School Committee: March 11, 2021

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

2:09 is there a way for all you guys to turn your screens on it it’s kind of odd right now that you guys appear to be having a meeting and not looking at the public or me

2:38 you came through clearly sarah right all right so we are trying this out this evening um in an attempt to kind of just be more in person and going forward with all of that so um welcome everyone i will call us to order at 703.

3:09 all right so first up is public comment uh if anybody wants to make a public comment tonight they’ll just have to use the raise hand function i will call on them take a moment for that

3:31 right uh aaron noonan just state your name and address for the record please

3:39 hi erin noonan 15 beverly ave um so my comment is just in response to the budget uh discussions this morning um and i just wanted to share that i am extremely disappointed to learn from this morning that the first student-facing need to hit the cutting room floor in putting next year’s budget together as the new k to eight math curriculum you know this math curriculum is notoriously outdated it is extremely language based which is very difficult for our early literacy um needs students and students with any language based disability disabilities and my understanding from last year’s budget discussions was that we were given a one-year license as a favor basically from the vendor to use their outdated

4:24 outdated outdated 2016 unsupported curriculum because we were in such hardships last year and that the plan was to have assistant superintendent nan murphy come to start her position and tackle this curriculum and and sourcing a new curriculum for the math program which my understanding is she has been doing all year there’s been a working group i believe we are piloting a new program i know they have selected a new program because i was in some meeting um attending some meeting where she was talking about the choices and that they had decided on one and i’m just wondering why are we sacrificing new math curriculum in next year’s budget when we’ve had this working group all year we’ve selected a new curriculum we’re actually piloting it piloting it in our schools

5:11 and we were in such dire straits that we couldn’t go without this licensing extension last year and the way it was discussed this morning i’m not even clear if we are just going to go because i know that it was said that the teachers have a good mastery of the program which i’m sure that they do but clearly there’s licensing implications for this so we will have to procure and spend money on a license for a curriculum again that is outdated and unsupported when that was not the plan what we were promised um do we even know if this vendor will grant us another extension i would assume that they have new versions of their program that they would like us to buy are we i mean and just so everyone’s clear you know we are not going to have access to think central next year for parents and teachers with its

5:58 materials and the support that goes along with that curriculum um you know and by the way because we are not going forward with an override this year the public should know that if we choose to put a new math curriculum in our budget we will still have to cut from somewhere else in our operating expenses which based on my experience in last year’s attending last year’s discussions leaves us with personnel which would explain possibly why we spend so much time this morning discussing our enrollment numbers for next year during this morning’s meeting as michelle cresta said in this in the meeting this morning no matter what happens next year the number that we go to fincom with in the town is the number we are stuck with

6:45 all year no matter what this um you know it’s just been disappointing to realize that our school committee and in particular you know megan with your work on like your this is your second um time on the on the subcommittee for the budget it’s like once again we are looking for outside for direction from the town and i’m going to say ben berman in his role as chair of fancom on what we can ask for to fund our schools for next year you know none of you ran for school committee to spend every spring year after year choosing between math curriculum and technology for marblehead schools you know aren’t you tired of it like i’m honestly i’m tired of watching it you know this isn’t why you guys ran and so

7:31 so so you know you all know that your the school department is autonomous it’s unique in that way we are autonomous from the town and your most important job as a committee is to present to the town what the needs of the budgets are for our schools and we have been level funding our public education in this town for 17 years that’s the entire lifetime of a student when you think of it same level funding 17 years education has changed we all know it at some point when you go to town meeting as a school committee presenting a budget that does not meet the needs of your district you should be finding yourselves in an existential crisis and every year we hear the same promise you all know the variable when you make the promise and then yet

8:20 it’s ignored what i’m saying is when you all when we were in that meeting in that budget hearing and we all stood and i knew we were passing a new school you all uh stood up and said and ben berman and his vote yes hat all said you know this isn’t the year next year we’re with you okay and then then and then next year um it’s we had an an interim this year well we knew in 2019 we were on boarding an interim we knew that when we made that promise to the town that next year would be the year we knew we had an interim coming on and then the following year it’s now oh well we had a new superintendent and we had a pandemic and so we weren’t able to prepare so last spring we were in a pandemic and we knew we were in a pandemic and it wasn’t

9:06 going away so we made the promise to everybody that we were going to fund our town our schools appropriately finally this year in a pandemic you know we get to this year and we can’t do that because we had a pandemic i mean

9:23 you know and now we are in this position where you know i guess now we’re cutting student-facing services like math curriculum for you know a back office hr position we’ve gone without for three years which i’m not saying we don’t need i think i think it’s important position that’s not my point but like i don’t think we need it before i don’t think we should be making student-facing cuts before an hr position so i guess i’m just like begging you all to just really remember why you ran for the seat please start advocating for the funding of our schools and start flexing some muscle at these meetings with the town you know you have a warrant article placeholder you know what our tech needs are we have a million dollars in technology needs you will know the number for the facilities imminently get

10:08 your leadership team together roll your sleeves up i mean riley has said publicly that districts are going to be on the hook for any students that are medically unsafe to attend schools does our special education department have the funding to provide homebound instruction to some yet unknown unidentified number of students i mean i know we have covent money but do we know yet what how much this is going to cost us do we know what the remedial needs are and the expenses attributed to addressing these i mean

10:39 i respect all of you i you’re i you’re wonderful and i love that you’ve done so much in terms of rebuilding our administration i would really really am just begging you all to please remember the promises that we were that were told to the community remember why you all ran for these seats and start advocating for the budget that our schools need to run um uh to run our district the way we all know it can be run thank you thank you aaron uh ruth dahlberg hi hi um i’m rhys stahlberg i live on fieldwork road uh i just wanted to take

11:25 a quick second to thank amanda rivers um for the pull testing and speak to our my family’s experience um i have three kids in the district and in true to me fashion always striving to achieve mother of the year status i forgot to let my kids know that they had been signed up for pull testing what exactly pull testing is and what it would entail because one must never forget murphy’s law of course is always in play of my three kids my very very anxious third grader was one of the first groups pooled bright and early that very first monday all day i imagine the catastrophe that lie ahead when he hopped into the squall um into the car after pick-up lane however he barely remembered being tested he assured his siblings that it was very easy not at all scary and he never once felt anxious

12:10 felt anxious felt anxious um so i just wanted to say on behalf of a hot mess mom who managed to drop the ball in preparing her kids for the program um to thank amanda because he was one of the very first kids and uh it was great thank you grease if it makes you feel any better i’m a hot mess mom too

12:33 i’m right there with you thank you reese kim day

12:40 hi uh kim day 18 liberty road i’ll keep it brief i just want to say um after attending the budget subcommittee meeting this morning i have to admit i’m a little disappointed as well um it was really hard to follow that meeting because none of the materials were shared you guys met in person um and i don’t know if you realize this but you spent an entire almost hour and not one number was actually like shared during that meeting so i think that it would just be so helpful i’m just i guess i’m encouraging you to i hope that this evening’s discussion and the future discussions are actually substantive around this budget and you’re sharing more of the information around kind of what we’re considering sacrificing if we’re not going to go for an override next year or this year i’m sorry so

13:27 i just encourage you to share as much as possible and so that if you need support to go for an override that you have it and if you decide not to that the community understands what we’re sacrificing thank you thank you kim

13:46 all right um that will move us along to our in-person learning and student learning time update john these materials are in a school committee website packet for people that would like to follow along can everyone hear me by the way thumbs up sarah yeah okay thank you um so i’m not going to belabor these first dozen or so slides because they’re directly from a presentation the commissioner gave to superintendents yesterday but i do think that their uh interesting background knowledge for why jesse is making the decisions they’re making right now

14:31 as i said last week the commissioner was looking for the authority to shift away from remote and hybrid learning models and begin a fuller return to in person he presented that and got that approval last friday afternoon and so phase one is april fifth or elementary schools k to five or k to four phase two is middle school and that would be set at target date of april 28th and unfortunately phase three continues to uh remain tva for return our plan uh that we talked about last week this is just a reminder that our elementary school students are starting monday and they will have half days until april 5th and then april 5th they

15:17 will return in full days five days a week in person instruction our second phase is for our middle school and high school on april 5th they will begin with half days and then when we return from the april vacation they will be in person five days a week full school days this is the part of the presentation where i spent a good deal of time uh patting the department on the back for what they have done to help individual school districts and you see they’ve released over 225 pages of guidance provided 10 days and he was quick to point out we were the only state that provided that 10-day professional development window for educators at the beginning of the year talked about the fund and a

16:04 national leader for pool testing which about 50 percent of the schools across the commonwealth are participating in now provided some information on covid numbers what the map looked like in january and then what it looks uh what it looked like in february i would imagine that the march graphic will look markedly different as well no they’re not letting jamie tedford in and i said he should have gone with my garage can you uh mute yourself please so the so the vaccine rollout and the commissioner did announce uh that um when we were meeting yesterday that the governor has prioritized four dates for educators for the mass vaccination

16:51 sites across the commonwealth um so uh vaccination continues to be a big part of the return uh to instruction process he talked about the medical community and having a letter signed by over 300 doctors uh advocating for the safety of distancing that the department has been promoting i talked about a study that appeared that again talked about the distancing um he provided a graph of schools that have used three to six foot uh distancing requirement where i think it’s important for our families that parents will still have the choice for their children to learn remotely through the end of this school year next year

17:38 all signals are that they are preparing for a full in-person five-day a week model of instruction but for this year if families are in the remote bottle they can stay in the remote bottle districts can apply for a waiver a spoiler alert we are not applying for a waiver they made it very clear that they they intend to make it very arduous for districts to get a waiver we do not qualify for the waivers and i do not want the department coming out walking the buildings with us measuring our classrooms we are able to safely return in person and that is what we intend to do talked about the transitional services that they’ll be willing to

18:23 provide districts guidance like i said they released a guidance document on tuesday and followed it up with a call with the commissioner on wednesday technical support staffing supports and funding looking ahead he was talking about uh learning gaps and closing gaps with the equity focus some of the things that are going to be done this spring continue to provide supports for mental health um the fafsa application for college i guess the completion rate of that is down remarkably across the commonwealth and he’s really encouraging uh districts to support families and getting that completed and then uh mcas for students who have not met the competency determination uh talked about robust summer programming that they would like to

19:11 launch and then again back for the fall plan for a full return to in person across all grade levels some takeaways from the guidance document school committee vote um because this often comes up in our conversations what triggers a vote of the school committee because it is a return to full in person to adopt that a vote of the school committee is not necessary remote learning should be provided only if parents opt out i’m going to say our approach 7 to 12 because our k-6 have already collected this information from families to prepare for monday but 7 to 12 i would like to be able to give matt and dan

19:57 the green light to continue with the system they have been using that if a family wishes to change their learning model that they need to let them know so in essence no news is you’re staying with your current model and the families that are in remote learning i think it will cause anxiety for people to have to complete a survey saying what model they want because they’ve been in a certain model some of them have vacillated between but to continue with a system that is known to our families that they’re comfortable with that do you wish to change your current model and if you do not respond you’re going to stay in that current model that’s the approach we took six too thank you okay

20:44 um model change guidance it’s very rare uh that you get to uh say that desi provided support in the ways that you needed it but they do recognize that the programmatic shift that is happening will trigger changes in classroom learning it could trigger teacher assignments and that the remote option that districts currently have in place could change because of the implementation of these requirements um in addition after families make their choice um the district might be required uh might require a reasonable transition period and i would like to say something that’s going to be in the weekly update tomorrow

21:31 please do not employ a wait and see approach so if seven to 12 families are intending to change their model matt and dan need to know that information now so that they can begin planning i worry that people will look and say okay we’re going to watch and see what happens april 5th to april 26th and if it looks good then april 26th we’ll go for the full days the three weeks that we have or the two weeks before the april vacation april 5th to the vacation we need to know what’s happening on april 5th so matt and dan are going to be releasing that uh model change or request tomorrow and when families elect to make that change

22:18 that’s sticking if you wait until the 26th that four to six week window takes us to the end of the year and so i just want to be very transparent very clear that families need to starting tomorrow and matt and dan will each issue that clear guidance uh which they have done each quarter along the way but because this is a major shift um i want to make sure that people know what they’re not signing up for or signing for so just so i’m clear please the court it’s the quarter it is the quarter so the quarter change is on the fifth reporter changes and so what we’ve said all along is that we can only make changes in this case at order change time so that is consistent that is the process

23:04 yeah and i think the important thing to note is that we’re having two shifts but there’s not going to be two options so if you are coming in for five half days you’re telling us that you’re okay with coming in for five full days because that is our intent

23:22 so questions um which we apparently moved on to i guess my first question is the april 2016. yeah um can you talk me through that because i thought when we left it last week we were aiming for everyone in full day on april 5th so just talking through that change it’s the same that we did for k-6 for making sure that people can transition back to the building and passing times particularly at the high school middle for the middle school high school moving that many students double the amount of students through the building getting people comfortable with um being in the building with the spacing i just think that it’s a good model for staff and students and it really is two weeks

24:08 because we go on the april vacation of uh it’s not similar it’s not the same as the 8-6 so i’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this um because i think it was probably pretty obvious um let me just try to say things and focus on the weight room um that i was more in favor of starting at half days like kind of doing what we’ve done all through this like this continual step-by-step process um and you know i there was there’s been a lot we’ve gotten a lot of information even though i said last week you know the the 50 50 split on some of the data that we got from 7 to 12 was like not what i was hoping for because it didn’t give us a lot of direction it still did give us information

24:53 and it tells us that 50 percent of our students are are kind of like meh on making any more changes um and i heard this loud and clear last week as i sat in the high school sac as well um that of the students there and i don’t remember how many students there were but there was you know a handful that all but one were in favor of really just kind of riding out the ear so i stepped back in the days after last week’s meeting and kind of thought about all right how do we balance this because we know as as adults and as you know a part of this system that our kids are going to do best when they’re in the classrooms five full days a week that that’s where we need to go to but what

25:40 we’re what we have in our hands is we’re hearing like that there’s concern around that like that that’s not exactly where our students heads are at so how do we help our students get there and so i just started you know and i know i sent you guys a couple of articles today i don’t know who got a chance to read them but the there was one and it was an opinion article but i watched this woman on a news program the other day and so you know she talked about kind of what she’s seen as a physician and and it i think as a therapist it mirrors this that when we’re we all know we talked a lot about like we’re dealing with a trauma situation that every single one of us has experienced this trauma for this past year our kids are certainly dealing with it so if we think about you know when someone’s dealing with a trauma and

26:26 trying to get back to normal after some whatever traumatic event they’ve had it’s not throw them right back in you know we need to take this this step-by-step approach in sort of getting you know kind of walking people into where we towards where we want to go where we want them to be um thanks um and i think that’s what we need to do here and so not doing anything and tossing them back in with in the fall is not the right way to go either but and and i think you know just sort of riding this year out even if it’s half days i don’t know that that’s the right thing either but i think we need to do this intentionally and with direction and slowly um you

27:11 know or not slowly but with proceed with caution you know the this this doctor that i watched she used the analogy of you know it’s we’re not like and this was just generally not in particular the schools but we’re not gonna just all jump off this cliff of like oh yeah hope it’s over and now we go back to normal that we all probably have some layers of anxiety around like the idea of hugging someone again of you know being in a restaurant and all just kind of mingling again and so our kids have these same anxieties and she compared it to like an on-ramp and that we have to start on this on-ramp back into normal and not just you know go zero to 100. and that really stuck with me um and i think that is that’s the approach that i would like to see us take

27:58 so i appreciate everything you said and i don’t disagree um you know i think getting back to some sense of normalcy is going to be a transition period for sure i guess where i was coming from is i also heard you know what dan and matt said about their students and what you said about the sac and what i took away from it was that the students don’t want a lot of changes that was one of specifically the feedback on the amtn because they felt like they knew another change was coming didn’t want to go through multiple changes and that’s what we’re offering here now maybe it’s not changes maybe it’s a slow roll into the ultimate change but i guess that’s where my head was coming at like they specifically said we don’t want any one change and even that’s a hard one to accept so that’s fair

28:43 that’s fair that’s fair i guess i mean

28:56 um yes i so i under i understand what john is saying about how we need people to commit and give us the data sooner rather than later because you know planning needs to go into this um and we need to know that we’re prepared um but we also need to give people a really clear idea of what choice they’re making and at least i’m not clear yet on what the the like choosing one means versus the other for example um you know have we written to people and told them that or put it in putting it in written writing anywhere that um you know this will mean six feet this will mean three feet um things like that i think that’s that’s pertinent data that people really need to make an educated decision because i think once we give them

29:42 what the plan is we have to stick to that plan and we can’t switch it because we can’t hold people to a decision if we’re changing you know what that decision entails and this kind of moves me to the next point where i see here it says you highlighted in the model change guidance the remote learning option may look different than the model offered prior to the implementation of these new requirements so some people who chose to stay in the remote option or making that choice are doing it for the continuity of you know schedule continuity services things like that so if they made that choice based on you know keeping things on one path and then we say well actually we’re going to change that path again we’re changing the parameters that people use to make their decisions so i

30:28 just want to put out there in writing like very bulleted this is what is entailed in you know this choice this is what’s entailed in this choice you know if you stay remote you will have if you’re a remote family you stay remote there will be no schedule changes or there will be schedule changes and this is what they are so i think that we just have to be really clear on what people are choosing before we can ask them to choose it will come as no surprise to you sarah that matt and dan are sitting like this above their computers waiting to hit send until after tonight’s school committee meeting outlining for their individual schools what the uh program will look like understanding that if there is a whole

31:14 a title wave of people moving one way or the other it will be just as desi highlighted there or i highlighted what jesse said in green or in the yellow it might look different so they have to be prepared that in quarter one to quarter two quarter two to quarter three they might have had a delta of 15 movement if that delta now becomes 50 they may have to have a press two sections of a class into one to allow that teacher to teach a remote section so they need numbers in order to make those decisions and there is no possible way they can foreshadow that yeah i just want to make sure where it says remote learning option may look

32:00 different that it’s not that you know for instance it’s all year been that this is like this is the way remote learning functions that you know your your music teacher may change or this may change but the functionality and the schedule of it and that that continuum of it isn’t changing because for k through 6 they made this decision and now there’s here like we’re reading right here that it may change and that those people may have chose differently if they realize that like their schedule is going to now be different or something like that no i don’t think it has for k-6 i think the principles data six have communicated that out very clearly and that actually came up in a conversation this morning to make sure

32:47 um that any family who their teacher was going to change or that has been notified of that so that monday a child doesn’t show up and say what do you mean i have mrs smith i’ve had mr jones all year yeah i asked that question at reopening this morning to just make sure that that was clarified in that um just you know so we knew that those those announcements had been made for that for that chunk of kids i can just tell you firsthand that like our kids are hearing from their teachers that they’re no longer going to be their teacher like they’re not they’re not parents aren’t hearing it kids are hearing it first and it’s class setting so that’s that’s just the way in reality is unfolding um but that’s a parent issue not a school committee issue so i’m dealing with that as a parent but um you know i just want to make sure that

33:32 things let me just say sarah that’s troubling to me to hear that because that’s not the way that should happen and so i i am unaware that that’s happening so and that’s why in fairness to you it’s a parent issue so it doesn’t go right for me to the superintendent you know i’m going through the channels so that’s a separate issue but i just want to make the point that i want to make sure that people know what they’re choosing and you’ve answered to that so i thank you for it so i do want to phone a friend because i see matt fox has raised his hand in through the chair with your permission i would like to allow matt because i’m sure that he has a clarifying for what will happen

34:12 i just uh sorry i have my hands down i i just wanted to respond to um sarah fox’s question about the schedule and and remote students at our level well my level in particular i speak to my school every single scheduled change has impacted uh also our remote students so every time we have changed the schedule this year our remote students have changed with us because with our model our teachers are teaching you know on two different teams one of the seventh and one the eighth are teaching four in-person classes and one remote class so i can’t so we can’t have that remote class have a different schedule than everybody else because it physically wouldn’t work and so we’ve been communicating that with the entire you know with families the entire time in the entire way through and with anybody

34:58 shifting into the remote program they know that that’s how we sold this from the beginning of the school year so there will be a schedule change for everybody in my building equally you know it will take place for everybody remote or in person so i just want to throw that out there that it will happen seventh grade seventh and eighth grade thank you for answering that and then at the high school level um we’ve received some emails and i i don’t i don’t claim to understand how a lot happens with schedules there um but for instance what what one of the concerns was for children who or for students who are in vhs or ingenuity if they were to opt in to take this full in-person learning that their transcript

35:45 would reflect a withdrawal is there a way to make it so those on their transcript it doesn’t say that that perhaps it could say transfer instead because for you know a junior that is or that is looking to apply to colleges having five withdrawals is is very meaningful even with the like you know star asterisk next to it an explanation yeah sarah couldn’t agree more with you um had that conversation with dan bauer today uh as a former high school principal part of the challenge is state reporting after october first if anything changes we have to report it out to the state what i’ve asked matt to do what i’ve asked dan to do is see if locally

36:33 we have more control over what the local transcript which is what would be sent out to colleges i don’t want to commit to anything this evening but that is very important to me and i know it’s important to mr bauer thank you both for looking into that because i know that that was prohibiting some students from making that transition yep

36:56 forward any other questions so yeah so i guess i know megan’s not here i guess i just want to make sure because our our you know our motion last week was to bring everybody back full days on the 5th so are we are we okay with with what dr bucky is suggesting you know as these surveys are going out and just you know wanting to really have everything um ironed out it gives two more weeks three more weeks if you count the vacation week for vaccination which i know is very important to our educators so on your vote screen here i know and it makes reason it makes sense why we don’t need to vote in this learning model but what i wonder is do we’re at the middle in high school we’ll be going to three will we need to

37:41 vote to change on the moa because that’s still a legally binding contract it may just be as easy as taking the vote but i mean you do need that change correct we continue to negotiate with mea on that yes we had we did a really great session with mea the other day okay but at some point you’ll need that from us right well if it’s changed like you’ll need you’ll need that from us that doesn’t just get that box doesn’t get just get checked because the commissioners commissioners order um it’s not as clear-cut as that because there have been decisions in other communities with moa’s and because the commissioner has changed the model that hasn’t it isn’t settled yet so i

38:27 don’t want to give a definitive answer for that but i feel very good about the conversations that are happening with mea and where we will end with that okay all right uh uh dr bucky i have a question so when we say full days is it for um k-6 isn’t five five days of the week and for the high school is is it five days of the week for half days it is just john you mentioned vaccinations do you have a feel for where we’re at in terms of getting our stuff vaccinated i know that was kind of a big push the past couple

39:12 weeks yes uh i hear positive reports almost every day of people getting appointments or getting their first shot or getting the johnson johnson vaccination and people were over the moon with the governor’s announcement that there would be four dates specific and those will be happening in march and in april leading up to our transition date of april 26 for full days for seven to twelve so you haven’t had any concerns with teachers i have not yeah i know there were there was a couple of uh parent groups and pcos that were that were really helping and i think the last last number i heard floating around was um earlier this week was around 250 appointments for staff and in the district so a great article

40:00 in the cover of today’s uh paper about teacher vaccination groups and i think the number was up over 400 in the article today um um i use a rough number of 500. i would well again that seems like a logical assessment um you mentioned the survey that dan and matt are ready to send out um do we know when the like what’s the deadline for parents getting back to us because i’m assuming this question what were they kind of really need to know that to do the a lot of the work right because it will

40:46 require some you know changes so i think it will be a very tight turnaround and they will communicate that out families on the survey what the deadline is but i would anticipate that it’s under a week and i think it’s important to know too that we know that we have to give that the less than six feet but no less than three feet designation for the seven to twelve that you know and not all classrooms are gonna all be at three feet but that we know that we can’t do it in some classes without going to that tree foot um so that i think you know just to kind of sarah’s point like that needs to be clear that that if you’re coming in person or staying in person that there

41:32 is a probability that you will have your child will be at three feet but in some class or another um yeah i guess my question was more around the timeline to make sure that then there’s enough time to do all the planning and work that they need to do to get that april 15th right yeah and i think you know given that there’s concern from our students at that level as well i think similarly to our younger learners where the desks were brought in and the classrooms were set up i think it would probably be helpful for this group as well if we can pull that off um so that they can kind of see and then it gives them the ability to know how many of their uh classmates are going to be in that class so you know if they’re in a class with 19 kids they’re going to know that you know it’s going to look like this and they’re going to be spread like this

42:20 whereas if they’re in a class with 27 then it’s going to look tighter and you will have someone next to you um and i think it’s very important to note that whenever possible classrooms are going to go outside um to learn and that lunch is the same way and that at lunch the because it’s unmasked it will be at six feet so that you know we have like that’s another layer of planning obviously um but lunch will be at six feet because that is the safety guidance yeah i’m like um yes yeah and they’re going to be posted on back together we can really see how much space at the lower levels um having both those works back so it was great

43:05 was great was great and i think john um and i think sarah you may have um wanted to say something can we you know you you referenced that lancet article you know and that one is somewhat old there’s a great new article coming out of the new york public schools this week about um transmission within school or the lack thereof um can we start to put up some of that information so that we can get this you know all the stuff that we’re consuming as we’re completely you know consumed with getting our kids back in the classrooms that we can put that out there for the community so that they can kind of start to wrap their heads around it start to you know learn the new data that’s been released since the fall and you know kind of all the ways

43:50 that science has and is showing us you know that it’s safe and you know i know dusty’s you know hitting this three foot really hard and so if we can kind of point out why that data is good and why we’re now leaning on it i think it’s important to like you communicate the data that we’re using at least you know what is the data that we’re using this presentation has a lot of data in it it’s available to the public and yeah that’s a good good idea too this is uh materials correct i just you know wanted to say that i over the last couple of weeks since we’ve taken the vote and um i’ve had a chance to talk to a lot of people um both staff and parents that have

44:36 students and i i was i guess i was surprised to learn but not surprised that due to the staff and the dedicated people that we have that there are many many teachers in the high school that are already having cohort a in class and cohort b is zooming in and we’ve we’ve talked about this that you know it was it couldn’t be a requirement or maybe that we didn’t have the ability to provide that but i have heard that there’s and that there’s many teachers that have been doing that so when a is in school you know b is zooming in and then on tuesday when b is in class a is zooming in

45:23 um you know throughout the high school and i just i can’t recognize all those teachers because i don’t know every teacher that’s doing it but i want to thank those teachers that have taken that extra step an initiative to um you know to present that that kind of learning and i also think that i i agree that we need to kind of merge onto the highway but for the high school students i i think it will be a little bit of a different merge um you know the fast lane you know for some of the younger kids it might be 75 miles an hour but for some of the high school kids i think for those students that have already been in this environment they they already know who’s in their class they know who the other cohort is and um

46:10 and um and um so when they get to the point where all 17 or 20 kids are in the classroom at the same time they’ve had an opportunity to sort of get a feel for what that looks like so well like i said while i can’t recognize the teachers that are doing that i was um i was really pleased to hear those comments and they were very positive comments that you know dave this this is happening in the high school and it was and people were positive about it they were very positive about you know what’s happening in high school and i can’t speak for for um the vets but um the comments i heard were related to the high school and i wanted to recognize that appreciate that yep um yes so

46:56 you know we heard a tiny tiny bit about you know what next fall is going to look like and i know that that’s for other discussions but we also know that we’re legally obligated to educate all of our students and there will be a you know subgroup that cannot return to in-person learning so if i i’d like to see us as soon as possible try to identify what that looks like for two reasons for people’s planning but also for budget because if we we’re legally obligated to provide them with an appropriate option you know we’re gonna need to know what the budget ramifications of that are how many students fall into that category because you know like we all know we are locked

47:42 into this number and if we don’t identify it and incorporate it into our budget we could take a pretty big hit that and this is

47:55 one more time so i said if we don’t i if we don’t uh put the plan out there right now and get you know and start to identify what students fall into this we could take first of all we’re doing a disservice to our students and their families for planning but financially we could take a really big hit because as we know this is an unfunded mandate we have to we’re legally required to provide the appropriate um placement for these students and as we know medical placements are very high if it’s a one-to-one in the home that can be very high so we need to start identifying our demographic our target demographic and then we need to decide if we’re not going to provide an in-house program like what we’re doing this year how are we going to fund it and what is the

48:40 mechanism because that has to be part of our budget otherwise our budget starts off on day one with a deficit jesse providing a lot of guidance on that because those questions are certainly coming up across districts wondering how to begin planning for that so the point we’ll take in sarah thank you all right all right anything else bunch of priorities sorry i just had one question and i don’t know you might not have enough information but on one of the slides from jesse talked about staffing supports did they give any details on that that’s one of those guidance sports coming okay all right i’d be interested to hear more about that

49:27 budget priorities um i will say something that i saw in a budget presentation given to this group last year this is a very iterative process that what’s discussed on march 11 is not the final budget and so what was discussed at budget subcommittee this morning was catching was sharing what the leadership team had done in taking the next step in the process so there’s nothing on the chopping block floor there’s nothing that has been eliminated it is an initial conversation that was kind of an interesting way to have the district leaders look at the budget from a big picture perspective so we each principal or director met

50:14 with michelle and me earlier in the fall or winter and talked about their their specific sector and what they needed in their budget because the budget is needs-based and then potential ways for them to cover that what we did yesterday was say these are the 20 things that through the budget workshops were presented to the school committee we don’t have a number from town right now so there really isn’t anything being eliminated at this point but if you had to rank order them in terms of what you thought was the most important thing being uh pursued as a need for this budget

50:59 what would that be and so then we went around had everybody share what their number one priority was and the justification for that and there was really good conversation around the budget and around the numbers and the people that have been here for a number of years prioritizing something saying i know this person has been asking for this in the budget for two years i would be willing not to pursue this and that sort of collegial conversation did everyone agree on the number one priority no and somebody’s number one but somebody else is 14 and so this list that you see before you

51:45 is not these are the things that will be funded and these are the things that will not be funded we are not funding our operational budget through covid monies we are looking at the budget and awaiting town or direction and looking at if we’re asked to make decisions what are our rank order priorities for those on march 10 march 17 we may get additional information that changes it i think if you look at what was presented to you last march and what was actually funded in this year’s budget it’s a canyon between those two

52:31 and so i would just caution us not to think okay this is the stuff that will be funded this is the stuff that will be cut um and that perspective from leaders in looking at it i thought was a productive exercise for us to undertake and if you talk to a principal and said is this your priority list they would say no not at all i have listed and so this is really just the aggregate of what people talked about as their most important as the rank order so um you see the teachers at the ground because that building is open and we will have a preschool but there will be

53:17 some savings there because preschool is tuition and so there are so many variables and i really like bill’s uh articulation that this is an iterative process and this is march 11 and we have a meeting with the town budget subcommittee on tuesday of next week and i’ll get to the calendar later but um this is the second slide of those budget priorities prioritized that maybe i should have put in parentheses at this time i guess um you know i’m sure everyone else will have questions but i just wanted to you know highlight the fact that john mentioned

54:02 that this is just a ranked order now from his leadership team which i think you know to be honest i really appreciate the approach that he took to get there um and just because we had comments i really the conversation that we had specifically around curriculum was just as a result of the conversation that john’s leadership team had so uh i guess i really hope that the you know it sounds like the impression was that we’re not funding curriculum that was not the intent of that conversation at all so i just want to clarify that for whoever you know is listening it was more just around the needs and and where we are with that so you know i do want to highlight if there’s nothing you know a the subcommittee does not top anything

54:48 anyway that’s for the full committee to be listing like what is our priority and what do we want to fund we’re not even talking about those things right now it’s just prioritizing and you know getting more information from the leadership team i will say that the budget subcommittee did direct me today that asked neon murphy as assistant superintendent to come and speak to the math piece in particular and why she thinks there could be flexibility in the consideration not that it won’t be funded but if we need to take a tiered approach to it or a phased approach to it for her to share her thinking behind it and also her thinking around because she’s looking at curriculum across the district so how does that fit into her long-term plans for that sarah

55:35 so i i too was on the call this morning and i just you know was there as a spectator and listen because i like to you know [Music] be it know what’s going on um and it is march 11th but there was talk of you know our budget hearing we’re gonna kick it back but even when we kick it back that’s three weeks out and to be perfectly honest in a budget process three weeks out it’s not a lot of time so we’re getting close to the wire we need to get some work done we haven’t moved the needle so the way i see this happening there’s one of a few options and i would request that on tuesday’s meeting the very clear question is asked is the number we’re working off of that

56:20 the town number their number is there wiggle room are we going to get some more because my sense has been all along that they have been abundantly clear that there is no more water in the west that is the number and that’s where we stand i could be wrong with my interpretation so i would like that you i think you are i i okay yeah i i’m gonna ask that i’m allowed to finish my statements because i think that sometimes yeah um so if we can get that very clearly you know asked and answered that would be really helpful is this the final number because like i said one of the few things is going to happen that’s not the final number and they can move us to move the needle towards that you know i’m going to round and say million dollar delta

57:07 maybe they can move that needle maybe they can’t we need that answer to start if they can’t move the needle you know we reference bill and his infinite wisdom he was abundantly clear anybody who wants to watch the budget hearing from last year it’s up he was abundantly clear he said we have tightened our expense lines as much as we can there’s you’re not getting any more money and pencils the only place left to go is this and i see john we’re shaking his head yes the only place left to go is staff lines so that leaves us if we’re not moving the needle which we have to determine next week that leaves us two options we either start dropping priorities or we start dropping staff to fund these priorities and those it’s just a mathematical

57:56 equation those are literally the only there’s that’s the only way you get numbers to move um so i think we need to start being very clear about where we are where that needle sits and when when we find out where it sits we need to start rolling up our sleeves and making really asking tough questions and getting tough answers and and being honest because what i i’m not okay with doing is going into a budget hearing with the idea that this needle’s still moving the number we present to people at a budget hearing in all good conscience should be the number we’re voting on you don’t open a hearing and have people discuss something and then change it sorry i appreciate that and i was nodding my head because bill used pencils i always use copy paper that

58:42 we’re not going to make up the budget in copy paper i had my regular meeting with jason this week and asked the pointed question are we where we need to be do we do you have the information you need right now from the schools in our process and he assured me that we are not behind and that there he is beginning his work on the town side and so i said you know given that this is my first budget i want to make sure that we’re progressing appropriately and you have the information that you need and he assures me that he does and so i am being open i am being honest and transparent and the communication will continue on tuesday with the budget subcommittee and the uh

59:29 fincom representative and right or the selectmen representative so um david i’ve interrupted you absolutely no no you’re you’re 100 right and you you said it in your statement that it’s an iterative process and um you know in the years i was on the finance committee and the years i’ve been on the school committee project it’s no different you know you start at this level and you start and you work down through the process uh i think the comment was made this morning at our meeting you know you you go to do a renovation in your home and you you might start at this level and you realize you can only come to this level that that’s just what budgeting is and i think everybody understands the challenges that this entire town’s been through due to kovid

1:00:17 um you know so we had covid first and then we lost our town finance director so we’ve been without a finance director since christmas michelle abele stepped in volunteered her time to uh help out jason to get him uh to keep the town moving forward we you know we have a new finance director on board i believe it’s his it’s his um third week on board but you know i’ll be the first one to say you know the light in abbott hall in jason silva’s office has been on very very late many many nights in the last two months and so um it is a little bit just a little bit different this year sarah in that

1:01:03 moving that number and knowing you know is there is there wiggle room we’re still waiting for some of those final numbers and and you may have in your conversations with jason you know they’re getting closer to that and so hopefully by tuesday we can we can get some more clarity and it’s a good point we do need to have that clarity of you know how much can we move off of off of this number but i i think also as a committee we also need to give them a little bit more time as we’ve tried to we’re adjusting our schedule for presenting our budgets and what our budget hearing is going to be based on that and the other piece is the latest thing i’m still hearing i mean i i talked with ben berman briefly he’s checking to find out if um you know

1:01:48 if town meeting will still happen on you know in the first tuesday in may and as we’re hearing right now that’s the date that we’re working towards so that’s why we’re going through the calendar to try and stay to you know a very tight budget to be able to get everything uh nailed down but i i think we’ll have more clarity in in the coming weeks and then you’re right it might shorten the time frame sarah for us to be able to to make decisions but that will be helpful you know to know for sure brings us to the budget calendar um we did make some changes today and so i wanted the committee to have the uh update i had a question mark on the 30th of march i had written that down without anything next to it and i didn’t know if

1:02:34 we scheduled something for that or not yeah so we um we kind of worked backwards from the you know presentation to fincom on april 12th and again we’ll confirm that with them on tuesday but that’s kind of our working assumption right now so working back from that that would require us to vote on for eight um which would be a meeting ad for everybody um we would have the public hearing on august i mean sorry august april 1st which is already scheduled school committee meeting um and then we’d also look to add a school committee meeting either on march 24th or march 30th um prior you know prior to because we want

1:03:21 to meet prior to doing the public hearing and we don’t have a normally scheduled um community meeting that thursday and there’s a building meeting that thursday which they’ve already kind of rescheduled for for us a few times so um that’s what that’s one question for us the 24th or the 30th and continuing to work back we’ll have a budget subcommittee meeting on the 23rd we have our regularly scheduled meeting school committee meeting on the 18th and we have our which is next thursday and we have our joint meeting with the town next tuesday the 16th so really for this committee um it’s making sure everyone’s aware of public hearing we’re working toward first april 1st very coincidentally and we would need to add two meetings

1:04:08 one father the 24th or the 30th and then one on all if we’re tight on time we don’t have to vote the budget before finncon votes the budget um i know that’s you know typically what they do in marblehead but most towns actually don’t do it that way um so we we definitely don’t need to do it that way so if we are tight on time i’d rather get it right for the budget hearing and if we have to kick that back to the eighth and if we have to vote after they vote then that’s what happens and i think in the past when we’ve needed more time income has moved their

1:04:54 day back as well so i’m not just it doesn’t sweat that yeah yeah and i i think to sarah’s point yeah we can we can absolutely do that um if if we need to but this is kind of the working assumption right now but i just wanted to make sure that we get the eighth and whatever that meeting in march is on people’s calendars so you can plan accordingly okay so the other thing that we talked about um this morning at budget subcommittee and i don’t want to go too deeply into the weeds because this was uh part of the leadership team meeting yesterday looking at enrollment projections but uh bill did provide you a slide last year this is actually from the budget presentation from last year um anticipating that there would be a decrease in enrollment

1:05:40 and i think he put this together based on the october 1st 2019 numbers and then the nasdaq projections that there was going to be a 120 student decrease without coping and of course we know the numbers were markedly different as a result this is a slide that i shared with the budget subcommittee uh back in january the nasdaq projection uh for uh k-12 through 2030 and you see that steady decline uh across uh the years um

1:06:17 these are the enrollment uh projections that we are currently working with that the leadership team that dan and matt in the elementary school principals based on uh a survey that we did where we asked people that left the district this year if they were intending to come back um and then alongside of what nesdek is projecting was projecting for us in that report that i shared in january and so you see nasdaq said that next year’s enrollment would likely be 25.66 we’re looking at 26.95 and i think it’s important to point out pre-k numbers are not in there so that 26.95

1:07:04 will be likely uh up over um just over 2700 which is right around uh i think we’re at 2691 right now in the district what i thought was interesting thank you all this information is great um was that we’re still off by a decent chunk from bill’s projections from last year based on like the birth rates and things like that so um i’m glad to hear you use this information the information about those surveys about coming back in the district did you leave yourself a buffer at all for the people that just didn’t answer we did absolutely

1:07:48 what did it i mean i i find nasdaq’s numbers really interesting do we know where like what they looked at what how their numbers differ from ours and then i can you go back one slide so i can see bills or two it’s that survival cohort methodology that we submit to them our october first or our october first sims report data we submitted uh that information to them in december this year they had about a three week turnaround window this is what they provided bill a year ago i also have the information i shared that out committee uh as well in december when that information came in and they slice and dice it every which way so they give you your uh elementary numbers your middle school numbers your high school

1:08:34 high school high school where there’s going to be changes in enrollment or anticipated changes so they really do a comprehensive job i can’t begin to tell you the voodoo science behind it but but that is an actual process of looking at uh survival cohort methodology do we know what’s how their numbers sort of stack up against what numbers really come in you know kind of across the districts that they do this for um people continue to use them so i would

1:09:11 you had asked me this morning to do the comparative numbers for what we have this year or what his dick asked or anticipated we would have so i can create a slide for that for next thursday if that would be helpful sure yeah but i think also in that report they sent us they kind of talk about what their um positivity rate you know like what their rate is in terms of the accuracy rate okay yes okay over time um and it was pretty high but also like i remember reading that report how much information they looked at for mobile head specific data so it’s really compromised that’s really interesting we will take i’m sorry sir go ahead oh no no i think

1:09:57 i actually interrupted you john so we will the administrative team has taken that next deeper dive into sectioning and looking at what average class size will be and right now you know we have five classrooms at the brown elementary school and four classrooms at the glover at the grade levels and does that make sense to have five sections of a grade level if there are only 80 children anticipated to be whereas in another grade level you have five sections where there could be 105 anticipated and so that’s where some staffing decisions may have to be made we are not there right now

1:10:45 so one thing i’d asked bill about last year and he hadn’t done it last year i’d like us to start moving towards trying to do this um maybe this isn’t the year to add one more thing to the plate but um to reach out to the local preschools i know some schools some um do it like i think swampscott reaches out to the local preschools and just says what do you have in your roster what are you hearing um is coming up to us and um he kind of joked that you know this chart has served him well but the wolverton family was gonna which is my family’s name it’s like gonna completely skew everything we’re looking at right now um and he’s kind of right but um i i do know that you know those preschool

1:11:31 teachers have our directors have a really good handle on you know a lot of kids are getting red shirted this year because we’ve gotten a lot of repeat enrollment for that tk year or the they’re more moving on this year so um it’s a good resource and in marblehead they do have uh one group that meets monthly of the directors of all the preschools that you might be able to just tap into that one meeting to ask but i think it might be a good source to kind of a litmus test of where the enrollment really might hit for k that’s great that’s a great suggestion thank you sarah could you connect me with that director’s meeting do you know anything about it definitely yeah the preschool crowd is definitely

1:12:18 my crowd okay okay i definitely can make that connection for you i appreciate it i think actually my mother-in-law was the one that started it years and years ago so i can do that thank you and that’s all i have other than the uh no i’m going the wrong way lord the marblehead covid uh mental health task force the board of health had asked me to share this information so i wanted uh to include that as a slide i did tell elaine at reopening this morning that we would make this information available uh for citizens that would be interested in participating in the marvel headquarters yeah so i was on that meeting the other

1:13:03 night um you know dave michelle gottlieb from the board of health is going to chair this committee for this task force um she’s done some really great work on it you know they they really want it to be representative of the community um you know these two these two citizens um thoughts could be you know parents uh for sure um they definitely are hopeful of that um and then um you know they really want to be able to look at it throughout the lifespan of like how how covet has impacted all people not just the schools even though we know that you know the schools are kind of one of the pieces that created the need for this sort of the concerns that they’ve been hearing from parents as well you know which are similar concerns that we’ve been hearing

1:13:50 so um you know it’s just it’s another great way to to get involved and make an impact one thing that michelle said at that meeting which i thought was so spot on and so good for anybody that’s thinking of sending a letter of intent in for this is that history has shown us and all studies have shown us that when we come up to these cr uh these you know moments of crisis that the mental and emotional effects of it last way longer than the actual crisis itself so this is looking to be in for my interpretation and sarah correct me if i’m wrong this is looking to be a task force that kind of meets over a longer period of time because the what the work they’re going to need to do

1:14:35 is going to be beyond just you know the stop point of this pandemic as we know it yeah absolutely um you know i don’t raise my hand in those meetings um throughout my meetings but um you know i would go so far as to say we were in a mental health crisis before covid um and you know their mental health services weren’t supported well enough throughout this country before and so it’s you know it’s only going to get exponentially worse so um it’s called the covid um mental health task force but i you know they did not they specifically talked about not setting an end date for this task force um and so you know it from my viewpoint i would hope that it goes well beyond covid and and sort of uh working with that um because there is definitely a need

1:15:20 um i want to just jump back really quickly because i forgot lisa had asked me to mention the volunteer piece to the reopening aspect of everything um i apologize we’re gonna hop back a little bit um that that when the volunteers are utilizing the website link and and then corey at marbleheadschools.org that we are because these volunteers are going to be with kids sort of on their own that we are going to have to have all volunteers uh fingerprinted as well so there’s been just a little discussion and we looked at policy and everything this week um and so that lisa is asking and this is all up on the website at this point as well so all of this information so if anybody is interested or has questions

1:16:06 on this they can go back to the website um the marblehead schools website um and and look at all of this but that when evol so you have to go to a specific place to get your fingerprints done um identico and so there’s a code that is for our district um to be used at that point but then lisa is also asking that you email proof of your appointment um so even before you go to this same quarry at marbleheadschools.org address so um hopefully i did a good job of relaying that information for lisa it is all on the website yeah so if people aren’t interested and we really will be encouraging people to volunteer get their finger done so that they can

1:16:52 support the in-person full days when we get there and it’s my understanding that we need volunteers at every level at all grade levels yeah yeah so it’s a great school thing so sarah i’d also like to motion to open up to public comment again i know we had talked at the last meeting about trying to do it at the beginning in the end and i think a few hands are up so if i can make the motion to reopen to public comment okay sorry i had a question before we get okay all right i’m just gonna let megan ask her a question

1:17:26 next thursday next thursday okay all right so sarah made a motion for public comment anyone want to second it okay um seconded all right um sarah gold yes david harris yes megan taylor uh emily barron sarah fox yes okay so i see two hands up right now um emily do it hi everyone thank you sarah fox for motioning to open up to public comment um

1:18:02 i am no snowflake but i am so offended by the remarks made by sarah gold tonight about how you’re listening to student voices really now you’re listening to student voices and your feedback is that they don’t want to go back to school i just this is not even the pulse of our community at all and just because a teenager says to you that they’re not wanting to go back to school doesn’t mean it’s a good idea i mean our kids have been running on an empty tank with the rug pulled out from them this year with varying schedules and

1:18:50 yeah they want to stay in their pajamas at this point but that’s the point if you ask a teenager at any point of any year pandemic or not they’re not going to be wanting to go back to school i just think that michelle gottlieb has done an incredible job advocating for this mental health task force our parent body our student body is ready for our kids to transition safely back to school and i would just like to be the voice that champions that for our older high school students that need it just as much as the rest of our of our student body i just i don’t see the plan i don’t see dates i don’t see anyone advocating for the older students

1:19:35 i just would really like to hear somebody’s voice on the committee echoing that thank you thank you emily i’m sorry that you misunderstood what i said um kazzy hello cathy kendall 163 jersey i just need something clarified if you don’t mind um commissioner riley said that he would be um announcing the date that expects high schools to go full time in person sometime in april and he said he didn’t have the date now but we would get a two-week notice my question is why are we waiting for that date from desi when we know it’s coming why can’t we say our two-week notice

1:20:20 starts tomorrow if we’re only going to have two weeks to get ready for it couldn’t we make our own date couldn’t we say we will get all kids back in school like couldn’t we choose that do we really have to wait for dessie to make that decision um and i don’t have a high schooler but the high schoolers that i know they they do feel apathetic but i do feel that they they would be so much happier and so much better off back in school that was some kind of normalcy the same for the middle schoolers and that’s it cheers i just asked john to put up the slide that was up earlier tonight to walk us through what is going on so elementary schools are going back

1:21:06 half days k through five no i’m sorry k through six in our district march 15 and then full days on april 5th our middle school and high school grade 7 through 12 will go back for half days and then they will return for full days on april 26th okay i’m sorry then i misunderstood because i thought on another slide it said we were waiting for that date from destiny that is the dusty guidance and we are ahead of the guidance on all levels oh i’m so happy to hear that thank you i’m happy to report that cheers

1:21:44 all right thank you john all right um that is it so i will adjourn us at 8 22. thank you everyone