School Committee: November 5, 2020

Transcript machine-generated with Whisper speech recognition (the source video has no caption track). No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:00 We are going to open our meeting at 7.02 p.m. We have all members in attendance, Sarah Gold, Megan Taylor, Sarah Fox, David Harris, and Emily Barron. We also are live streaming this on the YouTube channel as well as to the MHDSchoolCommittee.org site. And all of the documents from our Dropbox are posted there as well if anybody wants to follow along using now. So I think for the moment all of our tech is working for us. Well done. All right. I will open things up with commendations. And tonight we have up for our principal commendations, Mandy Murphy from the Village School. Mandy, go ahead. I just want to question real quick. I want to confirm it’s Lisa taking minutes tonight. Yes, Lisa is taking minutes. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Mandy, you’re up. Hi, everyone. Thanks for having us. This is a great opportunity for us to be able to speak about the great things happening at Village. And first and foremost, I wanted to actually start by highlighting our students. Our students have been super resilient and they continue to show up every single day in person and online. And at times they’ve been role models for us with their resiliency and their excitement for school.

1:33 I even had a fourth grade student doing the announcements one day. And she stated that she had been waiting to come to Village School since she was six years old. Quite a patient young lady she is. And she’s a remote student. So it gives me hope that we’re really keeping our community together and moving forward. So shout out to her as well. We have an amazing group of parents this year who have worked on cleaning up our Village Organic Garden this summer. Our garden looked overwhelming and looked like a jungle. And now it’s beautiful. They’ve weeded it. They’ve worked with PTO. We finally had plumbing done and weeds pulled out. And it looks amazing. The space has been able to be used while we’re in this time of social distancing. Students have been doing, they’ve gone outside and doing observations and social distancing from each other. So that’s all thanks to those parents that have done a tremendous amount of work with students as well cleaning up that area. We have parents that have come on board and have stuck with us and helped us at lunch. We don’t have lunch this year. So during this time they actually helped to cover classes and they’re covering IEP meetings and subbing for teachers when we have teachers out. So that’s been really helpful. They do it all with a smile on their face and every day they never know what they’re facing and they come in and they’re ready to go. So a huge shout out to them. Thinking outside the box, our Allied Arts teachers have created a block in the schedule called Cross-Curricular.

3:08 And this, you know, sometimes is a little bit of a scheduling snafu, but they were hesitant at first. And I can’t tell you the amount of hard work that they put into planning and making this a fun and engaging experience for our students involving all of the Allied Arts teachers. So that’s been fantastic. Our tutors are doing amazing work in grades three, four, five, and six to support remote learning and balancing all of the teachers they’re working with and providing remote support and check-ins for students. I’ve had the opportunity a couple of times to crash advisories, which is our new program this year. Last week I was in Mr. Murphy’s advisory and the students were giving presentations about their second favorite thing. They were doing slideshow presentations. And to have the principal crash that and give that presentation still is pretty amazing. We’ve started, Dr. Bucky had the experience the other day while he was here visiting in the morning. We had program teachers that are outside greeting their students every day and they’re playing music to change the mood in the morning and make even more smiling eyes. So a shout out to those teachers that are really trying to make the most positive experience for our students. Teachers are really just excited to see students every day. I was in a fifth grade class observing and the students were peer editing. And the way that they were able to provide feedback to each other and hear that feedback, they were so respectful and thoughtful. I told a few of them how amazing this was and it’s a hard task for many adults to do.

4:40 So the fact that they’re here, comfortable sitting at their desks six feet away and figuring this out is pretty amazing. And I’ll end with how thankful I am and proud of all of our teachers, our guidance counselors, our nurses, secretaries, and all of the students again. We’re lucky to have a strong village parent community as well. And as everyone keeps hearing me saying in my village updates each week, we cannot do this in isolation. And that open communication is so critical to all of the hard work. So it truly takes a village and we all are working together to make the most positive experience for students. So thank you to everyone who is a member of Village. You’re all doing a terrific job and we’re lucky to have you. Thank you very much, Mandy, because they’re all great updates. So glad to hear all of that. All right. I will move us into the school committee commendation. I can start us off because I have one or two of them. I just wanted to first commend the Bell Coffin Eveless and Glover PTOs for all of the hard work that they did with the go through last Friday night. It was a blast to go through. And I think there were many, many, many powerful families that caused traffic coming and going out of town. So I think a lot of people took advantage of that. So I’d like to thank the all the first responders and the school personnel, Dr. Bucky included, who stood outside. I sent Dr. Bucky a text the next morning thanking him and said, you know, I never really thought that I would send a text to the superintendent saying,

6:15 thanks for dressing up on your Friday night like a mad scientist and running around in the back of the high school. No, that was a really great job. But it was just so true. So it’s, you know, my, my kids had blast. Everyone that I heard from just really appreciated it. And it’s just another example of how the entire town and community is coming together to really make the best of a difficult situation. So I really appreciate that. And then I got one more and I won’t completely spoil it for Dan Howell. But I was told that the Marblehead High School acapella, acapella group has a new album that was just out called Six Feet Apart, and that it is on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and YouTube Music. So I will be quiet on that at this point, because I’ll let Dan Howell follow up on that and he’s got this update. Does anybody else have any recommendations? I would like to hear that. Yeah, it’s exceptional. It’s really cool. That’s an example. Sarah, did you have one? Yeah, I just wanted to kind of build on Mandy’s a little bit that we all know that the motto of village is the Kiau, the keep each other well. And I’ve seen firsthand as a parent had that opportunity to see how they knock that every single day. And it’s always impressive, but in the last few months, it really is quite something to see that no matter what, everyone shows up with a smile on their face and they really are working towards that motto.

7:54 Yeah, absolutely. Anybody else? All right. So that will move us into our student representative update. So Dan Howell, go ahead and unmute yourself. Yes, I have a few things to talk about tonight. So tomorrow will mark the last day of our two weeks of full remote, and we’ll be going back to our hybrid schedule at the high school. And so there’s a lot of excitement for both students and teachers to return. So we’re excited to be back. As you just mentioned, the Marblehead acapella groups, the Jeweltones and Luminescence released their second album, Six Feet Apart, A Timely Name. And it has eight songs, four from each group. And as you mentioned, available on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube. So yeah, it’d be cool if people listen to it. On Wednesday, there was a peer mentor check-in for the freshmen. So the freshmen got a chance to ask questions, building off of what they have experienced thus far. And we also talked about some end of the quarter stuff and how to make sure your grades are looking good going into the end of the quarter, how to advocate for yourself, keep organized, and things like that.

9:34 MHS has begun its own unified esports or video game league. There is a tournament for Rocket League, which is a popular video game, on the 12th and 19th. And today, the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, the assistant superintendent, and Mr. Bauer held a listening session for Marblehead High School juniors and seniors. They also have recently sent out online surveys to hear student feedback. I think this has been really important and a really good thing in this time when, you know, everyone is trying to figure out what the best choice is. Hearing from students has been really appreciated. Yeah, so the quarter ends on, I believe, the 13th, and we will move forward from there. Great. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Always good to hear those updates. Okay, so that moves us on to public comment. If anyone would like to make public comment, please use the raise hand function, and I’ll call on you. And I’ll give a reminder that if anyone is going to make public comment, that they please state their name and address for the record.

11:07 All right, I don’t have anybody raising their hand this evening. So, well, I think someone’s raising their hand on their screen. Elmer, go ahead and unmute yourself. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it. My name is Elmer Magana, and I teach Spanish at the high school, and I coach the boys, the varsity soccer team. And pretty much I wanted to comment about the exploration of like the live streaming, the, you know, we’ve been hearing about. And pretty much my wife, she’s a high school teacher too, in Manchester, Essex. And I know we are Manchester, Essex, and Marblehead. Sometimes, you know, people compare them. And as many of you know, they went fully remote till January. And so that pretty much enabled them to give like laptops to the faculty and students. And they also, you know, they also explore the idea of the live streaming. So what they did, they pretty much, they set up one classroom with all the necessary technology. And they tested out, they had teachers being like the students physically, and they had other teachers in Zoom.

12:41 And pretty much like from what I hear from my wife is that, you know, first of all, like, the teacher needs to have like a very powerful mic in order for the students in Zoom to be able to listen to them. But the problem with the headset and the mic is that the students in Zoom, they can pick up all the background noise, and it’s hard for them to hear the teacher or the peers. And they also find out that the teacher cannot move from one location, or else the students in Zoom are not able to see them. So they have to, unfortunately, stay still, which is it’s so hard, it will be so hard for me, you know, as well. And pretty much like what else did she tell me? So, she also said that whenever students had a question in Zoom, it took about five to eight minutes for the teacher in the classroom to be able to go to the screen and see that the student at home had a question. And I think that will be very frustrating for many of our students who are eager learners, and they want to participate in. She also mentioned that, let me see, and she also mentioned that in order for students in the classroom and at home, all of them have to be in Zoom. Even the students that are in the classroom have to be in Zoom, so they can all be using Google Classroom, or else, you know, like, it wouldn’t work.

14:19 She also said that, you know, in terms of like managing the chat room, because the students at home will have questions, so me as the teacher, I will have to go to the screen and check out the chat room to make sure that I could answer the students’ questions. And pretty much like those were like the, you know, some of the setbacks they find out. And to me, as a high school teacher, you know, I’ve been teaching here since 2006, I wouldn’t want, would like to choose, giving the attention to either, like, you know, I wouldn’t like to choose. I want to serve the students that I have in front of me. I want to help them out as much as I can. And I will feel very bad for the students in Zoom if I wouldn’t be able to help them too, because as a teacher, I want to help them both. So for me, it will be very hard and stressful because I would like to help all students in Zoom and the ones in the classroom. So like, to me, like, you know, I rather have the system that we have right now. So, especially with the cohorts coming in, I’m so excited for next week because I get to see the kids in front of me. And pretty much like I said, you know, like, if we want to explore this, we, maybe we could do the same thing. Maybe we can set up a classroom with all the necessary technology to see if it works for us.

15:50 Because I know every school system is different. But before moving forward, either we should do that or have like an exploratory committee. Because I know, because obviously, you know, like, I’m a reasonable person. I’m a reasonable teacher. I always tell that to my students. So like, if a parent or you got a school committee brings this idea, you know, I’m not going to shut it down. I’m open-minded. I’ll say, let’s explore it. So like, if we’re going to do it, you know, let’s maybe set up a classroom with the technology and then see what the committee does. And if it works, then we move forward. So thank you so much. Thank you, Omar. Stay tuned because Dr. Bucky is going to give an update on things that the district has been looking at with that this week. I’m sure that. David, you’ve got your hand up. I do. I just am going to break with tradition a bit. I just want to say thank you for that commentary and the insight and coming forward to talk about the challenges that we’re all facing and to give us the opportunity to hear what challenges we might have and how we might approach some of those challenges. And it was really nice to hear that. So thank you very much for coming forward and taking the time to let us hear your thoughts on that.

17:27 Thanks, David. Kate Thompson, with your hand, right? Super quick. I just wanted to say thank you to the committee. I know I blew up your inboxes a little on getting minutes posted and I see that so many of them have been and I see that many more are on the agenda tonight to be voted on. I know that’s a lot of work, but I also know it’s really important to a lot of people. So I just want to say a quick thank you for getting that done. Thanks, Kate. All right. That there are no more hands raised for public comment. So I will move us on to the minute. We do have quite a few more on the agenda tonight. So I will ask for a motion to approve. Well, let me first just make sure that nobody’s got any issues with any of them, just because there are so many and I would love to avoid kind of sending them a motion. Does anybody have anything? Yeah, Meg? So for October 1st, I didn’t actually review those. I think there was a little issue with what’s put in the drop box. Okay. So those just got put in this morning and I didn’t have a chance to review them. Okay. So if you guys want to vote them, that’s fine. I’ll just abstain. And then on the 17th, I didn’t see updated minutes for the 17th. I know we talked about it in our last meeting. So I just haven’t seen the updated version from that.

18:58 No, I have not. I have a family medical thing I’m dealing with right now. So I realistically will not get to the updating those until the next meeting. So I’d be fine with holding those back. Okay. Good. All right. So is the rest of the committee ready to vote on 10-1 or should we hold that as well? I’m ready. Okay. I’m good with 10-1. Okay. All right. So we’ll put 10-1 on. Megan, do you want me to put that, make a second motion for that so that you can abstain. I’ll do two motions then. All right. So can I have a motion to approve the minute from 6-8, 6-10, 8-6, 8-20? So moved. Megan moved. Sarah seconded. Sarah seconded. Did anyone have any small additions to those? The only thing, I can’t, and I should have made a note, so I apologize. I can send it in the mail. There was one of them, I think it was the eight where there were some spelling issues. So I think if, you know, we can probably just go through with Lisa, it might be the easiest thing with Lisa. For example, Bill McCall, this name was spelled wrong, you know, throughout it. So I mean, they’re minor. I think we can vote. I just want to make sure we go back and spend time.

20:32 Okay. Sounds good. So let’s just go back and put things in your spell chat. Okay. That’s not it. All right. Sounds good. All right. I will roll call. Sarah Gold, yes. Megan Taylor, yes. Emily Barron, yes. Sarah Fox, yes. David Herr, you’re muted. Yes. All right. So that first one passes 5-0. Then can I get a motion to pass or to approve the minutes from 10-1, 20-20? So moved. Sarah moved. Second. Any additions or anything on that? We can run those through spell check to make sure. All right. I will roll call this. Sarah Gold, yes. Megan Taylor, yes. Emily Barron, yes. Sarah Fox, you’re muted yourself. Yes. And David Herr. Yes. All right. So those pass 4-0 to 1. All right. Thanks, guys. Can I ask a quick question? Yes. Are we up to date now with the exception of 917? So 917 and then the two that I have not seen are 7-8 and 8-10. Yes. Yes. Okay. So let’s just work, maybe work offline with Lisa on those. There’s no reason to not expect those for the next meeting. Okay. Great. Great. Great. Great. All right. Thank you, everyone.

22:03 I just want to note that I think these meetings combined was all these meetings are like four-hour meetings. So that’s why each meeting I just want to clarify at the time of if Lisa’s doing it or if I am, because otherwise it means I attend every meeting a minimum of twice. Right. Right. Yeah. So I think moving forward, what we’re aiming for, obviously, any kind of, you know, absence, you know, not standing, is that Lisa is going to take care of our first and third, our regularly scheduled school committee meetings. So she’ll be that. And then any off-cycle meetings or executive sessions will have you, Sarah, take care of them. Okay. And then at some point I think we need to look at our executive sessions because many of those, you move them to being public documents once the reason for executive sessions is no longer necessary. So a lot of those are actually should be moved to public at this point. Okay. We can look into that. All right. John, that moves us to the superintendent’s update. So we have technology and live streaming update and then the collective bargaining update. So I will let you take it away. Okay. I’m going to share my screen. It’s nice. This update is perhaps the first time where I feel things were more settled than they were chaotic. It has been a really nice week. I was at Glover this morning. I was at Village yesterday morning, the high school, the middle school.

23:39 And there really does seem to be a slow hum or buzz of routine and norms and consistency. And so that has been a very nice thing from this week. So fact-finding, that’s the stage we find ourselves in in terms of live streaming and what some of the options are. Where I have been is in research interviews with other educators and districts who are doing this and as many districts are doing it, are different versions of how it’s being done. Continue to meet with teachers. We had a teacher listening session yesterday. I meet with the MEA every week, almost school committee every week. I have standing appointments with most members of the school committee. And so I’ve been able to update them on the fact-finding that we have been doing. We had student listening sessions today, as Dan pointed out in the student update. Mr. Bauer, Assistant Superintendent Murphy and I met with 9th and 10th graders and then 11th and 12th graders. And they had good things to share and thoughts. Capability presentations. I met with the Director of Technology last Friday after Thursday’s school committee meeting to talk about the audit that started this week and to talk about some proposals from vendors.

25:13 We had a very fun leadership team meeting in that room over there on Monday where a vendor presented technology that was really interesting. And it actually spoke to a specific thing that the teacher raised this evening about background noise. And this particular technology is so sophisticated that it blocks it out. And he used the example that if somebody were blow drying their hair, if they started talking, it would shut out the blow dryer and just pick up. And so schools are pretty noisy places with people walking by in the corridors or vacuuming. There are lots of ambient noise in schools. And so it also had a camera that followed the person. And so if he was seated and then stood up, the camera went up. And if he went over to the whiteboard, it followed him. And so we will get a demo of that. Again, it’s like the teacher was sitting in on that presentation to pilot in a classroom at the high school. During last week’s school committee meeting, there was a parent emailing me that if they were to fund two owl cameras, if we would be willing to pilot those, that was an immediate yes. And so that is something that’s happening. The remote tech audit began this week, and then they will be on site next week at the high school to look at infrastructure issues.

26:45 Some of the conversations I’ve had with other superintendents were make sure that you explore your policies because this could have policy implications. And they found in their districts that it did in particular privacy concerns for students and staff. And then the big question is the investment, you know, exploring what that investment will be and how much will the infrastructure upgrades themselves be. And then the technology, whatever hardware that we would and what is the longevity of that. Do we invest in something that would not have a long term benefit to the district? And so those are all ongoing conversations. Once we do the exploration, we’ll come back to school committee with a recommendation from the administration. And then I would anticipate that that would be a school committee vote. And then depending on that vote, we would move into what would be like the installation and the use. Whatever we pick, teachers are going to need training. So that’s where we are. I put together a little calendar so that you could see that from the initial conversation on the 20th to today, there has been something almost every day, if not multiple things.

28:20 So I want people to know that we are really researching this in earnest and reaching out to other districts and talking to educators. And, you know, you talk to one that gives you a recommendation to talk to somebody else. So it’s been really fruitful for me and what learning what works, what doesn’t work, suggestions for if they had it to do over again or so. That’s been very helpful. So, you know me, I love a good Venn diagram that we will use data collected through this fact-finding to make an informed decision. And so I don’t think there’s any sort of, I don’t think there’s any shortage of information that I collect. And I think the school committee sees that, that we do surveys and we do listening sessions, which are now more conversations, rather than just listening sessions, more back and forth in real time. So surveys for teachers and paraprofessionals and tutors and remote learning. Then we have these conversations. And then I report out and I put things in the weekly update. I try and cover things in fireside chats. I do terrible screen castifies because I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m getting better with each one, I hope. And then reporting out to school committee. But the decision making is grounded in data.

29:53 And so we won’t just make a decision to make a decision, that it will be well informed and better.

30:30 The use of technology and how they’re live streaming kids into classrooms. Because as Mr. Magana noted, the high school remote, I’m not sure, I think middle schools remote, if I’m remembering correctly, but the lower schools are in person, hybrid, I believe. So, we, and they’re using technology with those kids. We did talk about that and sort of the learning curve with it. And, you know, from what she said, things are going well in their district. You know, they’ve got their own set of headaches and things to deal with as well, but, you know, I saw none of this is easy, no matter what decision we make. So, yeah. All right, Megan. So, you talked about the vendor providing a setup that we can use to pilot and also, I don’t know if it was a parent or a PCR, I can’t remember what you said. It was a parent that engaged the boosters and the PTO at the high school to get to the OWL. Okay. So, what’s the timeline on both of those pilots? And are they, it sounds like they’re different technology. They are, yes. So, what’s the timeline on this? I believe that the OWLs were ordered, although I think Kathy Hennessy said at the admin meeting, there might be, they might be back ordered, as you can imagine, the number of districts or schools or organizations that are trying to implement something like this. The vendor from Monday said that he could have something to us next week,

32:01 not as in the coming Monday, but a week out, and that is a plug and play, for lack of a better word, it would not require any sort of a major installation. Okay, so with the OWL cameras, was there any other, I can’t think of the word, but anything else we need besides the OWL, we don’t need a screen or TV or just literally the OWLs. Okay. As far as I know. Okay. And do we have teachers who are willing to do the pilot? I believe Mr. Bauer does, yes. Okay. So, as soon as they, so the OWLs here, so we can set that up and get going. Don’t know that. No, the OWL is ordered. But the other guys can have them in next week. Next week. Okay. Okay. And then, have they given you any indication or cost? Yes. If we were to outfit the high school with the vendor Valley communication, the technology that we saw on Monday, it’s $78,000. Just for the technology? Just for the technology. Because they haven’t done the infrastructure assessment yet. No. How long do they, that’s when it started this week, right? They’re doing the remote audit this week. They will be on site next week. Okay. I would imagine by the end of next week, they would be, have some sort of a recommendation for what needed to be done and how much that would cost. And then we’ll do the pilot the week after. Yep. Okay. Things are moving. Great. Great update. I think we covered, yeah, a couple questions. So, with the classrooms that have this set up, how are we going to assess how it,

33:37 well, it’s working or not working? Student feedback, teacher feedback. And then can we do what the teacher suggested and maybe set up a class for more teachers so that, like what he said, they did in Manchester, that way more teachers can actually experience it instead of just the three. You know what I mean? To get more teacher feedback. True. Like set up that classroom prototype. I think with the technology that we saw the vendor do on Monday, it’s very mobile. He said teachers could actually take it home because it sits on a tripod. And so I could see if there was a Spanish one teacher that wanted to use it during block A and then the chemistry teacher that wanted to use it block B. But it might also be good to set it up where the teachers are sitting as students in the classroom and in the Zoom so that they can actually understand what how the students are feeling. It’s almost like a PD type thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, like just get it from the student perspective as well as the teacher perspective. I think that might be a good lesson. And also, I know that it is helpful if there is a screen in the back of the classroom that shows the actual Zoom class. So it’s not that the teacher has to look at their laptop. So if there are extra, I mean, we would have to do an evaluation.

35:11 But are there like the screen right here? Yep. That could project the Zoom class off the teacher’s computer. So they’re looking at that and the student. So that’s one way to set up a classroom that might be more successful than to just have the TV bar or the video bar and then the small laptop. So there’s a lot of going back and forth with that. But yeah, no, I think it’s good. Great. Sorry, just one more question. Yeah, I’ll go to you. Oh, yeah. Sorry. You say think of it. But with the policies, is it worth? I don’t know if the policy committee subcommittees saying I’m meeting, but just have an idea of what policies we might need to look at because that is, you know, I mean, obviously, we can kind of have other meetings, but within our own schedule that process to Yep, I can reach out to Dorothy and see and then I could also I mean, I would assume and just graphics and for doing this is one of those districts that work with that. So I can certainly reach back out to the chair there as well. And yeah, we are going to we’re working on scheduling a meeting and hopefully next week. If not early the week after. Thank you. Sorry, Sarah. Sarah. So one thing about as far as the policy goes, we need whether we adopt this or not, we need to look at that because we are currently live streaming. We are currently for anybody in the K through six model that is fully remote. They have a live educator all day streaming.

36:43 We’re in their home there in our homes. The privacy thing has not been an issue. So this is already happening for hundreds of students. So so, you know, we are doing this. I would I would try to loop in with those teachers and even those families and find out how it’s working that piece of it the privacy piece of it and the you know, all of that because we’re doing it and and as a full remote family, I can say we’re doing it with shining success. Amazing amazing results. We haven’t had, you know, a huge negative as far as something unfolding on the screen and trust me if it was going to happen. It was going to happen in my house. So it’s been it’s been good. It’s a learning curve. But as the teachers keep telling everyone we’re in this together and that seems to carry us through as far as the investment exploratory goes, I think we’re all. Aware that we’re going to need infrastructure in Dr. Bucky’s been very, very clear about that. My sense is no matter whether we adopt live stream or not, we need some infrastructure and investment for this. We are going to be using technology much more heavily in our building. So I think it’s very choppy in many of our buildings. It’s not all of them right now. So I think that that’s something we need to kind of start start moving on and price

38:16 out in in start that ball rolling now. Now for the owl pieces, am I correct in that it’s roughly a thousand dollars per classroom? I think the one that they looked at was 1200, but yes, roughly. Okay. And when we say that there’s there’s got to be, you know, back orders, are we talking a couple weeks or a few months? I don’t know to be honest, but I can find that out. Okay, because as great as the program may be, if we can’t get our hands on it until May, it’s it’s useless to us. Have you gotten any more positive feedback from faculty on using this? I know at the get go, there was a lot of hesitation, but I think with anything there was going to be, have you gotten more people kind of coming forward with a little bit more excitement or are you still getting a lot of hesitation? I think there’s still more hesitation than there is excitement. And I think this might be where talking to those people who are doing it successfully at the early remote learners period might be helpful. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Sarah. I guess the only one of the pieces that kind of has been coming in and out of my head this week is sort of a wondering around how long we’re going to be doing this.

39:47 And obviously, no one has the answers to that, I wish we all did. But, you know, I wonder if at some point, if that question is being asked from other by other districts and kind of being put out there to the commissioner, you know, we can certainly work on the school study side of things to sort of try to get at some of the leaders from the state level that have access to so much more information to see if, you know, if they have any kind of trajectory on it. I know it sounds like a ridiculous question coming out of my mouth, but it would help to know if we’re going to, you know, if this is, if we’re going to be sitting in this same spot next winter, going in the next winter, these things start to take on totally different meaning than if, you know, by the end of this school year, we’re looking at sort of differing learning models that we’re able to access. Sure. I did speak to an educator in a different district, and she thinks that you will always, at least in the near future, will have the option to be remote, because, you know, nothing is clear yet. So if we, I think it’s great if we can kind of get a feeling if we’re going to be meeting this type of technology for a while, to get investment. And then I also, when I met with Dr. Bucky earlier this week, I said maybe instead of buying all the cameras, we invest in some of the

41:18 newer technology that can do this, but also that we would want to keep in the high school classrooms anyway. So maybe start kind of phasing that in, like phasing out some of the old and buying some of the new stuff, so we’re not just buying a bunch of cameras that could potentially not be an interesting idea. I just want to clarify that this is for the hybrid, that when we’re fully remote, we’re able to do it well, because everyone’s fully remote. So this investment would be for when we’re in hybrid. All right. So collective bargaining. That actually was a great point, because that was one of my questions. One other thing I just want to touch on, and this kind of jumps ahead to the building a little bit. It was a couple of meetings ago. I did ask if we are planning for the new building for it to be able to run everyone on live video feed at all times, all classrooms. And our OPM, one of the members of the OPM team said that a brand new school they opened in Billrick, less than a year ago, state of the art, they already are having to retroactively fit that, because even though it opened less than a year ago, it didn’t have that capability. So that they are going to be looking into making that building have everything it needs hardwired so that we can live stream, because in all

42:53 reality, we’re opening that building next year in September, we may need to open a new building and live stream. Yeah. And I think that’s one of the pieces that the chair at Manchester Essex said that a lot of their buildings are quite new. So it was, they were set up with that infrastructure going in. So it made it a different, it was a different decision making process. Ready for collective bargaining? I think we are ready for collective bargaining. Just when I thought that couldn’t have more fun, I find out that we do collective bargaining for all six of our bargaining units in the same year. And so Jason Silva and I will be going through our first round of collective bargaining in Marblehead. And so we have scheduled very auspiciously for Friday the 13th to do our opening meeting with Liz, our council, and with town council and Jason to just talk structure, process, timeline for how things, how we envision the process going. And there are multiple ways. I’ve done bargaining before, but I’m not sure the process that’s used here. And so to get an understanding of that, and then I know that we have two school committee members who will sit in on the negotiations once those start. So just wanted to give you an update. I just, my experience is this is a little late, but we’re in a global

44:30 pandemic. And so we will start these conversations and go from there. Great. John, do you think that by the next meeting then, you would be able to kind of give us an update on what that timeline is going to look like for us? Very much so. Yes. Great. And then my last is just what the response to last Thursday’s school committee meeting has been really nice. And it was echoed in the teacher listening sessions. And so Nan and I are doing thankful Thursdays to express appreciation for our educators. And today we had Shuby’s chocolate chip cookies. One of the teachers in the survey wrote that healthy food and coffee is always nice. I think we missed the mark today with healthy food. We’re going to miss it even further next week, but there’s a little teaser for what will be on the horizon. But I just want to thank Marblehead families and parents for doing what you guys do so well. And that is to see or hear a need and rise to it. And we are indebted to our PTOs who facilitate all the great work of parents who want to do good things. And so I just want to make sure that they get a shout out for jumping in and filling in that space for people who want to do good things.

46:03 And the teachers notice it. They have noticed a change in some of the things that they’re seeing and hearing in response to that. And so I would just express as the superintendent my appreciation for the fact that people, to use a word that we use all too often now pivoted so quickly to a more civil tone for our educators who are just simply exhausted. Good. That’s good to hear. Thanks for doing that. Yeah. Great. Thank you. All right. So, channel, have you stopped sharing your own? Yes. And then we’ll move us on to our schedule build. So we had a schedule in our packet today. So I’ll ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling $1,795,993.99. So moved. Megan moved. Second. Emily second. Actually, I think Emily has to abstain from this. Yes. Okay. So Emily did not second it. Nope. I’ll second this. All right. Sarah. This is a building committee schedule. So it has even corrected the wrong, but it’s been approved at the building committee level already. Correct. That committee has gone through everything and then sending them in our packet.

47:34 So any questions on it? I missed the list building committee meeting. So I just want to add a quick question for David. David did no this bill for the 66,000. It looked like that was for additional services. Can you just roughly tell me what those what that was for? I think it broke off between two months. It was 25 months in the 41 or something was for last month. Or they broke it up, I think. Yeah. So not having that information in front of me, but my recollection, Sarah, is that so no this. Was helping us work with the additional. So. Re mediation. That took place on site that needed to be. And then taken offsite to various locations based, based on the quality of the soil. So that was principally what the, what the additional. You know, charges were related related to Novus and what they were doing. I thought they were. A little bit less than, than. 66,000, but as far as they are a contractor. Through. RDA and through gene. And it was recognized that there has been some additional work. Due to the soils and due to.

49:05 Some of the work that’s taking place at tower school as well. So that’s essentially what those costs were related to. No problem. So essentially like onsite monitoring and like any unsuitable. Something like that. Yeah, correct. Correct. Thank you, David. But it did, it did go over. It did go over the contracted amount. That was, that was listed in genes contract. So that might be the difference. The 66,000 did exceed the contracted amount. And that was the number of dollars that was in the net amount. And I think the net. Amount that it exceeded it by was $40,000. So. That was discussed at the committee and. Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of that, since everything is offsite at this point. Okay. Thank you for that. Nope. All right. I will call for a real call vote. Sarah gold. Yes. Megan Taylor. Yes. And David Harris. Yes. All right. The schedule passes four to zero to one. Thank you. All right. So that brings us on to the presentation on the homeschooling policies. I HPT and I H B G R. I will ask man, take it away. And you have. Can you share your make me a co-host?

50:39 I can share. All right. Let me find you. Another computer. I think we should identify the additional guests we have at the meeting. Sarah. That’s too cute. All right, man. Take it away. All right. Can you see my screen? Yeah. All right. So we’re seeing that you’re sharing your screen, but we’re seeing a black screen. Okay. Well, that doesn’t work. Let me go back and try this again. All right. You’re closer that time. Okay. Let’s see. I’m sorry. I don’t understand you. What’s happening here. Dr. Bucky. I’m going to share it with you just in the event. I’m sharing it in Google right now with you. Okay.

52:19 Okay. All right. So I’m sharing it with you just in the event. I’m sharing it in Google right now with you just in the event. I can’t share my screen. I actually have it pulled up on my computer. Okay. So if you can’t get it, then I can just share mine. Try one more time and see. How about that? There we go. All right. Great. All right. Great. So here we are. Marblehead Public Schools is all districts in the commonwealth offers families the opportunity to choose an educational environment for their children and homeschooling is one of those options. So if you are a family interested in pursuing homeschooling, there is a link for you on our school website page. And once you hit that link, this is the face of the page. It provides you the notification form, which I’ll share with you in just a moment. It provides some information around a portfolio review, which is expected at the end of the school year. It’s a collection of student work and samples of student progress throughout the year. And it also informs you that you are a lot, although you provide a homeschool environment, you are encouraged to have your children participate in extracurricular

53:50 activities in Marblehead. So if you are a family that decides to pursue, this is the form that we would suggest that you fill out at this time. As you can tell, it’s a very limited form in terms of being able to provide all of the information that is required. So on this form, we have space for four different students. So if you are a parent of one or more kids that you want a homeschool, you provide their personal information. And then you are provided very limited space to share how you are going to go about teaching your child. So in this very limited space, you would provide curriculum materials, standards-based assessments that you’ve selected, what you’re going to use in reading, math, social studies, and science. And then as you get into the upper elementary and high school, you might include some world languages and some other areas of expertise. So my proposal is to work a little bit on deepening this application process. So here we have some of the things that are being asked of parents

55:21 and to some changes, proposed changes to the process that I think would help families. We provide a more prescriptive approach to where and how to present curriculum selection and educational planning. So that is the reference I made to including the materials, the text selection, online programming, and maybe having a resource that connects you to all of those materials that families can use to serve in some way as a menu to help them navigate homeschooling. Some sort of, throughout the process, somewhere to set expectations around the assessment of student performance in each content area. What kind of standardized testing are you going to use? Children and students are allowed to join districts for standardized testing. So if families wanted to bring their students back for their annual MCAS testing, that is something that we can accommodate according to the department. And how do they collect and process through samples and what kind of progress reports they’re going to use? I’m also proposing transitioning this process to an online application.

56:57 And I’ll be able to share with you an exemplar from another district that I was able to locate. Offering guidance on the process for determining parent ability to serve as an effective educator that is, according to the state guidelines, something that districts have to be able to vouch for. So there really isn’t any guidance around that. And then the other component that I feel is so critical that’s missing from our application process is an inquiry into specific student needs. So is a student on an IEP being serviced by an individualized education plan? Is there a 504 plan? Are there kinds of supports that are needed in a student’s educational life to be successful? And if so, is the district going to play a role in supporting those services? So I put a little graphic there to give you a sense of where some of that additional, how that additional information might look on an application. So here’s an exemplar I found from Lowell Public Schools. This is an online form that parents connect to via their district website. The first page is all of that personal information, the student’s age, name, date of birth, whether this is a new request

58:31 or if it’s been an existing plan that the family has been using to educate their child. So really basic information on that initial page. The second page goes a little bit deeper and gets to what grade level they are. The student is at. And then the parents have the opportunity to fill in depth the curriculum and content that they’re going to be using to instruct the various content areas. And you can see here that they also offer an opportunity for other subjects. So if we have an upper secondary student that is going to be taking something that deviates from what’s listed here, those courses can be included as well. So here they would fill in the instructional plan, the topics covered, duration, and expected results. So that would include some of the assessment work and describing methods and or the programs used. Some of the requests that we currently get in Marblehead do refer to outside programs, online schooling and programs like that. So it would be an opportunity for parents to fill. I’m going to pause on this page just to see if up to this point if there are any questions.

1:00:09 So currently where we talk about evaluating a parent’s ability to educate the child, are we, what onus is on the district for if we say no we don’t feel this parent has the ability to educate a child? What onus on a district is there to explain our statement? Well, I think that would be what we would unpack in having that conversation. Currently, there is nothing in the application process that includes accountability on the district’s part for making that determination. That’s just language that the department has as a requirement, but it’s not currently part of our process. And at this point, our process does not include the portfolio and collection of materials and assessment documentation either. So one concern I do have is I think this year is an anomaly in the home school world. A lot of people use the term home school almost incorrectly, if you would, and they’re using it as a way to kind of find something that fits in a world that nothing fits. But I think in a normal non-COVID environment, the people who are choosing homeschool are doing so because they do not feel the public school system is meeting their educational vision or needs for their child.

1:01:53 So I do have a hard time taking that decision away from them in certain ways through this portfolio, if you will. I want to make sure that, again, I think for a year like this, it fits more where so many people are saying, I’m leaving the system, and in their head they’re thinking, I’m just going to hit pause for a year and come back, which is not what homeschooling is for. But for families that choose this as an alternative to the public education system because it’s not meeting their needs, I don’t know if having them do a portfolio that’s prescriptive to what we’ve deemed to be the correct way to educate people really is appropriate either, if you know what I mean. So I think that’s up to the committee to decide. This is a binding process that parents enter into with us in accordance to state law. So how that’s interpreted this year versus next year, I’m not sure. But this is just through the process, and I have been able to really help and assist a lot of families that didn’t have a direction when they initially applied. And we do always, once the application is approved, it is approved in that there is a framework established for the families.

1:03:28 And I think that we would never in Marblehead leave a family kind of struggling. So I’ve talked through what an assessment might look like for a student. I’ve kind of helped families understand that process and kind of think about what they might be setting aside so that in the spring when we meet. So there isn’t anybody that’s really not understanding that process right now. So I think the intent here is just we’re new to the district. This is a form that we’ve ended up using a lot because of the situation. And there’s just ways that I think moving forward into 2021, we can improve for next year. I think it’s important to note too, when in the subcommittee piece of this, the criteria for the qualifications of the parents was relatively low. We were talking about things like requiring a high school education or a high school diploma or equivalent thereof. So it’s not as though we’re going to require the parents to have a master’s level teaching degree in order to homeschool their children. And I think there is state law behind this. And there’s a reason that we have a homeschool policy is because we need to make sure, and we’re tasked with making sure that the children who live within our district are being educated and educated to a certain standard.

1:05:03 So and I think, you know, I actually know not here, but having grown up in the Midwest, know quite a few people who do do homeschooling and do it for many different reasons. And I think the ones that I know first of all have a college degree, but also would have absolutely no problem providing all of this information. It would just, you know, it’s taken from most people choosing to actual homeschool and not, you know, the COVID aspect of this, but they’re very serious about it. And they have very high standards for their kids. That’s been my experience. And I would say that that’s been my experience in talking with the parents in Marblehead that have considered this this year. Very thoughtful, very difficult decision for them if it wasn’t their initial plan for their child. And they were very eager to have the conversation around what might help guide them curriculently. I think it’s important to note too that at any point in time, a child can transition from a homeschooling environment back into a public school environment. And that if we have not set and maintained any set of standards for those children’s education, we’re almost setting ourselves up to have to provide massive amounts of support to get that child who wasn’t being given a good homeschooling education.

1:06:36 To bring them up to speed and get them back on track. Okay, so it’s not, we’re not denying any, like if there is a parent who wants to homeschool their child, we’re not denying anybody that right. We’re just help facilitating the best way to do it, correct? We’ve not denied anybody the right to homeschool their child. Yeah. Yeah. Megan. So, man, first of all, I just want to thank you for doing this. I think it looks really much more comprehensive. To be honest, when I saw that form for the first time, I’m surprised at how basic it was because that you can’t fit anything in one line. So I think we’ve done here is very good, much more comprehensive and hopefully, you know, make the parents feel more supportive as well because you really do have to think about all those things. I think it’s really up front and it trades at the structure in place. And so I think this is great. Thank you. So one thing just you mentioned briefly about the timeline piece of it, because obviously I think you did spend a lot of time over the summer and fall with families who were moving to the homeschool option. So is this something that we’re looking to implement for the next school year? Or would you accept more families to decide to homeschool throughout the year? What’s your expectation there? So I guess I don’t really have an expectation. I think we could work and to determine that timeline as I’m willing to work at any rate you all are looking to move forward with.

1:08:11 The form that we have now doesn’t serve families well, but it serves families and I’m able to circle back and have deeper conversations around content. I think it would, you know, so I don’t mind if this takes a little bit of time or you know, we process this for a few months or, you know, it’s not going I guess what I’m saying is this form doesn’t necessitate our process. So we can we can still continue to review and approve homeschooling process requests without this particular form. So I will work at your leisure, whatever you feel, whenever you feel this is we’re ready to move forward with this. Do you have any families that are in the queue for lack of a better term right now? Yes. Okay. And then just one other question around progress. So who actually determines if the student has made progress? So we we have it. My understanding is in the past, a parent may or may not come to central office to talk about that or have a phone call with somebody about that. Some parents have had that experience. Some folks that I’ve talked to that have homeschooled in Marblehead for a few years have not had that experience. So I don’t think there’s a consistent approach to measuring progress for our homeschooled students.

1:09:46 So I think having parents in the beginning when they’re initially thinking about it and planning for it and using a tool like this, having to think about that in advance helps them frame up what they’re going to use to measure their students. And some of the parents that I’ve talked to are not even aware that we have state standards that guide what every student needs to kind of be focused on every year at every grade level. So, you know, having some sort of common assessment or something that they’re teaching towards helps that for families. But as of right now, Megan, I don’t believe there’s a process for checking progress. So would that be part of this? Yes. So the portfolio piece, let me move forward here. So right here, this next page gets parents thinking about the method of assessment and the different varieties. And then please supply a brief description of the assessment method used. So that’s where, you know, some of the parents that are homeschooling now are using programs that have built-in assessments. And there are some parents that I’ve been working with that we don’t traditionally do in Marblehead, but I have been sharing some of our curriculum resources with parents.

1:11:26 And with that comes some of our district assessments so that they have that support. But that would be where that planning piece would kind of help them start thinking about that. And then, and this is just me maybe not understanding the whole process, but then if you’re homeschooling, are you required to meet those same state standards? According to Deafy, the expectation would be whatever curriculum you’re using would be aligned to what the state standards are.

1:12:07 They may be very nontraditional ways to get to those standards. And then the parent commitment statement that I, we don’t really engage into a commitment in our process, but I liked this language in terms of accountability for parents in terms of the expectation. And then the, you know, kind of entering into and agreeing to the 900 to 990 hours of instruction just kind of formalizes the responsibility of the process.

1:13:09 Yeah, I think it’d be important to note too that the red piece over on the side of the agreement that, you know, those things aren’t taken lightly and that the district would be attempting to work with the parents, you know, to the best of their ability before something like a chin would be put into place. Right. So that’s, those are just some of the thinking that I’ve had and conversations that I’ve had with parents and what might make this process a little bit smoother for everybody. So open to feedback, open to timelines, and whatever direction you all feel is the best one to go in at this point. Absolutely. So I think it’s important to note that this, this much of this piece is really the IHVTR aspect of that and how things are put into action. And then the piece, if I’m remembering correctly, because our subcommittee policy was almost a month ago, that the, one of the biggest changes on the IHVTR would be the piece about having a minimum requirement for parents to be able to enter into a homeschooling situation. So that high school level education. Yes.

1:14:42 So the policy subcommittee has reviewed the stuff already. Yes. Yes. I think it said on one of the pages, it said 10-9. That sounds about right. Yeah. So what do you ask the committee to do tonight? Nothing tonight. This is basically like, you know, it was given to the subcommittee and now we’re handing it over to the school committee to review and process. And then it would be on the next, the next meeting, our second meeting in November for a vote. And, you know, if it needed to be put onto December 1, we can do that, you know, but this would be sort of, we’re just following our process. Okay. So do you accept any modifications to this? Or is it just if we have, I think it’s just if the committee has modifications? Okay. So if we’re not implementing this until next year, that’s fine. I do have reservations about the line, about the minimum requirements when we as a district aren’t even providing that for our students right now. So I think it’s unrealistic to ask us to set head parents, sign off on that under penalty of a TINs officer when we’re not doing it. And then, but again, it’s an anomaly of the year and we’re doing what everybody in the state is doing. Did you or anybody on the policy committee reach out to, I know there’s several consortiums on the North Shore where, particularly at the upper grades, you know, people belong to these, my understanding is they belong to these homeschool consortiums because if not every parent can teach, you know, chemistry and calculus and all this so that they do have these consortiums.

1:16:34 Did anybody reach out and just say, is this typical? Is there something you recommend adding that maybe we didn’t think to add or subtracting that? You know, just getting a little bit of feedback from people who specialize in this? I didn’t reach out to the consortium, homeschool consortium, but I reviewed probably 40 different district application forms. And so I kind of, I got a good sense of what, how districts are collecting information from families and what the language is. And the one I found in Lowell kind of combined the best of the best electronically. I think the electronic version of it is great. I mean, there’s even a way for them to electronically upload their portfolios if we go that way. Yes. To kind of streamline it for people. The reason I said reach out to the consortium is there may be something from their side that they’re saying, you know, we wish, we wish districts were asking us this or we wish, you know, something. So maybe there is a piece, but maybe it’s not important as well. Well, I think what we have current, what I presented tonight is an aligned, aligned with what the state requires the districts. So I think we could have optional questions maybe for parents to answer. But I know what was presented tonight is mandatory in terms of collecting information to make an informed decision on.

1:18:15 Okay. And then at the lower levels, do we, are there state frameworks for teaching science in social studies at the lower elementary levels or is it much, it’s much looser though, isn’t it? No, there are frameworks. Yeah. Okay. I just didn’t think the kids did. It’s not something they do on a daily basis. No, it can be embedded in a lot of the literacy instruction. So, and even in the math instruction. So, community learning is this is big in social studies topic in first grade. So you can do that in a lot through texts in a reading block. Okay. Yeah. All right. Great. Thank you, ma’am. You’re welcome. Okay. So that’ll move us to a follow up conversation on this school committee goal. I talked with everyone the other day to offer a spoken with Dorothy Prester and the only time that she really has in the near future is Tuesday, November 24th in the evening to work on sort of Sarah, what she had requested kind of a team building around the goals. And I was going to email her back to me because she was going to email me a kind of a little bit of a tee up for that so that we could start thinking about the goal so that we were sort of shortening that meeting and then also kind of making it so that we would probably come away with our goals.

1:19:47 And, you know, I think Megan, you noted last week that it doesn’t make, you know, if we’re not setting goals until January, February, it sort of, you know, isn’t the best situation we should get these goals set as soon as possible. So I don’t know where what everybody’s schedule is for November 24. If that, and what kind of a deal breaker that is. Did she give any thoughts on how long it would be a couple hours. Yeah, I think probably a minimum two hours because we did talk about a different date that she had something going but it was a possibility that it could be canceled that but it was a building committee night and so and I said okay you know could we tap it on the hour before the building committee and said no that that it would be longer than than just the hour. So I’m just, I can’t remember what Connie said with a similar I think seven classes what we had talked about she may have flexibility to do a six o’clock. I could reach out to her. I mean, you know how I feel about these I just want to get them done. I think, in my mind, it’s kind of two separate things right like goals and team building. So maybe team building is is a goal. I mean, it’s two weeks away. That’s my right to throw this away. So I mean, we can come out of that agreeing to the goals and then, and what our process is for checking our progress, then I’m okay to wait. Okay, but, but the expected expectation is there’s done.

1:21:22 Right. Right. I think that that should be a reasonable expectation. And I think that we can think about, you know, I don’t think we’re setting them tonight, given sort of the process of this so we’d be looking at the Tuesday we’re looking at the Thursday right before it for our next meeting anyway. So does that the 24th work for everyone. We can offer a whole group of people. That’s fine. And I think that if we could start an hour earlier just because it’s being that we it’s fine but we’ll make whatever work. All right, sounds good. I’ll check with me with Dorothy if the talking work. Otherwise, you know, I will I’ll set the letter for some. Right. The 24th. Yeah. All right, so then we’ll committee website update. Well, I don’t really have much to update. I mean, it’s live for a month. So hopefully people are finding it useful. We have been doing. Well, really what Lisa and Emily has been doing is making sure that the meeting materials are out there before our meeting starts on Thursday so that the public can follow along. And then posting the recording out there, you know, within a matter of days, I think, once now that we have most of the minute voted those will all go up for the on those meeting dates to so all our information to be there. I guess the one thing I would ask of this committee is again those subcommittees, if we can get into a regular rhythm, you know, let’s just get those meetings out on the calendar for the rest of the year.

1:23:01 That would be really great. And again, like, you don’t have to if you don’t have a reason to meet like don’t meet, but let’s just have the rhythm laid out so everybody’s aware of what it is, especially because we haven’t got that push piece sorted out yet and that’s the next thing that we’ll work on. I think that it I don’t know if you guys want to add. We have a half minute to have been voted. I also talked with Lisa about that. Because based on the school committee schedule, we can then go forward with the building committee schedule for January through June. The building committee is essentially meeting once a month, but there are sometimes we might need to meet more than that. So, Lisa was going to work on that and then we plug in the building committee dates as well so that we could have that information posted. So, Great. Emily. Oh, I was just saying that I think all the past minutes that have been voted are uploaded already. Yep. Yeah. And just to be clear, since we’re sort of going back and forth between fiscal years with meetings, that’s where it’s been at this point. So we’re gonna keep everything from FY 19. Correct. Yep. My number is correct. FY 19 is going to be on the old website. FY 20 is going to be on the new website. Okay.

1:24:38 And that’s, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, David. And once again, not to merge the two, but I’d like to thank Emily for her work on keeping the building committee website updated, where we are up to date with our minutes and presentations and Cindy Shiefer with all of the updates on the weekly notices that get posted by Gilbane. So, you know, we’ve been trying to keep up with our minutes as well to make sure they’re out there and available for anybody who wants to see them. So, does that mean Emily’s officially our website guru? Definitely for the building committee. You can make us open, girl. I just want to double check that we’re still keeping live the old website because that has a lot of information going back years for things we haven’t, you know, that we don’t read you every year that we do every five years, every 10 years. Absolutely. Yeah, it’s just sort of the minutes and the schedules that are starting July 1 that they’re going to be on this new one and then sort of this easier access and finding some of the, the, nothing bulk type data on, you know, who is, who’s on the school committee, you know, how do we reach them.

1:26:08 And we can, you know, from what I understood from Kate originally was that we can add things onto it if we keep it. So, can I just clarify that? Yeah, so absolutely the calendar is kind of the bread and butter of the website because that’s the biggest moving piece for us, but our website does have a link, you know, does have a link for things like policies, for example. So right now that does still exist on the on the district website, but we, you know, we link to it from our web, from our new website so that it literally should be a one stop drop. So there’s information, current information that is not accessible through our website, then that’s what we should be looking to do for this, you know, for the next phase. Right. Anything that’s technically archived or from a previous year, then, then find you can figure that out. But anything that’s current should be accessible through that website. And I think it is. I’m pretty sure it is, but if I mean if you guys find something that you can go along, then we should add it. All right. Great. Thank you. So then that brings us to the school property discussion. This is a discussion that comes from the correspondence that David mentioned at the end of our meeting last week. So that that letter was in everyone’s drop off. And I had also then had a conversation with Jason Silva sort of immediately afterwards.

1:27:40 And he talked with me a little bit about some similar pieces that that there’s some of a couple of committees going on at the town level that are interested in some of the properties that that we have that. Mr. Gessner in his correspondence also referenced. So, as we said last week, we’re going to very bring this letter and that conversation into the full committee. I know Dr. Buford had a conversation with Jason as well prior to the meeting where David talked about this letter. So feel free to pop in anything. David, did you talk with Mr. Gessner anymore about this? Do you have anything else to add? Well, what I can add is I think it goes back a few years before coming on school committee when the finance committee was always looking at properties owned by Marblehead that had either been gifted to the town and what condition they were in and how they might be repurposed, I guess, for different reasons. And I think we all know from the Gary school experience, there’s a defined process when a school no longer becomes a school property. There’s a very defined process that it gets, you know, to be clear, it’s voted on at town meeting. And then essentially we decide what happens with the property and ultimately we know what the result is for Gary.

1:29:19 So I think, yeah, certainly it’s been an ongoing suggestion or recommendation by Charles. And when we decided to build the new school on the Bell site, it opened up a couple of opportunities going forward where we know Sarah Fox will remember this, you know, the Green Street property, Green Street and West Shore, that little piece of land that has some pretty cool bike paths in it and was studied but determined to be partially wetlands and essentially unsuited.

1:30:30 I think that for some historical reason was deemed to be a school property. But I think the bigger question for us to think about, and whether it’s too soon, is when the new school opens in September, we will be vacating Evelith and essentially vacating Coffin. Those are two big issues to think about. And where we’ll go forward, you know. We know that when we considered, for instance, building a school at Bud Orne Pot during the feasibility study, that potentially the swap would become, um, Evelith would be a green space for the park and rec, tear down the school, it would become a recreational field. So that’s, you know, an example of what would be considered. And then, you know, what to do with Coffin. So, you know, yeah, there’s a lot of questions out there. And I don’t think it’s too soon to start thinking about it. So that we don’t have any stranded expenses or costs related to maintaining the properties, or if there’s a better use of the property that could be put forward. So, yeah, I think, you know, I think it’s worth starting to think about it. Yeah, absolutely. I think it makes a lot of sense. I think one thing to note is that the archives, the town archives are going to be taking over the space at Widget Road. So we do need to find a new space for a different space for our administrative pieces.

1:32:13 So I know that that’s been kind of talked around in the past about Evelith and about the use of Coffin. When I talk with Jason, one of the committees that is functioning at this point is an affordable housing committee. And they have expressed interest in looking at the land that the Coffin School is situated on. And then a large, the other committee that’s functioning, a large gift apparently was made for, I believe it was recreation for kids. And so the person who made the gift was a big coffee person. So the town’s looking at the Green Street space, as well as some of the field space at the Evelith building for the possibility of different designs on a coffee ring, outdoor. There’s a few different things that Jason had mentioned. So, like I said, there’s multiple sort of irons in the fire at the town level that kind of, I think, fit nicely with this weather and with kind of where we’re at as a district. So for me, this seems to make a lot of sense to go towards the MOU that we have with the Board of Selectments and working with School Committee and Board of Selectments at the town level to kind of, I don’t know, come up with further ideas or have further discussions on this.

1:33:45 But I’m certainly open to what others on the committee think. So in my opinion, I think we need to be very thoughtful and well planned out about what the schools want before we open it up to the town. You know, just to look at a few things. One thought that jumps out is the voice program. The whole idea behind the voice program originally being at Evelith was those students had a right to have a moving on from the high school and to move to a new facility for the next stage of their educational path, and that’s why Evelith fit that well. I think that we should be very thoughtful about not just finding a place to stick that program, but having some more intent behind that. The second piece is our central administration kind of always decides a home when we’re homeless. It seems we came to a road because we are using that, we were putting the high school where we put the high school, and we’ve never really been intentful with where we put and why we put our central administration people somewhere. So I think that we should, as a school committee, kind of stand back and see what is our vision for these various programs. And then on top of it, before we jump into giving away any buildings, we really, I think, need to sit back and see where the world’s unfolding in the next year because you hear of other towns renting space so that they can have all their children in person, where there are limitations and how many people might be in a room.

1:35:29 So we are in a position right now where we don’t have a luxurious space, but we’re about to have a luxurious space. So I just want to be very thoughtful in how we proceed through this. So I think as a school committee, we need to have those conversations and make some decisions. I don’t know if we do it as a subcommittee or what before we bring it to the town because I just think that’s the logical path for all this. Yeah, absolutely. I think we always want to be careful around, you know, right now we don’t, we may not have a use for some of those spaces, but you run a risk when you give property back, particularly in a space like in a town like Marblehead where, you know, we’re not expanding our borders anytime soon. And so the space is the space. And so we want to make sure that there’s a lot of thought that goes into this before we move forward on that. Yeah, a lot of people were mad we didn’t give Evelyn’s up right away. And if we had, we would be expelling millions right now in trailers to put kids in for the transition. So I just, I want to be a little more thoughtful. Okay, so, so maybe I should. Yeah, David. You know, Sarah Sarah makes make some good points there and I guess I’ve always been a little we can take this offline but I’ve been a little bit confused about the historical archives and Whidger Road and where that all originated and how that came about and we can talk about that at some other point, but

1:37:10 you know, Sarah raises some some good good points we need to just you know, be thoughtful about things and not put the car for the horse, so to speak, but there are there there are some properties that don’t have schools on them. So right sequentially how we look at that. Maybe those can be considered in advance and then also, as Sarah mentioned, you know, start looking at these things related to even though john and Nia and we’re really excited. They thought their new offices were over at the at the at the Bell School site and I had to give them the bad news, but we weren’t we weren’t able to fit in some additional square footage is not as as as nice as that would have been. But I think, you know, it’s a good point. So, but it’s always something that the town needs to look at. And so yeah, anyway, we can participate and work together as a town to work through this and be mindful. I think it’s given, you know, just in the best fiscal interest of the town as well as what the needs are the schools. So maybe what I’ll do is I’ll talk with john offline and sort of hit at the heat and start to get a feel and then kind of wrap around what the district will need. And then, and then when I talked with Jason, he said he’d be more than happy to come and talk with us at a future meeting as well about more of the details and time some of the things that he had mentioned. So I’ll set that up.

1:38:45 Okay, Just to add on to what David was saying, though, I mean, we know we went into Green Street pretty exhaustedly. We know that that is never going to hold a building for the schools. Short of, you know, some type of outdoor learning or experiential learning campus. I mean, which who knows that may be somewhere we want to go. But short of that, there was really nothing the schools could do with that. I mean, we looked at that with with, you know, planning in mind. So we may want to look at that one sooner than later if there is a potential use for these other programs. And then moving forward, if we if we do want to break this up into a smaller group to look at it, I’d be very interested in being, you know, part of that planning. All right. All right. So we’ve got a few next steps. I will reconnect with Jason and get him on an agenda in the not too distant future. Great. David, any building project updates in the last week? You’re muted. There’s always updates. The building is going forward. So I think I mentioned last week, we, as everybody knows, we had some snow. And it wasn’t necessarily a delay to the project, but the last slab on grade, as it’s called technically, which is to pour the concrete for the gymnasium floor and the cafeteria floor.

1:40:25 It didn’t delay the project at all. But given the cold weather and the snow, Gilbane made the recommendation to move away from pouring the concrete because we actually would have occurred, incurred additional costs due to the cold weather. So that is going to take place now on Monday. And based on the forecast, everybody’s seeing with sunny skies and 70 degrees, we should be able to complete that and have the final concrete done. And the brick is showing up on site about two truckloads a week. And Brooke Lang has started at the school. And so that’s really exciting. And the next piece that we’re looking for is shortly will be the windows and things are moving right along. So all’s well. Great. All good news? Thanks, David. Okay, so that brings us to new business. Did anybody have any? All right. Any other additional correspondence last week? All right. So that brings us to adjournment of the meeting at 844. Wow. I think that’s before 9 o’clock. Well done, everyone. Well done.

1:41:57 Every week this will happen and every week they tell me I’m lying.