School Committee: June 18, 2020

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0:05 Hello and welcome to my MHTV’s Headliner. I’m John Caswell. The Marblehead School Committee held their regularly scheduled meeting on June 18th. MHTV’s James Moroni was there and put together these highlights. So we’ve been talking about the planning process for reopening schools in the fall. It’s been a little frustrating because we’re waiting for the fall reopening plan from DESI to come out. We’re expecting it. We’re expecting it middle of the week. We’re now expecting it hopefully sometime tomorrow, perhaps sometime afternoon. And so a couple of weeks ago, the commissioner indicated to the superintendent about three or four weeks ago that the plan that DESI was putting together would be prescriptive in nature, meaning that the expectation would be that this is the plan that school districts would follow. But in terms of the overall planning process, there should be a school reopening committee that really is the oversight committee of this process. The superintendent of schools would lead, you know, would be the chair of this group or a co-chair. John, you know, ultimately can make that decision. But, you know, it suggested the committee would be responsible for detailing the Marblehead Public School protocols, procedures, academic, social, emotional, mental health and operational needs that are in line with DESI’s school reopening plan.

1:47 This would be a fairly large and broad represented group of the school community. So I’ve listed for this, for the purpose of this presentation, in addition to the superintendent, what the membership of this school reopening committee would look like. It would include the central office administrators, principals, a nurse leader, the Marblehead Education Association president, the school committee chair or her designee. We would look to have some parent representation. Of course, professional staff representation that is consistent with all of our different learning and content areas, by grade level. What this committee would be considering and kind of topics. It would focus on, you know, they would determine once the DESI plan is out and there’s been a chance to review it, determine necessary subcommittees working groups that will really get into the nitty gritty of planning of the Marblehead plan. I want to wait until after the DESI actually releases their plan, so we know what is being presented.

3:22 I plan to send a letter to families updating them on informing them of the broad, you know, the broad guidelines that DESI has put out and provide them with information about the planning process in developing and finalizing our own reopening plan. And then invite parents who may have an interest or may be skilled in one of the broad areas that we just talked about and invite them to join our planning process. In reverse order, last evening, the rock crushing equipment was moved off site and that was a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. And for those of you who have a chance to drive by the site, I’m calling it Mount Bell. There’s an enormous pile of crushed rock that will be used on site. And so that work is done and they did a really good job being considerate of the neighbors. And then there is additional rock that won’t be crushed that’s just being moved off of the site. Additionally, we learned on Wednesday that the post blast inspections, which is not required, but we thought it would be prudent to do, started last week, last weekend, and post blast inspections were done on Saturday and Sunday at houses.

5:02 And those are continuing to close the loop and be done with that. And we’re real excited about that work being completed. And there’s just a lot of site prep and site work that’s continuing right now. And it’s a busy site. Ground improvements are some of the major work that’s going on down in the lower Bell area, which will be the anchor for most of the classrooms. There’s some equipment that came in there. So those ground improvements are taking place. So they will be able to start with the concrete work and the superstructure work in the coming weeks. And then last Thursday, we did meet with the planning board and by a vote of four to one, they approved the change related to the color of brick. So all the paperwork and everything related to the color of the brick has been submitted and is moving forward. Regarding the, you know, the lunch program that we’ve been providing. So that is continuing through the end of June. Richard Kelleher, as you know, is he’s great. You know, he’s done a fabulous job on with his staff, maintaining that service for our families who really need it. There’s been some questions about the summer. And so Michelle and Richard did some work on that.

6:37 We estimate if we continue the service through the summer at about the same, approximately the same number of of meal packages of students that we’ve been servicing for the last month or so, about 65, we estimate the cost to be about twenty seven hundred dollars. So so we have one of our parents who has been in touch with us, Samantha Rosado. I see Samantha’s on. She is graciously offered to do to be a lead in doing some fundraising for for covering the cost of that. And we very much appreciate that. So we just need to have one more one last conversation with Richard to double check that he’ll have staff who are willing to, you know, to do that through the summer. Did he say yes, Michelle? Yes, we have staff lined up if we want to move forward. Terrific. So so we’d like to do that. It’s been a tremendous service to our families who have needed it. And, you know, we can we can I’m sure that over the course of the summer, we can we can I’m very hopeful will raise the funds. I appreciate the very cordial and professional and very friendly relationship that I’ve had with the Teachers Association.

8:09 Joe Miller is an outstanding leader of that group. And, you know, it’s very knowledgeable and even had a terrific homeless working with Joan. And then the central office support staff, Lisa and Mary and Kathy and Diane, Peg, Selena, Pam, Katie, the tech team. Everybody’s just been great. So I just want to, again, express my gratitude for the opportunity and coming into the position. My hope, my goal was that by the end of my tenure, I could leave the district in just a little better shape, at least than when it was when I arrived. I hope I’m able to accomplish that. And, you know, stop and say, say hello over the next few days. Well, the next however many days I’ll be here through the 30th. And I’ve enjoyed the ride. It’s been a it’s been a very, very different ride for all of us, but it’s been terrific. I really appreciate it. So thank you all very much.