd be ending up in a situation with all of you in a global pandemic, but I can't imagine a superintendent that I would rather be in that situation with. So it's been a pleasure getting to know you and seeing you work through some very difficult times. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Longo-Khan?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's great. Thank you very much. That's exciting. The transcription. So thank you guys for doing that. And it's 503 and we're going to start the behavioral health special education subcommittee meeting. We'll go from, we're scheduled to go from five to 630 for the first portion of the meeting. We'll have a behavioral health five to 545. And for 545 to 630, we'll have our special education topic. I'd like to call the roll, please. Melania McLaughlin present, Mia Mustone? I don't see Mia yet.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So two present, one absent. I actually, I'm sorry, I'm trying, I was just looking through, of course, right before we started, I clicked on my email and I lost our introduction for our, that I need to read to the community. So if you guys could just bear with me one second, it is in the, It's in the email that I sent out to the group with the link, so I'm sorry. I found it, thank you. I had it open a few minutes ago and then I accidentally closed it. So please be advised that on Thursday, January 21st, 2021, from 5 to 6 p.m., 630 p.m., there'll be a behavioral health and special education subcommittee meeting held through remote participation via Zoom. The purpose of the Thursday, January 21, 21 behavioral health and special education subcommittee is to address best practices and policies for creating trauma-informed schools. It's behavioral health category. and building community and school-based friendships for students with disabilities. That's under our special education category. And pursuant to Governor Baker's March, 2020 order, suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law and the governor's order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Medford school committee subcommittee will be conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Specific information, the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and our parties or the right or requirement to attend this meeting can be found on the city of Medford website at medfordmass.org. This meeting can also be viewed through Medford Community Media and on Comcast Channel 22 and Verizon. And as Dr. Cushion just noted, we are also offering closed captioning now for accessibility. So that's really good news. Glad to hear it. So we are gonna start, as I said, with the behavioral health. And I think that's a really important. Aspect of the subcommittee meeting. We had one scheduled for December and it happened to be on that day that we got that foot of snow. And so we ended up not having it and we are rescheduling today. So at the last meeting minutes, I sort of took a little bit of note to some of the things that we talked about at the last meeting. So on the call, we have Stacey Shulman, who is the director of guidance and who leads the charge in the helping us create trauma-informed schools. And Stacey, if you wanna just speak for a moment and then I'm gonna pull up our meetings from our minutes from the last meeting to talk about some of the outstanding items we had discussed. Would you like to just do a little intro?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, that's great. That was one of the follow-up items that we wanted to have. I noticed that we also have school committee member, Paulette van de Kloot here. Thanks Paulette for joining us. We have several faculty members as well and superintendent intern, Superintendent, intern, Tom Miliszewski. Tom, thanks for joining us. Dr. Cushing, everyone that's here, we appreciate you being here. So that was actually also in the minutes for the last meeting that we were talking about the high school survey, the homework stress, which we're definitely seeing a lot of right now. So I'm eager to hear more about that. And I know that you said that we were gonna share the results of the high school survey. So like to be able to do that. And then some other notes that I had from our last meeting that I wanted to follow up on was that were suggestions, you know, from our minutes where you had talked about a little bit about the NAN project. I wanted to know how that was going and whether that happened and or how families can participate if possible or, you know, are there any projects with Elliot that we can share that we might know about? And then also there was a suggestion about a webinar around some of these issues. So I just wanted to follow up on those two items, but maybe we can start with the, well, why don't you decide where you want to start, Stacey?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is there a contact there that you can share Stacey with us that For example, if we thought about, or if there are folks on the call that thought about wanting to do some sort of a parent night for mental health awareness, or if that's potentially an objective that somebody wants to walk away from within this particular meeting. Certainly, I know that you talked about also professional development specific to the DESI mandate and around suicide prevention. And again, you oriented a little bit last time that the NAN project was created as a suicide awareness program initially, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And if we want to find out about any community classes for mental health awareness, we could reach out to Elliot and then share that with the community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But didn't you just mention a moment ago that Elliot does have family-based mental health awareness?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, of course. But I think that would be a really good idea, especially as we were talking about, you know, whether there was a webinar or something, but something around sort of community education, it sounds like a great program. And the students are really, you know, being served and learning from it, which I think is great within our schools, but it would be great if we could have something that was community based. Do you have any questions or comments on this? Does anybody feel free if you have questions or want to speak up?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm going to I think so. And then maybe after the homework survey, we can talk about, I guess a line was sort of the NAM projects, mental health awareness, sort of maybe the webinar or something along those lines that we had that had been brought up in the last. So you want to do homework first and then the webinar.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me one second, Mr. Rousseau. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So we have so many- Sorry, excuse me, Paul, but I just wanted to say, but that said, then your numbers sort of will reflect that too. I think they are a little bit with the teachers and the students in terms of the perspective gap, if you will. But among the students, I think that you would see the significant data set as well. And I guess I'm just wondering around this, is there not still a common planning time where the teachers are able to communicate around the homework?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Tell me what that is, Mr. DeLego.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So there's not a grade level common planning time is what you're saying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in other words, if you were an AP teacher and you were doing grade level, strictly grade level common planning time, you know, that could potentially mean that an AP level teacher would have to go to three, you know, nine, well, four, you know, or three, 10, 11, 12 common planning times if they had, you know, three grade levels. Yeah. So that would be, that's the issue. So now you're trying to group them by category as opposed to by,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So Mr. DeLava, would you have a recommendation or is there, are there folks here that might have a recommendation around how do, how is this communicated? Cause it's been, it seems like it's been an ongoing concern, you know, off and on over the years around, you know, again, when we're in person, it's a little bit different because there's that natural conversation. But I think planning for both those scenarios is a good idea for a while in person and remote. So is there some sort of systemic way that we could think of approaching what these levels are. I mean, I know we're starting with this survey, but I'm sort of, I'm always interested in this, in jumping to the solution, which I know is not an easy thing. I'm not looking for low hanging fruit, but I guess I'm looking for some suggestions, like what would be some suggestions around this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The homework specific, whether it would be planning time for a solution or other things.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I want to point out it's 538. So we've got about roughly 10 more minutes left for behavioral health. I appreciate that, Mr. DeLava. And I think that it would be helpful to include this survey for to share with the rest of our school committee. Stacy, if that's okay. I'm sorry, Mr. Gertman.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I think for some students, too, or people I know, I think the mental gearing up to the time to do the homework is included in the calculation of the homework time. I know for me it is. When I'm thinking about stuff, I'm like, OK, the time that it took me to mentally get there, I sort of am counting as the time that was committed to that, too. So it's interesting. I know that we have some other folks here that are interested in the educational piece and the webinar piece. And I want to know if there's anyone else wants to sort of speak to that specific to the mental health needs and behavioral health needs of our students in our schools right now.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. And Stacey, just, you know, I know that you talked about the potential that we might have for, you know, recommending bringing in the training for families around the mental health piece, which I think would be really appreciated and much needed this year myself, but also I'm wondering what your thoughts are around this concept of webinar that was proposed in our last meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's good to think about. And I'm going to. include that for our agenda for the next, next meeting too, so that we could in the interim be thinking about and asking students in the community what they feel might be most helpful for that sort of thing. And it might be interested to sort of think about a student run or a student assisted, you know, sort of webinar around that. So I'd like to, I'd like to include that on our agenda for the next meeting, Stacey, and then in the interim, we'll do a little bit of legwork around that. And then I think that also on the agenda for the next time is, you know, thinking about this professional development piece that we had talked about in the past. And again, you know, we're still looking towards a May presentation that actually needs to be scheduled for school committee and thinking about what, you know, this subcommittee would like to put forward or ask our subcommittee members to put forward to the committee as the whole for policy recommendation. I'd like to include the professional development DESI mandate that you talked about last time in terms of that, whether that's one of the things we want to talk about next time, but also folks who are here and have been here for the behavioral health portion of this meeting, please give some thought between now and our next meeting around, you know, what you might like to see or propose for policy recommendations around mental health, behavioral health for our schools and our district in our May presentation to school committee based on the meetings that we've had this year. And then also speak to your students and ask them what they feel like is important and around this mental health issues. And we'll do the same and we'll come back to the table for the behavioral health session. Let me just see in our next meeting, which is, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So if you guys mark your calendar for that and also let folks know that you know that are interested and concerned with issues regarding mental health, behavioral health, please have them come to our February 11th meeting. And I will put information out on social media around some of those questions that we asked as well. Thank you guys. So I'm gonna make that sort of awkward switch now over to special education and some of the topics that we talked about in our last meeting regarding special education. I just sort of wanna, again, bear with me a second while I pull up my notes. We talked about, so our topic of our sort of, Sarah Silver, PB.: : Question of practice right now is how we're how we can facilitate and develop meaningful friendships relationships for students. Sarah Silver, PB.: : Within our schools and within our community as folks that in the special education subcommittee and what recommendations we can make to the committee as a whole, regarding meaningful inclusion and relationships for students with and without disabilities in our schools. Some of the things that we talked about in our last meeting with multiple parents and other family, other stakeholders that we had on the call are have been ongoing conversations around a Best Buddies program and creating a siblings group or a siblings support group of individuals with disabilities, siblings with disabilities, and or support around being able to participate in community or recreational activities. Also, hold on one second. Yeah. So I just wanted to mention Heather and Marissa, who have been really working hard. Two parents that are part of the autism support group that runs monthly have been working really hard last year, meeting with the Best Buddies program and doing some like work around The schools in particular and best buddies are not able to be on this call tonight. And we're going to do an update on that for our next meeting around the best buddies program. And sort of just what, what we have found and what, you know, the interest is and whether or not we want to move that issue a question forward. But they also asked me to let folks know that there is a, meeting next Thursday of their group, their autism support group, specific to funding for families. So, you know, help getting access to personal care attendant, mass health, that sort of thing. So that's next Thursday. And I have a link that I can share or a flyer that I can share with folks. And I'll share both on my social media and also in our new Google Drive. So we just set up a new Google Drive folder for this subcommittee. I shared it with some of you just prior to the meeting. So there's one folder on trauma, specific trauma resources. I'll also include my notes there from our meetings and there won't be our official minutes. Those will be included as well once they're approved by school committee, but there'll be sort of working notes and then also resources. And I would encourage folks who have access to the drive to also upload information, resources, what have you, things that they might find familiar. I mean, that they might find useful. And I wanted to share one of the things that we talked about doing Last time that I just sort of started and was the idea that, you know, folks had around just creating a database of supports and volunteerism, volunteers around, you know, people who have this interest both in our schools and in our communities. So I was just going to share my screen for a second. And again, I can just share this with you guys. for whoever's interested and we can start to populate it but essentially it is just this spreadsheet, where we're starting to really think about, you know, following as a list of volunteers interested parties willing to help establish common ground among students with and without disabilities in Medford public schools. Sarah Silver, PB): With the last edited and obviously this list will grow and change with people coming and going, but I think it's a nice touchstone it was recommended at this meeting. Sarah Silver, PB): And I think it's a nice touchstone for sort of a volunteer base to just know you know people in the community that are concerned with and passionate about this issue and that are also willing to you know, offer their volunteer time specifically. We heard a lot from recreation around the need for that. So in a minute, I'm going to ask that Kate Quinn introduce herself and maybe share a little bit about what she's on the call for today. So let me just stop sharing my screen. So I'm going to send a link to that Google Doc for folks. And again, or you can send me people that you know that are interested in this volunteer work. And I'm also going to put a call, a call to action. for folks that might be interested in participating, I think we'll be surprised by the number of folks that would actually be interested in this sort of opportunity. And again, what I really liked earlier today, I was talking with a staff member who was talking about authentic friendships and, you know, not, and she, the way she described it was horizontal friendships, which I really liked instead of vertical friendships. which they're not, you know, horizontal friendships are friendships on equal footing and they're friends because we're authentic friends. We're not friends because we're doing somebody a favor or we think, you know, we're getting our volunteer hours or any of those sorts of things. So we really are thinking about how are we building authentic friendships. And Kate, yeah, Paul, remember what you said?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But yeah, I could do that. And I didn't yet because we had said that we would still and I will do that if that's what we decide we want to do as a subcommittee. And it was because in our last meeting in our meeting minute notes, we were still trying to figure out how that was going to be coordinated. And I know the superintendent was saying, you know, they would have some conversation around that. I'm not sure that that's happened yet. So I didn't want to sort of overstep my bounds in terms of putting anything on the school committee folder at this point before we really know or have created a practice around that. So superintendent, can you speak to that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, you were all stuttery. I didn't get to, I didn't really get to hear you. Can you try again?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I agree. And I was, yeah, and I and I would say, I think what Mr. What member Rousseau is saying, you know, under my that K 12 Gmail account, I could have my own folder on my own drive, not as part of our shared drive, which we have, I know, as school members, but I guess the other it, you know, sometimes there can be HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Self-Directed Accounts and Accounting Services um, you know, working folder, you know, behavioral health special education subcommittee that really just right now has resources and notes in it. Um, and this spreadsheet for volunteerism for folks that want to, um, volunteer. And then, you know, if, um If it's decided that you guys want me to put that on a folder under my own drive using my K12 email, I'm happy to do that. I just am concerned that even with Google, sometimes they're like, that person's outside of Gmail. You have to send them a special invitation, which is fine. I don't mind doing that, but I do. I was trying to be aware and wary of both the technical issues and the security issues. So that's why I... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I defaulted to that right now, but I will defer to the subcommittee and whatever you guys. We vote. No, we decide we want to do. So we can either. Take a vote on that now or wait and see. I don't know. Member Ruseau. What are you?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, I think that's a reasonable, and I think that's a totally reasonable concern. And I certainly can make, you know, as my pledge to office that I always like to leave the campfire better than I found it. So I would have every intention of being able to transfer information over to any successor of mine, because my vested interest is really about moving this issue forward. So I understand that that can be individual for everyone. So I understand your concern for posterity and I hear you. So I'm more than happy to also create a duplicate folder, if you will, with the materials there for folks to research. But I think it does beg the question sort of having a disclaimer even at the open around this school committee portion of it or not. But I think we're all just trying to feel this out right now, because we haven't done it before. So really in the interest of sharing information right now and preparing, volunteer resources and what have you. That was the main reason to do this. And also just trauma resources and the friendship toolkit and other resources that are there. But I think it's a good question. So I'll have to give that some thought and think about whether it's under the school committee drive under my folder or not and how I can do that. But I appreciate you bringing it up. In the meantime, if folks have volunteers that are interested in this issue around creating and sustaining community friendships and school-based friendships for students with and without disabilities, I'd really love for you to, or if you yourself are interested in any volunteerism around this, we'd love for you to share the information. Kate, maybe you can talk a little bit about your role and why you're here and part of the impetus for creating this list. I'm sorry, Paulette?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't believe we do. I think that's the issue, Mr. Gertman. But can you tell us more about what you know about that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And to the superintendent's point, superintendent, did you want to respond on that? I think one of the issues and the concerns are around the security issues, and I don't know what those are, but.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Interesting idea. Thank you for sharing that. Sorry, I hate when I push the button by mistake. Kate Quinn is here with us from Medford Recreation. And maybe Kate, you could talk a little bit because that was also the impetus for starting this spreadsheet among other things, also among the sibling support group that we'll talk about in a minute and some other things. But Kate, can you introduce yourself, please?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, Kate. I also just put your email in the chat for anyone that wants to copy it or that has any ideas or requests for Kate around some some inclusive recreational activities. Actually, I know that one of the things that was brought up to me, I was talking to a parent the other day that was talking about, I'm really encouraged, Kate, for folks who don't know, the recreation program is now what, two or three years old? Do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And so, you know, it's, and this is the citywide recreational programming. And, you know, as you can imagine, both with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but also you know, because it's the right thing to do, you know, inclusive programming is really important. And so the recreation department has made a very clear commitment to inclusive programming and also to adaptive programming. So we really appreciate that. And, um, it's been, you know, um, really demonstrated in action. So that's really good to see. It was also mentioned recently to me by a parent that we're talking about, like the, one of the programs, I think that you guys were running was very age specific. And this parent was saying like, you know, why could we not sort of open it up to all ages right now because the participation level is fairly low and that there's only, I think, you know, it was an adaptive program and I think there's only one or two even individuals in the program. And one of the reasons that, for example, other parents I knew weren't involved was because they felt like there was an age cutoff there. So that was something, you know, just to consider for feedback that I know a family member had. And then also what kind of partnership opportunities are there with the Medford CPAC. I know that we have a couple of the chairs on the call now. Alex Lorick. Kate if you haven't met Alex maybe Alex you could say hello. And I think Tanya Sullivan's on the call as well. And then Kate CPAC is Special Education Parent Advisory Council. So it's an organization that advises the district and families on best practices pertaining to educations of students with on IEPs and 504s. Alex.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you and Kate, excuse me one second. I just I want to we have another parent with a raised hand, so maybe we could just let the parents sort of talk for a moment and then Angelica. You're on mute Angelica.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Angelica did you oh actually Carla you want to talk and then Angelica.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great, Angelica and then Ms. Heim.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would just add, Angelica, thank you. Yes, not just adaptive, but inclusive. And so it's nice to have the flexibility of both. And for those who are on the meeting who don't know, BT, behavior therapist. And so in that instance, the student had their outside therapist participating both in supporting them in that situation. And so the flexibility with having other people in that role is really helpful. So I think just all around the flexibility, both in the programming and in the support is essential. I also sort of want to just, again, reflect on Carla and the point around, you know, there are some instances where those relationships are not horizontal relationships, right? They're more about, you know, sort of the supervision or the teacher-student role or whatever, but when we're talking about peers and peer support, we really want to make sure that, you know, we're fostering friendship. And I think that that's a really important part of it because, again, getting back to our primary goal here of how we're fostering friendship and community engagement and a feeling of participation in our schools. And the reason why we're doing this as a subcommittee as well is to really foster acceptance and inclusion and equity, of course, but also to bring students to our schools and to want to be part of our schools and to come to our schools, bring them into out of district or in from parochial environments or other private school environments so that they can feel that they are part of an included and are feeling those friendships. So Ms. Heim.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. And maybe if, you know, with Tonya and Alex as the co-chairs of the CPAP too, if you guys are able to connect maybe on a monthly, even before the adaptive and other classes come out so that the CPAP can also, you know, get that information out to the community and we can also, you know, they can also be thinking about community supports and I'll also be happy to help with, looking at the volunteerism piece of it too. Angelica, did you have your hand raised again?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's awesome. I just want to offer some snaps here right now, because I love it when meetings work like that. I'm like, yes, yes, yes. Keep the momentum going. It's good. I love it. So thank you, Joan. Thank you, CPAC. Thank you, Kate. I think these are all really great things. And I think, like I said, if we really gave some thought to this, even building this volunteer list, I think you'd be stunned by the people in the community that really want to be part of this, because it's such a meaningful way, really, to just coexist, frankly, and to create these friendships. There's a lot of opportunity here. I'm excited about that. We do have about 16 minutes left. This Zoom account is being used for another meeting right after this. So we do have to end right at 6.30. So I wanna be aware of that. So getting back to the policy piece. So as we're thinking about this big picture of how we're building these relationships and friendships and really modeling equity and inclusion across our community, both as school committee members and community members, how are we doing this within the walls and outside of the walls? And so we have been looking to what already exists in the community and the common ground program that is at the high school, in addition to the best buddy program that we're aware of and some of the things that we've been talking about. And I've had the opportunity to talk to some community members around the common ground program. And I actually was also able to sit in with them and I presented to them two years ago, I think. And it's just such a good program. And I think because it already existed at such a foundation, I wanted to sort of put out this idea that had been mentioned today around, you know, really continuing that theme and that model. And so instead of really, you know, even naming Friendship Project or, you know, just something like that we have been talking about in the past, why not just keep this idea of common ground, right? Like what we're really trying to find is what is the common ground between us as human beings and how do we build these relationships and build these friendships? So why not just expand that program that Carla, Andre, and Michael Storker at the high school, a special education professional and a general education professional, did together already a few years ago, and that is so enriching and rewarding to the students. And I've been so glad to be a part of, and it's been really wonderful. And I know that there are some families of students with disabilities on the call who are also part of the program, but I'd like, you know, again, we have about 14 minutes. I'd love it if maybe Michael and Carla could give yourself two or three minutes each to speak, and then maybe we can talk about some of the things that we were thinking for next steps. Who wants to go first, Michael or Carla? Carla? OK, so Carla, I'm going to give you three minutes. Ready, set, go.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The idea seeds the policy for sure. And that was great. Three minutes. You did really well, Carla. Thank you so much, Mr. Skorka, three minutes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mr. Skorka. And I just have to say, you know, seeing those friendships and witnessing the kids interacting with each other, they are authentic friendships. And what's so remarkable about them is they're not adult led. They're organic and they're developed, you know, independently. And that's what I really liked seeing. And, you know, I know that the people that, you know, I see in the disability community all the time that are either, you know, the professionals or experts in the field or whatever, all have a story about what brought them to this, to this work, you know, and it, and it always stems from a friendship, or from somebody that they loved. And I think that that's a really big and important piece of that. And what I really liked Carla talking about today, too, just as we're thinking about, you know, taking off small pieces and not trying to do, you know, whole things, it's just even little bits of you know, how it might be piloted and, you know, not necessarily district-wide, but maybe in another, you know, in the middle school level, right? And we're sort of looking at it at a middle school level. And I know Mr. Skorka, you have that experience with CCSR, and that was how you guys branched from the high school with CCSR. For folks who are here and don't know CCSR, it's the Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility, which is an incredible club at the high school and now at all the schools teaching citizenship and social responsibility to so many students. So that had expanded beyond the high school as well. But as a pilot, sort of, you know, it started at the high school and then sort of moved on at each level and was a really good model for that. So I'm excited to have you and Miss Andre here to even be talking about this. So thank you guys so much. And I'm so proud and happy with the work that you're doing at the high school. I'm grateful for the work that you're doing at the high school for our students. 621. So I want to give folks an opportunity to, you know, brainstorm popcorn a little bit if you want, but I'd like to think, you know, I want to add for the next session. I would like to, again, identify individuals maybe at the middle school level or more that are interested in common ground in the community. I also would love to see a common ground You know, once a month event night out right common ground night out right we're going to assembly row we're going to the movies we're going to go, we're going to have a dance we're going to do whatever but we're going to, we're going to find some common ground and again, you know, post COVID common ground in the meantime, what's been really nice about COVID and one of the things that has been a huge advantage frankly for families with disabilities is that we can be in these settings now, we can all be in these rooms together because we don't have to worry about the noise. We can hit mute, or we can, you know, turn down our volume or, you know, so many adaptations that have been created through COVID and this opportunity and even seeing curriculum, right? Like, I also want to give a shout out pretty soon, Craig Drowski and Carla Andre are going to be presenting at the CPAC. I forget what the date is, but maybe Alex and Tanya, you could share that on differentiated instruction on differentiating curriculum. for exactly the, you know, these purposes around, you know, how do you include, you know, students with complex intellectual and developmental disabilities and needs into a general education setting in terms of differentiating curriculum. And I think that's been really neat to see as a family member in the home. So that's been great. But I want to, with the eight minutes left, I want to give us five minutes to offer community input and then a few minutes to just wrap it up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, Tanya.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So anybody, ideas, interest, enthusiasm, anything?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think a budget would have to be drawn up. And again, that's sort of the policy piece that comes in from the school committee aspect is what does that look like? You know, what would actually be needed? You know, how does that run? And I would, you know, look to do a little bit of legwork with Mr. Skorka around, you know, his experience with CCSR and sort of you know, what that budget looked like and where funding, potential funding streams or sources could come from, whether it is, you know, again, initially, you know, grants, community donations, part of the special education budget, you know, but having a number will help us define that. So I think maybe that's a goal that we can, again, come to the table with next month, what kind of a budget for a pilot program of this sort, you know, for the next year would there need to be. So we'll work on those numbers. Thank you, Tonya.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It is exciting. I know, I have a big smile on my face. I know, it is exciting. And maybe Tonya, you can share a little bit of a personal story about your experience last year with Joe and Emily.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, wasn't that part of the CCSR common ground?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's just kids being kids and, you know, being able to engage. And I would encourage, you know, Carla and Mr. Sporker, maybe if folks are interested and wanna email them directly, you know, about, you know, opportunities to introduce themselves to the group or, you know, observe the, you know, common ground in action or whatever, I would assume that that would be okay Carla and Michael, yeah, Mr. Skorka. And also I just have to say what I really love when I observe is watching how natural the two of you are with the cadence of the relationship, right? You guys aren't in there, you know, being the adult in the room and you're really letting the kids be who they are, their authentic selves. So that's great to see and kudos to you for that. So I think you are a real model of example for the district, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mr. Skorka.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please do. And we'll put that on the resources in the resources folder as well. But we can mail it out to email it out to folks as well. So it's 627. And I know that the superintendent and others are going on to another zoom meeting. So we can give them a minute or two to transition. But our next meeting is February 11. So folks that are on this call, please do come next time we'll start the meeting with special education five to 545. And behavioral health will be 545 to 630. I also want to give out a shout out to Susanna Campbell, who has been running the disability awareness program in district and it's second week was today. And I was able to be there last week and I love it and I love to see the participation and it's really exciting to seeing 40 staff and Community members. also really dedicated to this issue of, you know, eliminating ableism and really working on equity and inclusion and diversity in our district. So thank you all. Good night. Happy dreams. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. Bye bye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, right now we can see it, Member Ruseau. So in a moment ago, it just went to the right and we couldn't see the first column, which is sort of the critical one. So right now it's good. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, may I ask a question?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm just trying to get up to speed on the origin of this list. And is this the first time, sorry, if this wasn't an attachment in an email and I missed it, is this the first time that this entire list is being shared?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So there was no attachment in an email that I missed, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. Um, and I am curious about the origin of many of the items on this list. Is this something that was a layover from previously requested reports that were formerly listed in old business as part of the, um, uh, I know when I came on board in January, there was a list of several reports that were sort of under old business for school committee that, you know, we agreed upon at some point that, you know, we could go off and defer to the rules policy and to the subcommittee. So is this that in addition to other requests that you had, or is this, yeah, can you give me some orientation, please? Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sorry, just a follow up. So then, yeah, I would love it just a definition of what the report actually is a periodic reports for school committee. So I would just love to know, you know, could we add the ad hoc reports here as well? Like, I don't know. I'm not understanding the difference between the reports. And then if I could respectfully request that yeah, maybe we just have some, we can talk about some, you know, continuity in the way that they're listed, whether it's alphabetically or categorized or what have you, just so that we can, I need some sense of where things are, if I could.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I just as a follow up, so just so that I understand, so you're definite, what would be, how would you define ad hoc reports and how would you define what is on this document?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: that is asked for on the floor on one occasion during a school committee meeting, as opposed to these, which would be annual presentations. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I did have more questions. Thank you, member Ruseau. So I would just respectfully request that maybe we give this a very clear title at the top. So as opposed to periodic reports for school committee, which frankly could also be an ad hoc report, cause they are periodic. I would suggest, you know, something to the effect of annual slash biannual reports for school committee. Sorry. Oh, some of them are quarterly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, I just wanna make sure that we're really clear and maybe that's part of this process. And so what is the goal that you would like to achieve in today's meeting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Do you think we might be able to start, you know, at the either, you know, bottom or top or wherever you want to start at the list and go through them so that we understand, like I, you know, the acronym WIDA, I think you said, is lost on me. So I'd like to, I guess I'd like to go through and just find out, is Peter on here monitoring? Sorry, Dr. Cushing, are you here monitoring, please? We have people we have. We have somebody's hacking in.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's very upsetting on a day like today, frankly. Um, anyway, I'm sorry, Mr. Member Ruseau. So I'm wondering if we might be able to go through the line items, especially as a new member. I need some orientation for each of the line items so that I can better understand. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So in the purpose description, it'll be written so that a lay person, so that I am, or I'm happy to help if somebody needs it or if this needs it, but that a lay person or a community member can read this and know exactly what is being said, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They're not. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. No. So attendance is obvious, right? So it's what our attendance rates are, I assume, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's okay. Attendance, I assume, is what our attendance rates are or dropout. Is that sort of? Yes. Yep. Warrants? I don't know what warrants is. Those are the bills. Oh, a fancy name for bills. So I would just, you know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Um, so maybe we could just put warranted in parentheses bills so that people sort of sure. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would just actually, um, spell out the acronym. Whenever we have an acronym, I would spell it out first, and then in parentheses, the CPAC.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so for the final update prior fiscal fiscal year. Can I just ask that we again just use some very elementary language? Just, you know, final budget update prior physical fiscal year.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Where's the money that we have counting final update? Yeah, okay. Final update some more. That is the familiar word to everyone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So two things, if I may, through a member or so. When we're talking about looking back at the old list of reports, I'm wondering what old list of reports, if you're talking about an aggregation of looking through all previous meetings, or is there actually a list of old reports?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, OK. Thank you. And then the other was regarding enrollment as well to member Graham's point, charter school enrollment. And I would also say out of district.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So for school calendar and schedule of school committee meetings. I mean, those mean we're considering those reports. Are they not just calendars like I don't understand how those reports so maybe if you guys well, that's a really good as I was working on the list.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, yes. May I make a suggestion? I mean, I know some of these are reports and some of these are presentations. So I don't know, maybe it's, you know, periodic presentations for school committee. So because a report, you know, falls under a presentation as well, but a presentation isn't necessarily a report. So just, yeah, I know it's sort of, you know, just wordsmithing a little bit, but maybe that would be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would agree with member Graham on that. That is definitely a report and needs a lot of data. And I would also ask that we consider looking at what the demographic of participation is as well in our community schools so that we're seeing who is participating and who is or is not able to be included on that would be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We're so thank you. Um, yeah, I actually just asked about that for the superintendent and, um, um, Dr Rick Adelie. I got a chance to look at this last year and on a spreadsheet form, and actually, I was going to respond to the superintendent had responded that we could present they could present in March with this, but I would actually advocate if I'm my superintendent. that this be presented at the beginning of the year. And I know that a lot of times it is already planned at the beginning of the year, although there are some instances where it may not be. But generally, I believe that Dr. Riccidale does it this spring before if I'm not mistaken, and I understand things might shift obviously with COVID and what have you, but I think it really gives a good opportunity at the beginning of the year for school committee, for the community, for other folks to see what the trajectory is for professional development for the year and sort of wrap their minds around what other resources and support might be there for that. So I would really, instead of the end of the year, I would like to see this if we could in October.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to mention also two things. One is that the disability awareness curriculum that Susanna Campbell is doing commences tomorrow. And she said I could extend an invitation for school committee members to attend the four o'clock presentation on disability rights as human rights. Full disclosure, I do the presentation, I share the presentation, but it's a really powerful presentation. And I just wanted to put that out for you folks, if you're able to attend, it's at four o'clock tomorrow. It's good to sort of see the similarities across all areas of equity. And then the other is regarding professional development and to your point, or to Member Graham's point around mandatory or not mandatory. There is also some opportunities that have been presented. I'm not sure if they're part of Dr. Riccadeli's report or if they will be, superintendent, but the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, thank you to the superintendent and to Dr. Riccadeli. There are now professional development points that can be earned through those meetings that are appropriate, whether they're presented by the Federation for Children with Special Needs, such as basic, rights or tonight transition meeting with Attorney Sindala or what have you. So those are also professional development opportunities that are not mandatory, but that do earn professional development points. So I would just suggest also that those opportunities be included if they might be in the report. And I'm wondering what the superintendent's take on that might be.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I need $5 for every time I'm told that. I was wondering if we have, uh, if we're getting reports from other out of district collaboratives. Um and if so, uh, or should we? I guess this begs the question. I'm wondering why we're getting them from short collaborative or have we been historically or maybe you guys can give me some
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's helpful. Yeah, I'm just thinking in terms of Oh, no.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just, would discipline fall in that category as well, just a data on discipline?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. May I add ELL to that, Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mm-hmm, I did. The Coordinated Program Review, Special Education. Oh, yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I know, right? So I just put special education with that. And then I would also just respectfully ask that that include information also as a subcategory for the discipline, but any civil rights complaints, data on problem resolution. So what is problem resolution called now, Ms. Bowen? They changed that name too.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it was PQA, it's PRS. Sorry, I'm dating myself now. So problem resolution and then a subcategory for legal fees or any lawsuits that have been filed under that account.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's not part of the report. I would expand this report to include those items respectfully.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin, do you want me to do it? Okay, sure. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Mayor? Yes. have to get a little bit. Used to this number Vanderclue.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I am. Um, thank you. May I, ma'am? Yes. McLaughlin. Thank you, Member Ruseau. I am recording them on a Google Doc and also on my notebook in the interim. And I'm sure Susie is in her minutes as well. But if there's a formal stationery or something that folks want me to use, that's fine. I can pick that up at the central administration, assuming there are some there, Superintendent or Susie.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And then may I just ask or I can ask offline. I just how the forms are submitted, but I'll ask that later. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham. Yes. Member Kreatz. Yes. Member McLaughlin. Yes. Member Mustone. Yes. Member Ruseau. Yes. Member Van der Kloot. Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just also wanted to add, you know, thank you to member Ruseau for his service as vice chair in the past session and to member van de Kloet and her service as secretary in the past session, because there is extra work involved and just wanted to say we appreciate that, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a January 26 agenda so that we can discuss and respond to the email.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, that's me. This is going to be tricky. I'll get used to it. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Mayor Lungo-Koehn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. And thank you, Member Ruseau. I wanted to respond regarding that email before we moved on. So if that information could be included in the bi-monthly reporting, that's what's being asked. But what I'm hearing is we're not asking for a motion specific to that date, but that will occur as part of the dashboard. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That'd be great. So then I would ask that we make a motion that we put this on the agenda for the January 26th school committee meeting, just as a follow-up, if we could do that, Mr. Murphy, so that you could tell us what was workable, what wasn't, and how it will be reported out. That would be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We can include that. Can I get a second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Member Graham? Yes. Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member, I mean, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yes, to that end I was interested very much in the data as well in terms of who is not offering consent and so has it, you know, is there a way that it can be made really clear to please you know in the robocalls and the communication. what have you, to let us know either way, one way or the other, yes or no, because we need to, you know, have that data, number one. So I think what we're hearing is, what I'm hearing as a parent anyway, is to please send in your consent form for your child to test and I'm not hearing if you don't want to test to let us know or you know if you have any questions to let us know and so I think that that's equally important because I think a lot of families probably just assume well if I don't respond they'll get that it's no and then it doesn't include that data set of people who like member Ruseau said you know whose notices are sitting in their kids mailbox uh email box or in their own spam folder or whatever it might be. So that data set I think is really important. And is there a way that we're sort of cross-referencing if it is, you know, say 20%, so 500, 1,000 roughly, you know, students, you know, is there any cross-reference? And my other, you know, real concern is, Again, would the data tell us anything about, you know, families of children with disabilities? So, for example, if there are a lot of children, you know, with disabilities that, you know, for whatever reason might need additional support in testing, whether it's from, you know, a specialized educator or somebody else that, you know, I'm sure that through the Arc of Mass or Northeast Arc or any of those organizations, this must be an ongoing issue for a lot of schools that you know, they're individuals who just, you know, probably need some support, getting some testing. So who they might be, and then also for any of our families who, you know, just what have you, either whether it's that, you know, there's situations at home or homelessness or they're not getting the message or whatever, how we can help with that situation. So I guess I'm asking if there's any way to disaggregate the data a little bit more. And then also how we as school committee members can help get out the word for the testing. Any suggestions that you might have, you know, other than obviously our own social media, but anything else that we can do, please give us some guidance. And then lastly, How are we making it very explicit to families? Because my intention is to definitely say, please let the school know whether you do or do not want testing. It's not just whether you do. So how can we message that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and so is there a way, I appreciate that, and just as a follow-up, is there a way to disaggregate that data? So I would agree with you wholeheartedly, Mr. Murphy. I don't think that in the interest of public health, there's good reason to opt out at all. I just wanna make sure that families are being communicated with and that they understand, and I really appreciate Toni and her team following up to assuage people's concerns for people who do have concerns, because I think they're legitimate. Certainly we know that there are children with anxiety and what have you, Again, the non-invasive piece is a big piece. We've had both the invasive and non-invasive tests, and it makes a big difference. Some families are willing to wait even longer in line for the non-invasive. I'm certainly in that category. So I understand that. But I guess also the question is, is there a way to disaggregate that data so that we can make sure that there aren't any patterns, anything that we need to make sure that we're having additional support for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just might add, sorry, and I just might add if there are patterns with, you know, students with disabilities or students that are English learners or, you know, other sort of specific patterns, there are certainly, at least in the special education community team meetings where, you know, this can be part of the team discussion and, you know, the coordinators can be ensuring that. So I think that there's a process that you know there could be there again if there's data that suggests there needs to be. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Hello, Mr. Downs. Hi, Dr. Barnum. Nice to see you. Thank you for the report. I wanted to also say thank you for being so inclusive with the Special Ed Parent Advisory Council over the years and hosting the meetings there. And we miss seeing you all. We miss seeing the janitor staff and everybody that helps us all the time. And we're looking forward to getting back into the building in terms of parents, speaking for myself as a parent of the Special Ed Parent Advisory Council. But I know from Tanya and Alex, the co-chairs, they would I want to say thank you as well. And also for folks maybe who are watching who don't know, Dr. Burnham is the new vice principal who had transferred over from the high school to the Andrews. And we knew Dr. Burnham at the high school. And we also miss you very much over there, Dr. Burnham. So looking forward to seeing you in the building when the time comes. And couldn't agree more about the mental health capacity of people wanting to get back into our schools. just had the opportunity to make a lunch for one of my students to go to school and I never thought I would enjoy making a lunch for my students so much, but I did I was really like this is so great. And who would have thought right those little things that we don't realize that we even miss that we're able to get to do again. I'd like to ask what sort of communication and inter-school collaboration, if you will, do you have with the McGlynn Middle School right next door to you? So that's always been something that I've been interested in. We're right next door to each other, and how are you guys interacting and working together?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great, thank you. And just in response to the clubs as well and the combination of the clubs, I know that you're also committed to inclusion and including all students. So I really appreciate reaching out to the EL and to the Director of Pupil Services and making sure that the clubs are inclusive across both schools. But I know that you guys do that already. So I just wanted to put that out there so that the community knows that they're available to all students, of course. Thank you. Absolutely.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm really, thank you, Mr. Teixeira for the report, very thorough as always, appreciated. And I'm really interested in learning more about the co-teaching model and would love to sort of look at that, especially as you're talking about inclusion and what the inclusion rates are for that. I think that's a really important model and base. And so, that's something that I'm interested in exploring more. because it seems like it's been working and it's been a model from the department level as well. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Exactly. And thank you. And the similarities between that and students with disabilities are not lost on me. in terms of the inclusion aspect as well because of the difficulty just in language and universal design for learning and being able to differentiate instruction across the board makes better teachers and access to all the students for the children as well so that we're all having exposure to each other. So I love that you have this model and I'm clearly interested in hearing more about it. So thank you and thank you to the teachers who are working hard because I know that's sort of an extra level, an extra layer of work to be able to do that collaborative piece. But it's such an important way to hone their own skills. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this information superintendent. I wanted to ask if I understand you're doing a press release, it would be helpful to post this obviously on the district website as well so folks know, you know, who's on and if there are community members they want to talk to. if they want to put things forward. And also can we, in the published document for the anti-racism task force, can you also include what role that each of the individuals has? So for example, student, community member, staff member, what have you, so that we can see the breakdown and how that is applied. It would be really helpful for the community to be able to see that. And then you said the meetings take place twice a month. Are they on a consistent time or if a school committee member wants to observe or have a sit in, should we just reach out to you or one of the anti-racism task force members?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And would it be okay to have that information for the information about the membership and the press release on the district site?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I thought this was a great opportunity for Medford to apply to be part of this pilot initiative on family school and partnerships. It's based on the Massachusetts family school and partnership community partnership fundamentals which can be shared for folks who are interested. I'm happy to share it or share it with Lisa Evangelista to share. And it, you know, supports the innovation and implementation of powerful family engagement strategies for this year and beyond. So there'll be a webinar tomorrow from three to four on Tuesday, January 12 that requires registration for any community members that might be interested or educators that are interested. I'll be attending that. And then as you stated, Mayor, the application itself is due January 26. Only three districts across the state will be chosen for this pilot. And I'd like to throw Medford's hat into the ring. I wanted to put that out to the superintendent here and ask her opinion on that and whether that's something the district might consider.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I'm satisfied. I'll be in the webinar tomorrow and I'm sure Dr. Edouard-Vincent and I will talk more, but I'm satisfied with the presentation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, it does.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Kreatz? Yes. Member McLaughlin, yes. Member Mustone? Yes. Member Ruseau? Yes. Member Van der Kloot? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Mayor Long occur.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful show, Ms. Baptiste, and to the students. That was really lovely. I love Auld Lang Syne. It's my favorite song. It was just so nice to hear and celebrate and be festive. And you're right, the ensemble piece is really wonderful. And I happen to be at the actually at the McGlynn School today and I was. looking longingly at the auditorium and remembering the days when we were able to go in and watch our students perform and any number of exhibitions and missing that and looking forward very much to when we can do that again. So thank you for that little bit of that tonight. And I also wanted to say to the superintendent's point regarding the Medford Family Network and all their hard work around this, the toy collection and the community members who have contributed from You know the firefighters to local Union 25 and police and Kiwanis and all the folks that the superintendent mentioned, you know, going over to the metric family network today was really remarkable. You could see the toys were literally from floor to ceiling. in each of the rooms. It was just so overwhelming and so moving and just made me feel so proud to be a part of Medford and also made me realize just how much work really Marie Cassidy puts into this. It's not just collecting the toys from a number of different very willing contributors, but matching families to those toys, delivering those toys. it's a huge, huge undertaking. So I would also just like to add that if there are folks who are available and interested and willing tomorrow, who might be able to help with any distribution, I'm sure Medford Family Network would welcome the help for any of the toy distribution for folks who are not able to come and pick up the toys. So the way to reach them is 781-393-2106. Again, 781-393-2106. And Heather and Marie have just been doing such a remarkable job with everybody there and just makes you proud to be from Medford. So thank you to them.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, may I comment on the last? It's Member McLaughlin. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Sorry, before we moved on, I wanted to comment on the last question slash comments. I first wanted to just start out with really thanking Toni Wray and Marianne O'Connor. It has been a long road for everyone, and I think The two of you have just been standouts in the work and really appreciate all of your hard work. We're coming up to mid-year now and it's been a lot. I just wanted to say thank you to the two of you. Then also, we had office hours recently where we spoke with families who were in the remote cohort. who are in the remote cohort and who expressed similar sentiment as the letter writer in the email. And, you know, there was some brainstorming around, you know, how to help individuals in the remote cohort feel more included and more welcome and I would like to explore that on Superintendent Edward said if we could a little bit and and one of the suggestions was, you know, perhaps creating even just sort of, you know, either support groups at the school grade at the school level. You know at each of the school levels elementary, middle and high school, whether it be through you know a closed and private Facebook group or some other avenue but being able to connect families to each other I think that we've heard over and over that, particularly the remote cohort is feeling really left out and isolated. And I think we're all feeling isolated. So if you can imagine what it feels like to not be in a setting where you're getting to see your colleagues, as some of us are at work every day, or talk to people outside of your home, as many of us may be, how isolating that can be. And I just would like to consider ways that we might think about that and help alleviate that situation. And then I just wanted to end with to the superintendent, my senior went back last week. And was so, I've never seen a 17 year old so grateful to be in school again in my life. And it was really remarkable to see for someone who had struggled with school before. So it was, it was remarkable, but also that, you know, there was, there was commentary made about how much students can see how much you care to the superintendent at Wedminsent. And I wanted to let you know that that had been reflected and you don't often hear that from teenage boys. So I thought it was remarkable and something that I wanted to share with you. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And maybe it's something that, you know, Stacey Shulman can also just sort of offer some feedback on or, you know, Mia and I did office hours together and there was some parents there that had some suggestions and we can check with them and see if they're okay with us forwarding their names along to you too. But I think that would be really helpful. Thank you, Superintendent.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Motion to approve. Second motion to have questions, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to take number three off the table.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve. That's wonderful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say, I think we might have a record for our shortest school committee meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I was complimenting Jenny on her sweater. I said it wasn't too ugly, and then I didn't know they had flashing lights, so. Yeah, that's ugly. I take it back. Melanie, what's yours? Mine was actually loaned to me, given to me by the superintendent today because I didn't get one, but gifted. I'm a present, see?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So yes, that was mine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Present.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just wanted to say it looks great, Chad. Thank you very much. I got a little bit of a tour before COVID, and I was just so impressed. It had been my first time for a walk around. So it just looks so good, and it's exciting. And I can't wait to see the salon all done. And I'm sure your students can't wait to get in there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Also, I just, you know, this was sort of a tricky thing in that it was a crossover between two administrations, right? And so, and also two new school committee members and new central administration and a whole bunch of things. And so I think really sort of getting an understanding again to Member Graham's point and also Member Kretsch's point, getting an understanding both of what the intention was under the former administration and the former school committee when this was established initially to, you know, again, what the intent is today, you know, what that looks like, what our policy suggest we do when we're making this sort of an ad hoc committee and again to member Graham's point what the you know what the individuals who should be what the selection process is and what we're looking for in terms of expertise because I also don't feel like necessarily a vision committee I certainly I think a vision committee will be able to do it sounds like what we're asking them to do is you know research walkthroughs you know cost analysis potentially I mean I don't really know because we haven't spelled that out But even among those people it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to have experts per se, unless that's what we're saying is we're looking for community based experts and if that's what we're saying, as opposed to community members who are submitting applications then I think we need some clarification on that too but I just want to make sure that those who are watching or those who watch later. community members, what have you, understand that this is something that has crossed two administrations and several school committee members. So we're all playing a little bit of catch up here. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I have a point of privilege? Member McLaughlin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Collin. I guess I want to say from, you know, as a community member and people that I've been talking with in the community regarding the vision committee, I think, you know, the physical structure is one aspect of the vision committee. I don't think it's the sole aspect from my perspective, which is a large reason why we were talking about making sure also that the vision committee was a diverse representation. I think we need to hear from the vision committee about what It is they see from all aspects of the vision of the high school, and what needs to happen for the future of the high school, not just the physical structure, frankly, I think it is a combination of, you know, a variety of things. For example, the, you know, I think the the anti-racism task force, some of the curriculum things that we've been talking about. I mean, I think that there's a whole ball of wax that we're talking, the social, emotional, and the physical, and potentially the academic. And I think that this, you know, breaking down of it is great, but I wouldn't limit it to just the physical structure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Which was the six o'clock subcommittee meeting. Oh, I'm not sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't think there was a six o'clock subcommittee meeting. I think we're not on a higher.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Which is canceled. The subcommittee meeting for tomorrow has been canceled. It was five to 6.30. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I would agree that we need to be very specific in the charge around what it is we're asking the community to be part of and to be, you know, really take the time to spell that out, which, you know, I don't think anyone's proposing that that happened tonight. But I do think that, again, that's something we should do with what the hourly requirement is, and maybe some of the specific roles that we're hoping to fill. And, you know, some of these those other things that we can work around. I also think that we really need to be thinking, obviously, I'm sure you are thinking of this, Mayor, is translation for all of this material, applications, and anything else. But I also think that we need to, as we consider the BIPOC community, I really think that as we're even structuring what we want the MHS, technical high school vision committee to look like, that we need to be able to engage some stakeholders in our community that represent the BIPOC community to say, are we really thinking about everybody even in this statement and even in how we're rolling this out so that perhaps as we're structuring this statement, we could be thinking about who are some leaders in a variety of different constituencies so that, again, much like what's been happening in subcommittee meetings, we are going to some you know, experts in those areas to ask. So I would also just suggest that as we're even creating the mission for the vision committee and the structure for the statements before the applications go out, that we have some identified community stakeholders that really can help fulfill the role of the BIPOC community that we're not representing here, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Divya, for that. Yeah. And so I just want to clarify around, you know, for folks that are watching as well, when Dr. Anand, when you're saying that it's a privilege, I'm hearing that you're saying that it's a privilege that people who maybe aren't working or have more flexible work hours or time, you know, or someone to take care of their children, that they're able to participate. Is that what you're saying when you say a privilege? Oh, you're still muted, Dr. Anand, sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I think we really have some work to do as a school committee around what that would look like. And I'd love to talk with you more about that if we could at some point.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just wanted to say thank you, Dr. Edouard-Vincent, for being the keeper of the information and reintegrating it and reorganizing it. We appreciate that, especially with everything that we know is going on. So thank you. And I make a motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Is that what I heard, Mayor? A police sweater contest. All right. You're on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll meet you there, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm good, I was just thinking I have an action item or two to get you and I was I saw you and I'm like oh I gotta get Tom these action items.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah I will, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Very exciting. He's returning next Monday, but also we just got two acceptance letters to college, a merit scholarship, and an honor roll. So we're happy campers this week.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Regis and Framingham State, but they're all, he's playing, you know, so they're recruiting him for soccer. And so he's got six more in the pipeline that are calling pretty much every day the coaches are. So we're, we're all about those scholarships.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Awesome. Exciting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, he does club and he does clinics. They come out to the clinics and scout them a lot. So he's been doing that. And I'm really happy that he's going either D2 or D3. I didn't want him to do D1. It's just too much of a sacrifice. And college is an adjustment enough. So this way we get the benefit of a cohort and the ability to play without necessarily the grueling rigor of a D1. It's good, but it's another baby flying the nest, so always hard.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, Peter, can I ask if you wouldn't mind muting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that's a great point. And then I would also add disability. So I was not looking at it earlier, I apologize. So I would add April 2nd is Autism Awareness Day.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And October, no, I'm sorry, March 21st is always Down Syndrome Awareness Day. It was just a typo in autism, Paul.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, April 2nd.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Down syndrome, March 21st. March 21st.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Down space. No, no S. It's a common mistake. Everybody thinks it's with an S. And syndrome actually is lowercase S. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Because it's down and syndrome, the S blends with it. So everybody thinks it is. John Langdon Down discovered Down syndrome. John Langdon Down of London, so Down syndrome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 321 for 321st chromosomes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, no, I just really do like the idea of asking for, you know, community input and feedback. And so I would just say really making that sort of a highlight, even in the doc, you know, just it certainly certainly an introduction, but also just even in the document with a caveat that like we have, you know, community we're awaiting community actively seeking out what have you, I think would be great, because I'm sure there's going to be, you know, the knee jerk response to this list, which will be, you know, But mine's not on there, or this is not included, or whatever. And I like that you're just addressing that right out front so people feel like it's inclusive. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That could be a new category for our award. You might be the winner of that one.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Paul, may I just add it's Down Syndrome Awareness Day.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, I'm sorry, a motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Motion to adjourn. Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to thank my co-chairs, Paul Rousseau and Mia Mostow for the Behavioral Health and Special Education Subcommittee. We met, as you said, on the 19th Um, and we have identified, um, uh, this committee is a, is a, it has been a little bit tricky this year because it's behavioral health and special education, which are both very broad topics, as you can imagine, and very big topics. Um, but we have the attendance, uh, regular attendance of the director of guidance, um, Stacey Shulman and the director of pupil services, Joan Bowen, um, and then several constituents from the community and, um, ongoing parent involvement and family engagement specific to those two topics. We have identified trauma in trauma-informed schools as being our behavioral health topic of support for the year and thinking about ways to improve our school system around trauma informed schools. And right now we're really in this sort of collective research phase where we're meeting with each other, getting information and research and resources from community members and folks that are attending and having discussion around what's currently happening in our schools regarding trauma-informed schools and what we would like to see happen. Our goal is to probably in April of this year to have a presentation for the school committee with policy recommendations on those items. In the meantime, Stacey is working on trauma-informed practice with the school district around mindfulness and training about best practices in trauma-informed schools. And again, we're building research and resources for the community at large, teachers, staff, and family members. And then regarding special education, we're working on identifying ways in which we are building friendships for students with disabilities in our school to make it a priority, both for our our school committee, because we are, I think, representative of what we value and friendships are important in our schools. It's an important social emotional component and can be more difficult for students with disabilities so we're focusing specifically on fostering friendships in our both in our school programs that are wraparound services for example our morning programs are after school programs and our athletic programs. And out of school but community school based services so, and again we're collecting research and data right now on who's doing what and other districts, what we had acquired a friendship toolkit from an organization called the Arc of Massachusetts. which is a self-advocacy or advocacy organization that provides resources and support. So we are looking at that. We have a couple of parents that are very interested in exploring a Best Buddies program. We had formerly had a Best Buddies program in our schools. middle schools and so we're looking at piloting a best buddies program or something similar in our schools and we are looking at building a volunteer base for our recreation services among others for students who need it's again it could it could intersect with the friendship piece as well but it's for students who may need additional support say for example in recreation settings or you know, Metro Recreation is certainly looking for volunteers. And we know that there are siblings out there that could additionally use some support, siblings of students with disabilities who could use support, but also could be a really great frontline for potential volunteers. So we're excited about the work we're doing, and we'll continue with recommendations coming in the spring. And our next meeting is the 17th, of December at five o'clock, from five to 6.30. And if you find any of these topics interesting, we would welcome your attendance. We welcome everyone's attendance, but specifically if you're interested in trauma-informed schools and building friendships for students with disabilities, please join us on the 19th. Thanks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That was member McLaughlin, Mayor.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank Charlene and Miss McKay for their statements, and I'm assuming that we will circle back after the reports. Is that what you were saying, Member van de Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. I just want to say thank you as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Superintendent, for the update. And thank you for coordinating testing for our seniors to come back to school. I think that's really important. It's really great to see that happening. I did want to ask, is there going to be a robo-call since there's such quick turnaround for Cohort B, that it's three o'clock tomorrow, and we want to make sure that everybody gets notice and information on getting the test. And then the other question is, for those, what happens if students don't get the test or don't take the test?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you and as a follow-up update to that, can you let school committee members know what the response was for the testing? So just so that we have an idea, number one, and then number two, if there's a student or a family that has difficulty because of transportation, do we have any options? So for example, a student that just, their family does not have transportation and maybe public transportation is not an option, I don't know. I'm just thinking about those sort of, outliers that might need assistance. I know that there are groups certainly in Medford and I know that there are likely people, you know, that are willing to, you know, volunteer. to help with transportation if needed. So I just want us to, I'm wondering if there's any opportunity to address that for our students, either in the robocall or for folks that might need assistance getting to the school. Because again, I think Friday's a little bit different because people can plan ahead, but for tomorrow, if people are working and there's a senior who doesn't drive and maybe doesn't have access, how are we thinking about them?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Superintendent. May I respectfully request that that's included in the robocall, so that if there's translation of the robocall, what have you, that people are all getting this information, so that it's a resource so that folks do know where they can go if there's an issue. Okay. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May I remember if Vanderkloot has her hand up? Oh, Member Vanderkloot.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this report, Ms. Bowen. I have a few questions, so if you could bear with me, I would appreciate it. I guess first and foremost, is there an opportunity to do a single page sheet for, you know, one for, I guess, students, one for staff administration, and one for families that sort of I mean, I realize that there's a lot condensed in here. It's a, I think roughly 30 page report. I fear not a lot of families will go through the material or until it's necessitated because of an experience and then it will be overwhelming. So I think it would be really helpful if there was sort of a summary sheet if possible for each of those constituencies. families, caregivers, staff, and student. That would be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's 34 pages. I know it's like, that's the thing. It's overwhelming. So I don't know how you condense 34 onto one, but I mean, maybe just in terms of bullets and sections or something that would be just the most sort of salient thing, I guess. And I'm happy to offer input from a parent perspective of what I would want to know on a one page, if you find that you need that. I'm happy to offer that and I'm sure that, you know, there must be staff and students out there that would be willing to do the same so I could certainly help to mark and then. I noticed that there was a notation for professional development for families around bullying. And I'm wondering, and in most of the other instances, Ms. Bowen, I did put the page numbers in, but I guess this is when I was first reading it. I didn't mention that I didn't get this page number, so I apologize. But essentially that it was going to be not professional development for parents, obviously, but basically, some development, you know, some presentation, information, what have you, for families on a regular basis. And I was wondering if that was accurate.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I guess as part of that, I would ask that there's sort of, and I would assume that there is, but I just, you know, want to put it out there that there's sort of a, you know, open opening reiteration of what the process and policy and procedure is at our public school and our district before. you know, a specific presentation on one topic. So the broader sort of, you know, knowing what your rights are, knowing, you know, where things stand or, you know, what you can do if you feel like you're not being responded to or things aren't happening in the way that, you know, maybe you think. And then Mark, what's the acronym, M-A-R-C? Let me see. It's Mark Training.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And did I miss that? Was it spelled out?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So it was spelled out before it was an acronym? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I missed it. And then, you know, historically, I mean, I thought this report was so comprehensive and I think you guys, I mean, clearly put in a lot of work on this. Thank you very much. And you could see the timeline sort of, you know, events over the years in terms of the bullying and awareness. And a lot of them just also feel like sort of one-off events. And I'm wondering, as we think about moving forward with these issues, how do we, sort of similar to what we're talking about for anti-racism in our curriculum and what we're talking about for disability awareness embedded in the curriculum and all of those things, how we incorporate sort of this idea as well in a way that is not just a one-off event on cyberbullying, but that we have some awareness around our school and schools around bullying. And so I don't know if it's, you know, and I'm just sort of putting this out there a little bit, but I'm just thinking that as I was looking, I guess I'm just commenting on when I was looking at the document, it felt like a lot of sort of one-off events and not necessarily sort of an embedded understanding of, this idea of the definition of bullying and what it is and, you know, just sort of reinforcement. And again, going back to the social emotional piece with the responsive classroom and other aspects that Ms. Galussi was talking about, and Stacey was talking, Ms. Shulman was talking about sort of how we are thinking about incorporating this idea. And I know that that's sort of not necessarily a question that's easily answered. So I'm not looking for a response right now. I guess I'm just sort of, putting that out there to think about and certainly can circle back around on it. And then the Michigan model. I know you did the responsive classroom just a moment ago. Thank you. Can you give us a little bit on what the Michigan model is?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So but that sounds like in the responsive classroom too, it sounds like that those are two social emotional programs, but that I'm not, unless I'm mistaken, and please enlighten me, are there specific aspects of those programs that deal with bullying?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There are.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's bullying in that. Okay. That'd be great to see, you know, at some point I'll follow up just on what that piece is, because I'd love to know what that, I'm looking for the word and it's not meeting, I'm not getting it right now, but it's sort of the module, that's it. Like if there's a module or piece.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep, and then page 21, item two, which I just lost my PowerPoint. My page, bear with me one second. Page 21 item two.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I was getting down there. I'm on 17 now. Yes, two or more incidents being reported. And so I guess I wanted to know the differentiation between two things and they may tie in together and you know, Dr. Cushion should also feel free to jump in if they do. But so, you know, from what I'm understanding, and also maybe even like a flowchart, I know that PRS has flowcharts for, and I know that you do obviously, Joan, for the procedural safeguards, we have the flowcharts, what do we do next, what do we do? So almost like thinking of this in that fashion for bullying. Is there regard, if a student comes to someone and says, I feel like I'm being bullied, is there always an incident report? And then it's determined whether the incident report then based on the definition of bullying and whether the individual to whom the incident was reported, I assume, whether that is moved into an investigation report, is that accurate? Right? So like if you had a yes, no. So basically if you're in a flow chart, you know, was the determination made that the student was bullied based on this definition? Yes. Okay. Then next it goes from incident report to investigation report. Is that accurate? And then if no,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. So there is, in other words, whether it's found to be an incidence of bullying or not based on the person who makes that determination, there is some evidence, if you will, of at least a student had felt that they were being bullied. Yes. Okay. And then for the folks who determine from the incident to the investigation, that determination process there, who actually is determining whether this is identified as under the definition of bullying?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. And so thank you. And so I don't know that, I felt like that maybe, and again, you know, it was a lot of work that you guys did and it was a lot of, it's a lot of pages. So I also, again, maybe, you know, Joe and I'm sort of backtracking a little bit, even on the one page. Well, I think there could be a narrative on the one page, but certainly a flow chart could be really helpful. And maybe that visual would just be really helpful because I think I lost that in there in terms of the principal being the person, but again, It was a lot to look at. So that's good. Thank you. And then on page 23, oh, also just going back to the incident report, I assume then Peter, Dr. Cushing, that the, as you said, it's signed and then it's a copy is given to the caregiver family.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And will the student or family be notified if that happens, if they're not the reporting party?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then on page 23, it says parents will be offered counseling. Parent, caregivers and victims will be provided with opportunities for counseling as well aggressors. And I'm wondering what is that? How does that work? Is that a partnership that we have with an outside organization? Is that adjustment Councilors inside? What is that opportunities for counseling?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you. And then I know that in page 24 item, actually 3A, but also I was just looking at this 2A as well. I know the highlight there is bullying is covered under criminal harassment sections of MGL, especially if this is, I'm assuming this will be posted on our website, obviously with the single pages as well and identifiers, but a link to, that citation would be great for the MGL section or what have you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that's according to that law?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, it seems to me that the law is one, one guide, one law, I guess it's the one guide, one guidance of how this can be addressed, but certainly in our capacity as school committee members, we don't have to say it has to be three, right? I mean, it seems like we have some latitude in that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: for criminal charges. Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I guess so. But I mean, for me, it doesn't sound like that's very, you know, if somebody has to do three incidents to one person in order to be classified as, you know, having been a bully in this context, I mean, I think, you know, the harm that's done by the time you get to three incidents is pretty significant, potentially. So, you know, that doesn't, I mean, I understand that that's Massachusetts law but I think that I guess my question is, is there a latitude with our school committee, and maybe it's something that we refer to the policy subcommittee, where we have some flexibility around, you know, what, what that constitutes because it seems to me to wait till there's three times. I don't know, that seems excessive to me, but I have more questions, so if you could bear with me. On page 25, Ms. Bowen, PRS, Problem Resolution System, I'm assuming that's for all students, not just students with disabilities?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, that's really interesting. So as a parent of a student with a disability who has been familiar with PRS over the years, and as the CPAC co-chair would have you, I didn't realize that PRS will take complaints that are outside of the scope of students with disabilities.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, that's good to know. And then I assume they do the same thing that they do with students with disabilities. They sort of start their own.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And just to clarify, that is the step that's, and again, this is where a flowchart I think is helpful, that is the step that a family, caregiver, student, other individual could take. in the event that they felt dissatisfied with what was happening with the school's response to the bullying, not in the event, that's not the first place you go to, it's the place that you go if you feel like it's not right. And then, so that's great that you guys included that. I'm wondering, was there a reason that you didn't also include the civil rights piece if it's a civil rights issue? violation. So, you know, under like a 504, you can go, obviously, you wouldn't go, you don't necessarily go to PRS, you might go to the Office of Civil Rights, you go to OCR, whereas, you know, under IEP, you would go to PRS. And so in this context, it seems like it could potentially be PRS or OCR, depending on where you're at, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so DESI provided, did DESI put PRS on theirs? Yes. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. And then let me see process by which, oh yeah. So two final questions. And then I guess I'll put it to my colleagues to consider if they have questions as well to consider whether this is something that's further refined to the policy subcommittee. But the other questions are, last two questions are, I thought this document was really helpful, although again, really dense because there's so much to convey around if a student is feeling bullied by a student, but it didn't, unless I missed it, again, I could very well have missed it. I didn't necessarily see anything in the documentation that was addressing whether a student or if a student felt bullied by a staff member or an administrator or a teacher or anything to that degree. Am I wrong?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So I think that that's, if we could be a little more explicit about that. So in terms of the guidance around, you know, Because for the way that it reads for me, for a lot of it, it's student on student. And obviously, that's terrible. But I do think that there's instances, certainly, where there can be, unfortunately, adult on student and perhaps student on adult. I don't know. So thinking about these other contexts are ways that maybe it's in the narrative or in the flow charter, both, where we're making it really explicit that, you know, bullying can happen to any degree. And I don't think people generally think of that. But certainly, I think if we reflect on our own perhaps if we reflect on our own experience, we might recall some examples where, you know, that was outside of the, the bullying was outside of the sort of standard application, I guess. So I would just encourage some, some explicitness around that. And then what is the process by which school, this is my last question. So what is the process by which school committee is made aware of bullying investigations? I guess incident reports, I guess both incident reports and investigation, because it would be interesting to know, you know, if we have, for example, say, you know, 20 incident reports at a particular school or 50 for that matter, at a particular school and never an investigation report, that could be interesting data, right? So I guess, is there a process by which there's either annual or biannual data updating the school committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I think that would be really helpful. And again, I'm not looking to, you know, dig deep into any data that would be Revealing of anybody's identity, we wouldn't want that, but certainly we can get numbers per school so that we're getting some identification of, you know, of that data. And then I know the training that you were saying in terms of, yeah, oh, and I would also just encourage that every school has consistently in their handbook, you know, that there's bullying, obviously there's bullying information and perhaps the link to the full 30 page document. But also I think part of, I know historically what I've seen as an issue for families is that they're not aware that an incident report is supposed to be filed when there's an allegation and even at an allegation level, not at an investigation level, but even at an allegation level. and that they should be aware of that. And so I think that thinking about how are we actually making family caregivers aware that that should happen is really critical and not that they have to go to a 30-page document on our website to find out or even the one-page document cover on the website to find out, but that this information is being pushed to them, I think would be really important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Absolutely. And then if that could be applied to each of the student handbooks for each of the schools and or websites, even the one page with a link would be really helpful. So thank you for your hard work on this. I really appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was just going to add that I was also okay with the, you know, this being posted to be updated ASAP with the understanding that, again, the referral to the Rules, Policy and Equity Subcommittee. And then I wanted to further I guess ask Joan for maybe an additional link or something along those lines around manifestation of disability. So for folks that are watching, there's a whole thing that if the behavior is a manifestation of the student's disability, it takes another course in the flow chart, if you will. So how that is understood would be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and also for teachers and staff that don't have experience with disability and don't necessarily understand. So there was a mention of it in there, and there was a referral to, I think, ETL. Um, to determine whether it was a manifestation of disability, but I think just a little, you know, something. And then even, I don't know if it's in the appendix manifestation of disability or not, but with a link would be really helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. I have a question. So I'm not understanding when a member of Van der Kloot was saying it will be done on the 8th. What will be done on the 8th?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so in between January 15th, when the superintendent shares her self-evaluation and February 8th, we need to schedule one or more committee of the whole meetings to review the material and discuss, right? Yeah. So that will be part of, that's part of the additional amendment to the motion, is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I had a question. Thank you, Mayor. So it sounds like now we're saying in addition to the self-evaluation that the superintendents need to do on the 15th and the scheduling for all of the budget meetings that the superintendent needs to do on the 25th, we're now asking her to give us all of the COVID-related spending data between January 15th and 25th while returning our high school students to school during the global pandemic. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And do you want me to be time keeper, Jenny? That would be great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, just a point of information. Are you asking what other current district goals around communication?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie? Yeah, for a point of information, do we know that, do we have data? I'm assuming we do, but I'm asking, do we have data on, you know, every family that we know that their emails are active? And I guess to Jenny's point, not just that they're being read, Jenny, but I guess to take it a step further, that they're being understood, right? So whether it's language difficulties or, you know, the tone of the email or the way that it's written, I guess, do we know, you know, how do we know they're being read? Like you said, you have the data that they're being read, but again, do we have a list of all the updated emails for whatever the thousands of people that we have? And then, you know, are they actually being understood based on, any response data that we might have.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. So, Peter, so we didn't get to school brains until middle school, clearly, because the motivation, too, is to check your students' grades, right? So a lot of families won't be motivated necessarily by just going in to change info, but to be able to check the grades is certainly motivating for families, and also to check assignments, what have you. But do I understand correctly that you're saying, Peter, that school brains then converts to school math, not converts, but has a, that's a school messenger, that's the email or no?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and also isn't school, thank you. And also school messenger also has sort of tiers of accessibility, does it not? Like if I'm not mistaken, some school officials, when you talk about sort of the level of private information, some school officials are able to see like IEP data, 504 data, whatever others are not. So it all depends on sort of a need to know, is that right or not right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, so it's a tiered database system for a management system on a need-to-know basis as well. So it's a little bit more complicated than just a straight database, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I mean, I really appreciate that, Jenny. I think that's critical. Perfect example, Monday, Burlington School was called off. My daughter's not a district placement in Burlington. The van came and got her. She went up there. We didn't know school was called off. We didn't get them. It was an email that was buried because we're so inundated with emails. There was no robocall. There was no text. And text is the way, like I tell people all the time, if you have to reach me, Text is the way to reach me. I have my phone with me. It pops up I see it might not be able to get back to it right away, but I see it emails I have like four different emails for all different occasions and it just email has gotten to be so overwhelming and I see that with the kids as well like This generation, the students in particular, they are not an email generation. It's almost like trying to call them on the telephone. When I first got a babysitter, and I would call the babysitter all the time, and this babysitter never responds to me. And finally, somebody was like, text them. And I had no sooner sent the text that it would be responded to. And it's the same. Don't email a high school student if you really expect to get an answer from them anytime soon, because it's just not going to happen. I'm sliding more and more into that because it's the immediacy of like all of the demands that we have on us. So I really, you know, agree, Jenny, that, you know, there has to be a choice of what those are. And then when the, and also I think that there has to be a tiered level of communication. So clearly when there's something as important as there is no school, right? Like we have caught, you know, that needs to be like probably every communication channel you have, whether they said they preferred this or not. like, you know, do every blast them from every way that you can. So I think that there's gonna be tiers within that as well, but, you know, God, it would be so great to have a system where we could choose what our preference was and that there was some way to funnel it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I really like the idea of visuals, Kristen, because they're universal and I think that they, you know, I'm a visual learner and I think that they translate, right? We don't have to worry about a lot of that. So I think that's a really great idea. But I also think that consistency across the district is really critical. So this is where I really ran into trouble when the kids started to go, you know, we have three children, so they started to go to different schools and every school had different uh, modalities. And then every teacher within the school had different modalities. And so you're trying to figure out, I was constantly paying catch up on wall, which teacher is actually doing which modality, you know, and that's why it was so critical this year when we were looking at, you know, the pandemic, when we were deciding on remote, what we were using, was it Google classroom, was it zoom, whatever, like that we were, had this consistency across the board because if parents, as we all know, have multiple children, have to figure out the five different modalities, it's just not going to work. So we need consistency. So I think we really need to involve obviously the teachers and the union in this decision for whatever we end up deciding, but they need to have input. I do know earlier when you guys were talking about talking points, we've got a ton of feedback from EL teachers and families that they love talking points. So that's good to know. But I think it would be good to know from staff what are the modalities that they do like and then sort of going from there. But one or two in a very consistent way across the district, I think has to be. the way we go.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, superintendent. That's very nice of you. I was just going to say, yeah, there's a number of subgroups that are concerning. And so I would agree. And I think we need to, I think that's, you know, almost its own, you know, subcommittee or subset of a subcommittee to think about how we're going into the community, because I don't think necessarily those subgroups are going to come to us. We need to seek them out or find community leaders who will help us seek them out. But I also think to that end, I know that Joan Bowen has been working more also with out-of-district families. So, you know, that's a big component as well. Those, you know, families are, and they have, you know, are entirely entitled to the life of the school for their child. They are still Medford public school students. But also just to that end, like whether or not they in fact have School email addresses. So that was interesting. We just had a bounce back on a school email Joan just FYI And I thought well, that's weird. I don't know if you know, she fell off the roster But so that's a point to consider but also just yeah like and then I think again to that end superintendent our our students who are in foster care, our students who are homeless students, right, those fluid students that are coming in and out, and how we are, especially if we have families that we know are consistently fostering children within the district, that we're really, you know, enabling those relationships and making it easy for them to get different foster children's information changed or whatever. So I think it'd be really, really helpful to have a group, even a very small group that represents, you know, that diversity, you know, the BIPOC diversity and the socioeconomic diversity and the ability diversity. so that those people could tell us what is really helpful for them. And certainly, I think we have different constituents in the community that can help identify some of those community leaders that maybe that can speak to some of those issues.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's a great idea. What's the date on that, Jenny? April 6th. April 6th. So it would be, yeah. And then I'd love to work with creating a flyer. Again, we could do different languages. Superintendent, maybe you could be mentioning that in some of the commercials, what have you. But I'm assuming you also speak Haitian Creole, is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, so I mean, I think sometimes it's worth sort of doing, you know, a little bit of that too, just to, you know, I think, you know, thinking about, again, Bowman and Diehl, the symbolic frame, right? Like what, letting people know that you really are reaching out and trying to do this. And I think also just to that end, for member Graham, you know, a few years ago, we were tasked with really, you know, tripling the size. Our goal was to triple the size of the Medford CPAC, specifically with participation around English learners. And we achieved that goal. And a huge, huge part of the way that we did that was just building those one-to-one relationships. So literally having, you know, five of your people tasked with you contact three people and go have coffee with them and meet with them and whatever, you know. And then, you know, they tell two friends, then you ask them, can you meet two people, whatever, that old commercial, we told two friends, two friends, two friends. that we're dating ourselves now, but whatever that was, that BRAC or something. But anyway, so I think that that would be great. I'm all on board with that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You said we're going to have a competition member Graham from now on. We're all competing to see who can end on time or early. I don't know what the prize is going to be. So don't get your hopes up too much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, do we want to do the Pledge of Allegiance as well?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So just for, may I, ma'am?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, you have a point of information. So just if I understand you correctly, the nine students are students who physically crossed the threshold and went into the building, right? Yes. Yes. And the 18 are students who have not yet physically crossed the threshold and gone into the building. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Or to member Rousseau's point, point of information, or to member Rousseau's point, the 18 could be an aggregate of students who are in, say, cohort B or C, but had not yet gone into the hybrid physical threshold model yet because they were at the time remote, right? That is a, I mean, I don't have the actual list of- Right, so the point of information is basically whenever the students were tested positive, they are in these two buckets. They had either nine been in the building or 18 had not been in the building at the point of testing. Okay, thank you. Yes, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, thank you. So I think what I'm hearing is that I think that it's an interesting point in terms of to the sort of denominator, if you will, of the number and the data so that, for example, if there are, you know, three students that were tested positive in and we know that the denominator there was 100 students total, so three out of 100 students total, because those were the students that had been across the threshold in that point, for example. So I think that if I'm understanding correctly, the denominator is helpful as well, so that three out of 100 is very different from eight out of 1,700, right? So I think that sort of denominator can be helpful. So maybe it's either, again, the denominator or some percentages that help clarify that information. But then I would also ask if I might, Marianne O'Connor, I don't see you, where are you? Oh, there you are. Hi, Marianne. Can you, just, you know, at the risk of being a little bit pedantic, would you mind just sort of sharing your, background, how long you've been doing this, sort of, you know, you know, what your role is, you know, just a little bit for especially for people who don't know, I would ask that. And then I would ask whether you think that this is a reasonable plan moving forward. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The other question, is it your professional opinion that this plan that is being proposed by the central administration is a plan that should go forward?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have a question. Friendly amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a friendly amendment? Yes. Member McLaughlin and then Member Graham. Thank you. The amendment that I was going to suggest is that the data include the information we were just talking about a little while ago with some clarification around the denominator number, if you will, and the sort of the cohort, that third column that we were talking about, just so that it's really clear. And then obviously in the other that's not included in this particular document. We had underneath each of the criteria we had, you know, remote or hybrid based on a different color criteria. I did see that that wasn't included in this. Particular dashboard. So if you could just add that to so that it's really explicit for the community. I think that would be great. So I would just, you know, make a friendly amendment that that, um, data is included in the dashboard. If member of
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I make a point of information or information, Miss McLaughlin? Thank you. There's a couple of things that I want to sort of ask in response to this. query really is, you know, are we getting any public participation on this call? I would like to hear from community members, frankly, we do have a community member whose hand is raised. And then I did see that Mr. Murphy just raised his hand as well. So I'd like to sort of, I'm trying to really listen to everyone's perspective here and including member Graham. So I wanna make sure that we're able to hear from community members as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, member McLaughlin. I have to say, you know, with all due respect to the chair I disagree with member Ruseau here. I think that there's been a lot of emotion and a lot of heated back and forth on both parts, frankly, and I think that we really need to put the children first. and not make this personal with anybody. So not school committee members, not the board of health, not the administration. I think we are all here trying our damnedest to do the best for every single one of our kids. And I have to say, I think that the superintendent has been leading that charge and that has been, this is probably the most difficult job anybody has been in. And I have to speak on that behalf and say, I don't think we should be making this personal. I don't think anybody's attacking anybody or if they are, request that we're not, and that we're really thinking about how we're all in this together, and we're really all trying to think about the best interest of all of our children.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask a point of information, Mayor? I'm not sure that everybody is following section one, two, and three, so maybe we can just use a title for each of those since we don't have the document up in front of us, but if folks could just, you know, section one, is, you know, this section two. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I was making a motion to move the question but I also had a question for the superintendent that I just wanted to, I wanted to first of all say thank you to the community members who came out tonight and encouraged the staff. I think it's desperately needed right now so thank you very much for that. I think that was to see, good to see, and absolutely true. And I also wanted to ask the superintendent, I did get a question about sanitizer in the schools and whether the dispensers actually had alcohol hand sanitizer in them, or whether there was alcohol hand sanitizer elsewhere or what. And I was wondering, could you just address that for the community? Well, it's part of, I feel like it's related to the metrics, Mayor, because we're talking about school closures and if not, that's fine. I can move it to the next school committee meeting. It's up to you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And just for information, the motion is will include the recommendation of memogram and the discussion around the Dave Murphy, the discussion around the identification of various schools. As the as the second addendum, right? Disaggregated data was the first addendum and then the second addendum If I'm not mistaken, am I mistaken? Member Graham, did you ask for that to be an addendum to this motion? Yes. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, just a point of information. Point of information. Didn't we already vote on that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie McLaughlin, Halston Street and Bedford Mass. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I want to thank Councilor Caraviello and Councilor Morell and Bears and Scarpelli for bringing this matter forward. Some of you may know that this is very personal to me. I was the childhood friend of Andy Puglisi, who disappeared from Lawrence, Massachusetts on August 21st, 1976. Wayne Chapman was convicted of raping two of my childhood friends from the same pool where Andy disappeared a year prior. Chapman was arrested just 10 days after Andy vanished and was identified by several people as being at the pool the day that Andy disappeared. This has been a community trauma and a childhood trauma that we have all lived with for a long time. the past 45 years, frankly. It was shocking to learn that this individual who I had been, frankly, researching and know far too much about for the past 20 years had actually, you know, been moved into a facility less than a quarter of a mile away from my home. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. And I really appreciate the chief and other folks who reached out and acted quickly. The mayor, for the letter that she wrote to the executive office of public safety and to Tom Turco, who also has been involved in this story for a long time. Mass State Police have known this story for a long time. It goes way back. and this is a very dangerous person that was in our nursing home around the corner. And as you have said, there are two other level threes and one other level two that are placed in this facility. And as Councilor Caraviello or Councilor Marks mentioned, there are very strict laws and Councilor Knight mentioned there are very strict laws around. level three sex offenders. There are communities that tried to set some parameters and were overruled by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. One of the things that I would really encourage is for community members to let their local police know if they see violations of level threes. But indeed, you have to know who the level threes are and level twos are. for that matter, to be able to report anything to the police. So it's very important that folks do go on to the sex offender registry and look at who in the community is a registered sex offender. To be a registered sex offender, you do have to be among the most dangerous, ruled by the Department of Corrections and by community members. So these are the most dangerous and the most likely to re-offend. And while I do understand that they also have rights, there are ways in which that the community can be notified, like the website on the city, the link to SOAR, the Sex Offender Registry Board, on the city and school websites, and potentially photographs of individuals like you see at City Hall in some of the public buildings that are also The one thing about the facility I do want to say is that there are a few facilities that agree to take level three sex offenders for a number of reasons. So when they do find facilities that are willing to take them, they're often lumped together in that scenario so that you do have clusters of individuals. And so I think it's very valid to ask, you know, who the ownership of this facility is and what their requirements are around, you know, level three and level two sex offenders in the facility. So again, I would appreciate that. And I just, I also just want to say from, you know, a sentiment, if I, if I can be sentimental, how much I appreciate, excuse me, the community standing up in this matter. It really does still affect the entire community that lost Andy 45 years ago. So very much appreciate you folks standing up in this matter. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: just, you know, quickly introduce ourselves that could be helpful. Again, I'm Melanie McLaughlin, school committee member, chair of the special education behavioral health subcommittee. Stacey, do you want to go ahead while I somebody's texting me about a link, so I'll send it over to them now.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, dads don't babysit. Much agreed. Susie, can you do me a favor and just send me the link? Instead of having me trying to hunt it down right now, I have a community member that's trying to find the link via Zoom and is having difficulty. Yep, I will. So let me just get back to the agenda for a second here. So we were going to talk about identifying research and best practices to inform policy recommendations and addressing the behavioral health subcommittee goal of supporting trauma-informed schools for MPS in the 2020-2021 school year. One of the things that I would really like to see happen just off the top, and I just did email Susie about this as well, um is just finding a uniform way in which we're putting together our um subcommittee meeting notes um hopefully on the on the website because other members aside from the people who have access to the google drive the school committee members need to be able to see these minutes so that we can refer to them and in our subsequent meetings right so that we can look back so that everybody has access to looking back on them um for the next meeting so that we can can see them. We've also had, I have anyway, I think it's been, I think it was just sent to the general school committee. We had some questions about where these recordings were being posted or whether they were being posted for our subcommittee meetings and also any minutes from both the regular school committee meetings and subcommittee meetings. So definitely would like to see those posted sooner than later. And in the interim, if we can think about how we can get this material to folks for the next meeting, if it's problematic getting it on the website between now and then, I'd like to think about options for doing that. so that you all have our previous meeting notes. The last time we met on specific to behavioral health was in well, actually, we did discussion in the previous meeting as well. But I'm going to let Stacey sort of I'm going to hand it over to you for a minute, Stacey, and let you do a little brush up with us if you'd like. And I'm happy to jump in as well, Stacey. If you want to just again, start with the introduction. I know you did just do that. But just sort of so folks know, you know, why we're turning to you specifically for the behavioral health piece. That would be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Did you have a lot of attendance for that? I think we had a good amount. Great. And so for folks who also may not recall in our last meeting, there was some conversation about what exactly does the, how are we going to be driving policy around these issues? Hi, Heather. Glad to see, hi, both Heathers. Hi, Heather McKinnon-Glennon and Heather Ruminapp. How are you? Glad to see you both here. And hi, Marissa. Folks did some interviews earlier. So if you guys want to interview, you know, Heather, if you want to go first, I mean, not interview, introduce. Heather, you want to go first? Introduce yourself, Heather McKinnon.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Nice to see you. Good to see you. Heather McKinnon. Hi. I'm Heather McKinnon.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mel, you're muted. I said, great, welcome. Sorry, I'm typing on another screen, so I didn't see my mute button. Welcome Marissa. I was just saying that also in our last meeting, we had members so I was talking explicitly about, you know, thinking about what the policy levers are that we're using to drive. specifically the subcommittee meetings for behavioral health and special education. So in other words, what are we thinking about in terms of school committees role in creating policy for the district with specific regard to trauma-informed schools, in this instance, behavioral health trauma-informed schools, which we identified as our topic for this year, our concern for this year. for behavioral health and as I said we'll get to special education shortly. So I'd like to have a little bit of a discussion maybe explicitly about what sort of policy ideas that might be out there for moving forward the topic of trauma informed schools and I know that Stacey, you talked about the training that's been happening in the schools, the mindfulness, the CBITS, the student involvement, student training, those sorts of things. And those are things that I believe you and your staff have sort of taken the initiative on and that you're keeping us apprised of and informed of.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, go ahead.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Correct. Was it in response to some political background? I just I'm not familiar. I don't remember. Was there something specifically that happened that usually there is that sort of?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And it was in when suicides prevention specifically because the the perpetrator was that something that had happened in that instance, or I don't think okay, I don't remember specific. I'm just Yeah, I'm just trying to understand why it's specific to suicide prevention.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. mental health, behavioral health awareness overall with a requirement for suicide prevention?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I see.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And did you do do you still or can you get us some resource information or record of that, I'd be curious to know. So again, when we're talking about sort of populating resources or what have you for us, this is, you know, I guess for both member Ruseau and Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, how can we be thinking about creating these subcommittee shared folders, I guess, with, you know, access for the community or the members of whoever is participating in the subcommittee? And, you know, maybe it's that the chair is creating the subcommittee folders themselves on their own Google Drive, and then, you know, uploading them at the end of the year to the Google Drive that's not editable or accessible to outside members or what, but we need to be thinking about this so that, because there are lots of materials that I want to share with our subcommittee that I know that Stacey and Joan have access to, and that other members of our community, like Shanine Peliquin, just shared this great friendship. building resource with us. And, you know, there's a number of resources that that would like to share. So I really do want to think about that. So but Stacey, if you want to share that, I guess, Desi mandate and anything that you have, you know, around that, that would be really helpful for us to have some background. So ultimately, what I'm thinking, we'd like to do, again, as the subcommittee and what we've done in past on other committees that in the past on other committees that I've been on, is we do this sort of legwork, brainstorming, boots on the ground stuff in these meetings during the year that culminates in a presentation, if you will, to school committee with recommendations, policy recommendations moving forward. And hopefully they're acted on at that meeting, but that's generally sort of where I think we're going. these meetings so sort of building our resources around this as we're preparing the presentation and can share those as part of the presentation so that you know folks have some background and some understanding. So from what I'm hearing from you Stacey is that perhaps one of the policy levers we would use is thinking about funding this three hours every Well, it says every three years, but I suspect you're saying at least three hours once a year or not.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I'd like to hear from other community members or anyone who sort of wants to, you know, jump in about, I mean, again, as we're thinking specifically about policy, it's, you know, I'm sure there are folks thinking, and I'm sitting here thinking one to two hours a year on mental health awareness just doesn't feel like a lot, right? I mean, it doesn't feel like a very big policy shift, especially, you know, if they're already doing it, you know, so I get that it's, you know, important to sort of have that as a requirement and certainly stated as a value potentially for the school committee to do, but I guess I'm sort of thinking about what other folks are thinking regarding this specific topic, behavioral health and mental health awareness.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, Marissa, I think that's a really good point. I mean, I think that, you know, last year before COVID even, we were working on the on the Medford Community Media Show Ed Talk. And I'm working with a number of students on that show. And they were all, you know, wanting to do their next show was actually going to be about anxiety. And they were talking about how much they're dealing with anxiety. And this was even you know, pre COVID. So I know that they're experiencing it even more. And I think being able to have that communal experience and help each other identify or recognize that would be really important. And again, I know that that's not policy specific, but I also feel like the purpose of these subcommittee meetings are very much to, you know, bounce these ideas around with each other and think about, you know, what we could be doing to help students in this area. So thank you, Heather.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks, Heather. And what would that look like? Are you talking about what Marissa was saying, like a webinar or an instructional video? What are you thinking that that actually looks like? I'm curious.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I know the other part of me is thinking about, as I'm thinking about, I think this is a great idea. And I think the students need it clearly so much. And I'm sure the teachers really do too. And I think I'm thinking to some of Stacey's mindfulness stuff that I think could be really engaging or even like yoga, sort of a communal yoga event or something like that, that could be engaging for staff and even for students. Because the other thing I think about with a webinar is I think, know with me today particularly as well I've been in front of the computer all day long and I know with my son you know I swear like you can almost see the smoke you know after him at 2 15 or 220 when the you know when the computer shut down he's out he's like gone you know at the soccer field he's like you know don't even talk to him essentially he's not And if I, he's even loathe to get on the computer to get his license right now right and he wants his license so I think that that's really tricky about like if we're going to have a webinar specific or even a video I guess unless it's a really engaging sort of you know, maybe find YouTube piece or something like that that can help address some of the issues with the kids. I don't know how we're gonna get them. And I guess for that matter, maybe even the teachers back onto a screen. So I don't know, I'm just putting that out there too. I'd like to hear what folks think. Heather McKinnon, I know you had your hand up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, that's great. Thank you. That's really helpful. I know this is what keeps me one of the things that keeps me up at night as well. I do know, interestingly, and I'm sure Dr. Cushing can speak to this as well. Senior mentioned to me this morning, although he was, you know, we were just sort of passing in the hallway briefly that that there's going to be this, you know, drive in or or experience that they've set up for the senior classes sort of this communal experience. I haven't seen the email about it myself yet. He was frankly disappointed. Dr. Cushing, I don't know if you're aware of this, but He was disappointed that, I don't know, they were saying that the students cannot be in cars unless it's with their direct family members. So he's like, I mean, he's got this bubble, like his girlfriend is in our bubble. So he was like, why would I wanna go to the drive-in movies with my... my parents, right? And I'm like, I get it, buddy. He's like, what does that do for us? That doesn't do anything for them. And in fact, he feels like it's more insulting than anything. And I kind of agree. And so the other piece that I think is really, really, really important is that we're not checking in with the kids to see what it is they want and what it is they need and how they're handling. And that was one of the best experiences that I've had doing the Ed Talk show and Medford Community Media was getting the opportunity to spend some time with some, you know, juniors, 17, 18 year olds, 16, 17, 18 year olds that were not my own children, just sort of in a general, in a more general way, and I'll never forget we were doing a show on vaping, right, and they were talking about you know, we had several guests on that were talking about, you know, the dangers of vaping or whatever. And I was just so moved by one of the young men there who was a student and talking about like, when I said, well, what would you wanna say to parents or something to that degree? And he said, well, I just wanna tell you that if you do find that you're, if you don't think that your child is vaping, you're wrong, right? Because most of them are. And he said, and if you do find that your child is vaping, that, you know, basically don't take it personally, don't make it about you, don't think that it's some failure of yours, right? Don't make it, you know, don't sort of catastrophize it, but more so like talk to the student and listen to them. right? About what's going on and what they, and, and I thought about that. Cause I thought, I remember back in middle school when my, my kids who are now ones, a sophomore in college and one's a senior in high school, but back in middle school, they would come home. I swear to God, they came home for like at least a good month, every single day telling me about vaping. And they would be like, Oh my mom, you know, there's this thing vaping and it, you know, blah, blah, blah. And they would tell me about it. And I would just sort of be like, Oh really? Thank you. No, that's interesting. But I never really explored it with them more because I just automatically assume like, well, they're not doing it. Cause they're, Number one, they're telling me about it. And number two, it sounds horrible and blah, blah, blah. But I wasn't exploring it more with them and listening to them. And I think that that's one of the biggest issues that I'm seeing with the mental health staff or that I feel like with the mental health staff, even in our own home, is that we're not checking in with the kids to see what it is they want, what it is is going to help them in this situation right now. You know, I think we have these family surveys that we're doing across the district or that we've done across the district for data collection, right? But we're not doing it with the students at all. And they're so, they're so, they're so techno-friendly. Like we could probably get out, you know, a Google, a survey monkey to them or something, you know, whatever to them and their platform. And we'd probably have more responses than we've ever gotten from parents. because they're so, you know, prone to that. So I sort of think about that a little bit too, like even like a texted survey monkey or something where they could let us know what it is they really want for mental health support and what it is they really need around behavioral health and mental health support.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Do you know if that was recorded? I know, I wanted to go, I wasn't able to go today.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So it was really like a class. It wasn't a community activity. It was during class time. Yes, it was their class time. So that's the other consideration, really, as we're thinking about this, right, when we're talking about what the students want or whatever else. And again, maybe bringing it back to the policy piece, too, is that you know, if these were occurring or if something like this, the webinar, whether it be that idea or the video observation, video, or even like the assemblies that we normally have in regular people time, right? That maybe it's something that can be happening. I'm focused on the student, excuse me, the students particularly right now, but maybe it's something that could be happening during the school day where there's something similar to what Lisa was talking about with the district attorney's training specific around domestic violence, but a specific mental health event, Stacey, behavioral health, mental health event that takes place similar to what one would think of that normally would happen in an all-school auditorium, but that in this format would be during school, maybe in a Zoom session or something similar.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that is helpful. Are you spelling it M-A-N-N project?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: N-A-N, NAN project, okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so if we wanna look up information about that, we can just Google the NAN project, is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And that's starting, you said it's a three-part series in small groups with students starting with the senior class?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. And can you share, Stacey, with us, can you share with us the data from the stress from homework?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, when you can have it. Yeah, yeah. Certainly. That would be great. That would be very helpful. So we've got just we're at 545 marker for the behavioral health, but I just want to sort of wrap it up for a moment. I was taking some notes during this time, so some of the things that we've talked about clearly are, you know, some training, whether it's webinar based or other video based, but also some survey around what students want. Some of that has been happening as we can Stacey, and again, some of the many of these things happen, as you can see on the subcommittee independent of school committee right it's not like school committee has to create a policy for these things to happen, they happen. And it's really great to be informed of them and to sort of be aware of them, both as school committee members, but as community members, which is another reason that I really feel like we do have this subcommittee. And, you know, we can continue to be thinking about what policy aspects as we continue this conversation will drive the presentation, which I think we'll schedule probably for May. I know that's our budget heavy time as well, but, We can talk more about that, how we wanna do this presentation and how we're scheduling our recommendations for policy. So I'm gonna ask everybody to sort of maybe take a deep breath for a moment, just close your eyes. We're gonna switch our mindset here, because we have this sort of dueling actually agenda of these two topics, behavioral health and special education. And as again, we've said before, behavioral health, we're really focusing on trauma informed schools and looking at what our community is going through currently and how we can support our students, teachers and staff. And then for the special education component, we have identified the need for building community and school-based friendships. And part of the reason that that was identified, the genesis sort of of this committee was the special education subcommittee was created last year. I think it was a full year last year, or maybe it was a year and a half. Yeah, I think it was a year and a half. So not with Erin DiBenedetto from the school committee created the special education subcommittee as a result of recommendations from the Medford CPAC special education parent advisory council around issues and concerns that they had and wanting to be able to have some closer connection with school committee to address those issues and concerns. CPAC put out a survey last year as they do generally every year for a report that they also do to the school committee or present to the school committee at the end of the year with recommendations. One of the recommendations previously was that this subcommittee be started. So thank you to Medford CPAC for that. And in the most recent iteration of the survey of our parents of students with disabilities, probably the biggest component that we found that they wanted to talk about, to ask about, to foster was building friendships in community and building connections to each other. I think that we're all feeling isolated during these COVID times, but I think that, and I think that parents of children with disabilities have a unique isolation and certainly experienced that long before COVID. and have always tried to work to find their place in the community and to figure out how they could involve both their children and themselves more when they're already feeling marginalized. So in a way, I feel like we sort of have a little bit of expertise on sort of some of this. And in another way, you know, you deal with double the isolation in these sort of situations as well. And so I think it has even more, we have even more need for building community relationships and friendships for our more marginalized students. And so with that, I am going to turn it over to Joan for a moment, if you don't mind, Joan or Charlotte, to talk a little bit about what we've been discussing, and maybe some aspects of policy that we can consider. I also want to let folks know that we got a really great email from Sheneen Peliquin, who was formerly recreation with the EMARC, which is now Communitas, which is the local DDS-funded organization for parents of children with disabilities. And Sheneen specializes in recreation and friendship building. And she sent us an attachment from the Arc of Mass, where I used to work, actually, that was a project based on building friendships that we can look at as we're moving forward. I'm sure folks didn't have time to look at it in the short time that we had received it. I'll make sure that central administration also has a copy of it. It's a really great project that the ARC put together about how to build friendships for students with disabilities in schools and in communities, and adults, frankly, as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, 100%. And it was done by both folks out on the South Shore, but also Dr. Zach Rossetti at Boston University. And I've done a lot of presentations with Zach, and he's a great presenter, and he's also a sibling. Actually, his brother passed away this past year, but he was an adult. His brother was an adult, and they had a long sibling relationship, and it has driven a lot of Zach's study and research around disability and friendships and awareness. So I know that Zach would certainly be able and willing and interested in presenting for PD as well. He's a great presenter, so that could be something that we could be thinking of. And I couldn't agree more with the paraprofessional piece of it, especially as the children get to the middle school level and even at the fifth grade level. You know, even I remember with my typically developing daughter having that we, we hosted the Girl Scout dance, we did an 80s dance back in the day. And, you know, it had been a lot of fun. And just, you know, probably months earlier, she would have been happy to dance with me on the dance floor with all of her friends. That night, I learned a hard lesson as I was trying as I was dressed as Madonna trying to dance with them. that I was not welcome in that situation. And, you know, a lot of times with our students with, you know, disabilities and explicitly in our students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, they aren't always able to tell me that, tell us that, right? So my daughter, my fifth grade typical daughter didn't actually tell me either. They just sort of all gave me the cold shoulder and walked away. But my child with the intellectual and developmental disability might not even be able to say that. And just even recently she was telling me that my voice was annoying and to stop talking. So she was able to say it in those instances. But I think that you're right. No fifth grader, middle schooler, high schooler wants the adults around at this stage. So when kids are trying to develop friendships, and it's tricky because, you know, for our kids too, sometimes we have to facilitate the conversation, right? Like, especially the reciprocal conversation, right? So, you know, if somebody's asking you a question and you're just sort of sitting there not responding or trying to process or whatever, it's the prompting to say, you can ask that, you know, and thinking about how to fade that back. So I think that that's a really tricky, tricky piece, but I did like the book as well. Tanya, you were talking about some things that you really liked about the book, share a little bit?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And we have stories, I think that's in a book that I've seen too, those stories where the parent, you know, sent a note back in to thank the parent for the drawing, right? Because it was very clear that the child hadn't done the drawing. It was, you know, a really well done and it was nice. I mean, they would, they would sort of, you know, this joking around with it, but it's true. It's sort of the wanting that line between the helpfulness, but also I think Tanya, as you were saying, you know, mentioning the authentic friendships too, it's like one of those things where, you know, we've had a number of friendships in school. And, you know, they've been really great friends and, you know, really felt genuine in terms of the friendship. But then the reality was, were we really getting phone calls to come over to the house for a play date? Or were we really getting the invitations to the birthday party? And if you're not, just in the adult relationships that we've had, or frankly, even in the school, the younger relationships we've had in our own life, if the relationship is one way, then is it really an authentic friendship?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and that's exactly, I'm missing Carla in this conversation right now, but that's exactly some of the things that Carla has been talking about in these previous meetings. And so again, getting to the policy piece of it, it is what does that actually translate into in terms of school committee driving some policy around that? you know, we are, you know, supporting and, you know, and provide and either looking for grant money or providing funding to help create similar programs, you know, at the two middle schools and the high school to ensure that, you know, that's the first step in building, you know, specifically and focused on building friendships in our communities. So that might be one piece that we're looking at, like using the model that already exists at the high school. Marissa?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that'd be great. Would you invite her to the next subcommittee meeting?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that'd be great, Marissa. That would really be great. Heather, are there any updates on the best buddies conversation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So yeah, I think one of the things that might be really great that I'm thinking of is a couple of things. One is I would say maybe as a charge to the community, if you will, to the folks that are here now, is to maybe think about coming back to the next meeting, next month's meeting with maybe, I'm writing this note down as we're talking, with maybe, two suggestions of staff that you think are aligned with some of the values that we've talked about here. So teaching staff or other that are aligned with some of the values we talked about here, just in terms of, you know, as we're thinking about whether we want to think about Whether there are teachers that are, you know, folks that are interested in this type and piece or just in general I think it would be really good at every school to identify just a couple of staff or, you know, people that are at the school that we know are aligned with what we're discussing here right that are interested in building friendships and community. building with students with disabilities and so that we can sort of start, you know, generating a little bit of a list and we did talk last time about generating a list of of students volunteers. who would be willing to work on what we were calling sort of a friendship project. But also as we're sort of thinking about, again, community building and who are the people in the community that we know are aligned with these values. So I think let's be thinking both about staff and about students. And so I guess I would put a charge out to the subcommittee to say, maybe think about coming back with two names of each. staff and students or community members if students, you know, if that's too specific. So two of each staff or students that we know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So, from recreation last time as well because they really need volunteers for these adaptive programs, and we did talk about like doing that but we didn't actually. a sign, if you will, sort of, you know, us each coming back with sort of, so I think that's another piece is that we could come back with, if we know any siblings, names of siblings, right, and I'm happy to take these if you want to email them to me, and I'll put together, I can put together, you know, an Excel spreadsheet with one of each or whatever, but siblings, students and staff, and community members, I guess I would expand that, and community members that you know, through some conversations that you've had or through some work that you've done or anything else that value, you know, this topic and these issues and that we could start building sort of a community base around as we're thinking about what policy pieces we want to request for implementation. And then I just want to sort of put out there for some low hanging fruit, if you will, you know things that we've been bouncing around via email so you know the little bit of more the adaptive pieces around building these, these community friendship and school based friendships, I also wanted to say that I think we should ask, and, you know, This is something for the superintendent but certainly also something for Miss Andre or CCSR or whoever, but I think it would be also really valuable, especially for the folks that are looking at best buddies Marissa and Heather and that are willing to, you know, commit some funds or, and or do some fundraising to potentially observe the common ground program, or the CCS our experience piece of it. So, I don't know. whether you guys want me to reach out or Joan or Maurice, if you would reach out to either Carla or Mr. Skorka or both and see if that's a possibility. But I think it would be really great for them to see sort of what that looks like as we're thinking about do we want to bring in an outside organization or pilot something that's already existing at this level.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And Mr. Skorka did mention that student to me as well and had asked if he was or she is welcome to attend these subcommittee meetings. And obviously these are public meetings. So, you know, of course, but so please let him know that as well, that the student should have links to these so that that student could be coming. It would be really great to have a regular attendee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Good stuff. Charlotte, did you have something you wanted to add?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The Common Ground group. Oh, good, good, good. That's great. So I do that presentation as well. I mean, I'm sure they're varied, but I'll be doing that with the disability awareness group that Susanna Campbell is doing, the professional development. So I'm really interested in seeing sort of his and what he has. And that is a component of the, so please let me know. when they're doing that. And that is a component of the disability awareness program that Susanna Campbell is also doing with the district around professional development. And she brings in family members like myself and self advocates and siblings and all these other folks who talk about this, but I do a specific human rights and disability awareness and civil rights, the history of super compelling and really powerful. And also can, you know, really eye opening as it's our recent history, it's our lived history process. So it's just a really good one. I'm glad to hear that they're doing that. That's great. So yeah, let us know. Tell us about Epic Service Warriors just a little bit because Tanya was just telling me about that at breakfast or wherever we were Tanya.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. And, you know, to that point, I think it's really important when you're talking about, you know, friendships, community, when we're talking about friendships in the community, it's, I think for so long, I was really, you know, sort of pushing friendships for my own daughter with non-disabled children. Right. And I was never really thinking about fostering friendships for her with disabled children. And I just hadn't, you know, I was working so hard in inclusion that I wasn't thinking about that yet. I was benefiting from my friendships. with people in the disability community and parents of people with a disability community. It wasn't sort of giving her that opportunity. And so I learned a really important lesson there. And so it's really about building friendships between and with students with and without disabilities for all of the obvious reasons. So, you know, when we're talking about a best buddies obviously or a common ground or whatever that it's not, you know, it's not one way or the other, it's all together. and that we're building those friendships across those sort of identifiers, if you will.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, it sounds great. It sounds like a little mini Peace Corps. Yeah, in the community. It sounds like a great, great organization and similar to our own gem, CCSR, which I really love. And I love that it's at all of our different schools. And I'd like to see what the demographic is for our students with disabilities participating in the CCSR programs in their individual schools. I do know one of the things that we addressed in some of these enrichment programs, and we had to address this I think a year ago or so, is that the requirement was at the elementary level anyway, that the CCSR students would have a partner to participate in the projects. And it was like, well, we don't have a partner, and I'm not in the school to facilitate a partnership for her, so then who is actually going to be doing that so that students with disabilities can participate in these enrichment programs? And I guess to that end, and so we did address this with CCSR and Mr. Skorka, and there was some training provided for administrators around, like, you don't have to have a partner. you can come to the CCSR program and you can be partnered or trioed with other existing groups so that, you know, it's all inclusive. Nobody should be, you know, left out. But to that end, what I was saying about sort of the low-hanging fruit around how are we identifying accommodations or the requirement for accommodations in all of these social programs that exist within our schools and within our cities. And so, you know, I know that we had spoken recently at school committee meeting around the before school and after school program and the director, Megan, and we had worked with them last year, two years ago, CPAC actually had worked with them around some language to, you know, for inclusivity. And they adapted that language and now they're adopting it they adopted the language and now they're adopting it a little bit more because I think the language they had was specific to if you're on a 504 or an IEP and you require accommodations. And I was saying that there are students that are, you know, not on either and require accommodations. So, you know, we need to be thinking about how we're creating some uniform language. So to the policy piece, I think one of the things that school committee could do and that this subcommittee could do is help advise on what some uniform language would look like. across all of our entities. That would include our sports programming, our community schools programming, our afterschools programming, our MFN programming, our recreational programming, any of those things, because there should be language that is inclusive, that certainly lets folks know that we don't discriminate based on any of the isms, if you will, but that also we provide reasonable accommodations to make sure that every person can access the life of the school and the enrichment that's involved in the school. So I'd like to say, I'd like to make a motion to put forward that we, that, you know, part of what we do as the subcommittee is that we create universal language around, oh, but we don't have a quorum. So we can't, I can't make a motion. I'll have to save it for next time, I guess, Paul, right? We don't have all our members of our school committee here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All right, then I'm going to say that, you know, I'd like to make a motion that one of the things that we focus on as a subcommittee is that we create some universal language around accessibility in our schools and on our recreation programs, programming through the schools in the city. Can I get a second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: All in favor? Any opposed? All right, so we're gonna put that forward certainly as part of our... our recommendations. And we don't have to wait till the end of the year for that, frankly. So we can do, we can report that out at our next meeting of the school committee, and we can take a vote at the school committee. And then we can just let them know that we'll, we can get back to them with the language, the specific language. So maybe that's another thought. I can do some research between now and the next meeting about what language looks like in, you know, other places, Joan, maybe, you know, if you can do some as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that would be really helpful field trip forms as well. Anything like that any permission forms you know anything like that that we're thinking about would be really helpful and then again where are these going to live and so this is the this is the sort of practical piece that I keep thinking about. And because you know we have the difficulty of. you know, accessibility on the Google Drive for, you know, school employees versus the general public and, you know, how we work around that. So I guess, you know, I'm gonna defer to the superintendent on that. Maybe I don't wanna put you on the spot, superintendent, but maybe we could be thinking about sort of a universal, if you will, design for our Google Drive as well, so that there is some accessibility around, you know, having our community members and our committee volunteers and other folks be able to access some of these documents. How would you like to address that superintendent?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I have to double check, because I'm not sure that I've seen them up. And also, our webmaster, we don't have a webmaster anymore. I mean, people are doing double their job. And so there are those elements to it as well. But I guess in the meantime, what I'd be willing to do is to have my own version of the Google Drive for at least resources for this group that I could share in a limited way with members of this group that want. to have the resources shared. So for example, the friendship book that we were talking about or the different forms, Joan, that you're talking about, like that we can start to build at least a smaller one that's not the public version. And then we could be forwarding to Lisa or to Susie, the items that ultimately go public, right? Whether it's the minutes or, you know, obviously those automatically go public, but other pieces. Yeah. Who just raised their hand? Someone just raised their hand. Was it Heather? I think Heather, and then she dropped, no. All right, sorry. So I'm happy to do that. And oh, yeah, Charlotte was raising her hand, saying she had to leave early. So that's why she just texted me as well. So if there's nothing else, we have our next meeting at, let me just see, our next meeting is December 17th. want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate and celebrate safely and We're gonna come back to the table, if you recall, with hopefully two staff members and two students and any siblings that you can certainly email me in advance if you want, but we'll start to build. I'm actually happy to share, I can share a shared screen, Google Doc, that I can give you all access to as well to join and add some names to those contexts that we're all gonna hopefully bring back to the table. And I would also encourage you to invite some of those folks that you know are interested to come to the meeting. So for example, Marissa, the Best Buddies person that you are aware of, and certainly Carla. I thought I invited Carla and Mr. Droudski, but they must've had something else.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and I'm sure Craig too, because, you know, he normally would come, but, um, and Mr. Skorka, but just thinking about sort of in the community who, you know, that you think are interested in, in both the trauma informed schools and in the, um, and the, in the building community friendships and inviting them to the December 17th meeting would be great. And, um, are there any other, uh, next step items that I forgot that anyone wants to remind me of? No. Okay, then I make a motion to.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second, Paul's motion to adjourn. It is. I just want to make note 6 23. Yeah, just saying. We're going to start a little competition, Paul with our committee members to see who can finish earliest and all our meetings. How do you like that idea?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We'll have to figure out what the prize is going to be. All right. Good night, everyone.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm just going to speak from a parent perspective, but also as the former co-chair of the CPAC, we had actually, Kathy Medaglio and I, and the CPAC had been working on this idea for some time. And in fact, we did purchase Understanding Our Differences. at the Brooks School for fifth grade as part of the inclusion committee for the Brooks. And it was the autism unit, but it never was actually implemented. We ended up having a transition between a former principal and a newer principal, and it sort of just fell through the gap, and it just was never picked up again. So I think that's the other part of the problem with a one-time event, you know, that if it doesn't happen, if something gets rescheduled, obviously it's not going to happen. So Kathy and I talked much more And it was expensive by the way, it was like $1,500 for the one unit for fifth grade. And then there was some, we were looking at whether we wanted to expand that, but Kathy and I had talked more and that was when Kathy was really talking about infusing the curriculum and not having a one and done for all of the reasons that folks mentioned and actually starting with a pilot similar to the understanding our differences, right, Alex, where it started with a grade for the curriculum so that there was a curriculum map, if you will, for one grade as you're talking about, like, what is the framework? You know, you start small with a pilot with one curriculum map for that grade, if you will. and then looking beyond expanding after potentially that year. And I just wanted to add to the point of Susanna's disability awareness curriculum. It was so well-received last time, and you've done such an amazing job on the syllabus and working with all that, that we're really glad to see all of that, Susanna. And this has been an evolution of the past, I would say, five years of discussion and work, the combination of that. So thanks, I just wanted to add that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, I appreciate that. I just want to say from a parent perspective as well from member Rousseau about not all schools have that benefit. And that's true, which is why those funds particularly were used for from one PTO, one school PTO, the Brooks PTO, but they benefited the entire community because they were provided to all of the schools, the adaptive books. So I think to that point, I think that's a really important point. Um some schools as we know, or have much more funding and much more access to funds than others. And so if we're thinking about how we're providing, um. Anything to our community. We should be thinking about how we're providing it to all of our schools. And I just had to add that as well, because I think that is a really important point. And I can
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a motion to implement the policy suggestion from the Rural Equity and Strategy Subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you Member Kreatz. Member McLaughlin? Thank you, Member Kreatz. That sounds like it was a really involved meeting. It was. A lot. I had a couple of questions. Specifically, the concerns around the ADA compliance in the ramp. I know that you said Member Van der Kloot and Member Ruseau were also concerned about that. I'm wondering if you know or if John McLaughlin can share with us what the safety concerns are for the ADA compliance with the ramp.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can you orient me, member Van der Kloot, as to where? Sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, going into the theater doors?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, outside.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sure I probably have.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, but it does not, but there is obviously the other ramp, which is fine and is totally ADA compliant, and it's not an accessibility issue. Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, it's a safety issue and maybe more than an accessibility issue. Okay, thank you for that clarification.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's not ADA accessible. I mean, right. It's a ramp that's not ADA accessible. I understand. And I'm sure that's probably because of the slope. Yeah. And the grade of it, but I'm not sure. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I assume. So I'm, yeah, I would assume John is going to have to get somebody in there to, to think about that. Right. And I, I would just say that obviously if there's prioritizing, it sounds like you said, Kathy, they're going to prioritize anything in that legal realm first. Right. Yeah. Thank you. And then the other question I had is regarding the resurfacing on the playgrounds. I know that the McGlynn School resurfacing, not just resurfacing, but playground as a whole was going to be, as you said, really focused on making an inclusive experience, an inclusive playground for students of all abilities. And I'm wondering, again, maybe this is a question for John or whoever was at the meeting related to that. Is there an expert? And maybe it applies to the same, to the first question as well. Is there an expert in the, you know, field, in the disability field that is advising us on these things?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. And I know the mass office on disability who we've had come and speak in the past, I'm sure you know is available to offer expertise as well and I'll send that contact info to you too and I do realize that there were some meetings around. you know, with some of the recreation and Boston Recreation and other folks who have done this before. I just want to make sure that they continue to be included in the discussion. So what's best way to handle that, Peter? Dr. Cushion, just email you to follow up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I would really encourage someone reaching out to the chairs of the Medford CPAC and to the parents of children with disabilities in the school so that they're definitely part of that committee, that there are members that are part of that committee. So thank you so much. Appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Grim.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, did we answer the first question that Dave was gonna look at the email on?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And accessories?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Dr. Edouard-Vincent, and happy Thanksgiving to you. Thanks for the poem, appreciate it. Two questions I had. One was, I really appreciated you sharing Justin Singh's article. It was really... well-written, I enjoyed it. And it made me miss Justin. And it also brought to mind the question of a student rep for our school committee. And I'm wondering what happened to our student rep for school committee. If somebody knows or if we can, you know, re-engage or something, that would be really great. Cause I think it's an important role.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, that would be great. And then, you know, I understand from the last message you were saying, you're hoping to get more information to seniors, is that right, by the end of this week?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. We're looking forward to that. To that good news. And also wanted to say thank you for the food distribution and for specifically for, you know, working to help address those who are unable to come get the food. I was really glad to hear that Brooke and the city are working together to make sure that our families are getting the meal. So thank you very much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I guess as I'm thinking about the student testing, I'm thinking about, you know, my own child with a developmental disability and, you know, her responsiveness to testing and even frankly, myself, you know, I've had, I guess, five different tests now at this point. And I've only done one, the original one was the, you know, I don't know what else to call it, but was the really long sort of brain probe, if you will, which was particularly painful, uncomfortable, you know, not pleasant at all, and has progressively, you know, gotten better in terms of, you know, also because I make it really clear that I'm not doing that one again. So, you know, to the superintendent's point when she was talking earlier about the stop the spread sites, I do want to say, you know, several members of my family have been to the Suffolk Downs Stop the Spread site, and I can tell you from a personal experience, that is a site where it's a very non-invasive, if you will, nasal swab that you administer yourself. They give you the Q-tip or what have you, and then you hand it back. So it was probably of all the experiences, it was the most reasonable. But I'm thinking about this for our is, you know, for all of our children, our younger children, but also, you know, cohort A in terms of, you know, their ability, I guess, or, you know, my concern around the presentation of the testing and ensuring that the testing is the the, I guess, least non-invasive one, particularly for children who might not be that willing in the first place, so.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's fantastic. And I guess I would just say, you know, to Joan and Susanna and yourself, that I would not limit those social stories to students with disabilities. I mean, those really apply to our younger kids as well. They're very visual. They're very supportive. It's a nice introduction. So I would really encourage, you know, our general education team and our non-disabled families to get access to those social stories as well, because there's lots of them that Susanna has compiled a great database of, from what is COVID, to wearing a mask, to getting testing, all those things. So I would really encourage folks to let Joan Bowen know or let Susanna Campbell know if you're particularly interested in any of those social stories. There's a nice bank of them that have been building. So thank you, Tony.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's a great idea, Mayor. And also you get the results back within. I think we were under, you know, even 12 hours. It was crazy how fast we got the results back.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm feeling, you know, based on both constituent emails and the, you know, member Ruseau and member Graham's comments that I also think that a meeting would be helpful to the community. I think that with the metrics changing from the state level and with all of these unknowns, I mean, I'm going back again to my graduate level stats class and it's like, you can't compare apples to oranges and sort of, or change the data midway and sort of have these comparisons. So I think it would be really helpful. I would also though concur with member Graham that I think we need notice. I think an emergency meeting with is probably not as essential as it is to have notice to the community that this is what the meeting would be discussing, especially as we're thinking about, I mean, we're seeing every time I turn on the news, it's more, you know, dread and danger and mayhem. And it's concerning as we're seeing the numbers rise. And again, if you do a comparison, minus the COVID fatigue to the spring, we were all inside at this point, we weren't interacting with each other. And then you're dealing with this COVID fatigue and people are Interacting more and more and to the point of, you know, this, we keep hearing this data that this is not happening in schools, or that the shares not happening in schools or exposures not happening in schools but there's these unknowns as Member Graham and Member Ruseau were discussing. both of people who aren't responding to the contact tracing and or there's 50% that we don't know about. I mean, that statistics put out there all the time, or there's 50% that we don't know how the contact tracing was. Well, 50% is a pretty large number. We have information. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So 50% that we don't know we don't have school transmission is what you're saying. How do we know if we don't know? So that's the state.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's been- That's 100%, not 50%.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll yield the floor. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, can we move the question? Member Van der Kloot?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I just for the other members, I guess benefit and for those that are listening, I guess what I think is being asked is that we have a meeting to discuss under what circumstances we would end up being all remote again, given what we're seeing in metrics as a whole, not just in the city, but in the country and to have a meeting to discuss. Um as a state of affairs in general is that accurate? Is that what the motion was to have a meeting to discuss under what circumstances we would. Be going remote and what the no.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. And I think the metric that you were referring to when I heard what you were saying was specifically the metric of what happens, the 8 to 100,000 equals remote. And so that was where I was sort of My inclination is that we need to have a meeting to discuss under what circumstances we are going remote or if we were gonna go remote and what the implications of that would be so that we have that clear to the community under what those circumstances were. Because as you said, member Ruseau, the metrics have changed both from a state perspective and not yet from a Medford perspective. So I guess that would be inclusive of what you're discussing.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: May we move the question, Mayor?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Mayor. I just want to add, it's not that I don't trust the administration, I very much do, and I very much appreciate all of the work that Toni Wray and Marianne O'Connor and all of our administration has been doing. I'm more interested in the fact that it's being communicated in advance to our families and our constituents in a way that everybody clearly understands, school committee included. So it's not a matter of not trusting the superintendent or anyone else's decision making, because I do, implicitly. But I want to make sure that we're all understanding what that actually means and under what circumstances. So I just want to make that point of clarification. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Joan and Paul. very much for this. It's really great to see our students highlighted in this way and the work of our teachers and staff highlighted to show how the remote learning is working in different circumstances. I really, really enjoyed watching this. And I have to say, I was writing down my questions. And my question was, is there any collaboration between special education and English language teachers as I was writing it and literally your very next slide was you know oh this collaboration that we did around you know the six-week training and which was so I think is so important in our schools it's really good to see this interdepartmental collaboration and I want to encourage that even more and again in sharing the resources and just seeing like when Paul was showing his slides about the different assistive technologies, the loom and the ed puzzle. And I was thinking, my goodness, those would work so well for special education too. And obviously you guys are already on top of all of that, but I think that's really great. I would also love to see if there's any way in which, first of all, I didn't see this PowerPoint in our packet and maybe I missed it. I saw a narrative. I can send it to you if you'd like, like me too. That's not a problem. I would like that. Yeah, I would like, yeah, no, I would like that. Thank you. And then the other is, is whether there's an opportunity to share some of the sort of, I guess, the takeaways from the training that the departments did together, both with the community at large and frankly, our general education teachers and others. Because again, I think that when we're talking about universal design for learning, I think that you, Joan and you, Paul, have these departments that really provide universal design for learning in a way that is so rich that a lot of other community members, you know, maybe don't realize. And so if you could share that with the community and with, you know, the staff at large, I think it would be really, really helpful. And again, not to give you guys more work, but just sort of, I don't know what that would look like or how that might be done. And I know that there's been a, you know, a resource list of sort of, you know, websites, which can get cumbersome in terms of assistive technology. And I think we all feel overwhelmed with those when we see them, but I don't know if it's a best of or things that, you know, a presentation or deck, a slide deck that you guys have done that could be helpful, I think would be really useful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh my God, that would be like my dream come true for having even run for office. That's one of the things that'd be probably my top two list of what I would like to see is this interdepartment collaboration. I think it's so essential because I think you all have so much expertise to add, you know, to bring to the table that I'd like to see everybody be able to have access. So thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's wonderful. Is there any way, Superintendent Edouard-Vincent, that some of this could be made available to the community at large?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would say probably the slide deck.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That'd be great. And also, yeah, and just like the best practices that Paul's talking about, just sort of, you know, the highlights, if you can, of this, of this professional development training, what have you that I think, I think this can really translate to families at home to, you know, that are working in remote learning environments. And, again, it's universal design for learning. So I think it'd be great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: This would definitely- Can I just make a point of information? Excuse me. There's a little bit of educator ease, I guess, for lack of a better word. And I'm wondering if you can just simplify a little bit for folks, statutory accommodations.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So just for clarification if I if I might through the chair, I guess what I hear you saying is that in some instances their educators who have required statutory accommodations meaning through like a DA Americans with disabilities or something like that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. And so that has led to reverse remote teaching, which means teaching from a remote location with students in the class watching the teacher on a monitor who's teaching remotely. And in those situations, there obviously needs to be some supervision of the students. And that has led to some you know, lacking of in staffing, which is why you're looking for these additional folks to help support.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, I don't think the mayor is seeing my hand right now. I did see your hand, but I- You were waiting for me. But I didn't know it was a point of clarification.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Just to, So the families are, as we discussed in previous meetings, being notified. if they are in a situation where their student is receiving reverse remote instruction, correct?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this report. It's very helpful that I'm a visual learner, so the color coding is real, excuse me, also really helpful. I'm wondering, does this show, or I didn't necessarily see, you know, for lack of a better word, cohort A, which would be, you know, our most vulnerable students that are actually cohort D. So in other words, our most vulnerable students who are remote. I didn't see that disaggregated, or did I miss something?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: purposes, but I think for Medford purposes, it might be helpful. I'm assuming you guys can disaggregate, right? That data?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Yeah, just out of curiosity for those just thinking of those families and and you know how or whether remote is working. It's just it's just a curiosity. I was wondering about it doesn't have to be here, but it's something that I'm interested in. So I can follow up with with Joan if that's okay with Miss Bowen and then The other is just for a point of clarification. I had asked for this information specifically because I really needed some definition around the remote academy, which is a word that we heard being used a lot. And just for folks that are watching and just for clarification sake, the remote academy exists at the elementary school level. There is not a remote academy at the middle and high school level is what you were saying in your presentation. But just again, to sort of put that you know, thread throughout the presentation so that folks really understand what that is and what that means and that it's not interchangeable. I think it's, can't put too fine a point on that for all of the reasons that you just mentioned as well, Dr. Cushing. So thank you for clarifying that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member Ruseau. Yeah, I also just wanted to just mention if we could, you know, if there's gonna be sort of a district-wide decision, such as with the specialist, I found out about that as I think most of my colleagues did via social media. And I didn't have a response really for the constituent that was asking the question right then because I wasn't really clear on what had actually occurred. So I think that because everybody is so overtaxed right now with their job responsibilities, and I understand that, and at home responsibilities and everything else that we're dealing with, that it's been really even more difficult to communicate across district and with each other. But I guess I would ask that if there's sort of a district-wide decision that it also be communicated. So for instance, one might say when there's a district-wide decision, you would know because it's a decision that's an email's going to all the principals, for example, that the school committee would also be included in those emails so that we could just know in advance. And if we have questions, then we can come to you not reactively, but proactively. So respectfully, I would just ask that, you know, we be included in those instances as well, if possible. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask for clarification or some more detail through the chair, member Graham, can you help maybe define that even a little bit more clearly? Because there's so many scenarios in that case. So are you saying that if We're in a situation where it is absolutely out of the question that our most vulnerable students are receiving in person services because even with you know the outside districts and other things that I've been looking at where other folks are entirely remote. our most vulnerable students are still receiving in-person services because of the controlled environment of the small number of students and the small number of staff. It actually is very palatable, I guess, to be able to control the scenario. I don't know if I haven't done an extensive search, but I don't know of any other districts that are not having our most vulnerable students in person. So are you saying that in the scenario where it's absolutely out of the question that most vulnerable students, even though everybody is saying they're gonna do everything they can to ensure, even if everybody else has to go remote, that these students are still receiving some variation of in-person services, you want a scenario or a discussion of,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that I appreciate member Graham's wanting to have a clear contingency plan for this population. And I also think that, you know, having been involved in special education for the past 12 years and on a number of different levels is that, you know, it's such a highly litigated field, number one. Number two, it is very much at the individual level. And so every single time, believe me, I have gone both to the state and national level trying to create some systemic consistency around some of these bigger issues and have always gotten the response that, The catch 22 it here is that it is very individualized. And so, in, you know, to the director of people services perspective if you're looking at 300 or 800 or whatever students 300 in the. in the current cohort A, but if you're looking at 800 students and you're thinking about the contingency plan for the 800 at an individualized level, it's just like sort of an impossible question to ask. So that's what I'm saying is if you can maybe help clarify with Ms. Bowen, either offline or in this situation or whatever, some maybe specific questions that you want answers to, that could be a little bit more helpful. But otherwise, it's sort of like throwing the whole thing up there and saying, give me a contingency plan for 800 different scenarios for each different student in every different setting. And that's just impossible. You can't. So if maybe we could be a little bit more specific in some of the formulations of the questions, that could be a little bit more helpful. But to the legal aspect point, you know, Joan Bowen's responsibility as the Director of Pupil Services is to meet every single one of those students individualized education needs.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Through the chair, if I may. Member McLaughlin, then Member Ruseau. Thank you. I would just say that's very helpful. I think that that is a very helpful clarification because the reality is that is our legal obligation, period. So it's not an option. So I'm sure that the staff can support what that is. But if people have individual education plans that require supports and services, even in a global pandemic, they have to be provided. Now, there's a lot going on with like Mass Advocates for Children and other disability organizations that are talking about what are they doing around compensatory services if the student didn't receive in-person versus remote or as many back in the spring. So there are those nuances, but yeah, that's our responsibility. So I think that's perfectly reasonable. In that sense, when you say, can you show us evidence that you will meet the legal obligations of these individualized education plans of these X number of students in a scenario that is remote? I think that's a reasonable question. And thank you for the clarification.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, and as I'm thinking about the problem, I just sort of want to just And I guess this is to member Rousseau's point as well, but I guess that, you know, The same could be said essentially of general education. It's like, okay, so what is the contingency plan if 4,000 kids need to go remote, right? What are we doing for them? And so it's the same scenario. And a contingency plan needs to be obviously created for that too. So I think what's different in this situation is obviously that these are more vulnerable populations that have very specific individualized needs around a lot of their services and their service presentation. But I guess I would, I always think about like, when you're asking something of either the disability community, or, you know, as a whole, even my own child, I would say, generally, is that something that you would ask of the non disabled community, which I'm sure it is in this scenario. But I just think that that's the way to think about things as well as like, how does this apply to everybody? right, so that we're thinking about everybody in that context. But anyway, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And- May I ask a question? I'm sorry, Andrea, to interrupt you, but are you progressing the slide deck at all? Cause I'm only seeing the cover.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. I remember before the pandemic when you, the food security task force had a presentation at city hall. It was my first presentation that I had gone to and it was so compelling. And I think this data is really important. And also I think that some of the basic, I think I either, I think I might've asked a question at city hall that night and it really resonated with me. And I wanted to make sure that it shared, you know, whenever it's talked about, cause I asked the difference between food security and hunger. And, you know, it was explained to me that, you know, the difference between food security and hunger is, you know, we all feel hungry. we don't all have to worry about where our next meal is coming from. And that was the difference between hunger and food insecurity. And I thought that that was just really important for me to hear. Also having experienced food insecurity as a child and giving that a name and having it really be validated for children. And I really liked the way that you talk about normalizing what food insecurity is and helping people understand that You know, there are folks out in our community who may not look like they've experienced food insecurity but certainly have. I'm also really interested in the promoting social support by sharing diverse cultures and also the menu for diverse food so it both in our, you know, free and reduced lunch and in our schools, and I'm wondering how that might be moved forward, because that is something that the students have also shared very clearly, I think, with many, many members of our school committee as well, around just the, you know, culturally diverse food, you know, that's offered in the school as well, and also thinking about that in terms of food insecurity. So how might we move that forward from a school committee perspective?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'd like to think about how we may operationalize that. So it's a little bit late for my brain to function wrap around that right now, but know, I'd love to, I'll reach out to Shiraz as well and see if there's a way that we can be thinking about operationalizing that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Present.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm just thinking about outreach plans. And I know the mailing here is being mentioned, but I'm just thinking back to the, you know, brochure days and getting quotes from parents and, you know, pictures of kindergarten day and just those sorts of things like building a base of PR materials on a Google Drive with quotes, you know, asking family members, And others to, you know, give quotes that again are things that can be used for mailings or any of those things, because I think that that's sort of, you know, elements of PR. OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I think that's great. I think that I would also just advocate even beyond COVID and the pandemic, just leaving both options available, a remote, you know, virtual tour for families and also just thinking about, you know, certainly sometimes parents want to come look at the school, but maybe the child doesn't and they can show the child the school online and just, especially in terms of multiple modes of representation, it's good practice. So I think I would say continue both for sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thanks. Yeah, I'm just thinking for posterity and for process, it's great to have Just a process memo that has that right. So when you're saying Maurice about getting the information out to the school committee, I think back to Jenny's point as well about sort of a timeline around when these things are going to happen and what the process pieces. I think just adding this to the process memo for know again for posterity for you know the year that maybe you're not here and i'm not here and jenny's not here and anybody else is looking around at how do we actually make this kindergarten thing happen again um it's all sort of in a place where it's documented and folks know what the process is annually so if if you're saying process or if you're saying policy to create it as an official policy then that would go into um Right, I'm not saying necessarily that you need to create it as a policy, because you're saying that you don't think you do. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying process so that it's documented that that's what needs to happen annually. I don't necessarily think it needs to go into policy. It seems like it's a pretty straightforward ask, but I'm just thinking in terms of process and documenting that that should be part of what needs to be done. Just like the form, Jenny, that you were talking about filling out, for any tours or what have you, just again, sort of any parts of the process that can be outlined annually. So people aren't reinventing the wheel every year or going back to the table to try to figure out what was done the year before. And the consistency across like schools, just like Ms. Galussi was saying, you know, each school, you know, created their virtual tour. It's like, you know, just having a step in the process where each school is working together, sharing whatever their virtual tours so that there's some consistency across the videos or what have you, but just a step process.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess I'd want to know, you know, so this, both the qualitative and quantitative data I think is really interesting and important if we're, if the objective is to really drive that number, that 7 million number down, which I actually just wrote a note cause I want to know where the 7 million number actually comes from. And cause I've tried to get that from the state delegation and there's, it's, it's soft. It's like, I don't, nobody seems to have a real hard answer as to where that 7 million number actually comes from. So I want to know, is it really 7 million? Is it more than that? Is it less than whatever? But then the other is how many of our students are actually incoming kindergartners, which I know this is the kindergarten specific, not charter school specific, but as we're thinking about the kindergarten piece of it. You know, how many are incoming kindergartners that go elsewhere? And then the attrition rate at other levels is sort of the, you know, again, dive deeper into the data. Like at what, you know, are we losing a lot of students at, you know, middle school? Are we losing a lot at third grade? Are we losing, like, where is the attrition rate and how do we see it, you know, go up and down or high school for that matter? Maybe we're losing them at high school. So, and then we have better data for targeting, if again, the goal is to drive that 7 million number down, you know, a survey to kindergarten families, if everybody's leaving in eighth grade is not really the most effective, right? Although I do think that the survey is important because we won't know that until we start getting some data. But I think we should be thinking about other aspects of the data if the goal is, if indeed, which I think the goal of this meeting is not, is necessarily that it's about how to do family engagement around kindergarten. But if there's a subset of a goal around how to drive down that number, then we should be thinking about those other pieces. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's your soundbite right there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to adjourn.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'll have a question, but I'm going to wait until the dialogue starts a little bit. But I do have some questions, but I'd like to just let things roll, if you don't mind, first, before I start. That's fine.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You mean raise hands through the participants, Paul, or through physically?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You say yes to me, Paul?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. So yeah, to Mr. DeLava's point, I guess that raises a good question. What if you have two students, for example, that do get in a fight, and we did do indoor suspension, or there was an indoor suspension? How would that address, I guess, or we would need to address those students I would imagine not being together in an indoor, you know, I don't even know if you're going to call it suspension, but, um, or maybe they would be in a restorative justice circle or, I don't know, I guess I'm just curious, how would you respond, um, to that as an example?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So then I guess, thank you, Mr. Downs. Um, and I didn't know who was speaking. So also it might be helpful. I was looking for you on my screen. I'm sorry. I just, I'm double screening cause I'm taking my apologies. No, that's okay. So maybe we can just ask folks to, um, you know, before they speak, just maybe say their name and what their role is would be helpful. Um, and I'm going to try to do my best with taking these minutes to Paul. So, so maybe some elaboration on if it's not a suspension, we're not doing, you know, if we're considering not having suspension for obvious reasons with disproportionality, what might consequences, if that's the right word, logical consequences or otherwise look like instead?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mr. Russo. Can you do me a favor and actually share, or I think it would be helpful to maybe read the resolution one more time. I wish I had it. I was trying to, when you were talking, I was typing. I'm not going to do that again. But maybe the last part of the resolution so I can, it would just help me as we're talking, just if you wouldn't mind, just one more time, just the last part. I had all the whereas, whereas, whereas, but the summary of the, or the outcome that you're looking for, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Excuse me one second. Point of information, Paul. Can you stop sharing the screen now? Because I can't take notes when you do. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, would you guys mind sharing that screen for one second?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think I saw Mr. Blough, yeah, I think I saw Mr. Blough cut his hand. So I don't know, Paul, if you wanna. calling him, but I also have another follow-up to this. Jenny, thank you for sharing the screen. Don't take it away yet, please, because I want to comment on something there. Do you want to go first, Mr. Blauck, or do you want me to go?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And to that end, to Paul's point, I also want to point out the data here. that 84% of 112, so about 80% of these discipline suspensions are students, high-need students. So students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged English learners. And that is, again, another data point that's really important to look at. So looking at the 62% persons of color and more than 80% or 80% high needs. And so what is the intersectionality around addressing the social emotional component of this? And I know that Stacey Shulman has her hand raised. So I'll be curious to hear that. But as we're addressing trauma, as we're addressing social emotional needs of children, and again, getting back to some of that implicit bias around that, what that looks like. And, you know, a student who is experiencing a lot of aggression at home and then comes into school and you know, maybe has a teacher or someone that is, seems threatening or aggressive to them and they explode, you know, we understand that that can be a root cause of trauma. So, but the data does speak volumes in that 80% of our students that are getting disciplined are high needs. And so I would love for folks to talk about that as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 84 out of 112?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Except it's not because it's 11.5 plus 15 plus 11.5 for the high need, well it depends on the students with disabilities and the economically disadvantaged are also in the high needs 11.5.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So the 15.8 and the 12.3 are the equivalent of the 11.5. That's the way I'm looking at it right now. Well, then how can it, if it's students disciplined and 84 of them are high needs and the total students disciplined are 112, that's not 11%.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Jenny. So I was saying approximately 80, looking at 84 to the 112. Right. But it's actually 75% because Jenny, you know, used her calculator or her brain and did the math. Thank you. Calculator. I was like, I assume calculator, but I didn't want to. So thank you. So that's a really, that's an important point. 75% of them are high needs of the students who are being disciplined. And again, it goes to the same point that member Rousseau is saying, you know, are we saying that students who have high needs are, you know, require discipline more than students who don't? Maybe, and maybe again, you know, Stacey Shulman can speak to that, but maybe suspension isn't the way to address that. So I'm done now, but I wanted to just point out that data. And then I am going to ask if everyone's okay, Paul, that you stop sharing the screen just so I can go back to my Word document to take notes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I was listening and I just sort of wanted to ask folks or have folks think about a few things. One is, I don't think that this is suggesting that we're taking away discipline. I think it's suggesting that we're taking a closer look at what the disciplinary measures that have been being used are, how effective they've been, and whether or not color has played or race has played a role. And I think the data shows, I don't think, I know the data shows us that race clearly has played a role. So we were just listening to a student speaking the other day talking about wearing headphones in the hallway at the high school. And she, and this wasn't recent, so I don't want anybody to think that this was them. but she talked about walking in the hallway and she's a black woman student and being yelled at and disciplined for having her headphones on in the hallway as a white student was walking by her doing the exact same thing and did not get yelled at, did not get disciplined. And that is part of the problem. And that is where the implicit bias comes in. I think that people don't realize that we don't realize that we are built with this implicit bias because we are part of a system that we were brought up in and have been part of our entire lives where we see things as threats related to color, unfortunately. And we see them as more threatening when they're related to color. And that's why we see disproportionality and discipline. I mean, disproportionality and discipline is a national issue in the United States. It's not something that's specific to Medford. It's a national issue. People of color are disproportionately disciplined. in our schools and that, I think, is what Member Ruseau is trying to address in this subcommittee and in this resolution. And that's what I would like us to really take a look at. And the discussion that we're not hearing right now, I feel like, is, you know, I appreciated what Stacey Shulman was saying as well about, you know, going back and looking at the events and what sort of triggers the suspension. And I think that's important, too, to look at the backstories and the data and the information. But the fact still remains that we are still disproportionately disciplining students of color and that is regardless of the instances or the you know what happened or whatever that is a direct result of our own bias and you know I can share sort of one of my own stories, you know, as a mother of a white male student who, you know, in high school, I mean, in middle school, certainly was disciplined, but might have got a phone call home first. And again, as the co-chair of the CPAC and someone who's involved in the schools and someone who has maybe some means and has a relationship with the administration and all those other things, got phone calls home Um, from them to address any sort of discipline issues and also, you know, a student on a, on an ed plan. Um, so the disability certainly was a factor in this role, but also in this situation, but also got the benefit of a phone call home. Um, when another parent may not have gotten that, um, maybe because they didn't have a relationship or maybe because they weren't white, or maybe because we don't realize that we do those things. They're not intentional, but they, we do do them. And so we have to pay attention to those. And I think that's really. an important piece, and as much as I wish color wasn't a part of this, it clearly is because the data shows us that. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Um, member Graham, can you send me those two additions in the chat just for the notes? Um, I got the first one, but not the second. And then, um, thank you. And then, um, you know, I also just am hoping people recognize the fact that the rules policy and equity subcommittee is a new subcommittee. We had not had an equity subcommittee before. Um, we've certainly had rules, um, subcommittee and, and policy, but equity is a different lens that we're really putting to the issue. And I think it's a really important perspective. And so when we're talking about reporting out, who are we reporting out to, you know, on an annual basis of that, you know, if that's sort of the The point is that, you know, I would say to the equity subcommittee specifically, um, to sort of look at this, but also within the administration, of course. And then I also believe I don't have it in front of me. Um, and I don't know, I believe I saw Joan on the call, uh, Ms. Bowen, but the coordinated program review, which happens every three years, um, and it's happening this year for the district and includes our high needs. Uh, uh, some of our high needs population, our English learners and our, um, students with disabilities has an element of discipline in the CPR program review. So that's an important piece to also look at. And that will be coming starting this year. So I think they report out in the spring. So that might be an interesting opportunity for a look at data. But Joan, if you're still here, can you address the section on CPR around discipline?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And is it also an opportunity in that I know that they speak directly with CPAC, but there's also opportunities for families to reach out to DESE as part of their, they're not calling it a Coordinated Program Review anymore? Oh, no, they just want to- No, they changed it, so it's just peer-focused monitoring. Peer-focused monitoring. Oh, okay. So TFM now, not CPR. Right. But I find it to be a very valuable source of data for folks that are on the call. You can look at the last one, which was three years ago, right, Joan?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You can look at the last one that was three years ago to really get a sense of what the data is in that. And it's very, very interesting data. And additionally, as DESE is doing the tiered focused monitoring research, community members and administrators and, you know, staff and school committee members and whoever can reach out to them and give them information or ask them questions or ask them to include information in the report and review. And it's really helpful. And I know that they definitely reach out to the CPAC. I think they have some other requirements about who else they reach out to specifically in the community, but anybody can reach out to them. So I think that's a really important piece. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Ruseau, I just wanted to mention, I'm not sure, I think you responded earlier, but wanted to make sure you didn't forget the comment in the chat regarding a suspension example during remote learning. Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Harmon Zuckerman, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PBS, she-her, PBS, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, Lupita D Montoya PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she-her, PB, she of minutes that I will send to you and to Susan Weiss, the superintendent's administrator, and they can marry the minutes together and we can work on the amendment. So I make a motion to approve the amendment.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, OK. Thank you. Member Graham? Yes. I will call myself Melanie McLaughlin. Yes. Member Ruseau.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I would second both sentiments. Congratulations, everyone, for tomorrow. We're thinking of you. Thank you all. And see you soon.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member Graham?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie McLaughlin, yes. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. Thank you. Uh, melanie mclaughlin 152 awesome street medford, mass Please forgive me for staying off video at this point, but it's been a long day and I think i'm doing everybody a justice by doing so Um, I just wanted to second, uh, and then speak to uh councillor knight's, um, uh direction I think uh as the former co-chair of the special education parent advisory council and also the parent of a child with a disability I think it is incredibly important for us to have singular disability and inclusion office in our city hall. We've had that for many, many years and having presented to them and gone to them as a member of the CPAC and having asked them to advocate in the past, I think it's incredibly important. I think if you see what's happening in our city and our nation around racism, ableism is a big part of the discrimination piece as well. And we need to be thinking about that in our schools. We just recently got a disability and inclusion officer in our school as a stipended position, not even a full position. This is a very important matter and one that I would not want to see separated. So as a community member, I'm weighing in as the mother of a child with a disability, and as a person who's been connected to families with disability in the community, I would ask that this be maintained as an individual position for our city.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, Melanie, you're on. Hi, Council President Falco. I was just saying it's Melanie McLaughlin, 152 Alston. Hi, Council President Falco. Just saying that it's Melanie McLaughlin, 152 Alston Street. And since I've spoken earlier, I will defer if there are other people with their hands raised until the end.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Are there other people with their hands? I just wanted to echo a lot of work as a woman, a white woman of privilege as well, and I want to echo the other folks who are thanking Councilor Bears and Councilor Morell. I thought Councilor Bears' statement was incredibly articulate and right on the money for everything that I've been hearing and listening to among the community. I agree with many of the folks who are saying we need to listen and not talk. And I especially agree with our previous speaker, Divya Anand, who talked about safe spaces for people of color and white people and white privilege. And I think that If we're talking about any community forums, we need to be the ones who are invited to the table as white people, and it needs to be people of color-led, and Divya is a great example of that. She talks about ABIPOC, that's African American Indigenous People of Color, and those are the ranges of individuals.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, I'm here, sorry. It looked like you guys dropped me and then it looked like just put me back on. please continue. I don't know how much you guys heard. So I feel like I was on the cell phone talking when you know, you don't know if anybody's on the other line. So all I just wanted to add was I thought, uh, Councilor bears and Councilor Morell were incredibly articulate. I echo the sentiment of other white folks in this space, but it is unfortunate that there are so many white people speaking in this space. I think to Dr. Anand's point, Dr. Divya Anand's point, who has done a lot of this work previously, we need to be the folks invited to the table. I think we need to make a strong statement that Black Lives Matter, that Zach Baer's resolution and the advice of our friends who are ABI POC individuals is taken. And I would strongly encourage the council and the community to listen and to be invited into spaces where people of color are inviting us. And if they're gracious enough to invite us after the 400 years of oppression and all of the things that we've seen, it's been a really powerful time. And I especially want to thank the students for what they did last week and coming forward. I was so impressed and so horrified at the same time with what I was reading, knowing that it was true, but also the bravery in which they came forward. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Um, so yeah, we met on movement last week, and we wanted to the purpose of the meeting was to identify the newly formed subcommittee, which is behavioral health and special education combined. So we had a good turnout. There was, you know, a number of people in the meeting over 25, I believe. And we wanted to identify goals for the upcoming year. And so we have identified for behavioral health, we wanna focus on trauma and for special education, we're wanting to focus on community friendships and relationships. And we will be meeting every other, I mean, every third Thursday of the month. And what we're gonna do is because there's such broad topics, obviously, We're, um, staggering the meeting. So one month, the subcommittee is open to everyone, obviously it's a public meeting. Um, but one month we'll be, uh, specific to trauma and addressing, um, specific goals to trauma in our schools and what we want to achieve, um, and trauma awareness in our schools and what we want to achieve. And then the second month will be related to, uh, community friendships for individuals with disabilities in our, community and focus on our schools and community as a whole. Any questions?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I just wanted to say thank you, Mayor Lungo-Koehn, for doing the R U OK? program. We have members in our district that are volunteering. I don't know why we're getting the echo. We have members in our district, in our ward, that are doing a lot of volunteer work. And I've done some of those calls as well. And the constituents are just so happy and touched that this has happened, that this R U OK? program is happening, and that people are calling out to them. Some of them, it's kind of funny, the younger ones are like, you know, are you putting me in the elder category, which is kind of funny. But there was somebody who wanted it to be made clear that they said, We needed to tell you that there's a special place in heaven for Mayor Lungo-Koehn for doing this, which I thought was really sweet. Reminded me of my Nana. But it's a really great program and all of the volunteers in our community that are calling each other and just the neighborliness that it's creating. People are bringing things to each other. I have several folks who are delivering groceries on a regular basis, like on a weekly basis to people in the community. And it's just really brought the community together in a way that's quite remarkable. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, thanks for the report, Ms. Caldwell. I was just wondering if registration continues, if we're going back, obviously, these are big ifs, all ifs, would there be an opportunity, especially in the parent room where folks are checking in all the time on the regular, would there be some, you know how we're seeing a lot of the plexiglass that we're seeing at the grocery stores and some ways that we can continue the social distancing if needed. Again, these are big Fs, but is there an opportunity for something like that? I know that we'll have, I'm sure that we'll have hand sanitizer, what have you in the setting, but it's a small room and a lot of people will be coming in and out. And I just wanted to make sure that there's some thought to that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for this information. And to all the staff members out there who took their time making these phone calls and reaching out to families, thank you very much. I know that's a lot of work. I'm wondering about the closely monitored category as well for the next step. So if I'm hearing you correctly, Superintendent, for the folks that have not had contact, you're going to work with Chief Buckley for the non-contact folks, right? And so for the roughly 350 who are being closely monitored, I'm thinking about sort of the mass tiered systems of support and just that model and wondering how or what the closely monitored categories are gonna be. How are you gonna work that out so that you're getting some progress in terms of what you're seeing or is there a plan in terms of the remote learning plan, what closely monitored means in terms of what happens next. So I get what it means in terms of the definition, But I'm wondering what it means in terms of what are the next steps.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That's great. And just the data collection around that narrative piece, I'm assuming will happen in terms of the reaching out, right? So just, and not that you need to report necessarily that to me or the personal circumstances to school committee, but just that there's some narrative there so that there's some documentation that, you know, if for example, it's, you know, again, a student with, you know, depression, anxiety, you know, that these are being documented so that there's some, reference would be really helpful. And thank you for all you're doing, we appreciate it. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's really great. And we also had the opportunity on a personal level, I want to share with my daughter who has a disability to participate as not a district student in our in-district school with some morning meetings, some community stuff. So we really appreciate that too. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Member Kreatz.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I wanted to second the motion and also add that in the upcoming presentation, which is coming up next with co-chairs of the CPAC, Tanya Sullivan and Alex Lorik, it's one of the recommendations that they have as well, that there are round tables and to have some stakeholder engagement. So I second the motion.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Tonya and Alex, for the report. Thank you, Joan, for the response. So this will be made available on, what, the CPAC Facebook page and the district site, or both? Okay. And I think to what one of the conversations that was being had earlier that I thought was really interesting, particularly around, you know, getting back to that 350 number, Superintendent Edouard Vincent, and specifically the 58, if you will, student special education that have been closely monitored or need close monitoring. There are, in some instances, I know that I've had families reaching out to me directly that are in the initial evaluation stage. So these are people who may have gotten neuropsychological evaluations back, feel like they really need a core evaluation for special education supports and services. special education initial evaluations aren't happening right now. Like that's DESE guidance right now. It's not what's happening. So we have these families that are in limbo, right? There's this state of limbo and this state of feeling overwhelmed. And I think what I got from this survey more than anything was this real need to communicate. And I appreciate what you were just saying, Joan, about how communication is really key and that with these being individualized, obviously education plans that every child has an individual need. So they need to really, families really need to be able to communicate that. with you and I get as varied phone calls from, I'm not getting enough work to, you know, we need more work. I mean, it's like on both ends of the spectrum. And so it's tricky to keep that information. But again, getting back to what we were saying earlier with the superintendent about being able to document this. And I know that special education is very documented so that this is being documented. But I think that the report really gives us some quality data. And to the point of you were saying, when was it taken in that two week or three week window? I think that's also the point is that it could be run again, or it could be run translated, or it could be run in any manner that Alex has provided the survey itself. And so the data can be rerun in any way that needs to be rerun, should you feel like you want more comprehensive data. And I think to the folks that are on here that may not know, again, I'll just with a caveat that I was the co-chair of the CPAC prior to my time on school committee that the, CPAC is a legal mandate that requires that there be advisory to the district. So I really wanna encourage folks to use the CPAC for this advisory capacity. So when you're looking for a stakeholder group or a family engagement group or what have you, that's what Tanya and Alex and the rest of the folks that are around are able to do with these surveys. And I wanna say, Alex, especially the nearly 30% response for a survey during a pandemic, I think is really remarkable. And I want to thank you both for all your hard work and for all your support for our families out there. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you, Dr. Cushing for this survey. I'm a definite data person and I love seeing the story that data tells and I think it's really important. So I appreciate you sharing this. I appreciate you running it again. And I would also add to Ms. Douglas' point around teachers who are working full time, who are also trying to teach their students and raise their families in their home while being quarantined. I would also advocate for a question or for teachers in the community as well that can share some of their struggle and experience, if you would. But I think this is really great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to Dr. Cushing for all your hard work on this. I have to say, Peter, from day one, I remember back in March, you were saying from day one that you were going to make sure that the students were celebrated, and I really appreciate your effort in that. I also want to show a nod to the parents who are organizing around this. The senior parents have really gotten organized and gotten together on Facebook and are really trying to figure out next steps and what they can do. And this is a big milestone for the parents as well as the students. And I think a lot of people are feeling anxious about this and worried. And I'm wondering, Peter, if folks have ideas or if folks are interested in donating money or if there's anything like that, can people reach out to you with ideas?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think that, you know, yes, I think you're right. And I think someone quoted some of the price around a hundred or more. It was crazy, especially cause they're individual. But I did see, just for example, in Winchester, I was in a walk yesterday and they have, you know, started up with the lawn signs. And I know there are several people here who have campaigned recently and know printers and, you know, know what all costs are for things and what have you. But even, you know, lawn signs for our seniors, letting them know how much we appreciate them and their families, I think is an idea. But again, looking for, you know, donations or whatever. And I know that member Rousseau said, you know, clearly not just, community members donating, but other funds being allocated. But I think we should offer the opportunity to community members as well in the event that they do want to donate.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin? Just one more comment that we heard from guidance Councilors, and I was wondering if this was accurate or something that could be shared, Mr. de Leyva, was that a lot of colleges are bypassing or waiving SAT scores, is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the report, Bernadette and Ms. Nyland, and thank you for your hard work on this for families. I'm wondering how have you informed families of this and how they've responded? I think this is great news when we thought we weren't getting anything back. Of course, getting this good portion of it back is great news. It's unfortunate that families have to lose $500 at all, as we all know. Under the circumstances, I think it's pretty remarkable that you guys were able to do what you did and the insurance company was able to do what they did. So thank you. And I'm just wondering if you've had any response or feedback from families.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I also ask just one question? It's Melanie McLaughlin. Yep. Member McLaughlin. Thank you. I'm also just wondering how are, um, I know that parents have the opt out, um, option and how are they given the scope and scale of what will actually be taught? Like, are they given the same information that were given, um, for the grades?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And is it automatic to opt in unless you opt out? Is that how it works? Yes. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: America learn longer current. Yes So that was something I had on and I am gonna make a motion that that be moved to the rules and policy subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: This was also me, Mayor Lungo-Koehn. Yes. And so, again, I would also request, especially with the proposed reports, that this be moved to the policy and rules subcommittee, of which I'm also a member. But the idea would be that we would review what the requests were and see if there's any that we need to, you know, that if we can't find the institutional knowledge around, that we need to come back to the committee and ask. I have a motion to move to the rules and policy subcommittee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, and I would just add that, you know, I appreciated the superintendent reaching out to us in the last meeting asking this subcommittee folks to get in touch with her to schedule the meetings. We're really trying to limit the meeting times. I know for our subcommittee for special education was actually joined with another entire huge topic, which is behavioral health. We haven't even had the opportunity to meet yet. We do need to at least bring those people to the tables to identify goals and strategy for next year. So again, but we're trying very much to limit those meetings in the one that I scheduled to one hour. And I wouldn't expect that would have an additional one necessarily by the end of the year, unless something substantial changes. But in any case, I would say that we still need to have the subcommittee meetings, especially since we didn't get to have one before all of this stuff happened.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I actually had a motion to withdraw your motion to table member Graham. I wasn't tabling it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I also just wanted to ask, and I'm not sure if this is amendment or what, but asking that the call for members is inclusive and that we are respectful of diversity as we're approaching that call for the advisory, because I'm sure that we are, Dr. Cushing, but I just like to put it out there to make sure that we are soliciting I would defer to folks from all members of our community for those respective positions, and we can talk more about what that looks like. I would defer to folks in the mayor's office as well about how we're actually reaching the constituents for that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask a question, just protocol, chair? Yes, you may. Thank you. I just wanted to ask, are we doing the raise hand option on our screen? Are we raising our hand? How do you want us to ask questions on this, the first? And then the second is for the shared drive, superintendent Vincent, I'm seeing the narrative on the shared drive, but I'm not seeing the budget build for this particular item, unless I'm missing it. Is it, is it?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. And so what page is this on for that? I know you're sharing the screen, but I just want to know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: have a ballpark or can you give us some range of what those two positions would be?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then for the adapted PE teacher, I know that's something that you and Bobby have been asking about for a while, and you've had some conversation over, do you find that there are many students in the special education community with IEPs that require adapted PE?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you. And I'm assuming, is there a special license for, teachers who do adapt to PE. I think one of the concerns that had been discussed in the past, and you addressed it in your narrative, I appreciate that, was the inclusivity of it. And so that we're not creating a sub-separate gym class, we're creating an inclusive gym class where curriculum is adapted and modified for students as needed on an individual basis. Is there a special license or something for that for PE?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And Rachel, do you know if any of the surrounding districts that are comparable to Medford have a position like this?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And so right now, if a student's IEP requires some adapted physical education, how are we accommodating that? Do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can we start a queue there so that we're raising hands and starting a queue?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wanted to add sort of to Jenny, to member Graham and member Rousseau's point, I feel like we're creating or we're talking about two simultaneous budgets. We want an actual budget of what a school district, you know, would, especially as a new member, what the school district would be run at if we had many of the items that have been asked for for some time and have, you know, ask for city council. And what I'm hearing is that, And I, again, I'm new to the process. So one, I think it'd be really great to have a process memo where we're understanding, okay, this June 1st date, sort of what the expectations are, what we're, you know, the goals are for getting where we're going and that there's this, or is not this number that we sort of back this budget into and, or this initiative to create what I would call an actual, you know, so this is an actual budget, I guess, of what's actually being spent and what we think a 4% increase will get us. But then, you know, this, I don't know if it's an additional budget or what, but I think backing it up a little bit, I feel like we need a process now that's really explaining to us what this process is, number one. And number two, I think that there is an actual versus differential budget. And so I think, you know, I think that we need to have a process now that's really explaining to us what this process is, number one. And number two, I think that there is an actual versus differential budget. you have a line item that's what we're actually spending, what we'd propose or like to spend, like Christine has here, a surplus, a deficit. But the proposals, I don't think we can put in a couple of things on this line item and not on that line item, and a few here and not there. We have to be all or none and figure it out moving forward. And maybe that's part of the policy or process memo. I don't know. So just putting my two cents in there. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Tony, for the report. You're welcome. I know that we've been doing the Universal Safety Committee for the past. two years, and one of the questions that we've had ongoing is about safety equipment, especially for evacuation for students with physical disabilities and other needs. Are there any needs in that area that you're looking at at this point, or is that something specifically you're looking at grants for?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So has there been an inventory or such of that or an understanding of the need or no at this point?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Bobby.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm interested in integrated or inclusive sports. And I know that a number of our cities surrounding us have that option. Sorry, my screen just changed with the change in the sharing. So can you guys still hear me? Yes. So I know a number of the surrounding communities have that option. And I'm wondering if that's been a consideration for, I know that you guys have worked hard with training in a number of areas, but I'm wondering if it's a consideration for any of the sports that we're doing and especially like the middle school sports, making sure that students with disabilities and some of whom have extensive needs that we're finding ways to integrate them into our sports community.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, and so for the after school, any of the other athletics for the students to be able to participate, like the middle school program, those other things, are we having to turn away individuals with disabilities at all that want to participate as far as you know, or are there any?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Second.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Mayor, ma'am?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I'm just wondering also, and I've been in Paulette and Paul and Mia and Kathy have been on the committee, obviously, for more than one term. I've been in several meetings in the past where this has been, this information has been asked for. And so I'm just confused because it's not like, okay, now I know we have a lot of, you know, we have a pandemic going on, we have lots of things going on, but this has been asked for in the past and it's always been sort of put off and I'm not really understanding why. And maybe that's just, I'm out of the loop or maybe somebody can enlighten me here, but I don't really understand why this has been asked for for years and has not been answered.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just actually really wanted to say thank you to Marianne and Tony and all of you guys that have been out on the front line. Marianne, I know it's been relentless for you. It's been a really rough couple of weeks for everybody, but I think especially for you and for the folks that you're working closely with. So thank you so much for your commitment to what you're doing for our city, folks in our city. Appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So second on the motion?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Actually, I just wanted to back up a little bit for folks that are on the call that may or may not have heard. But questions are coming in directly member Ruseau, and he is posting that or asking them if they pertain to the agenda because of public meeting law, they have to pertain to the agenda. If they don't pertain to the agenda, I wanted to just ask again, we're keeping a record of them. We're keeping a record of them in any case, right? And so that we know and are receiving all of your questions and we will in some format, whether it's tonight or next Monday's meeting, be addressing the questions.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: the constituents, the community members, the viewers, the people that are on the call, what have you, our citizens that are submitting questions via the email link that was sent out to folks. Those are all being saved. We'll have a record of those so that school committee members are able to look at them so that we can address them in some context. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, 100%. I just want to make sure that they're being documented and saved and make sure that the community knows that that's happening. Thank you member Ruseau for taking those emails and sorting through them. Thank you. Yep.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you. That's great news, Dr. Cushing. And I know it seems like a lifetime ago for everybody, but I just wanted to also confirm that the money from the France trip is refunded with the exception of the $50. Is that right? I thought there was an email that went out amongst all of this happenings that You know, in our last meeting, we were also talking about refunds for field trips and that that money was going to be everybody was very upset, obviously, understandably about that money being refunded and somewhere along the line, the email came across our path, just before I Yeah, no, I was gonna say, um,
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I want to echo everyone's sentiment, obviously, on all the hard work that's been done, especially in such a short, I'm out of time and also echo member Graham's sentiment about this being a living, breathing document and, you know, it evolving as we are all evolving in this process. So to that end, I wanna, you know, mention that the items that I bring up today, I don't bring up to, you know, show signs of omissions or anything to this report, but more that we're thinking about this as a community and we're thinking about how some of these questions are being answered as a community as we move forward, because there are so many. And I have had the opportunity to talk with some of our directors and our staff, and I think it can all feel a little bit overwhelming. One thing I wanted to mention is, The Special Education Parent Advisory Council, in addition to Dr. Cushing's survey link, has also sent out a survey link as of Saturday. I believe it was sent out today's Monday, just for all of those who are still wondering what day it is. I know I'm in that boat most times. But we did send out a survey on Saturday. We've already gotten 88 responses in the special education community, so that's been good to see. I'm curious about the data collection from Dr. Cushing's whether or not there's a staff survey that's happening. I think now is a really good time to be getting data collection. People are really in a position where they can offer feedback and offer ideas. And I think we should be soliciting them from the community as we're working. to move forward and engage as many stakeholders as we can. And I think that you are all educators and you know the value of data and the collection of data. So I really highly recommend doing surveys specific to certain populations. So potentially an EL survey, a staff survey, where the special ed community is doing a survey and looking at that data. So that's just something I wanted to put out there. And to member Graham's point, about how are we systemizing or thinking about how this is gonna work in the future. Hopefully this is not gonna happen again anytime soon, but I think we've all realized that this can happen now. And so we need to have these plans in place. And so as we're doing them, as we're working now, how are we systemizing for the future so that we're making sure that this is something that we're covered for or thinking about these safety precautions. Joan Bowen and I have been part of a universal safety committee within the district for the past two years, and we were actually having an event this month, well, the end of April 28th, we had scheduled a big event to talk about what do you do in these circumstances and how do we think about systemizing things. So it was really timely to have this event, and we've had Stacey Shulman and Jen Hollenbeck and Paul DeLeva and families and a number of people on that universal safety committee that's done a lot of great work and want to continue to do that work. But I think we should be thinking about how are we systemizing this as a whole. To Member Graham's point around the Google folders and to Chad Fallon's point around the CTE, grade-level Google folders with shared materials seem like a pretty low-hanging fruit. I don't know, Charlene, in terms of the union, what that means. But I'd like to sort of, again, put it out as a suggestion where people can populate a Google folder with shared material at grade level so that folks are feeling supported and having some mentor opportunities. So for questions that I have, Joan, I know that some of these are difficult questions, so I'm not putting you on the spot, but I am putting them out there because they're questions that the community has been asking for special education specifically. For those who don't know, I am the parent of three children, two of whom have special, all of our children are general education students, of course, children who are receiving special education supports and services. I have two children receiving special education supports and services and so very involved in that community and have been able to ask or receive a lot of questions from families. So Desi didn't give much guidance. I was on a call last week on Thursday around IEP timelines. How are we? So, Joan, I'm just going to do a little list and maybe you can address what you can in this quick list for families that are out there.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so we'll wait. Okay. Let's you can move to you guys. If you guys want to take it out of order, it's up.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Let me go back and then ask the general, I guess, question specifically. And getting to Bernadette and Charlene's point, how are teachers and families being trained for remote learning? So I saw that there was the webinar thing. Is it accessible for families to be able to access that remote learning webinar? I know that there are a lot of families out there and teachers and staff who don't necessarily know some of the learning, is that available for all? And if so, how can they access it? That's one question regarding general ed. So remote learning for training, professional development or training for families and staff for remote learning. I know there's the webinar link that you guys shared in the report. Is it accessible for everybody?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Dr. Riccadeli. And if they don't, or if a teacher or a family member needs support in that training, what would you advise? Like if they say there's a technical issue, I know that this happened with some teachers remotely, should they call Molly's department or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I had another general question to Ms. Douglas' point around printing materials. So, you know, there was some discussion around, you know, you don't have to have everything be online, educational opportunities, you know, accessible, you know, all those things. And so it does beg the question, who is paying for and how are they paying for printed material? Are people able to get reimbursed for it? I mean, and it's sort of even like, where are they printing it? There's not probably too many staples open with this, you know, necessary order only in place. So I don't know what the answer to that is. But I guess I'm just asking the question as we're moving forward. How are we thinking about reimbursing or paying for printed material? because that obviously gets really costly. So those were my general questions. And when we move on to the next agenda item, I'll ask the others. I have others, but I don't want to take up everyone's time. So I'll wait until the next section. So again, just adding to the, finally, just adding to the, I guess, bigger question, how are we paying for printed material when teachers have to print or others have to print?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I guess, Dr. Riccobelli, as we're talking about, and again, maybe this is blending over a little bit into the next area, but I think as we're talking about accessibility and thinking about printed material, because accessibility is going to be an issue, you know, not everyone's gonna be able to go online, not everyone's, not every student is able to go online. So, you know, again, these are things that I'm just sort of putting out there for us to be asking those questions as we're moving forward.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that might be a great question for a staff survey.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So Brianna, that's also a Joan question that's on our list.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think, again, getting, you know, sort of thinking of that in terms of the survey, and I know that I've spoken with the English language department and the special education department, and I'm sure Mr. Teixeira will be talking soon as well. But I know, you know, and with Mr. DeLeva, and I'm assuming probably people in their own buildings are going through their list collectively and figuring out who's been able to be contacted and who hasn't. And again, getting towards the information or what have you, asking at that point, especially for the folks that haven't been contacted, asking them while they're being contacted at this point, sort of, do you have connectivity issues or not? So starting to build, again, that database, that information. But I also think that that could be addressed in potentially survey form. But I do think that, I know that the EL and special education department, and as Mr. DeLava said, The high school and assistant principals are going through their list and they're literally creating, I don't know if it's global spreadsheets or what, students who haven't responded. So adding a column to those student responses, you know, do you have connectivity, seems to make a lot of sense as we're trying to be more uniform across the district.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's great. And maybe, again, getting to the point of Google shared folders, like if these standard documents could be shared across the district so that everyone's sort of doing this in a uniform way, it seems like it would make a lot of sense. But again, just putting that on.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: On Zoom with Joan. So that's been pushed out to the community and folks can talk to the director of pupil services. 6 o'clock on Wednesday as well with additional questions and answers, so that will be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Was I?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I wanted to make sure the community knows that we're having a question and answer. CPAC is hosting a question and answer period with you on Wednesday from 6 to 7. So there's a Zoom push out. where folks can get online and ask questions to the Director of Pupil Services, but also if they want to submit questions in advance, it is better because then it's better prepared and people have more time. So some questions that have just come across now, Joan, and if you just have a short list to sort of address these where you can, it would be really helpful. One is people are asking a lot about IEP timelines. So how are we addressing initial evaluations, re-evaluations, and expired IEPs? Two is the guidance from the report is saying children should work independently or teachers should be able to provide work for children to work independently. As we know, there are a lot of children in our community, in the disability community, that are not able to work independently. And what are we doing in those instances? Also drilling down with that a little bit more, how are we addressing children who have had one-to-one paraprofessionals? Next question is paraprofessionals and computers, whether they have access, how are they getting them? Are paras attending the staff meetings that are being scheduled regularly so that they're being included in part of the conversation? We talked a little bit about this ourselves, Joan, but I want to point out to the community We have a lot of families that are really struggling right now with children who may have been in out of district placements or elsewhere with mental health issues, self injurious behavior, things that, you know, in addition to what we're all dealing with on a pandemic level and being in social isolation at home are just so much more exacerbated with these particular families and how are we supporting them? and their families. And so to the point what you were saying about Stacey Shulman a little while ago, but also how that addresses families and not just students. So how are we handling compensatory services for therapies? So for people who don't know a lot about special education, students may get therapies like speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy. DESE is not requiring, as the guidance said, not requiring those therapies to occur during this time. However, they are part of IEPs. And so how do we address compensatory services? So if children aren't provided their IEP services, typically there's compensatory services. Special education is also very legally dense. So it's hard to answer a lot of these questions, but just sort of putting them in people's minds to be thinking about. What social emotional connections? I'm almost done, two more. What social-emotional connections are we providing to our out-of-district students? So for our out-of-district students who are, you know, sometimes sent to Lexington or Belmont or, you know, Beverly or what have you, who don't have necessarily connections to their out-of-district placements because those students are all from other areas as well, how are we connecting our out-of-district students to the community in this social isolation time? So for example, we know that every student is assigned to a school because that's the way out of district placement works. So even if you're out of district, you're still part of a school, you're able to take extracurricular activities at that school, you're supposed to be a part of the life of the school. So is there a way that we can be connecting these children, these students to social opportunities, meetings, online meetings, recess, morning meetings, what have you? Extended school year is another big question. And are we posting and sharing resources for remote learning? So again, these Google level, I mean, these Google folders grade level where we're sharing information amongst people. So I know that's a long list for you, Joan, and we'll answer more on Wednesday. But if you could get sort of the meat of that in any way that you can, I'd appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: There's a lot, thank you. I hope so. And I'm sure that if families have additional questions, again, Wednesday, they can be on the call, but they should also be reaching out to their ETLs, right? Correct, yes. And I just want to point out to the mayor and to, I don't know if Christine's still on here, but those compensatory services and ESY costs are real. And I know that the guidance from DESE was to provide as many services as we can now so that we're not dealing with all those compensatory services and compensatory service costs later. But they're really something that needs to be considered. And also toward that end and around gathering data for staff, families can also be gathering data at home just in terms of showing and documenting any regression if there is any, because as we're seeing from our survey, the two biggest concerns right now in the CPAC survey is regression and social isolation. So yeah, thank you. OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I just want to say thank you and I'm assuming Mayor Lungo-Koehn that these will all be available for the public on the website?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I can appreciate the hard work, Dr. Vincent and staff. I know you guys have been going into all hours and weekend hours. And I do also feel a commitment very much to the constituents who voted for us to represent them and to be updated. And you have been updating us, and you've been doing an excellent job at updating us. I think your memos to us have been very thorough and useful. Unfortunately, those aren't shared with the community, and they're feeling a need for updates as well. So I think we need to think as a group, and I'm asking our colleagues to be thinking as a group, as how we can make this work for everybody so that we're getting updates, the community's getting updates, and we're able to feel like it's more regular because with all that you're doing, I do hear from our voting members that they are feeling that there needs to be more in terms of community update and family and community engagement. And that's what's so important about this meeting is that we now have, we have 60 people on this call. We started with 80. So 60 have held through for three hours as well. And I'm sure there's lots of other things they would like to be doing too. So I hear you, but I am also asking, and I am also asking our colleagues for some creative solutions around this.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I move a motion to move the meeting on Monday to 4 o'clock.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. Thank you for that thorough report. Member Van der Kloot, I was wondering about the growing up and staying healthy Michigan model health curriculum with supplements. Are those supplements regarding students with disabilities or EL learners? Do you know what the supplements are?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. Thank you. And so I'm wondering about the special education and EL access for the curriculum. And I know, aside from scheduling, I'm talking really content. Ms. Perry, if you can help with that. Sure. You know, is it driven by, I guess that's question number one, and question number two would be that I don't know if the scheduling thing is driven by IEP goals, so if there are parents watching and they feel that their middle schoolers need sex education, they might be thinking about what the IEP, or any health education, what the IEP goals are to reflect that. Is that how it's driven, or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: For the English learners.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Melanie McLaughlin.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I understand and respect our co-members' positions, but I think that this is an important topic, at least for the rest of us to understand, especially as I'm considering our learners who are more vulnerable. And that doesn't necessarily mean that our parents want to automatically opt out. It just means that we want to be aware of and understand how this will be presented in a way that's differentiated, which I know we don't won't know that yet because we won't know how you're doing that. But I certainly want to see the big picture around like where we're going and how that's going to work. So respectfully, I would say that I'm happy to take the time over the two weeks. I'm certainly not going to read every single line item, but I want to have a broad understanding and picture of what it is that we're presenting to. So I would make a motion to, or second your motion to table.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I appreciate the conversation. I was on the subcommittee, and this is why it's so good to have the conversation after subcommittee, because other things come up, and we get an idea of what questions we maybe didn't vet in the subcommittee. So one thing that's come up to me and might come up for community members is, what happens when there's obviously, say, a really pressing issue, like we have a pressing issue, that's come up in the community and we have an agenda list. We just, what?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, like a coronavirus. I didn't want to say it, but yes. Like something like that, that's sort of a pressing issue and sort of, you know, prioritizes over all the other agenda items. What is the process for that? And should, and if there's not one, should we be including one in the subcommittee?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And then so, and then maybe including in the policy what that process is so that, you know, for notification for, you know, whether things get rippled down or totally re assigned or, or why I just think we should be thinking about it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of information, Member McLaughlin. Point of information, yeah. But I guess the question was then how it ripples down for the others. So how is that affected? And I thought the point was that we were going to be knowing ahead of time what was on the agenda and how things rippled through. So obviously if the superintendent or chair have things that they're including on the agenda, that also includes our line items, our agenda items that were put in with these great notations that we have next to them about who submitted what and when and all those things. How then is it after they've put their things on the agenda and an emergency comes up, how then is it addressed and communicated to everybody to know what is in fact on the agenda, what's not, what's going to be reprioritized, and what's not?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you for the report. Actually, I was going to say maybe we could, if Ms. Ronay wants to type those up and send them to us, would that be better or easier? No, that's OK to just use that? OK, great. And I guess we can take the time to review and ask that it be put on the next agenda. Maybe a subcommittee. I'm sorry. Subcommittee for this disability special education. So I ask that this be moved to the subcommittee for the special education and behavioral health.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Aye.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So we'll be in touch with you from that subcommittee to follow up. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Ms. Lerner. This was an important point and one that was brought up before this meeting as well by both community members and school committee members who are concerned about this for the vision committee too. And so the process was such that the applications were, for lack of a better word, blind. So there was no indication, partially of the differences in capabilities or abilities or race ethnicities or economic backgrounds or what have you. And I think that that is a place to start in terms of where we're thinking about being proactive. And I think we clearly have work to do to be able to do that. But I'm glad to say that I believe that we are reaching out to several groups. and stakeholders in the community to add some folks to the vision committee so that we are being more aware of that. And in the future, moving forward, I think that that's something that, especially with community members like yourself coming to the podium and people emailing us and other items, that this will be something that will be done proactively. So we thank you for being here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just wanted, as a point of information, to add an apology to the community that that wasn't considered in advance. And we'll make sure that we are more proactive about that in the future. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: all these years and for our families. And I'm sure that there are parents here who you were in the schools while they were educated and appreciated. And we all appreciate your service and thank you very much for your time here. And we know we'll see you in the community. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the update, Superintendent Edward-Vincent. I just had a couple of community members that asked questions, and I wanted to ask and clarify if we could for the community. First, I want to say thank you, especially to all of you, but also to Dr. Cushion for his work in keeping folks updated on social media and providing the frequently asked questions listing and to the mayor's office for doing that as well. It's a really important list that folks can access, especially around, I had some folks calling me about compromised and vulnerable populations and and our student population and what they should do. So they should definitely be going to the frequently asked questions on the website. And there's information there as well as provided by our nurse. But regarding the cleaners coming, the outside cleaners coming in, I think there was correspondence that went out last week, right? that said that there was going to be a deep cleaning or a thorough cleaning over the weekend. And can we just clarify for the community that that didn't happen and that it didn't happen because the, if the information I have is right, that it didn't happen because of the scarcity of the outside cleaners, but that it will be happening. Is that right? Yes. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I just wanted that for the clarification. And thank you, Mr. McLaughlin. I think I was told that this agent, this cleaning agent might like folks might come into the school or to the classroom and still see, you know, say dust or what have you in the, in the, in the area because the deep cleaning didn't happen. But this agent is a misting agent that would sort of go over the dust and still sanitize, if you would, I don't know, I guess the dust.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And while we, well, thank you very much. And while you're here, can I just ask also that I'm assuming that there's soap in all the bathrooms?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, I wanted to thank our health professionals for all your support right now. I know this is a crazy hectic time for you guys and appreciate that. I also wanted to, the mayor's point on the Wednesday emergency preparedness meeting, we have a universal safety committee that's been working in our schools for the past two years and we meet monthly. And we started meeting quarterly with the leadership teams as well. And we are hosting a safety night on April 28th at the McGlynn Auditorium from six to eight, where we'll be talking about these very things. What do you do in a man-made disaster, a natural disaster? What do we do with our vulnerable populations? How do we prepare in advance? But that's been in the works for the past couple of months, so folks should know that that's happening and that we are proactive about looking at safety for all our students and thinking about how we're thinking again about those most vulnerable populations I appreciated your quick response on our medically fragile students. And we hear all the time about this COV, whatever, coronavirus, COVID-19, about how it affects our most vulnerable populations more even than our typically healthy population. So really being aware and mindful of that is important. So I appreciated your quick response on that, Ms. Ray. So thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wanted to offer my condolences. I'm sorry. I know what a drag that is and that real first taste of disappointment that you get as a young person is so palpable. It's just really sad. I'm sorry for that. I also wanted to ask from your perspective and from the superintendent's perspective whether a letter from the school committee also expressing our disappointment in both the travel policy and the airline, and also how this is affecting our students, and also the cost benefit that we're saving, really, included in that letter, whether that might be helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a motion that we provide a letter from the school committee as well, supporting any remuneration we can get from these agencies. And I know that the superintendent is going to be charged with that, but I think also having a collective voice from the school committee and letting folks know. And then I wonder if there's an opportunity, I know that folks said that the superintendents across the state, Dr. Riccadeli, you were saying. are talking about it, so maybe there's an opportunity to also address the Mass Association of School Superintendents and ask if they would collectively be willing to write a letter to, you know, as a whole, either to Governor Baker or to the travel agencies so that we're supporting each other in this movement, because it is a lot of money.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I made a motion to write a letter from the school committee to the travel agency, to Delta Airlines, and to others.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wanted to amend it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wanted to amend the motion to offer students the opportunity to co-sign on to the letter if they want, if you would be willing to facilitate that. If we got you a copy of the letter and we wanted to have a signature page for the students or their families. welcome that, and then we can, and I'm happy to, you know, facilitate. I don't mean to give you or anybody else extra work. I'm happy to type up a letter and pass it along, whatever, if it's helpful. But, and collecting students. So I'll make the motion to have a letter from the school committee that can also be signed by students and their families to the governor, to the airlines, and to the travel agency to try to get money back.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So moving this to the subcommittee for engagement, we know that this, it's March 9th. This is April 1. We have a timeline of getting our, whatever family and community engagement we're able to achieve between March 9th and our next school committee meeting to have this budget, I mean, to have this report approved before it's sent to DESE, right? So that's, what are those school days? So what's that? Our next meeting is the 23rd. And so what are the school days? So from the net, from... So we have 10 days to engage the, to meaningfully engage the community with our stakeholder groups that are our most high need stakeholder groups. So our English learners, our individual families of children with disabilities, and our economically disadvantaged students. I'm just asking, do people really think that that's meaningful engagement for those stakeholder groups?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Interestingly. Thank you. So that would be something that I would ask, whether it's an amendment to the motion or a separate motion, is that we actually ask DESE for an extension so that we can meaningfully engage our community and our families. I think, you know, speaking as a family of a child with a disability and knowing the extra demands that are put on our families with children with disabilities and the extra demands that are put on our families that are. second language and our extra demands that are put on our families that are working two or three jobs, I don't think it's reasonable to expect that we're going to respond to a survey in 10 days because of a deadline that's being presented to us based on whether it's $100,000 or $10 million, how it's going to be spent in our schools. I think that we should be asking, if we're not prepared to do that, which I would say, I'd venture to say, 10 days is not meaningful family engagement, then we should be asking for an extension on this report.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: have to say that, you know, when we're talking on the other side of the budget and we're talking about $130,000, everybody's talking about how much money that is. And whether it's in comparison to a school district that's getting $10 million or us that are getting $130,000, it's still $130,000 that families should be engaged in about how they're being, it's being spent in our community. And I think it has to be meaningful engagement. And I have to say, you know, that I don't find this meaningfully engaging families. And I think that it's reasonable to say that we have some work to do on family engagement as a whole, which is why we have a subcommittee on community engagement, and that, you know, I'm happy to be a part of, and I think that this is work that needs to be forward. But I think that this body needs to think a little bit more thoughtfully, respectfully, about how we can really expect to engage these marginalized families within a 10-day deadline.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also feel like it's sort of a little bit of what we heard earlier from the community about having a number of, frankly, white engaged families around the table making decisions for brown and black and disengaged families who aren't around the table. And I don't feel comfortable doing that. And I do feel like we really should be thinking about how this is affecting our families and whether it's, and I understand it's, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul, if you will, in terms of moving money around and what have you. But this Student Opportunity Act is explicitly requiring us to have those engagements. And even if it's in this one paragraph where we're talking about reaching out to CPAC, or we're talking about reaching out to the LPAC, which the LPAC is barely existing, is existent at this point. And again, those are our already engaged families. And so how are we thinking about how we're representing this? And I think that, okay, it's not reasonable for DESE to be asking this, and we all understand that it's not reasonable for DESE, and it's not fair that Winchester's getting more money than Medford is, or whatever else. At a minimum, we have to be thinking at this subcommittee, if we're doing this in the next 10 days, who are we engaging in this community that is going to be very representative of those people? And we should not be, frankly, sitting here discussing it amongst ourselves. I think that we have to be thinking like tonight, who are we engaging and who are we bringing to the table on this? Because I think we're hearing far too often from our community members that we are not engaging these constituents. And to say, Like that our PTOs, while our PTOs are great and they're doing a lot of work in our schools, our PTOs are our already engaged family members. They're not the people who aren't able to come to the PTOs because they're working two or three jobs or because they have children with disabilities at home or because they don't speak English and don't feel comfortable or what have you. So the other thing is, how are we translating the survey? So I appreciate that you're ready to send a survey out, and I think that's great. How is the survey being translated? How is it going to be getting to these families? I mean, these are all really important questions that I just feel like, you know, I would rather say to Dessie, no, we're not submitting this plan April 1, because you didn't give us enough time to really meaningfully engage this constituency. And if you don't like it, sorry, but that's where we're at. I'd rather say that to the commissioner than try to give us 10 days at this point. We won't even, I mean, if they want to say, well, you've had since February 18th, well, you know, there's been some things going on, whatever. We've had people resign. We've had coronavirus. We've had whatever. It's not reasonable.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Point of clarification, member Laughlin. So yes, and I would also encourage any folks that are watching from home out there or what have you that are these marginalized communities to reach out to this body, to this constituency to let us know. that you want to be involved and how you can get in and you'd like to have your voices heard and ways in which we can engage you further to make sure that these funds are being spent appropriately for those high needs families. And I think that, again, respectfully to the committee, if we're talking about how these funds need to be spent, I think it's pretty clear it needs to be family and community engagement. And that's just, again, my two cents, because we're already talking about how we don't have family and community engagement, and here's money. And then we're talking about, well, how else can we spend this money that we don't have? So I just think it's a circular conversation, and just had to add that. But I appreciate your work, Dr. Cushing, as always. I appreciate you taking our phone calls and clarifying questions for us. And clearly, I feel passionately about this. I hope you don't take any of my passion personally. But I feel that this is an important matter, and I wanted to speak up. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I will table that. I will table that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I had some questions. I was also part of this conversation and I think it's really important for the community to understand that the opportunity at the McGlynn is a unique one in that we're bringing in a person or an entity to look at this playground space and to consider how we're making what would amount to be the first inclusive play space in Medford, which is a big deal. So by inclusive, that's thinking about, as member Graham was saying, children of all abilities and backgrounds, and that they have expertise in that. And there's a line item in there that there's an expert in inclusive play and play spaces, which I much appreciate. I think it's very important. I would also encourage Dr. Cushing to, same as with our other committees, as we heard tonight, to be thinking about how we're addressing diversity. in our selection for committee members, and I would also advocate for a person with a disability, or somebody from the Disabilities Commission, or somebody with a disability from the Disabilities Commission to be on this committee, especially if we're thinking about how we're including children with disabilities in this playground space. So is that an amendment, or I request an amendment to this, or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: reports of superintendent we have number three which under suspension which would you like to speak member mclaughlin thank you i just wanted to say thank you to the matter east family and especially to megan and emily for uh... being here tonight Megan, being a sibling of an individual with a disability can sometimes be challenging because sometimes you don't always get the attention that other people do. So I think it's really remarkable that you were able to come up tonight and speak on behalf of your sister. So thank you. And Emily, thank you so much for being here tonight. We've been able to enjoy you for so many years. Medford is so lucky to have you as part of their community. You're so involved with Spotlight Productions. I love the way you bring a smile to everybody's face in our community. And I want to thank you and your parents for being here tonight to help us all remember the importance of every individual in our community. So thank you so much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you. I also had a question on the committee of the whole meeting that we had talked about scheduling for the students. I'm wondering if that's been scheduled for the student issue that was before us last time. Minimum wage.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much for this report. Very helpful. Nice to meet you. I am wondering about... I loved how you described the low bar but high ceiling for the science curriculum and I know that science is really often a core topic that is available to all of our learners, especially with the project-based learning, hands-on, experiential. I'm wondering if there are supplemental aspects to the curriculum for both our EL and our children with special education needs, so our access programs, our language-based classrooms.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thanks for considering that. I appreciate it. And for the home-based, I mean, for the technology access, is there home access also? Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So families watching should know that they have online access to the science curriculum. That's great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Very helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I make a motion to accept the donation. But first, I also want to thank Ms. Gomez for the very generous thought and offer, both as a parent and as a teacher in our district, that she's doing this. It's really remarkable. It is. So that's great news. So how many teachers are going? So there's three speech therapists that will be attending, yes. Okay, and so are they already identified? Did they self-identify?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. Yep. Congratulations, that's great. Thank you. So I make a motion to approve.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. This is always a fun trip, I know, for the students having had two 8th graders who have gone on the trip. I have a couple of questions. if you can help me with. So I also want to thank the teachers and you guys for going on the trip. I know the coordination that's involved with this. And I actually went on the trip myself a few years ago and trying to wrangle all those students and keep track of everybody and make sure everyone's fed and you get some sleep and all that stuff. We know how hard it is. So thank you for doing this. So it looks like for the Andrews, there's 120 students that are going. And for the McGlynn, there are 56. Of how many in your 8th grade class? So maybe Mr. Downs, if you want to answer first, how many in the... As of right now, we have 162 8th grade.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. And then, how about you, Mr. Tucci? So that's our smallest class. We have about 140. So out of 140, 56 students are attending. Okay, so that's a big percentage difference. It obviously is very generous of the PTO to be able to supplement with scholarships. How many scholarships did you guys give out? So can I ask you, Mr. Downs first?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's really generous, that's great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So how many full or partial scholarships do you now?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. Were there students that you're aware of? Are there students that you're aware of that wanted to go on the trip that have not been able to go?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. Yes. Thank you. Very generous of the community and of you all. And then, so the literature that was handed out as well that talks about the conditions of being able to attend the trip, which are both academic and behavior. And there's a behavior contract that you talked about with info and registration packet. We don't have a copy of that contract. I'm just curious about that, if you could send that to us so that we can, would you mind sending it so that we can see and just, And what if there's behavior that's a manifestation of disability? for a student that, you know, wants to go on the trip to New York City. Are there supports through the Special Education Department? I know the Director of Pupil Services is here. But also for families that are listening, if there are supports that are needed to be able to attend field trips for students with disabilities and the manifestation of their disability.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I see that you have a nurse going, which is really good to hear on that trip for the students that need it. So that's great. Is there anything on the registration form or on the behavior contract that makes any note of if you have a disability or need accommodations, a process or procedure for letting folks know? And if not, maybe I need to make it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And making sure that the families know, obviously, so that they can be able to prepare in advance. For some parents, it's hard to be able to let your child go on these trips. But if you feel like there's support there, then it makes all the difference. So I'd like to make a motion then that the field trip materials have a line item for individuals with disabilities letting folks know. that if they need accommodations that they, you know, that there's an avenue to pursue to let folks know what those accommodations are. So I make a motion to include materials on the field trip, any, you know, this particular field trip, but obviously, you know, we'll move forward in future field trips, that if families need accommodations for students with disabilities that they just need let us know. Certainly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Looks like another great trip. Same point, just if you could include on the forms that if there's any requirements for any accommodations for students with disabilities That would be appreciated. And again, the same with the behavior. It's unclear to me, and maybe it's a longer conversation with superintendent. The behavior agreement is included on this one. So thank you for that. Yeah, so maybe it's a longer conversation with superintendent Edouard-Vincent about how It's addressed if there's behavior that are manifestations of a student's disability. So maybe we can talk more about that, but have some language that would be helpful for people that need accommodations. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Enjoy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much for this thorough report. And congratulations, Susanna, on being chosen for both the development of the Mass Dyslexia Guidelines and the Literacy Champions Committee. Good news. They're lucky to have you. I find this a lot to absorb, right, especially at this hour of the night after a long day as you all have had as well. But as you know, we have been hearing from community members, from family members as well, with concern over over dyslexia and I think that's been, you know, universal throughout the state. I don't think that's necessarily unique to Medford, but going towards the increased outreach for parent communication collaboration regarding screening and progress monitoring. I love seeing all of the data and training and professional development and everything you guys are doing with the staff in our schools and with the teachers and It's clearly a lot of work that's been happening. I'm feeling like, is there a way that we can engage our families more so that they're feeling like they're part of the process and that they're participating, they're feeling empowered, they're feeling like they're being brought along in the process and not necessarily told after the fact or, you know, in the middle of the fact or before the fact or whatever, because I'm sure as you know, being parents yourselves, right, that, or some of you being parents yourselves, when it comes to our children it gets very emotional and it's different as coming from a staff or administrative perspective when it's not your child because of the emotion level and I think if we if there's ways that we are thinking it does increase outreach for parent communication and collaboration I'm wondering what exactly that would be and I'm thinking back towards Mayor Lungo-Koehn's, you know, transition meetings with a lot of community members and those sort of sit downs where people were able to really talk and share and express their information and feelings and, you know, what they would like to see happen. I found them personally very enlightening and helpful. And I feel like hopefully those are just first steps and those conversations will continue. And I'm excited about community collaboration at this level for our families. And I'm wondering how can this be as comprehensive as clearly all of the rest of the report is. Like what next steps can we do to be able to make sure that our families are feeling really engaged?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be really helpful. And does DESE offer any, it seems like, you know, they're always talking about family and community engagement from DESE perspective and it's one of the indicators, right? It's one of the things that we're supposed to be doing as a district and one of the things that we're supposed to be tracking for data. So do they offer any training that you guys are aware of or information or awareness or anything for families?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Good. Since you're on the Massachusetts Guideline Committee, I would ask that you keep elevating that, right? That the students themselves and the families and community members are engaged in that way. I do think that when you have buy-ins from families and when they feel like they're being valued, it helps the process move along more smoothly. Toward that end, I know that CPAC and I know that the co-chair of the Special Ed Parent Advisory Council is here tonight as well. I know that they did a presentation last year with families on dyslexia and educators on dyslexia. They'll be doing another one, I think, this year. And we'll make sure that we get you all that information and that we hope teachers and Educators and central administration will come as well. It's a great opportunity to bring families and employees and staff to the table together.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, I think it just, I think families also feel like it'd be great to have a voice in what those screeners and tools are because they're living it every day, right, with their children and with the children themselves being able to have a say in that. So really DESE should be considering that too and I'll be sure to bring it up to them as well. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Good. And so if there are students or families in this community that are interested, could they get a hold of you to get that information to Desi? Yeah, and I'd be happy to give that information to Desi.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, thank you. Just in a follow-up to earlier, two things. One is I forgot to ask. It was brought to my attention as well by community members that there was a motion made and accepted last year at school committee apparently to do consultation with the landmark school. It was made by Aaron DiBenedetto, I guess, and seconded by Paulette. And I'm wondering if that has occurred, and if not, when that can occur.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, good. Thank you. And that was helpful, the consultation with Landmark?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so also, I know we haven't gotten to the curriculum subcommittee minutes yet, but it is informative and related to ECRI. I know that Member van de Kloot had asked in that committee meeting about, asked Director Paltisera for the EL, whether the ECRI program would be used for EL students, and he explained that it will be used and provides an excellent resource, so getting again, which is great, I'm glad to hear that. But also to Member Graham's comment, which is much appreciated about you know, really remembering the Tier 3 students and looking at literacy for all. Is that also applicable for the Tier 3, the ECRI?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. So they, yeah, please.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. So, right, because every student's a general education student, and some students are receiving special education supports and services, to what Member Graham was saying.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And do paraprofessionals attend that PDA as well?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm excited to hear this. I am the chair of the Subcommittee on Behavioral Health and Special Education and Pupil Services. And I am excited by this and will look forward to working with you, assuming that we will have a motion to accept. And I think our member Rousseau had a question before we do that. But thank you very much for this presentation. Very exciting, much needed. We really appreciate all the work your office is doing in really saving our children and getting that information out there for families and helping folks understand illness that substance abuse is. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for this, Emily. I was noting earlier that the Special Education Parent Advisory Council was not on this list. And as the former co-chair, I know last year we were asked to provide this reporting as well. So we do raise money. I know that we're under a different entity because of the legal requirement that the state has to have a CPAC in every one of their districts. But we also have provided this information, so I'm assuming that We are not a 501c3, but I assume that we need to be on this list.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That would be helpful. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I had put my request on for something else but I also want to respond to member Graham point and maybe it's something that needs to be. moved to the rules and policies subcommittee for consideration. So I want to put that out there now and just have people think about that. But the other was just a small thing. Emily, the citywide PTO, I think, has now renamed the elementary alliance. And I see that their that their email is Medford citywide PTO at gmail.com I'm not sure that that's accurate anymore, and I think there's another potentially another entity that's calling themselves the citywide PTO So it could lend itself to some confusion and so we just yeah, yeah, yeah, so Yeah, we should probably touch base about what the absolutely please if you notice anything that you think I
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And so I guess I would ask the rest of the committee what they think of the having this as part of the rules and policy subcommittee in terms of the training for for setting up a training or a system for 501c3s, which I believe the McGlynn Middle PTO was the only one that was not a 501c3. And I believe it's going to be, or is nearly, what's that? Yeah, it's working. It's almost a 501c3, so it's nearing. So it seems like there should be some policy in place. But again, I'm throwing it out to the rest of the committee to see what the feeling is.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for offering to do that. I do think that this is an ongoing conversation and while in some respects you know 501c3s are separate entities when they are using the school's name and the school's building and what have you there is an interconnectedness between them so I don't know I'm not an attorney obviously and you are but not in this particular field I know but you know the question about legal liability is definitely something that I think does need to be considered as we're talking about policy and school rules. And because there are so many strict requirements, I did also do the AG training. And there's a lot to be taken in there. So I think asking MASC is a great step. Thank you, Paulette, for doing that. I think also looking at other school districts and understanding and seeing what they do. But I think that there's some gray area here and I don't think it's as easy as just saying, you know, it's not really part of our responsibility and not that anyone here is saying that, I'm just saying that there could be repercussions that we aren't aware of and that we should consider. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the subcommittee curriculum report and I wanted to add that again getting to what was discussed earlier about level 3 students that were considering curriculum across the board for our access and learning language-based classrooms and that those questions are part. I know that currently the curriculum subcommittee I don't believe has a member or I don't know if there is community involvement for individuals that are tier three, but if there aren't, if there could be some solicited for meetings related to that, that would be very helpful. So I just add that. And then I wanted to agree that a curriculum map would be very useful, especially as we're considering all three of those tiers. Thank you. Member Ruseau?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: The man behind the curtain.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Here.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I wanted to thank you and Mia for introducing me to the Food Security Task Force and Shira and Carol and Sarah Klugisch and all the folks in Medford who are working on this really important issue. I learned two very important things from the Food Security Task Force when I attended their meeting. And one was that I said, you know, why don't you just call it hunger? And you know, why do you keep calling it food insecurity? What does that actually mean? And they shared with me that we're all hungry every day, but food insecurity is very different than being hungry. Hungry, we know when our next meal is coming. Food insecurity is when you don't know where your next meal is coming from and how you'll get it. And that really stood out to me. And also where they were sharing the one in nine Medford households experience food insecurity. And one of the things that the food, task force really wanted to work on was de-stigmatizing food insecurity because often it's the case that we know people that are experiencing food insecurity and they're not sharing that with us because of the stigma attached to having food insecurity and being hungry. So I really applaud the work of the Food Security Task Force. And thank you, Mia, and all for bringing it forward. And I would encourage community members to attend the meetings and get involved as much as you can, because I know that none of us want to see a child hungry. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank the students for coming out tonight and their family and say that I'm proud of you for your self-advocacy skills. Advocating and getting up in a microphone with lots of people looking at you in a whole room full of adults can be intimidating and it's really shows us all something that Medford should be proud of. teaching you all to do this, and we appreciate that you came out in front of everybody to do that. If I understood what you were saying correctly, you were looking for the retroactive for the $13 an hour that the mayor had, previous mayor, Mayor Burke, had suggested in January 2020 would be the current rate and a waiver of the certificate that you were wanting to see. I think those were the three items. Wanted to clarify on that. And then also wanted to make sure, Mayor Kern, that the students know what a committee of the whole meeting is. And maybe, I don't know if you want to explain that so that they could understand. And that if you're interested in participating, that's a public meeting and something that you get to see a lot of what happens behind the scenes in those meetings. And they're good to come to to learn more as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So point of clarification, the committee of the whole meeting is actually going to be an executive committee meeting, not a committee of the whole meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But then the other parts are?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just another point of clarification, I'm wondering how the students will be informed of the committee of the whole meeting date. They are posted online, but that means you have to go and look and check online. Is there a way that we can push information to the students and to the after school program about the date?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for your report. You're welcome. Tony. I had a question on the communication that you sent out where It says federal officials are advising travelers who arrive in the US after February 2nd from mainland China to self-quarantine at home for 14 days. So this is getting to Member Ruseau's point about the self-quarantine. So do we have any mechanism in our school to understand if we have school community members that have traveled to China in the past 14 days?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And if I understand the correspondence, though, it's whether they're symptomatic or asymptomatic that they're recommending a 14-day self-quarantine. Is that right? Right, asymptomatic. Yeah. And so, but there's no real enforcement of it. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, of course. But I mean, there's no, from the public health officials or anything like that, there's no way to track or enforce or anything like that, right? Not to my knowledge.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And is this more significant? I don't know. been watching it all on the news, because sometimes I feel like there can be elements of hysteria to these things, too. But is there... There are a lot of elements to hysteria. Is this different from a typical flu?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. That helps, I think, with a little bit, perhaps, with the hysteria piece of it. And then is the symptomatic, are the symptoms, you know, more severe than the average flu or? They tend to be lower respiratory symptoms.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: »» Thank you so much for your expertise. Appreciate it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thanks for the report, Assistant Superintendent Patterson. I have a few questions on the resignation and retirements. It looks like since July, we've had eight paras retire or resign? I'm wondering which those are. Are they resign or retire, or do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Resignations. And do you know, are we filling those positions, or what the status is?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So are we down eight paras right now? Do you know?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: How many are we down?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, so you've hired six of the eight that have, you've replaced six of the eight that have, OK. And so then for substitutes, for the daily substitutes, and the per diem substitutes, and the long term substitutes, I was given information, and I'm wondering if this is helpful or accurate. If there's a para that calls in sick to the special education classrooms, the system comes up as no substitute required. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So how does that work if there's an IEP that's requiring paras in the classroom, if the para's not being replaced if they're out sick?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But in terms of replacing substitutes in the classroom, so regarding the personnel report. So if a para's out, and they're saying no substitute required on the personnel list when a para calls in sick, there's no substitute going into that classroom. And I guess these are also high needs classrooms. They're not gen ed.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, I understand that. But is the system, is the software system coming up saying no substitute required, which obviously if that's what it's saying then there's definitely not going to be a substitute, never mind whether there are any available or not, that's what I'm asking.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Are open no substitutes?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, open for substitutes. In what instance would it say no substitute required?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. So I guess I'm wondering, is it a personnel question or a special ed question that I should be directing this if there are high needs classrooms where a para is calling in sick and the personnel memo that comes up on the, whatever your software system is on the website, that says no substitute required. How is that addressed? Would that be personnel? Would that be special education?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. And so who's we? We let you know if we see that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. So if powers are getting If information is coming up when a para calls in sick and the system says no substitute required and we know it's a substantially separate or high needs classroom, they should be letting folks know that that's a glitch in the system and that shouldn't be happening. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: A lot of hard work and work in progress, so thank you for the report. I do have some questions around the equitable piece of it, and I appreciate you acknowledging that we're doing the best we can with what we have in terms of the programmatic elements. You had said that We have to ensure that the children are going to the school that's most appropriate for their needs, which I think begs a bigger question in our district around equity. All of our schools should be able to deliver for each of our children's needs. And I know that that's a process that we're working towards and that I hope that the school committee continues to work towards. But I have questions in that realm. And we get a lot of these questions. So getting back to what was happening last year with the with the audit. Some of our schools have disproportionately more high-need students, whether they be English learners, students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students. And so if you're coming from a pool of elementary school students that have a higher population of high-need students, and then they're rounding out the number, or everyone's getting the same amount of students that are in the lottery. One school has a disproportionate amount of English learners or students with disabilities, and then their numbers are skewed because they are going to a particular environment. And so how is that being adjusted for is one question that I have. Another is we talk about sibling preference. What happens if you have a sibling that is a student with a disability that's going to a programmatic piece? Or if you have a sibling who you've aged out of the specific English learner program that might be applied for that program or for that school and you're going to another. So how are we addressing sibling preference for our students with high needs or that have siblings with high needs. And then the third is what if students are identified after the fact. What if you know the lottery happens and they're enrolled into a school and then they're subsequently identified as having a particular disability or they enroll into our schools initially and they're in one school And then they're subsequently identified. How are we addressing that? Are we taking them out of a school mid-year to deal with programmatic elements? Or how is that being addressed?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Oh, it was just how are we going to address the equity for students with high needs so that if we're being random and trying to be equitable across the schools, that we're not addressing all of the students in terms of the equity for the lottery because of the programmatic elements. But I think that's probably a much bigger question than you can address tonight, Dr. O'Keefe.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So could we get comparable data, or perhaps this is a motion that I need to make for comparable data on those populations so we can see what that distribution is among our schools?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, the economic, yeah, sure, if we have the data, economically disadvantaged, but also our students with disabilities and our English learners, like what's the distribution across the schools? And so for the, if we know that the McGlynn is getting all of our English learners, then clearly they're going to have a higher need for English learners. So then equity is not that everybody gets the same, it's that everybody gets what they need, right? So if we know that the McGlynn's going to have a higher need, are they getting more resources to support their need? versus other schools. So I guess I'm looking for similar data. So I guess I'm making a motion that if we could, this is a great report, if we could have, make a motion to have the same sort of data breakout for our students with disabilities, our English learners, and our economically disadvantaged among the middle schools. If we could do that. I make a motion for that. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you just point of clarification. Are you asking for this member Graham annually and then also for the sub lottery? Can you qualify what you mean by that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Caldwell for this report. And the flyer looks great. I'm happy to see the child care interpreter available by request. And I really appreciate at the bottom of the flyer for the Medford Family Network that the interpretation services are actually offered in the language. of folks, or at least three of the languages folks. So I'm wondering, can that information also be shared on our website if it's not already?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, so in the language that folks need for the number? Yes. Okay, great. And then for the health department document, folks will get that translated as needed based on whether they let you know that they need translation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I also support the resolution. Thank you. I just, um, I'm wondering though, um, um, assistant superintendent call. Well, do we have data on how many kindergartners there are and how many were actually are choosing Medford Public Schools or choosing other schools? Do we even know that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So we don't even know, really, how much money we may or may not be losing, or do we?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Because we have to pay it, right? Right. So we know. So are we getting retroactive data on that? That's what I'm asking. Not to my knowledge. No, that would be interesting too. But it would be good for the school committee to know. And frankly, the staff and assistant superintendent and principals, if we're talking about what these numbers really are translating into, and people should know how great our schools are, because we do, right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just a point of clarification, since the data is available or if it's available, that it could be referred to the subcommittee on this matter so that we could further drill down into that as we're making some planning.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you all very much for this. I can see that there's a lot of hard work put into it. I love the edgespeak, right? We've had lots of conversations about that over time. Send it to all the grad schools around town, please. No. But no, the edgespeak is really important, especially when families are having conversations and the acronyms roll off our tongues like we don't even notice anymore. And it's really important for people to be able to stop and remind us that we can tell them what those acronyms mean. So thank you for including that. I think the hyperlinks are really great. I'm glad to see it. I'm excited that I'm also on the subcommittee. So I'll be excited to be working with folks. I did have a couple of questions. I wanted to ask how you guys were chosen as district administrators to work on this particular strategic plan. Was it, did you self-select, did they volunteer, self-select, were you chosen, like how did that work? What was that process?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Especially when you're wordsmithing everything.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I just had a small point of, I guess a question, and I'm sure you guys, some of you guys have thought about this, but I'm wondering how you're going to address it or how you want the community to address. So the acronym's great for the strategic plan, but as you know, especially Stacey, that that has a whole other meaning in childhood trauma. And so how do we, how, you know, I think about the differentiation of that. So ACES is also the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, which is a very large study on childhood trauma and the effects of childhood trauma on, you know, children's long-term effects on their lives and so on and so forth. So did that come up in your conversations at all?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Member McLaughlin. Regarding communications, a few things. One was I wanted to make a motion for school committee member updates as part of our weekly or bi-monthly meetings so that the community and each other can know what each school committee member is working on. So I'm making a motion under the communications to have school committee member updates.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I have another motion under communication. Thank you. I've been coming to meetings for years in the audience and I appreciate those of you that are still out there. Thank you. I know how tiring it can be sitting out there and watching all night. But there's been a lot of conversation over years about providing materials that are in our packets to the public whenever possible. So obviously we wouldn't be providing materials that are confidential. But there's a lot of material here that's very useful. I also wanted to ask if we could get a copy of the PowerPoint from tonight, just because it's helpful for referencing in the past. But I'd like to make a motion that we are able to create weekly school committee packets for the community that are online and available, so that the community can access what we're talking about. Because having sat on the other side of that railing, I know that you're getting bits and pieces of the information, but it's really helpful to have things in front of you or to be able to look at it in advance so that if you have any questions in the future and so I'm making a motion to put that material online.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure. I think that it's reasonable. I assume that the reports are being provided electronically, right? So not printed. So that, I mean, I'm just imagining that if there's a, and again, I'm not sure of processes, but if there's a, an electronic report that's going to administration, then once the report is reviewed, obviously by, by central administration, what have you, then it, It also gets forwarded to the webmaster or whoever to put together these packets that can be available by Monday or whenever so that people have it before the meeting. I wouldn't expect simultaneously, but I'm assuming the reports are all sent electronically anyway, so it's sort of just another step in procedure. And maybe it goes to the policy subcommittee just to figure out what the actual procedure is, what that looks like. And I'm happy to refer it to that just in terms of how we want to step it so that you have a timeline that's reasonable. Because we definitely aren't interested in giving people more work. I'm not interested in giving people more work. I really just want to share information. Yeah. OK. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, Member van der Kloot, for the information on the enhanced reading this Wednesday for the curriculum subcommittee. And I'm assuming that that's this Wednesday this time. It's not Wednesdays all the time, or? OK. Yeah, just want to make sure. I'm thinking of CPAC and other things that are happening. No, not this week, second Wednesday. Yeah, thank you. And then the other is regarding the high school vision committee and the 41 applicants when you're talking about there's 11 to 13 and you want it to be as fair as possible. So to that end, are you thinking about, I'm wondering how that fairness is possible. Is it a lottery? Is it you're looking at different age levels? You're looking at different schools, grades, like how?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes. So, um, thank you. I just have a question. So if the rules and so, so what I'm understanding this is saying is that, um, the rules policy and equity subcommittee will make, will help devise policy on how reports are requested. Um, is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Yeah, that's good. So, but I'm assuming there'll be a process for whatever reports were requested, obviously, as well, that there's a timeline or whatever, because a lot of these are from... And again, since they're from 2019, at this point, it's come back to November of 2019, or April, or October, or whatever, 2019, that there'll be questions, like you said, there'll be some documentation of why these reports were requested, and that's reported out to the public about why the reports are being requested.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I wouldn't imagine that you'd get the list of the actual students, but I think that is really interesting information just in terms of how many, how much, you know, other things. But so, okay, so there's going to be a process is sort of what I'm understanding. instead of just asking. So that's helpful and I assume that that process will include a timeline and reporting out to the public as the subcommittee would need to do. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: and the subcommittee will report out that rule. The recommendation. To this recommendation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: But also, yeah, so that I'm just asking here's a stick and I'm sorry, it's just. So this tell me when you tell me OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep, now I see it. Thank you. Go ahead. So this would be an example of in the future or something that would have to go through this, the policy, what, yeah, the rules, this request, right? That resolution that the mayor offered for the report on dyslexia, that would be one, again, that would not be offered in this format. It would be offered in whatever the policy subcommittee or rules subcommittee decides.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, but I just mean in the future. I'm trying to use an example. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So I had had an agenda request for a school safety procedural update be added to the agenda and it was unfortunately put under requested reports. I'm not looking for a report per se. I'm looking for I hope that doesn't constitute a report. But I think given the circumstances of the past two weeks with the question of, you know, process and protocol around this unidentified powder, which thankfully was resolved, and thank you all for your hard work on that. I know that was a lot of hours and energy and input. But understanding, and I think it's a longer conversation
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. So this had also been our first school committee meeting as a new member had the list of requested reports. Our second did not have them on the agenda anymore. And then I was curious about what that was and where the status of the outstanding reports are. But since this topic is being moved to, the Rules, Policy and Equity Subcommittee of which I am a member. I am okay with moving this topic there and figuring out how we report to the public on these outstanding reports.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, I just wanted to say thank you for putting those together for the dates and also one of the questions I was going to ask is when they would be available on the website but also I'm not sure. I know that the other dates go out for the, with the public relations folks and so adding to the dates in the newsletter that goes out that, you know, the committee of the whole budget meetings are coming up so that it's another way of reminding but I think it's great for the public to know so thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the report, Ms. Ray. It was very informational. I appreciate it. I had some follow-up questions, too. On the Brooks School for the somatization of the visits of identified students who have above 300 nursing office visits for somatic complaints and the policy put in place, I'm wondering Do you have, or would there be a number on how many students that is? I mean, if it's one student, it's one thing. If it's 10 or 20.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's very useful data. I mean, a theme I think that we see throughout your report is the concern around anxiety for our children, which is an ever-growing concern, I think, with our 24-7 social media. everything else that our children have to deal with in today's element. So I think that the somatization is interesting, but also how about the, or do you know when parents, at what point parents might be notified? Obviously, if a student is coming to the office for medicine, we know that the parent knows that. But if it's for something, a bellyache or whatever, you know, if there's 10 times, 20 times, 30 times, at what point would a parent be notified?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, with the parent and the schools. Great, that's great. They're obviously doing a great job across the schools and working together on the report. I was wondering also, Tony, about the telephone translation services, which is really exciting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for piloting that. That's great.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great, that's one of the things that I wanted to ask you is how are you collaborating with the EL department for that, but clearly other departments that might be interested in the translation service. I'm assuming, I know we're getting a report from Paul shortly.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And when was it piloted?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Great. So you have some data on it at this point.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I'm assuming in our budget meetings, you'll tell us more about your grants that you're working on. I know that you work on those often, and we appreciate the work around that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for your rapport and thank your staff for all their hard work. And I see that, yes, Desi's interested in coming out to observe the program. That's great news. Congratulations. And then I just had a question for the access accountability and the NA for the Brooks, not applicable for the Brooks.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, but you get the individual reports to know if they're meeting target?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sorry, go ahead.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And do you know, I understand that the data is not significant enough for the reporting out to DESE, but do you know from your progress reports, personal reports, how the students are doing there?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you School committee woman McLaughlin Yes, the co-teaching model is really great news. Thank you for that I definitely concur with member Graham on that. And I wanted to ask also, I'm assuming just in terms of the data, if someone were to read the report, if a community member wanted access to the report, the access data on the front page for the schools has all of the schools excluding the Andrews. And that's because the Andrews does not have
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No EL program at the Andrews. Okay, I wanted to just confirm on that. And then you said there was a huge increase in Columbus from 2017, right? Yes. When you say huge increase, can you give me some idea of what that actually... Not literally, but some ballpark of how many?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: 75 and 90?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's great. And you have a supplement to the curriculum for the English learners?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, it's a good supplement. It looks great. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for the event and for the report. And if community members are interested in volunteering, is it too soon for them to reach out or will you put that out, reach out to you, Lisa Evangelista, if people want to volunteer? Great, thank you. And thanks to the community members and the banks for being involved in this. This looks like a really great program. I know that we went a few years ago and my daughter decided to change her career choice based on her budget, so thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for this report. This is very exciting. Yes. And it's so exciting to see all the folks listed here. Thank you, Kathy, for your work on this and for our other folks, Aaron and Neil and John and former Mayor Burke on this. This is Really great news from Medford. I am wondering, I think, Kathy, I heard you say for nonprofits, for folks that want to apply next year. So the requirement is that you do have to be a 501c3 nonprofit for these funds. Is that right? Yeah. OK. So for anyone that wants to apply, they need that. And then the call, how was the call for applications made for the RFP? Do you know, or do you guys know? I'm just curious, how was the RFP for applications made?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's fun to give money away. Yeah, I know it was. Right, that's great. Goes fast. And then also for the Medford Family Network awards, the ESOL awards from Medford Family Network and also Kathleen McGlynn Brady's work with Roman Music Therapy. We work with Roman Music Therapy often and Meredith is fantastic. And music is another language for so many of our children, and a lot of our children who don't communicate with words, especially, but also our English learners, all of our preschool children, everybody loves music. So the music therapy is also really exciting, and I would encourage folks, once that program starts, to go and view that and see how the children really respond, because it's so good. So thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for your report. I also wanted to ask, following up on the black mold issue, clearly we have a student that was good enough to bring us in some photographs. So there is black mold somewhere in some of the bathrooms that is a concern. So one of the questions that I would have is what is the process for removing black mold in those situations? Do you know or what do we do?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I wanted to add, the pictures are very, very helpful.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I know that there's going to be a discussion of some funds to at least address, you were saying, perhaps a few of the bathrooms. And I'm wondering, I'd like to make a motion that we have maybe a report of how and where those funds are used and what they're being applied to for those bathrooms, maybe within the next 30 days or so. Well, I think.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Just as a follow-up, so to the reporting process and policies and procedures, so there was a, I'm not sure how this process goes, bear with me, I'm first time, but for the motion that I had on the floor, do we make a vote on that or?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, a motion for which ones will be done in the next 30 days with a report and maybe some photo evidence, you know, when it's done to show us how nice they look so we can celebrate that as well.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be nice. No, really, so we can see sort of the process would be really helpful and to be able to share and celebrate sort of it moving forward. So I have a motion on the floor for an update on that, where and when this will be done.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I'm wondering if we now have three motions on the floor? Yes, I'll call them at the end.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's the name of the app. Yeah. OK.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Will you put up your certificate so we can see the medal?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, page one.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: on the district-wide substitutes. So there's a really large deficit on the substitutes. And I'm wondering about that, since I'm hearing, at least from community, when we were out talking and asking questions about what was important to people, that substitutes has been a longstanding concern and issue. So I'm wondering if you could tell me a little.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Can I ask what the daily rate is? It's $90. It's $90 for the daily rate for a Medford substitute, and we're about almost $100,000 over for the cost of substitutes for the budget. For last year. Okay, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Did you want to go first? Yeah. I guess it's more of a follow. It's the substitutes again. And this is the permanent substitutes? Yes. Right? So that's an additional 45. So now it is about 130 over budget that we're at currently for substitutes. Correct. Including permanent substitutes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yes, getting back to just to follow up on that question, again, forgive me since I'm new at this. I'm sure I'm going to have questions that may be obvious or already asked. So why aren't the special education costs included in the appropriation?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And then how is that made up every year? It just is different every year, or I'm confused. Sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK, I'll ask more questions later. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for this report. It's really informational and I'm wondering, is this accessible to the public? Is this a public report that's shared?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So it's not a public report?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: It's a public record. It's a public record.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. But if folks want it, they can just ask the school for it. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. So just sort of following up and again learning curve, understanding these, this revenue that we're getting from these programs will be discussed as part of the budget process for this year so that we're understanding exactly what those numbers are.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. And then the details of those revenue sources are broken down for us. Correct. OK. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: school committee member Ruseau, in terms of the cost, I think like every budget, there are pluses and minuses on all ends and things balance out in different ways, but I also don't want to give the impression that after school funds go to pay for special education funds, so that we understand that there's also additional money coming in through Circuit Breaker. So what I would say is I would really encourage community members to come to the Committee of the Whole meetings, budget meetings, if they really want to be able to understand where the allocations go back and forth in terms of the pluses and the minuses because it's a lot of shifting money around, as you know, Christine, as we all know, right? It's not just any particular departments that are more or less, although I know that special education is costly, that it's not more or less in one area or another. I don't want to give the community that impression either. It's the whole system that we have to balance out and figuring out how to do that is really part of our job here. So thank you so much for the report and I would really encourage folks for the Committee of the Whole budget meetings to be able to attend those. Those are all public meetings where people can ask these questions and we can learn, right? Because I'm still very much learning. I appreciate this. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I just wanted to tell you, I think you're such a jewel in Medford's crown. I think that you really stand out, especially in terms of how inclusive you are. of children that are often marginalized, and you are always thoughtful in that sense. So as a mother of a child with a disability, I especially appreciate your Common Ground project, and also your mention of the Curtis Tufts program, and anything that we can do to continue that work, we're happy to support. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thanks for the report. Very informative. I'm wondering just also in terms of equity and also being new, obviously, how accommodations are made for And say, for example, a student who is an English learner or a student who has a disability that wants to participate in the after school program.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm Melanie McLaughlin and I live at 152 Austin Street in Medford. I want to thank you all for looking at the equity and balance across the middle schools. I'm also the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council and have been for the past six years. One of the things that we're concerned about is equity across the district for every child. And so it's about, we understand that there's some programmatic elements regarding EL and special education, but I think those visuals were very helpful and supportive. I'm a visual learner. I thought those were really great. I would love to see those visuals for special education in English language and what that looks like at the middle schools and to be able to see if there's a disparity there. Is one middle school getting more of those students and another not? And what that actually looks like for us. Because I think as I said from the podium last year, as we're thinking about equity, we have to think about it for all of our students. And I think that the socioeconomic piece here is really compelling. But again, there's a big piece that we feel is missing, which is the special education and English learner. population piece as well, and I know that there have been a lot of families that have been frustrated and have given me feedback about that, either being automatic. I know that you're saying, part of the problem is that the IEP does drive the process and the team decisions, but a lot of times the families don't know what the expectations are, the programming might be or why the McGlynn is different than the Andrews or what the programmatic elements are. And so I think it's also worth doing a comparison when we're saying everybody sort of dismisses what we can't have similar programs at these schools. And I think that I would like to say, let's think out of the box a little bit more around that and say, well, what would that look like? What does that actually mean? How does that really break down into numbers? And since the schools are only a few hundred feet away from each other, is that actually realistic, can we not have people transporting, you know, between the schools, whether it's, you know, staff on different days or what, I don't know. But I think thinking outside of the box for our EL students and our special education students as well so that they feel like they're having equity across the district is really important because we're not feeling that right now and I think that we need to be. So, but I appreciate the courageous conversations that we're having. I think this is really important around equity. I also really appreciate that it's been done at the middle school level. I know and I hope that we'll be looking in the future at the elementary school levels as well, because I think that these visuals and these demographics are really important to create the conversation that you're starting here. So we appreciate that you're doing that. Do you think we might have a visual for the special education EL?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I think the visual would be really helpful, and then just also understanding the programmatic elements at the school so that people can understand what this actually breaks down to and not have this ambiguity around, you know, all the EL students are going here, some of the kids with disabilities are there, some are there, and it's not making people want to be at one school or another, you know, because then it creates another level of inequity and conversation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you for being patient. I'm Melanie McLaughlin, and I am from Austin Street in Medford.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And we are the co-chairs for the Medford CPAC. So thank you for letting us present to you annually what we accomplish throughout the year. So CPAC is the Special Education Parent Advisory Council for Medford. And our logo is where everyone belongs. We are happy to have been of service to the 888 or so families that are receiving special education services and supports in Medford. Most of you folks know that the CPAC is required under the Massachusetts General Law. So every school district is required to have a special education parent advisory council. And our role is to advise the district on matters pertaining to special education. services and programs, and safety of individuals with disabilities. We look for input from parents, guardians, family members, and we meet regularly with school officials. We participate in the planning of programming and the evaluation process of the special education programming as well. We plan workshops and seminars for families and community engagement. We field lots of phone calls from parents as they're navigating the special education system. We host family-friendly events and It's really been a joy to serve the community for the past several years. Our board members are myself and Tanya Sullivan. Treasurer is Jameel Webb Davis, who's with us tonight. And our secretary is Anne Russo. We have lots of people who help out with the Medford CPAC. And for folks that are watching tonight, we want to say thank you all for all your help and participation in coming to our seminars and workshops over the years, and for being there to not only support the CPAC, but to support each other, because we're stronger as a community together. Thank you. Membership includes students and families who have IEPs or 504 plans and other interested parties. So when we say where everyone belongs, it's where everyone belongs. So you're all included to attend and be part of, and we welcome. My apologies for the little alignment here. We uploaded to Google Drive just a few minutes ago. Thank you, Emily, for your help with that. So our goals, we advocate for every child in our community, and we promote equity in our schools for all children, regardless of race, color, ability, national origin, immigration status, sexual orientation, or race. We really want to provide mentorship, support, resources, and expertise to families and community members on issues of inclusion and exclusion, and offer equality of opportunity, civil and human rights, and legislative advocacy, especially on behalf of our marginalized children. When we talk about equality of opportunity, a lot of people might not know what that means. And essentially, we don't believe that every child should get the same. We believe that every child should get what they need. Next. Oh, we actually updated this a little bit. Kathy Medaglio just gave us a little bit of an update. So at the beginning of the year, we had 770 students on IEPs. And it's actually gone up over the year because of new enrollments, what have you. We're roughly at about 888 right now. But the percentages are roughly the same. So 18.8% of our student population. So almost 20% of our students are receiving special education supports and services. We have actually about 32 out of district. It's a little bit higher than the state average, but Kathy can talk a little bit about that as well if folks are interested. But out of district families are folks who are placed in other outside schools for varying reasons. And one of our goals for the upcoming year help those families feel more involved and part of our community. I think our out-of-district families especially need to feel that they're a part of a community when they're not in our schools. We have a lower full inclusion rate than the state, but we have a higher partial inclusion rate in our special education classrooms, and we have a lower subseparate rate. So the difference between those, our full inclusion is 80 percent or more in general education setting. Partial inclusion is between 79 and 40 percent, so that's a wide range for partial inclusion. And then subseparate would be 40% or less time spent in general education. Some of our accomplishments for the past year is we host multiple seminars. We meet the second Wednesday of every month. Principal Downs has been so generous in offering the Andrews Middle School to us every month, as Paul DeLeva did before. And we're so happy to have that venue. They've always been so welcoming to us. Second Wednesday of every month from 7 to 9 we meet, and we host workshops. This year we had workshops on anxiety in schools, dyslexia, ELL, disability rights as human rights, executive functioning, and we've also hosted coffee with the principals. We should note for the anxiety, dyslexia, and ELL presentations, we've worked with administration and our central administration to bring in speakers from our schools. So we've had our ELL director, We've had guidance Councilors come in. It's been a really nice collaboration between families and administration and teachers working together to help our families across the district. We've also presented workshops at Bridgewater State, the Mass Down Syndrome Congress, and Federation for Children with Special Needs. We helped create and participated in a universal design for emergency preparedness safety in our school subcommittee with national recognition of our efforts featured on NPR. There's a link to that that we're happy to share. The NPR recognition was really nice. We've worked really hard on that committee over the past year, and we've had about seven committee members, again, administrators, parents, a number of folks looking at safety in our schools and how we think about emergency preparedness for all our students using universal design. So essentially the idea that if you design something for everyone with everyone in mind, then everyone will benefit. And so our safety in schools, you know that we did a presentation to you folks last month on that, and we're going to continue that committee. It's been very effective, and we've really enjoyed working on that as well. Next page. We also helped launch and participated in a special education subcommittee this year. Thank you to the subcommittee members here, the school committee. We really appreciated that happening, and we've been focusing on disability awareness and out-of-school time. including after school and recreational program for students with disabilities. So again, we spent the year meeting with school committee members and administrators and folks from community stakeholders, talking about how we can improve access to our after school and recreational program for students with disabilities, for all students really, and also how we could improve disability awareness. So one of the things that came out of that that's been really great is the Director of Speech and Language along with others, created a disability awareness course in the district. And about, I think, 44 teachers and staff enrolled in that disability course. And I had the pleasure of presenting at the first course on disability rights as human rights. The class was really well received. And it was just really nice to see people asking questions and really understanding what disability awareness is and how disability is another aspect of diversity, and having disability pride and celebrating that. They also had a panel where they included siblings and family members and a self-advocate. The course was wonderful. I assume that they're going to teach it again next year. It was really well received. They're talking about also maybe people were asking for a 2.0, so that was exciting. We partnered with community organizations for family outreach, including the West Medford Community Center, Medford Family Network, community schools, and CCSR. Oh, you can skip that. That's repeat. And then our recommendations for the year. So we have just about five recommendations. And one of the things that was really effective about the subcommittee, special education subcommittee this year was we felt like we focused on two issues and we could really move those issues forward when we can focus on just a few. And so we're respectfully asking the school committee, the mayor, the superintendent to look at these five topics and think about how we can move these forward, even if we pick a few of them over the next year to work on so that we can see some progress. One is that we would recommend creating a district-wide survey slash inclusion report. And what we're recommending for this is that we survey general education teachers, special education, paraprofessional, administrators, and families on the current culture in our schools for inclusive practice and what improvements are needed. We'd also obviously like to hear what's working. So we can continue to improve, to continue to implement that, but also to think about what we can do to move things forward for more inclusion for every student. We also would like to recommend offering professional, meaningful professional development on differentiated instruction and supplemental curriculum for teachers, paraprofessionals, and families in partnership with the CPAC. One of the reasons we talk about that specifically in partnership with the CPAC We had a very personal experience where we didn't understand until I think third grade or the end of third grade that there's actually a supplement to our curriculum for students with disabilities. And so we found that out through the ELL department because we understood that there's a supplement for English language learners. And then we were able to explore a little bit more and understand that you folks had voted on a supplement for special education, which was really wonderful. So I felt like if I didn't know that, that there's probably a lot of folks out there that don't know that. And so we want to make sure that folks do know that and that that's a real stepping stone for differentiated instruction for everyone in the community. And so the professional development would be around how to use that supplemental curriculum and how to, you know, show parents what that is and how they can use that at home as well. We would also recommend implementing a co-teaching model at the elementary level. We know that there's some co-teaching at the elementary level. It's just not systemized and sort of, yeah, systemized, I guess, as it is at the high school level. And we think it's been a really good model, and we know that it's a proven effective model for being able to work in general education settings for students with and without disabilities to be effective in teaching all of our children. This is a low-hanging fruit, if you will. Replace and create consistent language for school missions, websites, school-to-home forms, et cetera, to be inclusive. This is one of the things that we talked about at the subcommittee for the school committee as well, is just how are we looking at our language across the district? And we did a preliminary study, nothing sort of expansive, but we just started to poke around on our websites. look for the language on each of the school websites. And some of the schools had school improvement plans. Some didn't. Some had missions. Most all of them had missions, I believe. Not all of them mentioned inclusion or equity or students with disabilities. And we just think that it would be nice to have a language that would be inclusive, because we know that Medford is an inclusive community and wants everybody to feel welcome. And we are one Medford. And just thinking about how we're thinking about our messaging of that, if you think about the four frames of Bowman and Diehl, and the symbolic frame, how we're messaging that across the district. Publishing school improvement plans on all school websites. So like I said, there was just probably one or two that didn't have the school improvement plans. And seeing them are really helpful, but also seeing what the plans are for almost 20% of students with disabilities in the schools would be really helpful. And then expand inclusive communities for children with and without disabilities. So we would recommend providing training for inclusive community schools. athletic and after school program. So one of the things that we worked on in the subcommittee was the after school and out of school time. And we talked about some of the language and making some of that language more uniform. And there's going to be a training provided for the summer fun camp and the Councilors there. We think that's a really great first start. We want to expand on that to make sure that our community school programs, athletic programs, recreation programs, what have you, all have experience in working and embracing children with disabilities. An example of that is we were in the swim program this year. And it was interesting for me to see there was a little bit of disconnect in the swim program. And we went, I think, to the second or third swim lesson. And it just occurred to me that nobody had ever taught the swim instructor in the pool with our daughter just something really basic, which is just, first of all, it might be difficult to hear because of the acoustic, especially if the child has a hearing deficiency. but the acoustics in the pool can be really hard to hear. So sometimes just, you know, motioning or, you know, saying swim or, you know, so using some, you know, basic sign language can be really helpful, but also just the first then. Like first you're going to swim, then we're going to jump or whatever, just some basic, you know, and it was really, it wasn't fair. I realized in that setting that it wasn't fair to the person that was in the pool, nor was it fair to the child just to not have that basic communication that we as parents just sort of take for granted. And maybe some of the administration takes for granted, too, because they're so used to doing that with our children. So just some basic training. We would love to see a Best Buddies program within our district. We used to have one at the McGlynn Middle School, or a Best Buddies-like program, if the Best Buddies program is too expensive. But we could potentially create a friendship program, a mentoring program. And all of these recommendations, we want to assure you, We're ready to roll up our sleeves and work with you on these. These are nothing that we're asking other people to do. We want to work with you to make them happen and offer written guidelines on requirements of ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and building inclusive communities. So in some experiences, our families have inadvertently, mostly because it's just people who maybe don't experience life with disabilities themselves and just don't understand that Accessibility is an important part of our community, but also it is part of the law and helping people understand what the Americans with Disabilities Act is, even if it's just in basic, you know, writing that, you know, folks need to provide reasonable accommodations when children are accessing programs within the district. And then, of course, we want to know how we can help and what next steps can be taken. And for folks who want to know what that sign is, that's the sign for I love you. That's my daughter, and she has a t-shirt on it that says, keep calm, it's only an extra chromosome. So we want to know how we can help, and we'd be happy to take any questions if anyone has any.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I don't have them with me, but I can certainly get them to you. OK. But we are, you know, they're right on the DESE website. So if you do school district profiles. Yeah, I checked.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, no, I can email it to you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I'm sure we can have it our way.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Small difference for the higher for partial inclusion. We're very high for the partial inclusion. For the full inclusion, I think it's a smaller, but the range for the... One of the difficulties is, you know, with DESE as well, that the range for partial inclusion, like we said, is 79 to 40. I mean, that's a pretty big stretch, right? So what does that really mean and what does that translate into? And I think that's when you start to look into the programs and see what's happening around our schools. But again, you know, as was said in the school committee meeting for the last session, I think it's really valuable to go into the classrooms and see what's happening in our classrooms here. So I had that experience this year where I was able to sort of observe some of the classrooms and some of the programming. And I really encourage the school committee to do that and to see for themselves what's happening in our subseparate classrooms. So in our partial inclusion classrooms and our full inclusion classrooms, because we should be looking at every classroom and seeing how we can help and how we can support every child.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. We really enjoyed that. And it wasn't obviously just the CPAC. Central Administration, Kathy Medaglio, lots of folks really helped out with that. And one of the things that's really exciting about that is we created what we're calling an IER, which was an individual emergency response, much like an IEP, an individual emergency response form so that families who need extra planning in their IEP for emergency response have this form that can be looked at and they can review if your child needs extra help in an evacuation center or a fire alarm or whatever. It can be part of the legal document, part of the IEP. So the IER is something that we're actually going to present at a state level as well to the Committee on Education because we think it should be something that should be not only It's statewide but national, so once again, Medford's leading the way. We're really happy to be part of that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Not that I'm aware of. Well, so actually Megan came to the subcommittee meetings for the special education committee, so out of school time and after school. And so Anthony Petrellis is working with the Summer Fund Camp to have training. And so Megan was just saying at our last meeting that she would like to implement the same training that they're happening at the Summer Fund. So yes, that's going to start. It hadn't in the past, but it's going to happen this year. So we're really excited about that. Yeah, thank you for asking about them. That's really exciting. No, I know, really important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: You're welcome.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Kathy can talk about that if you want her to, but it's really just Yeah, I'll volunteer you, Kathy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Yeah. So we just have one more thing that we wanted to do. Yes, we appreciate that very much, Erin. And it has been a real joy working with our special ed administration and our administration and teachers across the district. I think one of the things that people don't realize is that when we have these events, I think oftentimes people think, oh, that's for families of children with disabilities or that's for students with disabilities. And these events are for everyone. In fact, they benefit everyone. The school safety thing was for anybody, elderly, preschoolers, anyone. And they're really helpful. Anxiety, lots of folks have homework anxiety. You're not necessarily diagnosed as disabled. So the other thing that we really want to remind people is disability is natural. We're all disabled at some point. So you could be temporarily disabled, or you could get hit by a car and be disabled for the rest of your life. You could be disabled through pregnancy, what have you. So disability is natural. And really, no one questions anybody that walks through that door or why they come. We're just happy to have you there. And we also have good snacks. And the next actually slide that we wanted to share is that we have our CPAC award, our 2019 CPAC award. So the CPAC award, we give an award every year in recognition of a community member who exemplifies the CPAC mission of equity, diversity and inclusion for every child. And this year we want to give the award to, drumroll, We want to say it's been a joy working with Kathy over the past several years, and I can assure you there are many CPACs that would not necessarily say that about the Director of Special Education. Wow!
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We just want to take a picture for one minute if you don't mind indulging us. I want to be in that picture.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Get the whole crowd in the picture, I know. Isn't that pretty? Yeah, come on, thank you guys. Oh, thanks. How many years has that been?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, Melanie McLaughlin, Alston Street. And first I want to say thank you to the Citywide PTO. I think this is amazing, $142,000. I mean, that's incredible. Thank you all for all the hard work you've done. All together. Yeah, all together with the Citywide PTO help as well. And I think that's just amazing. So I think that's great. And speaking on behalf of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council as well, oftentimes I feel like Maybe we're not necessarily included in some of the conversations and we want to make sure that we're able to help out as well. So we would love to be a part of this and especially when we're thinking about the, I think it was the, was it Columbus School you guys were talking about for the buses and some of the concerns around accessibility for students with disabilities. And that's really our role as a CPAC to help advise the district and help family members as well. And we want to make sure that every child gets to go on a field trip. And we want to roll up our sleeves and get in there and help folks as well. So in any way that we can, we would like to be included. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. My name is Melanie McLaughlin, and I live on Alston Street in West Medford. I've had three children that have attended the Brooks Elementary School. One at the Andrews, one at the McGlynn, and then ultimately the high school. And I just wanted to add, I could not get up in this scenario. I had to, for those of you who know me. know that I do care very much about social justice and equity and equality of opportunity for all children. So I did have to get up and say, when people were talking about how do we talk about this, I think, you know, as in all situations with education, the data tells a story, the data speaks for itself. Look at the data. Take a moment. We were looking at the data in the audience and there are people in the audience that frankly are stunned by this data. It does tell a story and it tells a very important story. This is a segregated system and it's not a socially just system. I would also ask that the school committee consider taking it a step further in terms of thinking about students with disabilities in this scenario as well. Because, you know, I understand the programmatic elements. I understand the budgeting concerns. when we're talking about programmatic elements. But all means all. Every student should have, you know, the opportunity to have the randomization and the experience of being at any of the schools, not one or the other. You know, that's the school that the kids with the disabilities go to. This is not. That's not okay either. And I'm sorry, but when we talk about inclusive classrooms, what does that mean for the other classrooms? Are they exclusive? When we talk about even segregated, classrooms, what does even mean? I mean, I really do think we need to take this another step and really be looking at this as a whole. And I appreciate the opportunity for you to let me speak. Thank you. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: One of the things I just wanted to add as well is that, as Kathy was speaking earlier around students with disabilities, the other piece is that you don't know when you might be a student with a disability or an individual with a disability. So one day you might be fine, and the next day you trip off the curb, and suddenly you've got a boot on your foot, and you're not going to be able to exit the building as easily as anybody else either. And so this is an ongoing process that people need to be thinking about for also, like Kathy was saying earlier, our adults in the building as well. We have teachers who might have needs, other staff who might have needs that we should be thinking about.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So some of the recommendations that were on earlier pages were things that we started working on. These are some of the ones that we want to continue working on, and we'll get to how in a moment. But communicating emergency preparedness plans specific to students with disabilities and families. and update those students and families and the community on an annual basis. We recommend convening a district-wide emergency preparedness committee with representative membership from each school to ensure consistency across the district. So right now, we do have people at each of the schools, from what I understand, that are addressing and talking about these issues. But we recommend having one person that's a representative from each of the schools, so essentially creating a community-wide committee, almost like what folks are talking around around the community-wide PTO. A community-wide committee where we're hearing from each of the schools, you know, so that we're understanding consistency and what the needs are across the district. Ensuring communication between school and first responders specific to students with disabilities. So some examples of that would be, you know, having our first responders understand what the layout of the special education classrooms are in our school. And also from a school perspective, to think about what the layout of our special education classrooms are. Is it really, you know, wise to have a special education classroom, say, on the you know, third floor in the far corner if you've got kids with physical disabilities and you need to get them out of the building quickly. Who's thinking about that? Who's addressing that? Both from the first responders understanding where those are and from the district administration thinking about that. understanding of children and also an understanding just of the culture. Not all children with disabilities are going to be in the special education classrooms, right? So thinking about that. Specific training for first responders and assisting students and others with disabilities. So around some of this ALEC programming that we talked about, but others and sort of just a cultural competency piece. One of the things that The Department of Education said when we included them on our security and safety panel last year, we invited them and asked them to come. They said, you know, Ann Gilligan was the representative there from DESE, and she said, you know, it's not going to be a conversation unless you have a triangle of people at the table. And it's got to be school, fire, and police, you know, all at the table. And I would say obviously in the center of that would be the family and the children involved in that. So I think that that's really important that you have all three pieces at that. And then folks might have noted, I think just a month or two ago, Medford Public Schools was featured on NPR with our work to improve emergency plans for students with disabilities. It was a really nice program. That happened because there was discussion around new budgeting with Governor Baker. And he was talking about budgeting plans for mental health. And he had a convening in Burlington. And I happened to be at the convening. And I got up and I asked, what about students with disabilities? And there was an NPR reporter there who said, that's a really good point. Nobody's talking about that and wanted to talk with us about it. And I said, hey, we're doing this subcommittee, and here's how Medford's working. So we think that this is a real opportunity for Medford to be a leader in the state around what we're doing in this community. And we would encourage, certainly I will be reaching out, but we would encourage the district as well, to be reaching out with us to state level committee on education, other folks that we know in the community as we're talking about this. Because this is a nationwide problem. It's not just a problem in our schools. But Medford has an opportunity here, especially with these dedicated people who have spent so many hours researching this for you already. And then the next page is some resources that we came across here. The Mass Office on Disability is what Kathy was talking about a few minutes ago, their emergency preparedness program that they have already in place. I found the teacher's guide, Supporting Students with Disabilities During School Crisis, a teacher guide, to be particularly effective. There's some other links there. They're hot links. And so when we share the PowerPoint with you electronically, you can also click on those and access those. But what we would talk about is next steps. Kathy, do you want to talk about that?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And so with that, we would sort of look for some concrete next steps and some of the recommendations that we have for you folks. And we would put that out to you as what would you recommend for next steps as a result of the presentation.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and specific to students with disabilities. So some of the other recommendations that are embedded in that are that you have people at the table that have some expertise around students with disabilities. So if there is this citywide committee that is considering this, you have representatives from each of the schools. But clearly, it would make sense to have some of the people that are on this committee to be part of that. Like we would send somebody from our committee to the district committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I would also add that the emergency response plan, the individualized emergency response plan that Susanna did such great research on, can be used for anyone. I mean, that's the point, is that we were looking at universal design for everybody. So that's what's so great about disability. When you consider disability, you're considering everybody as a result. Everybody benefits.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We've been talking about that. Yeah. We very much agree that having a self-advocate at the table is really critical. And in fact, at the last meeting, you heard Leslie was sort of agreeing, and we can see how much value is added by our student here and how much they're appreciated. So I think that's a really good point.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I just would want to add, Erin, thank you for that, but also thinking about trauma, students who have experienced trauma, and our English language learners as well in this scenario. So same thing, it's about universal design.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hi, Melanie McLaughlin, 152 Alston Street in Medford. Welcome, Dr. Vincent. Thank you for being here. I wanted to say thank you all for your concern around air conditioning in the high school. We appreciate the response and the water and the advice to wear light clothing and drink water. But I do also want to share that I'm sure many of you know that, or I'm sure all of you know that I'm the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council in Medford as well. And we have children with special needs who spend time at the high school, especially over the summer months in the summer fun camp and in the ESY camps and what have you. And my daughter was among them this summer. This is something that will include in our PowerPoint presentation soon for Special Education Parent Advisory Council. But our daughter had to come home several times, especially the last week of the summer fun camp, last two weeks of summer fun camp, because it was just too hot and just unbearable. we sort of put the information out there because we want to always offer solution. And so we had asked individuals if maybe there was an air conditioning campaign we could create or there was a fundraising drive we could do or figuring out how we might be able to help with the community. And we've been getting a mix of information from whether or not window units can be used, whether the windows can accommodate them. The CPAC donated two years ago a floor unit to the camp that, last we knew anyway, it had been misplaced for some of the kids that needed it there. So we've had folks reach out to us from staff, students, teachers, all reach out explaining and sharing their circumstances and their stories that have been very concerning. Some of whom have talked about migraine headaches, nausea, having to leave the school. There's been some community conversation around, you know, sort of, well, that's how it's been done all these years, and suck it up and get used to it, and that's our grandfather's school, and what have you. And, you know, it's getting hotter over time. And, you know, the heat index, I think, yesterday was 103. And, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I couldn't bear that, and certainly couldn't ask to be tested. while I was going through that or asked to be actually learning. It's basic, you know, Maslow's Heurich of Needs. If you're not having your basic needs met, you can't do that higher level stuff.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that's a great approach and that's a good start, but also I know that this is a bigger issue in a multi-million dollar project and what have you for the high school, but I think it's just something that we need to keep circling back to and asking about in terms of safety. So thank you for what's been done so far, but please let's not leave that off the table.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hello, school committee members, Madam Mayor, community. My name is Melanie Perkins McLaughlin and I live on Alston Street in Medford.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So we wanted to come before you folks and before the community to ask some questions that we had and concerns that we had. I know that you know Angela and I as regular attendees of the school committee meetings. We've been coming for several years. Also have children in the school district. I have two high schoolers and a elementary schooler. I'm also the co-chair of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council, representing approximately 800 families in the district. And one of the things we wanted to talk about was, it was really interesting to watch tonight's events because so much of what I feel like we all watch tonight is family and community engagement. And it's an important part of what we really need to have as Medford moves forward. I hope that Dr. Edouard-Vincent watches these archival meetings to understand what it is we are looking for and what we need. And everyone knows that we had a very unfortunate event and we had an unfortunate meeting that occurred in February where there was a lot of heated emotions and where there was a lot of upset. And people talked about that for a long time in the community afterwards. And they talked about how terrible that meeting was in so many different ways. And what wasn't talked about, unfortunately, in my opinion, was what brought that about. Not so much the incident itself, but the lack of family and community engagement in our community. Even this context where you have to be willing to stand up at a podium and speak into a microphone with your back turned to the rest of the community to be able to converse and express what your feelings are. I mean, I went on to the website earlier today to just sort of look at what the protocol is. And I understand protocol and the need for protocol. You have to get the business part of it going and the meeting moving along. You know, but the website is you have to submit in writing your request. You have to do it a week ahead of time. You have exactly three minutes. You can come up to the podium and you can talk to us. That's not family and community engagement. I had the benefit last year of going to graduate school, and I really enjoyed my time there. I had a great teacher who helped write for the Department of Education at the federal level the family and community engagement guidelines and some material there. And one of the things, you know, they talk about is family and community. We're all part of the community. So the teachers that came up tonight are the community. The school committee members are the community. Our shop owners are the community. The parents are the community. We're not just families or teachers or, or people that don't have children, we're all a community together. I had this really great experience last week where I set up an appointment to talk with our new EL director, Paul Texera, and we had the best conversation. We sat in his office for just about an hour and I learned a little bit about him, he learned a little bit about me, and we both walked away from that experience wanting to work together and really wanting to collaborate with each other. And I thought, you know, what would have happened if we hadn't built those relationships with each other, if we didn't know each other? And that's what family and community engagement is. It's about building relationships and about knowing each other. Folks might recall when this all happened a few months ago, there was a post on social media where one of Mr. Belson's family members talked about who Mr. Belson is as a man. And we heard from his friend earlier talking about who Mr. Belson is as a man. And personalizing Mr. Belson and personalizing each one of us is what builds community and relationship. And I think people are able to relate much better to who he was as a man because we learned about who you are as a man. Tonight, seeing you apologize, we learned about who you are as a man. And that's the important piece of family and community engagement. It's collaboration and communication. We're not doing it enough. And we can't say enough about that. And that's why I stand before you tonight for more family and community collaboration. Bring people to the table. I was watching Justin tonight. I'm so glad Justin's here. That's a relatively new thing. That's a great thing. More roundtable discussion, not having to come up to the podium and ask and talk. Or you guys were inundated with emails. I'm glad you were inundated with emails. I say to anybody watching tonight, keep them coming. Keep communicating, please, because we need you to communicate to make a difference and to make things transparent. So getting to the transparent piece, even in the past few months with everything that's been going on, there's still been sort of concerns around some of the transparency. And what you saw the night in February and what I witnessed, which was frankly traumatizing for me. I don't know about other people, but I was sort of shell-shocked when I left there at the anger and the vitriol that was there that night. But I was also really very clear what the message was. And it was, we don't feel like we're being heard. And in any relationship, as people can attest in their marriage or their relationship with their children or what have you, when you feel like you're not being heard, what typically happens? You yell. You're angry. You get out of control. But when you're being heard, you're collaborating. You're working together. So that's what we need to do. So in the most recent Committee of the Whole meeting, when we found out by social media that the decision to extend the superintendent's contract went from April to June, that was not family and community engagement. That was a really bad example of the lack of family and community engagement. And again, none of this is personal for me around Mr. Bellison. Everybody knows we've had our differences, Mr. Bellison, but we've always been very professional and respectful with each other. It's never been personal, and it never will be. But in terms of having community transparency, to find out on social media that this decision was reversed was so unfortunate. It was like, oh, it felt like we were moving forward, and we were gaining some momentum and some trust, and then this happened. And you could see it in the response on social media, the way so many community members felt about that. But if they had just been consulted with ahead of time, if people had just had an idea, even the notice was that there's a committee of the whole meeting and that there was going to be some discussion, which frankly was at the same time as the National Honor Society meeting, which is what I was attending, that there was going to be some discussion that this might even be the case, you would have had a much larger turnout, I have no doubt. And people would have felt like they were invested in that decision and had some momentum and part of that decision. I guess what I want to ask as we're talking about transparency and moving forward and, you know, hoping that you folks will hear us, and I know that we've done presentations in the past as a CPAC talking about family and community engagement and the need for it. And I think that this is really a fascinating study, frankly, in family and community engagement this past year that we've had here. But I guess the questions I have is, I have a few questions. Also, I want to mention that we also had a public records request in a few months ago that has not been responded to. And when we try to submit the public records request through the website, we get a mail or DM back that says the public records request is not accessible. And again, I just kind of feel like it's a metaphor for the scenario. And so I'd love for folks to look into that as well. Because if a community member has a public records request, It shouldn't be a male or demon back. And once we've notified the community at the school that it is a male or demon, hopefully it's fixed and people respond to that constituent. So questions we have, how is the community made aware that the vote would be to continue the superintendent contract from? April 30th to June 30th, effectively reversing the February decision. I'm wondering how the community was made aware that that was going to be the vote. That's the first question. The second is, did any school committee members let their community or constituents know this would be a consideration. If so, how was that done? And if not, I'm wondering why. And then also we're wondering about the survey results for the superintendent and how or whether they were shared from the community survey that was done, asking folks what they would like. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And thank you. And Madam Mayor, respectfully, I agree. I think that I didn't go to the meeting myself because I thought that it was a sort of procedural interim, you know, what we were going to do, which I thought was pretty clear that it would likely be deputies. Obviously, I was uninformed, but it didn't say specifically about Mr. Belson. Had it, I would have been at the meeting.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I think that that's the point. I'm sorry.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right. I understand. I totally understand that. But I guess what I'm saying in the interest of family and community engagement, we didn't hear that. And we didn't hear what we needed to hear to be at the meeting. And so from a family perspective, it wasn't communicated effectively.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think that you look, there can be something as simple as handheld microphones and people could stand at either end and address all of you. It's simple if you think outside of the box a little bit about, well, what feels welcoming and this is not welcoming. It's intimidating. And so what do we do to make somebody feel less intimidated? And I couldn't agree more. I think Dr. Edouard Vincent is going to be all over that. And I'm really happy and very pleased. And thank you all very much for your hard work on that. I know how hard you worked on that. And thank you for the privilege of being on the superintendent search committee. It was a great privilege. Yeah.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Very eloquent, Justin, thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: And I want to add, I do just feel like I need to add in this situation, I was at the school committee meeting two years ago when Angela came up to the podium and asked very respectfully what the plan was, and it was embarrassing, and I think there was only probably one or two other people in the audience, but there were lots of people watching at home, and it was embarrassing and humiliating, and I felt terribly for Angela in that experience. I remember writing an email to the school committee after that meeting. I actually befriended Angela as a result of that meeting. It was entirely unfortunate, and it was two years ago. Ms.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you, and thank you for everyone out there tonight that's still here, and for folks that are watching at home, we really want to encourage you to remember to come to the school committee meetings. Let your voice be heard. Your voice matters, and your vote matters. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hello, thank you, Melanie McLaughlin, Austin Street in Medford, and co-chair Tanya Sullivan for Medford CPAC. Thanks for hearing us out tonight. First, we wanted to just sort of share what the Medford CPAC directive is, so folks who are watching tonight know. The CPAC's purpose is to fill the directive stated in Chapter 71B. of the Massachusetts General Laws, which requires school districts to establish a Parent Advisory Council and assign both an advisory and participatory function to the PAC. In meeting this requirement, the mission of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council is to advise the district on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities by seeking input from the special education parent members, meet regularly with school officials, participate in the planning, development, and evaluation of the school district's special education programs, participate in planning workshops and activities as prioritized by the CPAC board. So that's our directive. We want to first start tonight with saying thank you for all of the responses from committee members this past week. who emailed us or called us, and any responses to questions that we had. We also noticed that you're honoring or thanking Mr. Petrales tonight for the camp. And personally, my daughter attended the camp last week, and it was really great. He did a great job, so we're happy. To see that that's happening and that it's inclusive as well We met with the Disability Council this week as well to discuss some concerns and also The Recreation Department representative was there and he talked quite a bit about inclusivity in the Recreation Department as well So we're very happy about that want to say thank you about that too. We wanted to share that last week that Tanya and I worked on an advisory report and PowerPoint available on our Facebook page and also shared with the school committee members and the mayor having to do with safety protocols in schools, CPAC advisory and CPAC PowerPoint. We also shared that with the Department of Education, elementary and secondary education, our Joint Committee on Education at the state level and our representatives and senators. And we spoke with DESE last week. We're happy to report that next week during the Special Education Advisory Council to the commissioner. We will be working on drafting a letter for recommendations for all schools on safety protocols in our schools, particularly to our population. which we're very pleased with. And we also met with our representative this week and are going to be exploring additional issues around that. So we wanted folks to know. We have an upcoming meeting a week from this Wednesday, so March 14th, 7 and 9 p.m. on emergency preparedness in schools. And we want to make sure that folks know that this is for everyone in the district. It's an inclusive event. It is not specific to any incident. It is instead about emergency preparedness in our schools. We were able to secure so far a DESI emergency preparedness expert, Ann Gilligan, who's going to come and speak with us as part of a panel, the Medford Police Department, Medford Fire Department, and a first responder who deals specifically with ALEC training, which is regarding autism and law enforcement training. And that first responder has also been doing trainings for mental health and first aid. So for folks who have mental health needs and first aid concerns, so they'll be a part of the panel. We're respectfully requesting that the school has someone on the panel as well, and hopefully maybe someone from the Disability Council or someone from the city on the panel as well, just to create a positive conversation around some of these needs in our district and across the state. Also wanted to let folks know that we have elections coming up in May, and in June we typically do our end of the year PowerPoint presentation, where we present to the school committee. And also, we give out awards for folks in the community who have demonstrated inclusivity and equity. So we're looking forward to that. We have two concerns that we wanted to represent to the school committee. One is that we requested a subcommittee last year as part of our presentation, our end of year PowerPoint presentation. And it was advised that we join a subcommittee that already existed, a curriculum subcommittee. Unfortunately, that subcommittee, as far as we know, did not meet, or at least we weren't invited to part of a meeting for a subcommittee. We respectfully request, once again, that we have a subcommittee regarding special education and high-need students. So our high-need students population, for those who are unsure, are students who are receiving special education supports and services, students who are economically disadvantaged, and our English learner students. And as you can imagine, there's intersectionality with all of those. We'd love a subcommittee regarding that. And then it has been brought to our attention over the past, I don't know, probably a year or more, that there's been some concerns of disciplinary action at the McGlynn Preschool level in terms of inclusivity and activity at the McGlynn Preschool. We want to ensure that the McGlynn Preschool staff has the appropriate supports in place to be able to attend to students of all needs. They receive an inclusive preschool learning environment grant. which requires a minimum of three and not more than five students with disabilities in the classroom. And some students, we're getting reports of some students spending an extensive amount of time at the principal's office in terms of behavior and discipline. And we wanted to bring that to folks' attention, because that's a concern. We want to make sure that the McGlynn Preschool has what they need to be inclusive, especially in light of the fact that they're receiving a state grant for inclusivity. And that's it. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. I don't think we need to see the e-mails, but I do appreciate your response, and it's just that it's been almost a year, so we're very concerned. We requested it last January.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, we had respectfully requested that it be a separate committee, but we were told that there was so many committees that we had to go under another committee, and that was part of our concern is that we actually do feel that it should be a distinct committee.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Correct.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you very much.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Hello, Madam Mayor. Hello, Superintendent Belson, school committee members. Thank you for having me here tonight. I am coming on behalf of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, but also on behalf of high-need students in Medford. For those of you who may be watching who don't know who I am, my name is Melanie Perkins McLaughlin. I am the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, but also sort of on a personal note, I want to share that I also happen to grow up in an economically disadvantaged home. I went to Lawrence Public Schools. I have some background in that area as well, as well as having a daughter with a disability. So when we talk about high-need students, as most of you here know, but perhaps others don't, high-need students would be economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and English language students. So at the end of last year for the school committee, I brought a report to the members here in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. And I just wanted to take a moment for the recommendations on that PowerPoint. At the end of the PowerPoint, we had some recommendations that we made to the school committee, and there was a suggestion after the recommendation that perhaps there would be a subcommittee of the whole that could be created to talk more about some of the recommendations. Unfortunately, four or five months have gone by, that hasn't happened. So we're here to revisit that, number one, that's sort of one of our priorities here, but also Having had some time to review the presentation that we did and also having had some time to see and hear from families with additional concerns around high-need students, we made some addendum to the recommendations specifically to the high-need student population as well and also related to the district goals. So I just want to take one moment to sort of look at that. I also wanted to say, regarding the last school committee meeting, I came into that meeting after a parent had got up and spoken. I was out of context. I did not know what the context of the parent's presentation was. I found out subsequently. But what I did see when I came in, and it was very confusing for an outsider, what I saw when I came in was a lot of discussion around students with disabilities without any sort of context of what that discussion was. And it was alarming to me. como padre de una estudiante con disabilidad, pero tambien como co-presidente de la asociación especial de educación de padres. Fui contactado por varias familias que también se sentÃan muy alarmadas por la retórica que sentÃan aquà esa noche sobre los estudiantes con disabilidades y algunas de las conversaciones que se tuvieron. Una cosa que quiero recordarles aquà es que cuando hablamos de todos los estudiantes, espero que estamos hablando de estudiantes con disabilidades. Estudiantes con disabilidades, estudiantes de Yale, ekonomically disadvantaged students are all students, I would think. So I just wanted to mention that. Regarding the recommendations that we had, I won't bore you with some of the report that we did last year. You all have copies of the report, that PowerPoint. It was titled the State of Special Education in Medford. It is available on the district website for folks who would like to see it. I believe it's under the CPAC heading. It has been modified. I will send the superintendent's office and Allison Goldsberry, the modification, so that they can share that. And I just talked about the high-need students. I had a clip of the high-need students and some information on that with a graphic of the high-need students. And then, Superintendent Bellson, I actually was hoping for your advice here, because I'm trying to understand some of these numbers, and I'm hoping you might be able to help me out. For the high-need students, I know that it's defined as economically disadvantaged Students with disabilities and English language learners. So when I go to the DESE website and I look at the data on our website regarding our school district profile and it says economically disadvantaged is 25.3%. Students with disabilities 18% and English language learners 7.5%. So I'm wondering if I'm adding that up correctly, would that mean that our total high needs population in the city of Medford is 50%? No. Okay.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay. What would you say would be a fair percentage?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Okay, that's great. Thank you. And also I would say that it's fair to say that there's a, you know, we see a lot on the states from reports from DESE and the state of special education in the state of Massachusetts anyway, that there's a lot of disproportionality certainly around minorities and English language learners being identified as special education or more highly identified or not. And also according to Tom Hare's report that I shared with the school committee a week or two ago, a couple of weeks ago, and also regarding their achievement, the achievement gap. Is that right?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: the economically disadvantaged, the students with disabilities, and the English language learners. Our summary for our report last year talked about the substantial achievement gap between typical students and high need students in Medford. For those who are watching or in the audience who don't know what achievement gap is, I would venture, I'm not an educator yet, but I would venture to say that the achievement gap is for success rates for students on MCAS Typical students and the gap would be for minority students or economically disadvantaged students or English language learners might look somewhere around this if you're talking people who are proficient on MCAS and people who are not. Is that accurate?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and I think Universal Design for Learning hopefully will help with that, but I think there's a lot more that we agree on than we realize sometimes, and I'm glad to hear that's the case. I also wanted to say that I was very happy to see tonight the self-advocates, the students who are self-advocates here, and being recognized for their achievements. That was wonderful to see, and it is very important for us to focus on positive things that are happening in our district as well. For the students that were able to speak for themselves tonight, I couldn't have felt prouder, but I also want us to remember for the students who cannot speak for themselves. We have a significant population in this community that is not able to speak on their behalf, whether they are students with disabilities, whether they are economically disadvantaged families, or whether they're English language learners. And because of my passion and because of my background, I am fortunate enough to be able to speak on their behalf, and that's what I want to do, and that's what I'll continue to do. So I also just want to ask the full inclusion rates for, I wanted to add sort of our summary on a report, the full inclusion rates were a little bit less than state average, at least on last year's data. Dropout rates were a little bit higher, and the substantially separate setting was a little bit higher than state average. Now getting to the district priority goals and SMART goals. So I know that the district just published their priority goals and SMART goals, is that right? And I was really excited to see that District Priority Goal 2, District Priority Goal 7, and District Priority Goal 6 are all aligned with the recommendations that we have for the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Specifically, District Priority Goal 2 was to expand efforts to meet the academic, emotional, social, and physical needs of Medford's diverse student population. And there were some recommendations from the, I assume from the committee on how that would be done, including hours of training on implementation of social-emotional curriculum, Three outreach events that allow for community staff and family partnerships. Alternative educational supports for students using positive behavioral intervention supports and credit recovery. And this is also published on the district website, the district goals and SMART goals for educators. District priority goal six, which is differentiated instruction. We are very happy to see to promote differentiated instruction within a tiered model so that the needs of all students are met. The suggestion was two professional development workshops, teacher training for U or NI teachers, and then revised units of instruction using understanding by design, also in align with our goals, which was really great. And district goals, priority seven, family engagement. The family engagement piece, to continue to promote communication between home and school in order to strengthen the link between parents and educators, community members, and other stakeholders. And the two items on there were educators would be trained in the school brains, initiative with a parent portal, and this is a software program that allows parents and educators to be able to access data on their students. That should be rolling out soon, I hear. And then item number two is collaboration between school and community will increase by 10% district wide during the school year over the previous year as evidenced by sign in sheets and other attendance taking methods. And while we're happy to see that family engagement is part of the district goals for this coming year. Ten percent feels really short, and we're concerned about that. And we're also concerned about how the measure of that family engagement is really happening, and especially how it's really happening for families that aren't speaking English. So, again, we would love the CPAC to be brought to the table at some of these events to be able to offer our input and our advice, and also other community stakeholders, stakeholders from the EL community, stakeholders from the economically disadvantaged community. I just want to mention that teachers in a 2014 TELMAS educator survey, the teachers were given a survey and they were asked the question, in which of the following areas, if any, do you need professional development to teach your students more effectively? 60% of teachers in the TELMAS educator survey said closing the achievement gap. 56% said teaching students with disabilities. 52% said differentiating instruction. 51% said co-teaching, collaborative teaching, and 45% said promoting cultural competency. And again, promoting cultural competency we believe goes hand in hand with family engagement. I'm not going to read the rest of the report because I've given, I've left a copy of it here with you folks. I did, we did add a couple of items in our CPAC recommendations for improved family and community engagement. We had about 10 recommendations. We also added, family ambassadors per subgroup in EL, SES, and SWD, which is what we said, and then also potentially outside consultation, whether it be from places like the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Lesley University, or Tufts University. Finally, our two big asks for tonight, and this is something that we're actually hoping we can get an answer on tonight so that we're not waiting another five months or six months to get an answer. We have two asks tonight. The specific ask for tonight is we are asking the school committee, Madam Mayor and the superintendent to create and endorse a high needs subcommittee of the school committee where we can answer some of the questions that are part of this report and hopefully we can bring stakeholders to the table that can provide more information and move the needle in Medford forward for all of us. And then the other is, the other ask that we have is You know, we had a few parents here at the last school committee meeting and there was some discussion around cultural competency at one of our schools in particular, although I would venture to say that it's probably at a lot of our schools is an issue. And I think you know that we were talking about piloting the Understanding Our Differences Disability Awareness Program at the Brooks Elementary School this year. The Brooks teachers had decided for fifth grade teachers to pilot the autism unit for the fifth grade at our school. The Understanding Our Differences program can be found on understandingourdifferences.org. It's a program that is run through Newton Public Schools and through a lot of schools in our community. We would recommend that that Understanding Our Differences program be used in other community schools here in Medford so that we can have sensitivity around students with disabilities, students with high needs including medical needs, diabetes, asthma, allergies, etc. And I think that's it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Sure, any questions?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yep, that's the, do you want to share that, Superintendent? Go ahead. Oh, okay, it's the 2014 TELMAS survey, so it's a Department of Education Survey of Educators.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, we are intending to pilot it this year at the Brooks, yes. We had teachers trained at the end of last year. We had the understanding our differences trainer come out and work with our fifth grade teachers, and now it's implementing the program. And it's about a two hour Disability awareness program within our 5th grade classrooms and it has a sort of loosely, I wouldn't call it curriculum, but a sort of directive on how to apply this two hours of learning with your students. And we actually had, I was part of the training at the end of last year, and it was actually very interesting. We did some things you could even try at home, or folks could try at home, try to do a family game without using any words. Try to, you know, do a, I don't know, a scrabble, but you can't speak to each other, and see how you communicate, give yourself a chance to communicate. So there were some exercises and activities that really helped sensitize people to differences.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, I think that was evident from what we saw tonight, and it's the children that are our main interest, and that can be seen for sure.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. And I just wanted to add if there are any folks watching that are from the EL population or the economically disadvantaged population, we would welcome you to the committee of the whole meeting as well, of course. Thank you.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah. Hello. Thank you. Hello, school committee members, Mr. Superintendent. Thanks for having us here tonight. It was great to see the robotics club and the chimes. They were very relaxing. I am Melanie Perkins McLaughlin and I am the co-chair of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council. And we have a PowerPoint presentation we're going to share with you, but first we want to share, well actually no, we can start it. We are here as representatives of the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council and every year we give a community partnership award. And this year's community partnership award It's always for promoting the acceptance and inclusion of people of all abilities in the community and beyond. This year's award is going to Lawrence Memorial Hospital, who have been working in a partnership with Medford High School for the past 15 years and the Special Education Department. The hospital's volunteer program, coordinated by Tracy Murray, has provided ongoing opportunities for Medford High School students of all abilities to contribute to their community while developing and practicing skills beyond the school environment. As volunteers, students interact with supervisors and learn specific skills, such as following safety protocols, waiting on customers in the cafeteria, and organizing materials in the central supply room. These students also learn to manage their time, follow a schedule, and travel independently. In just this past school year, Medford High School students and the Postgraduate Transition Program have provided over 85 volunteer hours to the Lawrence Memorial community. We want to ask the Lawrence Memorial Hospital community and a few students that were kind enough to come here tonight with them to come up please and receive your award from the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. Please come on up. Would you guys like to hold the award and go up in the air and take a picture? We could do it in the middle with all the school committee members.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think so. I'm not really really looking for it.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: So I'm just going to do a short presentation, a PowerPoint presentation. Could John maybe adjust a little bit instead of me coming on the other side? Or Mia, do you want to do it? It just needs to be centered and the focus needs to be taken care of. Thank you. So I'm going to do a brief PowerPoint presentation, just sort of letting folks know what the Special Education Parent Advisory Council does and what we've accomplished in the past year. And I want to acknowledge some of our families that are here tonight and thank them for coming. So as you know, this is a cartoon I wanted to share with folks. Bill Henderson, former principal of the Henderson Public Schools and the Inclusion School, always shares this with his when he does his speeches. And I think it's just a great example of how we can all work together. For folks who might not be able to see it, it's a ramp, a handicap ramp and stairs, and they're all filled with snow. And there's a student in a wheelchair asking if the ramp can be cleared. And the person shoveling the steps is saying, just a minute. When I'm done, I'll get to that. And someone says, well, if you do the ramp, we can all get up. And it's just a really good example, I think, of how, if we work together, we can all achieve. So our CPAC mission, the CPAC's purpose is to fulfill the directive of Chapter 71B of the Massachusetts General Law, which requires school districts to have a PAC and assign both advisory and participatory function to the PAC. So our mission is to advise the districts on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities by seeking input from the special education parent members and self-advocates. We meet regularly with school officials, and we participate in the planning, development, and evaluation of the school's special education program. We also participate in planning workshops and activities. And I'm not sure if I introduced myself because of the award for the Lawrence Memorial Community Partnership Award, but I am the co-chair of the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. We have, for students with disabilities, the Medford Public Schools has 18% of students are students with disabilities. So that equals about one in five, and there are approximately 800 families in Medford that have students with disabilities. Our authority comes from the law that is required for school districts to have a PAC, and again, our mission is that we revise the school committee on matters that pertain to the education and safety of students with disabilities, and we meet regularly with school officials. Joan Boehm, Kathy Madaglio is the Director of Pupil Services, was going to present with me tonight, and unfortunately, she's ill. So Joan Bowen, the coordinator of secondary special education, is here. Thanks, Joan, for coming tonight. And is here to answer any questions as well, if we have any. Right, Joan? Yes. Right. So here are some of our accomplishments. What we normally do is we meet the second Wednesday of every month from 7 to 9. Paul DeLeva at the Andrews Middle School is kind enough to allow us to use his school every month. We meet there and we host workshops or sometimes we host socials and we learn from our community what kind of workshops they want, they require. We are required annually to have a basic rights workshop, basic rights in special education, and that is a collaboration with the Federation for Children with Special Needs and the Medford CPAC and the Medford Special Education Parent Advisory Council. This year we also did the special education mediation process. and that is from a mediator from the Bureau of Special Education Appeals, Merto Flesas is a Medford mediator. We did agreeing to disagree with attorney Dan Heffernan of Cote and Crabtree and Strong. We had a great night. We did meet the school committee. Folks here might remember that. That was really nice, and it was a nice dialogue between the school committee and families and guardians and students of children with special needs and students with disabilities, and we were able to share what some of our needs are. and we're able to get some great feedback. Let's Get Organized was recent, and that's a workshop that actually had really good feedback, too, and we had a lot of folks from the special education department come out and help families get organized with their IEPs and their paperwork and all the 504 material, all the paperwork that can be overwhelming sometimes. And we had one on homework anxiety, and that was actually presented by two Medford Public Schools staff members, Angela Lepore and Lauren Kwiatkowski. I hope I pronounced her name right. And that was actually really great. We had some hands-on material building between the special education department and the CPAC and parents and we were able to build some tools and talk about anxiety and it was a really helpful session as well. We're always welcome to ideas and for professional development as well. If there are teachers or school committee members or special educators or general educators out there that would like a particular workshop, please let us know and we'll see what we can do. We also have monthly meetings with the Director of Special Education. We advise parents and guardians on the special education process. We go to meetings with the Disability Council and the Human Rights Council. And we go to conferences around the state, Mass Down Syndrome Conference, Federation for Children with Special Needs. There's a great educators conference that happens every October for general educators and special educators in Worcester. We attend a parent leadership series. and school committee meetings. We offer resources to families, and we also can help with conflict resolution. We do some public relations and media outreach, and we do public speaking if necessary. We interact with Program Quality Assurance and the Office of Civil Rights. Those are the places folks go to if they have an issue that hasn't been able to be resolved within the district. We meet with state legislators regarding issues concerning students with disabilities. That's Gracie on the State House there. Last year we had, a couple years ago, we had the governor sign some litigation, I mean some, sorry, not litigation, some legislation, thank you, on Down syndrome and providing updated diagnosis for individuals with Down syndrome. But we go to the State House pretty much every year, if it's not with the Parent Leadership Series, with the CPAC. Next year we're hoping to have an event at the State House that we hope you guys will join us at, where we talk a little bit about what different districts can need, and we hope to collaborate with folks across Massachusetts. We attend IEP meetings as needed, public hearing meetings as needed, and we facilitate and attend IEP or 504 meetings as needed. And we attend MassPAC meetings. MassPAC is the Massachusetts Parent Advisory Council through the Federation for Children with Special Needs. Our CPAC members have done things from present to the United Nations, to create employment programs for students with disabilities. We share our stories nationally and with legislators. We've presented to the associations for special educators, have met with legislators, as we said. And we just had a member tonight telling us that she's going to be trained on Wednesday to be a surrogate special education parent, which is really exciting, and that is You can be a surrogate through the Federation for Children with Special Needs for families of children who don't have representatives for their IEP. So for foster children or homeless children or folks who can't have supports there. So we have a member that's starting to do that too. We're excited about that. CPAC members are immigrants, accountants, pediatricians, attorneys, stay-at-home parents, teachers, a little bit of everybody. We have children with varying diagnosis, no diagnosis, mild diagnosis, moderate, and significant disabilities. So we wanted to talk to the school committee tonight. In addition to sort of what we've done for the past year, we also want to talk about one of the things we've realized in the past is that we've talked a lot about what we do, but we haven't talked a lot about how we can collaborate with each other and what we can do moving forward. And so that's really a big purpose of this presentation. We want to talk about what's the state of special education in Medford right now and how do we work together. So in the special education data that's available on the Department of Education website, and you can see on the bottom there, and maybe we can have this share it on the website. But there's a link that you can go to to look for data on your school district through the Department of Education. And for special education, they have indicators. So indicators one through, I think it's eight that we'll look at here. And that is sort of an idea of accountability ratings, but also how we're doing in terms of what the ratings are for special education. So indicator one is the graduation rate. And Medford is below state average for graduation rate, according to special education. So the state average is 83.4%. Medford is 83.4% and the state is 87.3%. Indicator two, dropout rate. We have a higher dropout rate than the state average by about 1%. Indicator three, participation and performance of students with IEPs on statewide assessments, MCAS. We did not meet the target. But on 3B and 3C, so on your PowerPoint, I want you folks to know that the bold is things that we need to work on, and the italics are things that we have met the target on. So that will help you decode when you're looking at it. The participation rate for students with IEPs on MCAS, we've matched the state rate on that. And the proficiency rate for students with IEPs on MCAS are also proficient. We've matched the state rate on that. Indicator four, suspension and expulsion for students with IEPs. We're currently below the state rate, which is great, and we have improved significantly over time, if you look at the rate from five years ago and see the decrease. Indicator five, educational environments for students age six to 21 with IEPs. So full inclusion, partial inclusion are substantially separate. For full inclusion, we're below the state average, and we're below by, like, around 10%. For partial inclusion, We are above for partial inclusion, and we're also above for substantially separate. And we're slightly above for separate schools, residential facilities, or homebound hospital placements. Indicator six, educational environments for students age three to five with IEPs, we're above the state average for full inclusion. So we're doing something really well in preschool. That's good to see, as well as all the other things we're doing well here. But it's nice to see that in the preschool level. For early childhood outcomes and parent involvement, also all above state average. Indicators nine through 14, we are all meeting the proficiency standard or above state average. So those are great. So disproportionality in special education, disproportionality in specific disability categories, initial evaluation timelines, early childhood transitions, secondary transitions, and post-school outcomes for students with IEPs. So that's the special education data based on indicators that again is available on the Department of Education's website. And as we know, Medford Public Schools needs, so when we ask what is the state of special education in Medford, Medford Public Schools needs technical assistance. So the school is, the district is considered a level three, although we have one school that's a level three and a few that are level one and a few that are level two. If one is labeled a level three, the Department of Education sees the district as level three. So that means we're seen as needing technical assistance from the State Department of Education. And in summary, our special education data and concerns. So there's a substantial achievement gap between typical students and high need students. We feel that that's a significant issue. I didn't show a slide here tonight, and I'm happy to share it with the school committee if you want to. where you can see typical students in a bar graph aside, students with disabilities. And it's substantial. And it's not just here. It is across the state. But it is a significant issue. It's the achievement gap that we have that we talk about often. Full inclusion rates are less than the state average. Dropout rates are higher than the state average. And substantially separate settings are higher than the state average. So these are our concerns. I want to back up a little bit to talk about, you know, the things that are great that have happened. And we want to make sure that we recognize things that have happened in the special education community that have been great, and there's a lot of indicators on there that have met proficiency, and I think that's because of a lot of hard work with Kathy Madaglio and Joan Bowen and our staff and the CPAC and the students. There are some things that we need to work on. So CPAC recommendations, we have some recommendations that we'd like to make to the school committee. One is the use of DSAC technical assistance accelerated improvement plan. So DSAC is the Department of Education's when a district needs improvement, there's a group called DSAC, that will come to the district and help with some technical assistance. And I think using that and utilizing that, especially as it pertains to students with disabilities, would be really helpful. We think using that and utilizing that would be really helpful. Some professional development, especially around students with disabilities and general educators and special educators working together to understand the needs of students with disabilities and the typical population. professional development around differentiated instruction and universal design for learning. For folks that are here, the school committee I'm sure knows, but maybe people in the audience or people watching tonight may not know that there's a new law that's been written that's replacing the No Child Left Behind Act called the Every Student Succeeds Act. And written into ESSA, the Every Student Succeeds Act, is a requirement for universal design for learning. So it's really important that our school district understands universal design for learning and how to implement that. And it's a great tool for students with disabilities, for all students, I would say. We recommend co-teaching and collaborative teaching. We had an example recently where we were at a school council meeting, and they were talking about a school improvement plan. And one of the things they were talking about was sort of how to differentiate math instruction. And one of the questions I had was, well, are you talking to your special educators? And the general educators and special educators working together seems like it makes a lot of sense. have been trained for a lot of differentiation, and I'm sure our general educators have as well, but the two of them collaborating together makes a much more powerful example, as we've seen from other schools across states. And cultural competency, understanding students with disabilities and students with different needs is really important for all of us. More recommendations, we ask that the school committee, the Medford School Committee and the Medford Public Schools create and or endorse an inclusion subcommittee. So an inclusion subcommittee might consist of inclusion facilitators, experts, consultants, school committee members, CPAC members, where we could evaluate educational environments, inclusive schools, after schools, the summer camp program that we have in Medford, and the community school program. There are inclusion subcommittees around the state. Boston Public Schools certainly created one a few years ago that was very helpful. I know you folks have subcommittees, is that what it's called here, too? Where we could have recommendations at the end, basically, as we talk to educators and parents across the district about what that could look like. We would ask that the Educator Guidebook for Inclusive Practice, which was sent out by the Department of Education, I think it was last year, be used with general educators and special educators. Kathy wanted us to mention for sure that the administrative team in Medford has reviewed the power elements for inclusive practice on the educator guidebook for inclusive practice. And we are seeking endorsement from the school committee in the district of this DESE advisory. It's available online as well for folks that want to look for it. So improve family and community engagement. Some suggestions we would have is, Superintendent Belson and I spoke about this a few months ago, and I think he agreed that it was a good idea as well, have coffee with the superintendent or school committee members. That could be a couple of times a year where we could have coffee with parents of students with disabilities and self-advocates and talk about what our concerns are. offer an opportunity for online feedback. I think that was mentioned in the meeting we had for the Q&A. Sometimes parents can't get out, and if they could give online feedback, that would be really helpful. Automated calls for meeting information. So our Special Education Parent Advisory Council has all of these great workshops, and we have these workshops for families and guardians of children with special needs, but we also have them for the educational community, for the school committee members, for anybody that wants to come. It's other interested parties as well. to come, but a lot of times they don't know about the meetings, even though they're on the district website and they're in the transcript typically or whatever, but we would recommend that a robocall once a month go out to the community, letting folks know what the workshops are. There are several workshops that pertain to students of all abilities. We already said meet with self-advocates, students with disability, consult with CPAC, publish CPAC meetings, especially workshops, and ask families to share their stories. One of the things that we're finding really important as we meet each other and we share our community with each other is being able to share our stories and our children's stories. You know, we have families here who have JoJo. What grade is JoJo? Sixth? Sixth grade. And Quinton? Seventh grade. And when we share our stories and are able to share information with folks about who we are and what our children are like and what they need and what they're great at and what they offer to the community, it brings us all closer. We all have a story. not just students with disabilities or families of students with disabilities. We all have a story, and it's important that we share our stories with each other. We're asking that CPAC recommendations that the district implement a district-wide disability awareness program. I'm very excited about understanding our differences. We're very excited about understanding our differences. A Newton-based public schools disability awareness organization that I believe has about 40 years experience with disability awareness, the Brooks PTO, and the Brooks Elementary School has offered to host a pilot program of Understanding Our Differences. So we just trained with the 5th grade teachers a week ago on an autism unit. So the great thing about Understanding Our Differences, it has 3rd, 4th and 5th grade small hour and a half curriculum programs around autism, intellectual disability, physical disability, blindness, deafness, allergies, all kinds of programs. It's a great program and we highly recommend it. And we're excited about that starting next year. And I hope you guys will come to that. We'll be sure to invite you. Review grant information related to students with disabilities. Endorse and offer professional development for general ed and special ed collaboration. Include students with disabilities and families and families in policy and decision making and have transparency of information. And then the redirection of funds. So when we talked earlier about grants and being able to share information on grants of students that are intended for students with disabilities, the Fund 240, which I'm sure the superintendent can talk much more about than I can, I'm not very familiar with the fund, but I know that on the Department of Education's website, especially regarding special education, There was an advance notice of intent to direct the use of fund code 240. So when a district does need technical assistance, they have up to 1% and 5% of the district's total entitlement grant is redirected by DESE into areas that DESE and perhaps the DSAC and of course the superintendent and school committee find necessary. So I would say perhaps some of the things that we mentioned earlier in terms of recommendations might be potentially funded by some of these things. Differences are what makes us beautiful. And I love this quote from the Medford Public Schools Director of Pupil Services, because I think oftentimes people forget this, but she certainly doesn't, which we think is a great thing. All students are general education students. Students with disability are general education students receiving special education support. And I think that is the end of our presentation, our PowerPoint presentation. I'd love to take questions and answers if folks are interested.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, the way that Understanding Our Differences program works, and we would invite you to observe one at Newton Public Schools, and certainly Kathy and I are going to go observe one before we have it in Medford next year. We don't identify the students with disabilities.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: of having children being aware. Yeah, generally talking. Parents and students are always able to opt out, of course, if they wanted to. But also we find that research has shown that when you do talk about things and you do share information, not necessarily about your diagnosis or your child's diagnosis, but you share information about compassion and differences in humanity, that people actually really come together. What Jenny Acosta at Understanding Our Differences was sharing with our fifth grade teachers last week when we were doing the training on autism, because some of these questions did come up, was that it is so powerful to watch the students really come together and that so many times it's actually the adults that have the issues around coming together. So, but I think you're right. I think it's important to include parents of students with disabilities and parents of students without disabilities. And there's a volunteer partnership that parents do as part of the Understanding Our Differences program.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Right, and like Kathy would say, if she were here I think, the partial inclusion rate can be anywhere from 79% to 21%. So that's a big span. Big window. Yeah, yeah. So looking at that I think is important.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, you know, the Massachusetts Families Organizing for Change Parent Leadership Series is such a good program, and it is available to families for free. families of students with disabilities, family members. So you could be a sister, you could be a brother, you could be a parent, you could be any of those things. And it's hosted overnight. So it's a Friday and a Saturday once a month for three months. And the hotel and the food and everything is paid for. And it culminates in a visit to your state house. And you meet all your legislators and you talk with them about what your concerns are. And we have some recent Mass Families Organizing for Change Parent Leadership Series graduates here. And they could tell you it's a fabulous program. And it's completely funded. It's completely free.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We try to push the information out as much as we can. The applications are in January. So when the applications come, we put it on our Facebook page. We try to let families know. We certainly let our CPAC members know. We'd be happy to share it with you folks for the constituents. It is a really good program because, again, it's free. And the only thing that they do ask is that you attend all four. Husband and wives can go together. It's really great. And it's a nice source of respite, too, for family members that they have child care stipends that they can give you if you need some child care money. It's a great program. Where is this? They host it at Burlington, but the organization is called MFOFC. So the acronym is for MassFamiliesOrganizingForChange.org. And they have regional ones. So ours is the coordinators out of Melrose. Actually, Lori Medeiros is one of the coordinators here in Medford as well. And they host the session out of Burlington at the Burlington Marriott? Woburn, Woburn. The one in Woburn. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Well, first of all, I would say, certainly through our school committee members, we would ask that if you have folks come to you, to please let them know about us, that they can reach out to us at any time. It's medfordcpac.yahoo.com. a Yahoo site, we have our Facebook page, but certainly they can call our phone number. But also the second Wednesday of every month we meet from 7 to 9 at the Andrews Middle School always. Next year we hope to have some coffee hours, maybe some morning appointments as well for families. We've had some feedback for families that night times are difficult for them, Erin, and it makes it difficult for families to be able to come out at night, so maybe after school drop off in the morning might be another option. We like to say, I like to say anyway, that, you know, parenting a child, a student with a disability is extreme parenting, sort of like extreme sports. So, you know, it's a little bit harder to get out sometimes.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: They do. Do you mind if I answer that, Superintendent Bellson, or would you like to?
[Melanie McLaughlin]: OK. In October, Kathy Medaglio sends out, the director of special education sends out a packet with guidelines, parental guidelines and parents' rights. And in that, they also send a calendar with CPAC events that we've chosen for the upcoming year. and information on how to contact us. And we also have some brochures we're working on. We also set up tables at community day, but certainly. And then also, whenever a person goes to an IEP meeting, whenever a family goes to an IEP meeting, they're supposed to get information about the Special Education Parent Advisory Council during their IEP meeting. So parents report to us that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but that would be the evaluation team leaders are supposed to share information about the CPAC so they know about us. But thank you for that reminder.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I think we find, Ms. Cunha, like you do, that people find us when they need us. So most of the time people come to the, CPAC meeting or reach out to me when they're having a problem. But the truth is, if you find us ahead of time, maybe you won't have a problem. So that's a great way to take a look.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: We would say for teachers and staff, professional development, especially around collaboration between general education and special education, we find that they operate very separately. And the more they collaborate, as you can see, I think with Dr. Perella and Dr. Riccio and what they're doing at the high school, the more folks collaborate, the better the outcomes are. And we find that, not just we find, but research shows that when students with disabilities are educated in the general education classroom with their typical peers, There's studies that show that the math scores go up, not just for the students with disabilities, for the typical students as well. There's all kinds of research around that practice. But it has to be done well. If it's not done well, then it can be just the opposite. So it's really important, I think, for professional development, for educators, for staff. I mean, there's still a lot of folks in our system that have been in a whole different system years and years ago when things were run very differently and people were segregated very much. So I think bringing people up to speed. I teach a course on disability awareness at Tufts Medical Center as part of Operation Housecall with the Ark of Mass. And we teach medical doctors. There's nothing in the hospitals for medical doctors to learn about disability. So it's not just schools. It's across all platforms. And until you have someone that you love with a disability, it honestly doesn't come to the forefront. It certainly didn't for me.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: That's true. And I think also if people would remember that disability is natural. You know, we're all disabled someday.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Thank you. Thank you, Jamil. So thank you, Jamil. Jamil also is the parent who's just volunteered to become a substitute parent for families of homeless children and children in foster care and was a recent graduate of the Parent Leadership Series, but also One thing that the CPAC did do this year with the special education department is the programs now are listed on the district website. So that's good news. So that was one of the advantageous parts of having Jameel on our CPAC, among other folks. So that is posted there. And it is important for folks to be able to have all the information so that they can make informed, healthy decisions. I think one of the great things about what I'm excited about the district and our future is that we are having these conversations. I think they're long overdue, and I think it's really important that we are, so that's very healthy.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you. We appreciate that. We're having our elections this Wednesday as well. So CPAC elections are this Wednesday from 7 to 9 at the Andrews Middle School. We have folks running this year for secretary and treasurer and co-chair, so we're very excited about that. So thank you. I appreciate that.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: No, I know, I know.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: Or maybe September might be more advantageous. I mean, folks are, we have a lot of wrapping up of the end of the year things to do as well. And I certainly plan on attending some of the committee of the whole meetings that you already have scheduled. And maybe we'll all be a little bit more informed, especially after the budget process, what have you, that It might be better to have a September Committee of the Whole, but I don't want to recommend that for you guys. I'm just saying, in response to that. Whatever.
[Melanie McLaughlin]: I didn't actually ask ahead of time. I just prompted me. I just came tonight. So thank you. I appreciate you suspending the rules for a moment. I just wanted to invite the school committee next month, especially in light of the elections. We wanted to invite the school committee to the Medford special education parent advisory council meeting next month on December 9th. It's from seven to nine at the Andrews Middle School. I'm sure you won't, we wouldn't expect you to stay the whole time, but we'd love to have coffee and pastries and just host the school committee members and particularly the new school committee members as well. And just a way to say hello and keep the conversation going. That's pretty much it. And also this Wednesday, we have basic rights in special education at the Andrews Middle School from seven to nine. So it's a great opportunity for folks, especially general educators, frankly, to learn a lot about special education and basic rights.