School Committee: March 30, 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.

1:04 okay we are live on youtube and emily is just posting that to the school city website

1:14 um i think we can start uh public comments so if anyone has any public comment to me please raise your hand and we’ll call on you sarah can i just pause us is lisa taking minutes for this or am i i believe lisa is she is on this call okay i just wanted to confirm thank you mm-hmm all right all right oh you good yet all right i see one hand catherine martin please remember to state your name and address for the record no problem catherine martin 29 west shore drive um i’m going to be speaking kind of just off the cuff about what i witnessed this morning at the budget subcommittee fincom meeting

2:01 so it seemed to me that everybody on the fincom and the town side of the budget clearly understood that we were not getting a penny over level funding and i want to know at what point our school committee liaisons were made aware of that and i want to know why our delta that was presented this morning went from eight hundred thousand to three hundred thousand uh without having a public meeting in between and if you could present that tracking sheet tonight that would be great so we can all understand how we made that change and it was also pretty abundantly clear that the town seemed to feel like they

2:47 told you back in november that any money over level funding would need to be an override and i don’t ever recall any of you discussing needing an override to fund the million dollar priority ask that’s been put forward to our community over the last few weeks so i i’m looking for a lot of clarity tonight in our budget update i want to see the 800 to the 300 000 tracking i want to know exactly what date you found out that we were just getting level funded because for the last three weeks we’ve all been tuning in to subcommittee meetings to talk about a priority list and these priorities are exactly what they are that’s exactly

3:33 what they are priorities these are our math curriculum this is preschool program i don’t know how many years i’m going to hear mandy murphy ask for the guidance counselor but here we are again begging for another guidance counselor at village your job is the budget and to hire and fire the superintendent your job is not to spend hours talking about naming a school and getting in the weeds about facilities meetings and ppe i was so just upset by the dereliction of duty that i saw this morning from the fincom and the selectmen and from the school committee in funding the education of our kids in this town um so i’m really hoping that tonight’s

4:21 budget update is very clear in how we’re moving forward and how we’re going to make all this work thank you catherine uh kim day don’t forget your address as well please hi kim day 18 liberty road um i’ll keep it brief i i have a lot of the same kind of input as catherine as katie did just now it would really be helpful if there could be a detailed discussion on how um the budget some kid committee came and closed that the gap quote that we have with the town um from the 800 000 plus to the 331 that was shared this morning and in looking at those budget priorities it also seems to be that the

5:07 from the last budget committee meeting i’m sorry school committee meeting um where it was presented those list of priorities there was a high school academic skills um that was included that’s no longer even on the list not let alone in that tier one bucket in that green um listing so it would just be really helpful to hear more um and kind of those how those discussions came to be and how we’re arriving at that number and regardless of that just you know facing the fact that you know the town and spincom is saying that we have to close that 331 thousand dollar gap that’s existing right now that the only way that we’re going to close that is with cuts or by um finding new revenue sources

5:53 that there is no more money coming from the town and so what does that mean like does that mean that we’re going to be having staffing cuts or programming cuts um or does that mean that we’re just going to say that we can’t fund technology or the guidance counselor at village this year i think parents and the community like really deserves to have that that level of transparency and what the trade-offs are that we’re really considering and the last thing i’ll just say is you know it’s frustrating as a parent in a town like marblehead that we’re talking about making these types of trade-offs when we don’t even know next year what we’re going to be facing with our student population coming back to school um after a year of being out in um having an education during a pandemic

6:39 and we’re not even addressing that within our budget for next year so i just really hope that the conversation this evening um answers a lot of these questions thank you thank you kim uh erin noonan erin noonan beverly ave um i just was hoping that we could get it i know that we didn’t go for decide to do the the strategic needs-based budgeting this year um and you know we were in a year of covid i guess i’m confused if we need a whole nother year of a normal year before we can start having that conversation or we’re ready to do that june 1st

7:24 june 1st june 1st for real um my second point i just wanted to make was that i love athletics and everything but i see a lot of it on the agenda i really liked us to start seeing on the agenda the learning like an agenda item around learning loss and remediation needs and what that impact is to our budget in terms of how we were going to spend the up the the money that we have dedicated from the state for this purpose thank you erin all right um i don’t see any more hands up so that will move us on to our mou with the

8:10 marblehead education association so we had this i emailed this to you guys last night after it was presented to the mea um they have ratified it so it is now in our court to vote um so does anybody have any questions on it before we move ahead with that

8:35 um so some of these elements in here and i i recognize this as a contract between the schools in the teachers union so it’s all going to be teachers union specific i get that but i just want to ask for a few clarifications because i think that parents and community members are looking for some of these same um safeguards to be put in place for our students for instance where we see air purifiers will be made available to any teacher or staff member who requests them if a parent requests them if their child doesn’t have them in their classroom but they request them to be placed in their child’s classroom will that be granted as well um and you know just just other elements i don’t need to go through every one but other elements like that where oh there

9:20 was one about um if there’s a positive now that we’re if we go if we’re below six feet and there’s a positive case the teacher in the class will be notified that there’s a positive case um will that will that safeguard be put in place for students you know you’ve heard me preach this before about you know like the strep letter or the lice letter um or is that a safety measure that we’re only giving the staff

9:47 it was only a three two four step yeah because yeah yep so it’s for staff um and the staff are not being notified and correctly if i’m wrong but i remember the staff are not being notified which student it is because that is a violation of privacy it’s just that there is a student in your class which basically they they get that information anyways which no no i totally totally agree with and that’s what the you know the strep letter is as well it’s there’s a student in your class that’s been diagnosed here are the symptoms and signs that’s you know we’ve all gotten it so um i i would like it to be considered that we give these safety these same options um and safeguards to our students as we do for faculty because it’s just common sense in my opinion

10:33 so anyone i’ll also just note this because this is this piece that matters with the less than six feet distancing is that students will be notified because they will start to become close contacts um and so anyone who is a close contact obviously you’re not going to be notified as to who um but you will be notified as a student in slash family that your child is now a close contact and now you have to quarantine i think we’re still dancing around i’m looking at for it to go out to the whole class and be treated coveted to be treated the same way any other communicable disease or communicable i mean lice isn’t a disease i don’t know what to call it but um communicable nuisance is treated in our school system

11:19 so i think i think it is what it is in the moa um that’s what’s been voted by the teachers

11:43 can it’s taken from the mass site the language that other districts have approved and since this was just specifically for the distancing and the notification requirements and it did not have any sort of a budgetary implication i didn’t want to invest in john boskin reviewing it but if we want him to review it so he’s been used to other businesses just the public can’t hear what megan is saying sorry i just asked if um if this has been run by our own legal counsel

12:17 okay no i mean i i think any any collective bargaining agreement should it’s money well spent that’s the will of the committee we can certainly invest that money i think getting it from another approved and since it doesn’t have a budgetary implication but i’m happy to run it by john fuss um i think i think i’m comfortable well i know i’m comfortable voting this with the caveat that it needs to pass you know our our legal counsel but i’m pending legal counsel approval i’m i’m happy to make that vote and then i just want to you know this will be this document will be put up on the website right it’s already it’s already in our

13:03 okay because i think that section two i think will will clear up any anything that might come back later on that says we didn’t know this you know section two i think will be helpful to to people to just have a sense of clarity

13:22 and i know that there are a lot of air purifiers out there a lot i think we just ordered another 268 so there is not a shortage of air purifier and i just don’t want to lose the force through the trees here this is a great thing for our district the agreement with mea and getting the distancing to reflect what cdc has updated the mass department of public health and getting our 7 to 12 students back in school when desi hasn’t even identified a date for high schools so you know i’m happy to do a little more due diligence on this but let’s not lose what a good thing this is for the district uh that’s a good point sorry john you’re right

14:07 um and i know you and sarah have worked you know hard with the nea and so you know it’s nice to see that collaboration so thank you also to the nea and to the teachers for you know all their work on this too so that’s a good point thank you i’d like to make a motion to approve the before aforementioned moa with the mea pending um approval by our legal counsel sarah made the motion do i have a second second emily second um i’ll just go on the record too and say that although it didn’t make it into this because it wasn’t a stipulation by the teachers the is it the best and the high school or just the high school where we’re going to put out the surgical math to be that the kids are not going to be forced to take but they will have the

14:54 ability to grab one each morning as they walk into school and get their hand sanitizer and everything so there are there are additional pieces that are going on within the building that that just simply weren’t a piece that the teachers um demanded within this if that’s a double layer or if they didn’t have it they can just get it at school uh both yeah so they can trade off their own we’ve always had math for anybody who doesn’t have one at school um but they can trade off their own if they feel safer they can double double up on their own

15:29 all right so we’ve got a motion and it’s seconded um i will roll falco sarah gold yes emily barron yes megan taylor sarah fox yes and david harris did i go digital yeah and now you’re back okay yes okay great all right wonderful that passes five to zero i mean i would we didn’t have discussion uh well i mean i didn’t chime in but i would also like to just say thanks to everyone involved in getting us to this point and i think it’s it’s an exciting um stage we all know where the pandemic has taken us and the fact that we are looking at april 5th

16:15 of being back you know full time for our younger students and half day for the high school and then after the school vacation coming back full-time i’m really excited about it i want to thank all of the administrators teachers who have had to pivot multiple times since september in working through this i’m sure that the students are excited i’ve um you know we’ve heard well each of you have students that have gone back to school how it was treated as a first day of school and how exciting it was and the different events that have taken place across the district and um i’m just really looking forward to this

17:01 and i and i know that this is just the beginning of more good things to come with the vaccinations that are out there for uh teachers and educational professionals and food service people and it’s going to allow for more and more opportunity for us to get back to the norm and i can only expect and hope that you know dan bauer and his team are are looking to see you know what this means for graduation this year and and how graduation might look a little bit different and and how some of the moving up programs that we missed out on last year when our eighth graders weren’t able to go to the high school it’s it’s just a it really truly

17:48 is dr bucky i agree this is an exciting time um as we’re transitioning forward to be back to uh what we hired you to be in which was a trick to you know that didn’t have all of these restrictions and i think everybody’s looking forward to it and thanks to everybody who was making this happen it’s really exciting i think there’ll be some graduation updates in the near future yeah great all right john that leads us to the superintendent report first up we have um greg is kind of on the hot seat tonight during this so he’s going to come and chat with us about a softball field group that wants to do some work right welcome hi everybody thanks for having me again

18:34 i’m not sure who has the ability but could lisa or one of you guys could share your screen with the pictures i sent over uh all right can you see that yeah that’s great great um so obviously i’d be able to present this in person normally with a bigger version of this but this is the best we could do here for for a drawing um so basically what we are hoping to do is if you kind of imagine yourself coming through the entrance at the veterans middle school you kind of come down between the tennis and the pickleball courts in the school uh and you come around the corner and you see kind of that back small parking lot looks uh towards the tree department that area is what we’re hoping to kind of

19:21 clear out a little bit there’s a little hill there that uh we’re hoping to kind of cut down a little bit and and kind of grade um the area behind the batting cage that you can see um where it says proposed storage container that’s for a different time but that area is what i’m talking about to kind of cut that back uh and then also put some crushed stone down there uh this will allow for spectators or for anybody to walk behind there to view a game or just to walk through moving over you’ll see a tree cluster that is currently right next to the scoreboard and we actually just purchased a new scoreboard for the spring which will be here in a couple of weeks and any time it anytime it gets blustery or windy out there it kind of hits

20:07 against the scoreboard so we’re hoping to either uh at a minimum cut those back but hopefully uh remove those trees uh and then if you get back in your screen here now if you’re looking at kind of the green area where it kind of talks about ledge and other areas we’re hoping to grade that down to make two kind of leveled seating areas kind of two different levels almost like a stadium seating that’s kind of a rocky area right now that’s going to be just kind of cleaned up and get some grass planted there and that will allow for additional seating rather than having kind of everybody just line that left field fence or go into the outfield uh we’re also hoping to put an actual fence down the right field foul line and you can

20:53 kind of see um you can kind of see kind of the l shape that’s in the top right of the screen right now that that area is what we’re hoping to kind of put a uh a black fence that you would kind of see like over a piper field or kind of along the parking lot fence just kind of your typical black fence um there’s a mesh temporary one there as it is right now um it would go from kind of the end of the batting cage area to the end of the rocky area uh there’ll be a door there which will allow for kids to get you know frisbees or balls or anything that goes over the fence and there’ll also be a door put in that was swing open for uh mowers or tractors to get through for it to mow um any questions before i continue i don’t want to keep talking too fast sorry if i am

21:39 am am yeah greg if i could i’m i still am not oriented with this i’m familiar with the baseball field so this is that you’re looking down the right field foul line right now at the veterans softball field okay can you see my my cursor on here right field right i can see a cursor david this isn’t the baseball field this is the softball field yeah if i said baseball i’m sorry i i’m familiar with softball field behind it’d be kind of like in the upper left corner of the screen right now

22:27 so like the the where it says batting cage david right is there another picture you guys can scroll over to so this is like a closer version to the school davis this is this would be like the away dugout and then the batting cage is what kind of the other picture was kind of i wanted to kind of move over to the other side so i could talk about kind of grading that area so greg the parking lot that has this the um farmers market is basically right here yes exactly okay and then the school is sort of like well over here yes and there’s kind of like a red or it’s a white shed that’s there right now david’s kind of their snack shed that would be kind of right behind that dugout okay okay i’m with you now i i see

23:13 what you’re saying sorry i should have asked to make sure everybody was kind of clear what i was talking about first is there any other questions before i continue here sorry can we just go so this area right here where my cursor is at that’s far right field of the correct yeah okay and that’s like wooded kind of now right yeah it’s very leggy over there right now um but you can kind of see that there are kind of two separate sections of ledge that kind of come out and then another one that kind of goes down and out they’re going to kind of fill that in with some dirt and to make it two different levels and then plant some grass there

23:58 um to allow for some some right field seating rather than just having people sit along the left field fence or in the outfield okay so that so this long fence comes all the way down yep that one comes all the way down to the end of where the ledge is correct yeah it’s about a hundred feet and then that’s 110 feet okay and then the rest of the fence just goes along the back like i’ll get to that in just a second yeah i want to see if there’s any questions first okay yeah sarah’s got some questions um two points so the tree thing that that you should just be able to call the tree department and i don’t i can’t remember who took over for tex borden but whoever took over for him you should be able to just call them and and if there’s town trees that are

24:44 impeding you know on what you the scoreboard or whatever they should that that’s a quick fix they should be able to come out in the next week i would think and trim those back i just want to make sure that was clear with everything that we’re hoping to get done just just so it’s okay and then the second piece is is this something you need school committee approval for because this seems like it’s operations to me and not school committee i’m not sure i just got i wanted to be kind of just just clear with everybody because there is one more piece that i was going to talk about which is a a bigger a bigger piece that we can talk about in a minute but i want to see if there’s any other questions before i okay all right greg can it who who owns this the softball fields do you know because the pickleball courts that are on that property are owned by the town so we

25:32 don’t we don’t have control over those but who so who owns this property this is school department field this is this is part of part of the kind of behind the veterans middle school okay but there’s their school fields okay they’re they’re softball fields in the spring in their middle school uh field hockey fields in the fall and they do some intramurals recess pe classes out there as well uh throughout the year okay

26:02 all right i think you can proceed okay and then and then finally um as you can kind of see in like the kind of top right of the picture there that that final fence uh we had purchased a chain link fence two springs ago um and we are uh planning on installing that over april break um it it is removable it’s a it’s a bigger than what we have now right now there’s a mesh um outfield fence that pretty regularly will get beat up either by uh just general play of softball recess getting cut by lawn mowers or weed whackers just it kind of takes a beating most springs in summer and getting a chain link fence in there

26:47 is something that we were hoping to get installed the sleeves of the fence go down 18 inches into the ground um and then the they’re capped and the cap goes four inches below uh the level of the grass and then they get filled in with dirt and cap from there so it’s safe to play uh field hockey or other intramurals etc on that that field the last thing that we would do is uh there’s a like i mentioned the shed before i just give that a paint job to make it red rather than white just kind of spruce it up a little bit to make it look a little better

27:28 so did the the poles for the for the temporary fence do those come out as well no those things there’s actually there’s a little more than half of them are in there right now they’ve been in there for two years okay and that that piece of fence that we’re talking about now greg does that just go along the very back of the field so that would be like a home run fence basically it would kind of separate the actual softball field of play from the additional uh grass field that’s kind of beyond that normal normally we have a mesh fence that goes up and it gets it has plastic sleeves that go into the ground um and if kids run into those whether it’s playing softball or not um

28:13 they can snap or they can they can actually get fairly dangerous whereas the metal ones uh hope wouldn’t snap obviously um and then will be a little more permanent in the ground but then the actual fence itself is removable so the fence comes out for when field hockey needs to play right the defense goes defensively go in during april break and come out as soon as the youth softball uh league is done in the summertime but it is right so like if they had a field day or something for example on the back field it could be taken out um within an hour to the most and so i might have missed this at the very beginning so i apologize but the you know the work that needs to be done to create those two seating levels and the putting the stones down and stuff who

28:59 pays for that it’s actually being donated by uh a local company that’s awesome that’s generous and then because i know that so i know that the back fence is sort of this is sort of the point of contention here um that that temporary fence how far back on that field is going and i understand that it’s the home run fence but that field is is big and it kind of slopes up at the very end um at the very back of it leading up to a street up top with um into a neighborhood how far does this fence go back does it kind of cut that field cut the field in half so i mean depending on where you look at it so like if you’re looking at the very right field which is kind of we’re

29:44 looking at right now where you talked about that slope and kind of like just beyond that ledge area it would come probably maybe 20 feet before that hill starts to get inclined and then it just kind of just goes around like a like your fence with kind of like a round uh baseball field so i at some points it would cut the field in half and other points it would cut it a little less and maybe it a little bit more depending on again which way you’re looking at and where you’re looking does that make sense uh not really so if you just kind of like just picture kind of just like a i don’t know the degree of of turn on it it’s yeah no i can’t i get what you’re saying i guess i believe it’s 200 feet from

30:29 home plate i i want to say that’s what that’s what the the furthest out is and 200 feet in the in

30:44 so i guess um i guess i think that this piece is kind of why it’s coming before school committee the other piece is more like um the the contract stuff where it’s just kind of good for us to know what’s going on in our on our facilities yeah correct um

31:01 i’m wondering if we like i guess i would feel better with this with this fence just because there there is some discord about it if we could get a like a um more of a satellite view and see exactly how it’s going to cut into it because it i know one of the criticisms is that obviously it’s it’s important for the softball team but that that it’s that it’s going to inhibit like gym classes at the vets and i know there’s a few concerns kind of coming up about um you know some of the outdoor activities that were that we’re doing for covid um and and that type of thing so i’m i’m wondering if we can kind of

31:47 you know give give you the blessing on the ledge work and and kind of the the cleanup stuff and then come back with a little bit um more concrete plan about this fence i guess that’s where my head is at um feel free to overwhelm me has anybody seen the mesh fence that’s out there in season so if you don’t google earth you can see it it lays it all out for you so maybe it’s literally gonna be this it’s gonna be the same thing it’s just gonna be different material that’s all it’s it’s still it’s still a fence it’s still a temporary removable fence it’s not it’s not anything the permit that’s gonna be there forever um it’s not gonna be any further away or closer to home plate or the other fence

32:33 um but obviously you guys can make your decision i just wanted to give you kind of the facts of of what we’re hoping to do

32:49 so well i’ll jump in like many things marblehead it does not come without controversy and i’m sure david can probably speak to this that it came up a couple years ago and so there are people that feel passionately on both sides of this and so i didn’t want school committee to be blindsided by a group coming in doing repair work installing a fence without you at least having the idea that it did have some history to it and i felt like you needed to be updated before offense went in that have potential concerns with park and rec so so i’m all for

33:35 beautifying a space and if there’s a group that wants to help us with that that’s incredibly generous and we are very thankful and fortunate for that i think so and i’m not trying to make anybody mad here but i just think that really between greg and yourself and matt you guys can figure out what’s going to work but i think because it’s built you know that’s building the principal needs to you know be on board with it as well so i’m sure the three of you work it out um i think if everyone’s happy with it i’m happy with it um and i think you know some of the ideas around the seating and and the stonework i think that will definitely make it nicer you know i think that’s a great idea yeah really grateful for the um it’s a

34:21 community group or a community member who wants to donate that time and and um and all that work and probably things that go into that work

34:37 and i would just add into that group the freshman field hockey coach and um peter james right greg from park and rec yes that making sure since um you know they’re going to be maintaining these fields that you know they’re in agreement with everything that’s going on and aware of you know what we’re doing yeah that’s a good point yeah yep okay all right great all right um i’m going to stop the share thanks greg thank you greg but hold on because right now so um there was some updated spectator guidance for athletics that came out um i’ve made i think last week maybe late

35:25 week before um so i’ve asked frank to to fill us in on that as well yep so uh for our outdoor uh athletic contests we’re able to now have two spectators per athlete not just home athlete like we had before so we can get away fans uh going to away games or away fans coming to our facility now for uh football and outdoor track or indoor track that’s run outside currently the leagues decided to stick with just two spectators for home athletes for volleyball just because of indoor space uh you’re very limited with the amount of room you have to spread out the volleyball players on top of all the spectators so we decided to stay as a league with

36:12 just two spectators for indoor sports um but for for outdoor sports we’re allowing two per per athlete for both home and away so that’ll hopefully move forward with the spring season as well with baseball softball lacrosses and tennis as an outdoor track and sailing um that’s kind of where we’re at right now which is which is a step in the right direction i think and we’re pretty excited to have our fans go and see their kids play and then also welcome in um some away fans as well yeah i think that’s really good news um i know i had asked this of you in reopening last week um i just want to press a little bit harder on it so i know one of the things that that weighed into um the determination on two fans um

36:58 um um was the piece particularly pertaining to football where you’ve got the cheerleaders and the um band involved as well so that they would be able to have people come um can when when it’s when all of those people aren’t involved i i guess i just have concerns over you know like it’s great that we’re getting two fans in but for parents particularly of our younger high schoolers who probably have could very well have younger siblings that can’t stay home alone it sort of binds them a little bit um in how they’re actually able to watch the game is there any wiggle around being able to have an additional family member like a child if they’re if

37:45 they’re staying seated with the family the whole time especially especially i understand that there’s capacity issues at the at the varsity high school at the varsity football level um but for like the the freshman teams it does get a little challenging um to allow it for one sport and not the other um to be honest it’s not really fair necessarily um and i would have some concerns if we’re starting to allow siblings in uh for outdoor sports when we have we’re pretty much maxed out if we if we were to have two spectators for all of our away athletes plus two spectators for our home athletes and cheerleaders and band members uh we’re

38:30 pretty much at capacity as it is um we did do it for the fall season we did it for the winter season where people made it work i i don’t mean to sound uh unflexible but it’s it’s a it’s a little bit challenging to to allow it for one sport not the other to be honest okay

38:55 well all right it’s good news yeah it’s great news

39:03 if there’s any questions i’m happy to try to answer them for you anybody else have any questions that was my one i think awesome yeah all right greg thank you very much thanks bird thank you all right john that leads us to in-person learning update i think dan and matt we’ve got the exciting news that we are continuing toward april 5th for 7-12 but i know committee had some questions about uh what it will look like once it is implemented so matt fox and dan will come and give you updates uh seven and eight then nine to 12. great welcome thank you so i guess the question from uh the last meeting was around quarantine students is that what we’re going to then address

39:49 okay so we’re going to take a three-phase approach uh to support students who have to face time out of school um so the first phase are for students awaiting a test result uh given that pcr tests are usually completed in the first day or in just a day or two 24 hours those would be treated as typical absences in the school year so the student would just monitor the google classroom check their assignments reach out or possibly email their teachers if they have any questions as they would on a typical absence so those are for students it’s phase one for students with a test result phase two are for students who are under a quarantine order order um whichever wherever that comes from whether it’s from within school without um what we’re going to do is we we’ve um had well

40:36 we’re going to put together a quarantine education coordinator so this coordinator will help us manage the students education while they’re in quarantine so the coordinator will contact the family and the student and the students teachers they’ll provide teachers the approximate time if the student will be out of school they’ll coordinate any additional communications above and beyond what’s in um a google classroom for students and then keep daily check-ins with those students and passing on additional information maybe specific things helping maybe set up appointments and then coordinating with the student will be daily check-ins in the morning before school probably around 7 30 um ensuring that the student has a structure for their day for google classroom assignments and monitoring what’s put into the classroom and then

41:22 an afternoon check out after dismissal um to make sure the student um sort of went through the day successfully and if they should be connected with a teacher at that point too and then a couple other possible connections um would be the coordinator could offer the student the chance to log in and audit um our core remote classes english math science and social studies that are being taught to our elected remote students while they’re in quarantine um the caveat is is you know obviously that’s gonna be a little different than what they experience in a day-to-day basis so all of our just so happens all of our elected remote classes are taught in our two black teams black eight and black seven uh so for students on the red team they’d be trying to audit a class that you know teachers they don’t really know but they could still come in

42:07 you know lucky for us is that our teachers are outstanding and they’re co-planning so going from team to team is is a pretty successful experience um we’ve offered that a few times to students um we had to step away from that when the when the school year began because we were dealing with such large numbers um and we maxed out really quickly um with this fourth quarter we’re having a large number of our elective remote students come back to school so we have a little bit more space now um to support this um we’ve actually had students that turn that down they say they’d rather keep up the google classroom and things like that so we’ll see and then if needed we also thought about the coordinator possibly creating uh are setting up a wednesday homework club we only have homework clubs

42:52 typically on monday tuesday and thursday we’ll set up an elective um wednesday homework club especially with a student’s math teacher because math is level and so even if they audit the new of the math course being taught remotely it’s going to be a little different than possibly their own current math class and then phase three um would be for when our student numbers that have to quarantine exceed our capacity in phase two um and that’s when uh in consultation obviously the superintendent um a decision has to be made for a team or a grade or possibly the whole school to possibly remote for a period of time to allow a flare up of cases to subside so that’s the three-phase approach we came up with here at bets

43:43 so during a period where a child is under quarantine whether it’s for just quarantine or for an active case um i guess it doesn’t really make a difference either way they will have no live instruction i mean if they they choose this audit but it won’t be live instruction from the casework that necessarily matches up with their google it’s classroom it’s going to be live instruction it’s the same it’s more or less the same material that’s being taught in their regular classes obviously if they’re on the black team it’ll be the same teachers they have um and like i said even if they’re not on the black team the material between uh our classes team to team are pretty close to each other within a couple of days if at worst um so it’s along those lines of um like i said we’ve had some students do

44:30 in the past and it was successful in supporting the students when they’re out is it perfect no is there you know could there be some differences yes and i like i said mathematics will be the difference because you go from a level math class in person to an unleveled math class um in a remote class but at the same time um you know i think we can be fairly successful with it because you know when we started doing this to start the year um we didn’t stop because it wasn’t successful per se we stopped because we got overwhelmed with numbers uh because at that point our quarantine numbers were 25 and 26 for our two grades uh we’re now looking at below 10 and about 13. so it gives us a little bit more wiggle room a little bit more and with longer

45:17 classes a little bit more of a chance to maybe individualize for that student who’s popping in if the teacher doesn’t know him very well um or if the teacher does know them to maybe especially mathematics customize what they’re going to see by the end of the period

45:32 so if there were you know a need to quarantine in a class these are on a team i guess because you do have the team approach i guess it’s reasonable to think with the three foot spacing you know if we have a positive case on that team you could have i don’t know like six or seven kids needing to to quarantine um yeah maybe not i mean maybe more okay so you know the i’ll tell you so if a student goes to the day they have six classes a day um if they’re sitting within three feet of a class where you know our average class size is about 21. um so they’re sitting inside of a core of anywhere from four to six students depending upon where they’re sitting so it’s it could be like 24 kids so one positive case is you’re looking at 24 kids um that’s a little worse than

46:18 my math came up with um so realistically one case could push you over the edge of being able to absorb those kids for a quote-unquote audit and i i think that needs to it’s sort of a case-by-case situation because you never know who the student might be you never know if it’s going to be if they’re going to run through some of our larger classes or smaller classes maybe sat along the wall um you know there’s all those little intricacies that are really hard to predict right now you know i i think i mean i should be very realistic i think we’re talking in phase two probably about a max of 10 you know 10 per grade at the most um you never know i mean it just sort of depends on how it plays out um the one to two cases could push you into a phase three

47:05 uh yeah i’m that’s the reality yeah i mean well i think it’s better for people to have a realistic view of what we’re looking at ahead of because if you’re talking 36 kids on a team that’s that’s one third of our students on a team so that would be one out of three students in roughly every class they go through do you have the capabilities to live stream those classes on that team now or no

47:31 megan matt how many how many cases have we had at vets this year do you know the total number of cases um with all on campus uh well students it’s about nine i think eight or nine that’s significant when you when you multiply it by 24 to 36. scattered you know we we you know i’ll be very you know knock out some wood here uh you know we haven’t had you know that sort of back-to-back clustering type approaches um and to be honest the vast majority of our cases uh that were positive happened while they were already on quarantine um because of a possible where they were the they were out because they were contact

48:17 of a contact which doesn’t mean anything for the student sitting next to them in school but the you know the family was being cautious and then a positive case came back so that’s the vast majority of our of our students that go positive because honestly families did the right thing and that’s what we have to sort of count on people moving forward as families do the right thing so matt let me ask you is there anything we can do from our standpoint whether it be budget or anything else or policy that we can do to better enable you to keep not the idea is we never go to phase three we don’t want to be shutting our schools down again is there anything we can provide for you or do for you that’s going to help you in these quarantine cases if we have positive cases to stay in phase two where we can still keep as many kids in

49:02 person as possible and not have to shut down the whole school you know is it is it funding so that you could have people you know do taking on another a longer term or like a sub or something to take on these kids in a remote class setting i mean i don’t know what the answer is but i just want to know is there a tool we can give you that ensures not going to phase three well you know i think you have to be also realistic though that we’re not gonna find qualified staff in time to partially or possibly staff any additional things that might possibly happen coming down the road um additionally even though we have two outstanding building subs they are building subs and and um you know their ability to instruct across the entire curriculum on a multiple day basis

49:48 basis basis i mean we’re i mean that could be a way we could expend it you know i’ll extend extend our numbers some more and that’s why i said it’s hard for me to i didn’t put any numbers and i shared this with with dr bucky today i didn’t put any numbers on these different phases because it’s very difficult to sort of say that this is the definite you know what if it’s 12 you know or 14 and and you know we can sort of squeeze some things through and you know work some things out i i think there’s the reality is it’s the three feet um there’s nothing there’s nothing beyond going to more than three feet and and we can’t do that with everybody coming back because you know a positive case is a positive case and it just

50:33 it cuts a wide swath um through a school and and so i think that’s it’s it’s unfortunate but that’s really where we’re at and and we would do everything we could within our power to keep as many kids in school at as we can and to obviously stay out of phase three there’s no way that any of us want to end up in a you know swampscott type situation that happened a couple weeks ago um so that’s why we really have to count on parents to you know keep their kids at home when they’re not feeling well if there’s a suspected case you know take a day see what happens with a test you know all those right things to to really mitigate any cases that come into our building because if they come into our building it’s and it’s really going to use the same phrasing and cut a wide swath and it’s going to be difficult

51:19 but like i said a priority is keeping kids in school yeah i think that that’s a really like there’s a lot of really good points in there i think it it bears noting that that the cases that what you’re saying that is that many of the cases that you’ve had thus far this year which to me i’m taking this as nine total since september or mid-september since we entered the building so let’s kind of let that sink in for a moment that many of those nine also were not in school when they were positive so if you’re you can turn positive you can be taken out on quarantine not impacting any of the children that are sitting around you then test positive and you’re still not impacting the other children who are

52:05 sitting up next to you it’s that 48 hours that you have to from from positive that then you start contact tracing backwards so many of the nine really would not have impacted learning anyways that it wouldn’t have impacted the children around them yeah if i were to go back and and take a look at that it would that would be a correct statement that the vast majority of our kids that became sick happened already on quarantine yeah because i think it’s really important that we we really have sort of like the correct information out there as to how contact tracing works because it is it is complicated and and it does require a lot of kind of like you know tracing back of when somebody was in a building when they were contacted when they tested positive and

52:51 all that kind of thing um also dude i just lost my train of thought um i think it’s it’s worthwhile to note that phase three doesn’t necessarily mean full remote space three means we’re taking a step back that if we have any kind of widespread or in-school spread but that could mean we pull remote but if it’s a quarantine situation where we’ve got a couple of these cases which happened to be in school when they were positive that it’s it tips the in-person piece more than it tips the the overall safety piece because i from everything that i read when kids are masked

53:37 when our and our buildings are well ventilated that three feet is actually quite a safe distance for people it’s the uh it’s the non-masked time when kids are in close contact with each other in you know inside in poorly ventilated spaces that’s when our spread is happening and i believe to reference the swampscott piece but that’s sort of what happened with that as well just to kind of make that all clear yeah and then you know i and i i can i can support some of that because you know we we track all of our um issues we’ll say that that are related to covid um whether it be traveling whether it be you know family says we’re traveling we’re gonna get tested we track that you know we we’ve tracked well over 240 issues at this point um

54:23 since the start of the school year and you know this is the number of cases we’re sitting at you know for a building less than 20 total um so i mean it’s it’s there are mitigation efforts that are successful in our school there are period um it’s just the unfortunate pieces you know the cdc draws a line absolutely yeah that’s what we have to follow absolutely i totally agree with that on you know i want them to change that but it’s not changed and that’s where we’re at so it’s a six foot contact and that’s that’s what we’re going into and i just want to make it clear that that it’s it is not necessarily phase three is not necessarily fully remote it could it’s it’s a step back so it could mean that we step backwards into hybrid again and i think this is going to go for the high school as well it also

55:09 could mean that we end up remote depending on what’s actually going on at the building level yeah i think the big difference between me and between phase two and phase three for me is we sort of exceeded our capacity to to juggle and do things for students in in that way there would have to be a big a substantial change to the structure of something

55:36 so i just want to kind of um go off what you were saying sarah that it’s the the contact tracing with like is what the issue is and if we could have an updated clarification on what that really means because again saying the nine students we don’t know how many would have created a close contact and again it’s that information i’m just repeating what you said but i think it’s so important that the information we put out has to be completely accurate and also reminding people that this is how these things happen so that they’re aware so that they can um as parents and students make the right decisions because even like it changes so often that i know clear contracts

56:22 but like the 48 hours i didn’t realize like i think everything’s changing so if we’re constantly updating parents families on what all that information is i think it helps in the decision like in the making the right decisions for your student to stay home or to go to school so you’re not affecting that larger population that’s really important to get that message out there second i’m just gonna follow along from what emily said because i agree um getting that information out but also i’d add on to that the quarantine timelines because i know we talked about that in reopening um and i i wasn’t sure you know the exact timeline so i think just making sure and i’m sure dan and matt will do this in their communications but it’s probably good for everybody to know so maybe john

57:09 you know just add that to your you know very informative newsletters um i think the word you were going for was lengthy but you are common um because i i think that you know that’s just important information to know too um and also the follow-on from what matt said so i think matt and dan and everyone here has done a lot of work to make sure that our kids are going to continue to be educated in a structured way when we move into more in-person learning but it has to be a team effort so we you know as a school district we can do as much as we are possibly doing but we also need families to be part of that team too so i think that’s just an important piece to realize we cannot do this if we’re not all working together

57:55 and that means you know making the making the decisions that we make and sending our kids and um quarantining if we need to so with that do you want to say matt thank you for this i know that there are so many logistics that go into figuring this out um and for me it was important that any child who’s going to go into quarantine still had a structure to their day still was going to be involved in the learning process while they’re out and have some way to continue to check in with their teachers so that it’s not just you know they’re out of school for five days or eight days and following along so um and i think the the wednesday homework club with math is a great idea i just i think you’ve done a great job putting putting this plan

58:40 together so thank you thank you all right i’ll correct myself it was ten cases not nine sorry fix that and i’ll speak as a middle school parent and that homework club piece is like so all kids are going to have more access like they they have that homework club built in anyways and have had access to it so that will continue so you know even if they’re out you know just for that day they can hop on to that homework club and teachers are there and and you know it’s it’s many days of the week so just sort of you know beefing it up i think as matt is talking about or adding a few additional ones is is wonderful but it’s a great resource for kids anyways right yes yeah yeah that’s a fair point and i think also the other thing that stuck out to me

59:27 was the ability to have those live classes or to not because i think different students are are going to work differently like i know my older child probably wouldn’t do that because she can just kind of follow along and she would check in as necessary but you know maybe my other child would need that so i appreciate the flexibility in the plans

59:48 all too thank you matt mr power good evening um actually our plan in a lot of ways mirrors uh matt’s plan at the vets but there are some differences and really looking at the first piece for us will be that april 5th to april 16th time frame where we will be half days the afternoon classes will be remote so that in a lot of ways mirrors what we’re doing now so our quarantine plan for that 10 days really will mirror what we’re doing currently where once a student is in quarantine the teacher’s notified and at that point the afternoon classes that’s the points of contact and the ability to keep up with google classroom and also to be able to use the office hours at the end of the day where a lot

1:00:33 of students will check in with their teachers and also gmail throughout that 10 days we feel comfortable that that will get us through that period as it’s done for this year um with our hybrid approach with the afternoon classes that are remote so students can stay current with that piece so they’re getting daily classes uh with that piece um so we feel good about that part it’s the second piece that is a little tricky from on august i wish april 26th after april break to the end of the school year where we’re now full time in those afternoon remote classes fall off of the schedule so that’s where the parallel for us would be a lot like the vets plan where

1:01:20 we’ll take the structure of having a quarantine educational coordinator as well that will be the point person to create daily structure in intersections with the student and with teachers to make sure they stay current with their work uh google classroom has been just a huge piece for us to stay current but also looking to add a couple of other components currently in our remote cohort we do have teachers that are available if students access them through the course subjects and we would be able to add that and also the opportunity to audit courses as well now it’s a little trickier for us because we don’t offer we have a lot of courses that are remote taught by our teachers but it may not be the necessarily the level that would be needed or the course may not match up but if

1:02:06 it’s there and it matches the schedule and the matrix we’d be happy to offer the audit and that happened with us too some students took us up on it and some students didn’t the other complexity with that would be pacing because we know that one geometry teacher might be a little ahead of the other in a little different place where the remote teacher might be so there’s some comfort level is with that but it would definitely be offered and also being able to utilize our support staff to be able to provide check-ins as well for a social emotional component and make sure that we we stay current with the work and really i’m just looking through my notes um the other piece too is as our teachers have done a wonderful job with extra help in maintaining contact with students in quarantine currently even though we have the afternoon remote classes and i look for that to continue

1:02:53 uh and certainly our students utilize the gmail to communicate with teachers as well so um it’s a little trickier from august i said it again april 26th i apologize um then it is you are so over this year dan just like the rest of us

1:03:11 freudian slip i know and then obviously you know with the tipping point and such and you know there are there are differences with each case um certainly you know if they’ve already been in a situation where they’ve been quarantined and positive then it’s not going to impact any of the close contacts so that’s negligible but certainly if you have a situation where a student is uh at the contagious state and in school um that could multiply through but it’s it’s varied throughout the whole year it really has um and and to say what the group has said in terms of the teamwork you know we’re committed to doing the best that we can for our students we’ve planned i’ve done all put on a lot of work to make this april 5th transition work with an eye to april 26th um and and i know that we all want our

1:03:57 students to be safe our staff to be safe and we we believe we have a really good plan and and obviously the big piece for us will be the review of the plan to that 10 day period um as we revise and make any adjustments that we need go through the chair yes before we open up the questions um i want to say thank you to matt and dan for this i think this is very comprehensive um i will use the joke that i have used regularly when people say what is it like to be a new superintendent i say at least i’m not a high school principal anymore and dan bauer has shown such flexibility and grace and openness to people that have not always demonstrated those qualities in

1:04:44 return and matt and dan have just done a great job in getting us to this point and yeah there will be some uh cost of doing business as i’ve said i’m very confident with matt and dan leading this effort that people will get to april 5th we’ll get to april 26th and through the end of the year absolutely yep i agree i said a few words to them in the reopening group last week and i may have choked up a little bit um slightly embarrassing but i you know it is it’s really really meaningful and i know that this has been a different type of undertaking than with our little kids and you know as the parent of a middle school kid i’m really really grateful that all for all the hard work that’s gone into this and that

1:05:31 in all the effort to really pull it off um and and you know and i’m hoping that the community can kind of come in turn and like you were saying megan like really you know keep kids home that have the sniffles and know it’s allergy season um but you know that that we just we all you know kind of to pull villages um saying you know we all are tasked with keeping each other well and that that’s the way that we’re going to be able to pull this off

1:06:01 so i’ll you know i’ll ask you the same things i kind of asked matt the first is more of a statement i’m guessing your job’s gonna be a little bit harder um with managing some of these cases in that i mean we’ve all received the letters there’s been more cases in the high school not that i’m not saying they’re spread in the high school i think it’s just the demographic of you know the age group you’re dealing with and it’s just it is what it is um so i’m guessing you’re you may have a bigger hurdle with managing that phase system and and staying in phase two um but what as a school committee can we do if anything to help you

1:06:47 well i mean certainly um at the end of the day just you know the continued support that we’ve received um in terms of the mitigation efforts that have come in that has alleviated a lot of stress with our teachers and i know the purifiers i know that may sound like a small thing but it’s a huge thing um and certainly um all those pieces that come into play with just the team and having support deanna mcmahon has just been outstanding and obviously we will we’re working closely with her to make sure that through the contact tracing we’re making adjustments because it’s going to take more than just her to help out with that piece and certainly whenever i’ve asked for technology pieces i know steve quiatec has been there to help us so if somebody asks for a camera which we’ve had teachers ask for cameras and such that that he’s been

1:07:33 more than receptive to help us on that piece too um you know and i think just the understanding and the grace that um you know certainly everybody’s been showing and just that continued support and understanding that there will be bumps in the road and we know that and i’ve talked to our staff about that but that’s okay we started hybrid there were bumps in the road too and we you know we’ve been able to manage it now i know it’s different moving up but there are components moving in our favor where april 26 also marks the start of where we have 130 students in senior projects so they’ll be moving out of the building we’re very proud of them for that and we have some in internships too as well so that piece is going to shift and we’ve made a large effort to expand as much outdoor space as possible and we have

1:08:18 the giant tent we have thanks nan to the the tents that you’ve provided for us um but but definitely hearing teachers talk about and working on ways that we can get our classes outside as much as possible and be able to spread out as much as possible in fact the custodial crew i know you didn’t ask for all this but we have all the furniture back in we did it purposely so everybody could wrap their head around write a full classroom of furniture a week in advance so we can make tweaks and adjustments and move forward on that piece so i think just the continued support understanding and grace as we work through this is really really important for for all of us and supporting our staff because they have worked really hard and i know our families have worked hard supporting and our students have done an outstanding job

1:09:04 i’m really grateful that i hear that you did that with the desks um you know i know that that was a big thing with our little kids and and helping them grasp it but i think you know there’s a lot to be said for for our big kids as well um so that’s that’s great to hear i have to give kudos to rick king and the custodial crew because they’ve been putting working side by side with me and i’m not easy to put up with on that stuff but they did an outstanding job just putting all of the furniture in and organizing and setting it up and it was a lot for teachers on monday because now we’re six foot spacing though to describe three so it was okay to move desk around and i know they put lines so they know where the six foot marker is to separate um and they did a nice they can’t say enough and todd bloodgood’s leadership with rick king in in the

1:09:50 group so that’s been really really wonderful and i know our staff appreciates it as well i’m really glad to hear about the air purifiers um you know i know how important that is and i think it bears noting um just kind of like some of the contact racing and everything how much our research and data has changed since we started school that we really started with the masking and the um the surface the touch surface stuff and how much money we spent on that but now our research has really evolved and it’s much more the masking and the air filtration and ventilation piece so i think it’s you know i’m thrilled to hear about about how many teachers want those in their classrooms and um and that that’s you know that that’s going on across the high schools i think it’s really really important

1:10:37 anybody else anybody else no just another thank you thank you dan thank you matt same thank you you can really tell that there’s this great pride in our school district and it’s really great to see it in meetings and just how hard everybody’s been working and it makes it makes you really proud to be a part of it so just thank you guys so much for all your work in the custodian i don’t think they get enough credit but i really i just hearing what they’ve done all year it’s so impressive and they get a huge shout out to and the teachers and students the students too everybody we should really feel good about ourselves for making it all the way back to school yes celebrate

1:11:27 yeah i’d like to echo that as well you know thanks dan thanks matt um all the schools you know right down to evilest school that you know everybody that’s opened back up and we’ve been as we say through so many changes and so many different plans and remote for a couple of weeks here and and back to hybrid and um all that every everybody’s been through you know thank thanks for the for the leadership and then thanks for everybody as you say dan that’s just on the ground making it happen and getting it done for the students it’s it’s really exciting that we can hopefully see light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccinations coming through and

1:12:12 things should be getting better um for all of us so yeah thank you very much i i would like to add thanks to matt fox i know he’s off the screen but the collaboration has been really helpful for all of us working together because it’s it’s a lot of things i know matt i had to throw that out there i’m sorry but it’s been great because really you get into these silos sometimes but you can’t do it alone and it’s too big of a job so with our staff and and our people but the vets uh collaboration’s been outstanding yeah i think dan and i are typically text as late as 10 o’clock at night when he’s done with events yada yada so uh yeah it’s been great um been great this year great great well again thank you both for that update um nan did you have something to add

1:12:59 so before nan jumps in i just wanted to give her an intro i think that as much as we are celebrating back to school and return to the poll in person that we do have a full remote cohort that um are remaining remote and so nam has been so lovely in making sure that they feel part of the enthusiasm for what’s going on and are not feeling left out or left behind so tj up there nicely man great thank you yeah just wanting to to echo that that with all of the transitioning that’s happening and the planning and the thoughtful design for academics and social emotional support for our in-person learners that is being mirrored in conversations

1:13:46 for our full our students that are remaining in full remote i have met twice this month with our remote k-6 staff and we have talked about ways in which to continue to build community to help students feel connected as some of those students that they’ve been learning with all year long transition back into in person it’s going to feel different their classroom settings are going to feel different with different members of their school community missing so how do we work together to make sure that our our full remote students still feel very much connected to the marblehead public schools and to their individual elementary schools

1:14:33 so those conversations are happening the teachers will continue to plan and align curriculum with their colleagues and as the spring emerges and weather enhances we will be strategically thinking about how do we provide opportunities when families feel safe for students to acclimate to a school setting again so whether we have some opportunities for them to come and play on outside structures in schools or maybe have a socially distanced activity in a gym for the class we we want to make sure that we

1:15:18 continue to think about those students and make sure that they feel connected to their to their school communities so tomorrow night for any cohort c families there’s going to be a conversation a zoom link went home in an email yesterday if you have any questions or concerns or wonders about your full remote student in their spring term that would be a great opportunity for you to get some clarification so just wanna just want everybody to know back together mhd is all of us and that includes our full remote students as well

1:16:00 all right um i think that does it correct okay that leads us on to our fy 22 budget update michelle i will let you [Applause] join us and i assume michelle’s taking it away all right great okay you do have co-hosting as well so if you want to share your screen you can so okay so okay so at the budget subcommittee or joint budget meeting this morning that we held this morning we updated the group as to some discussions that have been going on um the town has indicated to us that

1:16:46 while they certainly see our budget requests as being needed they still have budget constraints on their side they are awaiting their free cash figures still and that should be coming hopefully any day now but um with that being said we have taken some action to reduce some of our budget asks some of them have happened through just a variety of the need being funded in other manners and some of them have been um decided that they are in lower priority um the leadership team has continued to meet and we have prioritized our budget priority list that we’ve been talking about for weeks and seems like months on end but i know it’s only been a number of weeks now into a

1:17:32 high level of priority a medium level of priority and a low level of priority and that’s on your screen now or you should see it um but the green box being the high the yellow box being the medium and the pink box being the low priority

1:17:50 you will also notice that there is now a third column on this sheet because this sheet has been around for a few weeks now this is what our current budget ask is um consisting of so we made some changes and i’ll just go through the changes i won’t go through every single line item that we’ve talked about previously but request number two which i had numbered them just for reference purposes a couple weeks back so number two was the technology capital leases we are planning on funding that through um basically one-time stimulus funds and taking that out of the operating budget at this point so that is a reduction in the amount of two hundred and twelve thousand seven hundred and six dollars

1:18:37 the next change to this is in the yellow box in terms of the brown custodian um we have had discussions with our facilities director and we feel while this this is a need and we have a great new school coming online we have four full-time custodians at glover and we currently have four full-time custodians slated to go to the brown school we can use a half of a custodian from another school to put them there to make four and a half for this year this would be an intra measure and we will certainly expect to see this request again next year

1:19:16 item request number eight is the change the bright tutor at the high school to a bright teacher this is a great program we’re actually just in the second year of that program at this point and um this program has been very successful and just maybe right now without having you know the budget funds that we had hoped for we put off this change in the program it would not reduce our current program it just might limit our capacity in the future to be able to administer some of the services to those students and then all of the budget priorities that we termed um into the lowest bucket bucket number three in the pink we would um put off for now right now we are realizing that the need for gloved

1:20:02 allied arts teaches is not needed because we are able to share some with the lrs teachers at the brown school um marblehead high school position from the director of guide it would be an increase to make the current position a director of guidance so we can we can put that off for right now um facilities we had requested administration support in a groundskeeper um we do have some administration support in the budget this was actually just increasing the level of support and this was increasing a groundskeeper that we we do not have um we do have a memorandum of understanding with the park and rec department who does provide our mowing and whatnot this was just in

1:20:48 addition to do some of the cleanup and we’re hoping to be able to put in some programs with volunteers and maybe clean up some of that and do a little bit of contracted services when needed for our landscaping um and the last two items is central admin for the community release relations liaison we can put that on the back burner for now use some contracted services when needed only and then last is the replacement of the scoreboard at the high school and certainly that is a need but it can probably also be fundraised or funded at another time so with those changes our bottom line budget comes down to a total number of 42 million five thousand dollars and seven hundred

1:21:34 and twenty four dollars if you go up to these little boxes up on the right side um basically previously we had talked about um we had a remaining for budget priorities there was a rounding figure in there so those of you who actually saw the sheet earlier there has been a change of about 250 um the remaining budget priorities of 288 thousand dollars we apply that to our budget priority listing which our modified listing totals 619 350 and we have a delta or a gap of hundred and thirty one thousand two hundred and six dollars um at that point this is where our budget currently stands um

1:22:21 and basically we will be you know looking for feedback from at the budget hearing and um how to move forward with that figure at this time um there is another sheet um are you able to see the tracking sheet right now um okay so um i updated the tracking sheet just a little while ago and so this is the initial budget presentation where we started at 42 million 649 142 and then i listed each of the changes we removed um additional fellow requests because they were not able to supply us with an additional fellow there was just not the availability so we reduced that out of our budget for 26 900

1:23:06 we reduced one technology and curriculum specialist by one each that request and that came down to a reduction of 121 120 um the academic skills teacher at the high school um we were able to actually find funding in another position that is no longer needed at the high school so we’re just going to slide over the funding into that position it’s not a position that’s being cut it’s just being funded by available um funds from another position at this school the capital it leased as they discussed earlier we’re looking at one-time funding for those and to remove those out of the operating budget and the amount is 212 706. um one thing we didn’t discuss in the previous sheet we’re adding back the village teacher leader stipends

1:23:53 um of forty four thousand fifty seven dollars basically to cut the teacher leader stipends from one location and not the others because we do have teacher leader stipends at all of our locations could be problematic so at this time we’re not looking or taking that as an offset into our budget and then lastly we we are removing the budget items um 7 through 13 on that budget priority list and the total of those at the 271 thousand three hundred and sixty dollars and that brings us down to the figure that i had mentioned before the forty two million five thousand seven hundred and twenty four dollars and and i don’t know if john has anything else he would like to add at this time no i think that the next step is for

1:24:40 jason and i to get together as was discussed at the subcommittee eating and to talk about the remaining 331 206 to see where we can find common ground can i add a few things um i think michelle thanks for updating that budget tracking sheet i think that’s helpful but i just you know i do want to address some of the questions that came up earlier um and i don’t know if i noted them all down but the changes that michelle just went through just so everyone’s kind of clear on what the process has been is the leadership team to john the principal’s central admin they came up with those sets of priorities right and then they went through and prioritize them and then as they meet every week i think it is they continue to revise

1:25:26 those as their plans change or as something comes up so that’s how that list has been updated through the leadership team meetings and they you know and then they went through and prioritized those high medium and lows so that’s then that process um it’s i think they’ve done a good job kind of continuing you know it’s what bill always says it’s an inner process and it has been you know this whole this whole time um i want to make sure i get everything the other piece that john mentioned that came out of our meeting today is that we do still as noted we do still have a gap of 331 so the task is really for john and jason to get together and figure out how to how to get that down to zero and i have full

1:26:11 confidence that between the two of them they’re gonna get there um you know they’re both things they both are collaborative and you know we all know what the wants are we all know what the issues are and i have full confidence that phil but they will make that happen and then we’ll reconvene as necessary you know probably again with that joint group and obviously with the school committee once you know once we’ve gotten through that um and the other thing that i think is really important to note here and i it’s honestly just terminology but these are priorities to add into our existing educational services there are no cuts at all and again it’s terminology but we’re not cutting anything so these are the things that the leadership team have you know listed

1:26:56 as things that will take us to the next step and then they prioritize them as they should do through good budgeting processes and high medium and lows and those are the ones that we need to tackle so um you know the brown piece we’ve got four and a half custodians we’re not cutting custodians at the brown school we’ve got four and a half custodians to maintain that building if we need to add more then we will add more as necessary and so again i just want to be clear that there are no cuts i think what you will see in michelle’s spreadsheet is that we are consolidating some elementary schools so where there’s overlap then yes we’re consolidating but we’re not cutting services um and i just think that’s an important piece for everyone to be on the same page about absolutely sarah fox and you got your hand raised

1:27:46 so i i sat in on this morning and it was made abundantly clear that there is no money over level funded bincom said it they used the words that this they they spoke to the liaisons and they said you chose not to go for an override at that time you knew that you were getting level funded that is what it is now as upsetting as that statement was it was clear there was no ambiguity that means this 331 thousand dollar delta now that’s a whole nother thing because i do have concerns of how we went from at the last public meeting and twenty six thousand dollar delta with three hundred and eleven that are 331

1:28:32 thousand dollar delta but that’s another point that 331 thousand delta we’re you might not like the word cut i mean you can put any color lipstick on the pig that you want but at the end of the day it’s picked that 331 is coming off some way either these priorities are getting cut and again let me be clear these are priorities this is not a wish list we’re not asking to add new curriculum well math curriculum because our our curriculum has expired but we’re not looking to you know update to the the new new teaching methods we’re not looking to you know move forward in the way of progress these are bare minimums earlier

1:29:19 megan you pointed out this these numbers are to keep our lights on like the statement was made earlier that there’s no we’re not cutting fat anymore at this point it’s muscle and bone and that’s true but this is muscle and bone of our students education and ben berman made the comment that this is very typical for the budget process and there’s no truer statements made it is very typical and it’s very very soon um here we are yet again trying to find some way with chewing gum and tape to spackle together an education system and at the end of the day i know it

1:30:05 makes it hard for the realtors to sell a house in a town with a failing education system but we are not investing in the education of our students we can’t keep providing the bare minimums there will be cuts we are going to be taxed with the idea of there’s 331 thousand dollars of these priorities things like technology capital leases which by the way we’re funding with one-time revenue we know this lease is over three years we’re funding it with one-time revenue that we know we have for one year anybody in finance will tell you that is a terrible idea and i don’t blame michelle this is the only tool left in our toolbox i get that but this is pathetic this is the best we can do

1:30:53 then we’re math curriculum that’s in that 331 thousand dollars is math curriculum so basically we’re going to be taxed with a tough decision of do we want to replace an outdated math curriculum that’s no longer current or do we want to lay off two teachers to pay for it and i know everyone’s going to get furious that i said the god awful word but at the end of the day we are walking in a store with five dollars in our pocket and we’re trying to buy a product that’s worth six and at the end of the day you can spend the money you have and we don’t have the money so it is our job collaboration is great guys but it like it stops being great when we’re defunding our schools and at the end of the day

1:31:40 our job as elected officials is to secure the funding we need for our schools and we need these things we need to stay off the preschool at the brown school i personally night after night after night went out on my personal time and stumped for the school and i know that speech in my on my sleep what people were gonna get if they voted for a 54 million dollar school they were going to end transient staff and we gave the whole list of why this was important guess what folks we’re not ending transients there we were going to have parody with all these programs and if one child had a special need they were going to be able to go to the school that had that too guess what folks we’re not funding that either so at the end of the day we can put as much lipstick on the pig as we

1:32:26 want but everyone that was in those meetings and knew what we were selling including fincom they are on our board they knew we were staffing this building why all of a sudden are we not staffing it why all of a sudden is it a question if we can staff that preschool program they knew we were building it i mean they stood and watched us pitch it to the town and now we’re not gonna fund it like come on this is beyond ridiculous the line has been drawn in the sand we are either going to do our job and fund our schools or we have no place on school committee so i’m pretty sure eric has spoken multiple times about the positions at

1:33:11 the in the programs at the brown school and he’s made it abundantly clear that he has huge plans for that and that those plans are all within his framework of how that building is going to go if we want to go back to the previous administration we can go back to the previous administration but i it’s line item one on the list there we delete the list that it’s line item one and three hundred and five thousand dollars we’ve got a 331 000 delta that i don’t think anyone i i missed a vote if we’ve taken a vote that we’re not funding these things so i i’m i’m confused as to why you’ve just written them all off sarah because we don’t have i mean i i i’m not right writing the check the township told us

1:33:57 today they can’t give us the money the money doesn’t i mean we don’t print it we’re not monopoly we haven’t we have not voted this budget we haven’t even been to our budget hearing so again i i’m really confused as to half the things that you said and so like kind of like this is gone and this is gone like okay i that’s not how i’m doing this these are not without funding it it’s gone right and we’re we have not voted our budget and so we are still working on this that’s the mindset that i’m in here and so i mean how that’s if that’s not your mindset

1:34:38 i would propose that if we do not have secured funding for a budget that we do not have a budget hearing and presented i think it’s disingenuous at best to have a budget hearing on a budget that we do not have secured funding on and so thursday i would propose we postpone that budget since we clearly do not have secured funding on our whole budget as you noted the 331 is still up in the air so we cannot present a confirmed fully funded budget so to the best of my understanding we’re not though we don’t vote the budget that day anyways and so there’s zero reason why we can’t get community

1:35:24 feedback on the priorities that we have that we’ve identified and gone over and that like that’s what we’re there for but that’s we that’s what the public hearing does we sit and we listen john presents the community has input and then we take that input and we think about it and if it’s still going back and forth with the town it gives us even more leverage to say hey these are our priorities period so i see no reason why we have to because there are there are lots of posting rules and everything with the hearing so if we cancel that on this thursday which you guys can decide to do that if you want but if we cancel that it’s a the far punt that it’s not getting rescheduled for

1:36:11 next week that’s illegal and i just um i did talk to dorothy our masc rep on the public hearing just on you know because the past couple years have been chaotic at best um so i just wanted to kind of get a better feel for in you know from her perspective what’s the purpose of the public hearing um and you know what’s the what’s the best approach for us to take and that was her response is that really you know right now it’s the superintendent’s recommended budget and so bringing it to the public hearing is to get community feedback on specifically these priorities that the leadership team has identified and sarah i take your point um you know there’s still some pieces that we have to work out but i think we need to be honest about those

1:36:57 this is where we’re at but we’re looking for community feedback on the priorities that the superintendent has leadership team have put forward so just another perspective to consider

1:37:14 i would like to make a motion to postpone our public hearing until we have secured funding for the number we present so when people may comment and ask questions they’re asking questions and commenting and a number we are actually able to fund so my motion is to postpone the hearing so there’s a motion on the floor does anybody want to second that please note for the record no other school committee members wanted to second the motion to postpone the meeting until we have a secured number to present to the public please let the minutes reflect that ask a question absolutely so every year we have our priorities correct

1:37:59 correct correct and do we go to the public hearing with like with the funding already branded or don’t we i feel like we’re just following the process we are just following the process we’re following the same process so this is just precedent like this is what happens i just want to make that clear okay usually there is a more solid number on the town side okay um you know but nothing about this year has been normal and so there’s a lot of moving pieces on their side but that does not mean that we cannot move forward with our budget preparations

1:38:51 we are our own independent board right now and i think we’re at the point where you know especially with this list of priorities that’s worthwhile getting immunity feedback absolutely i mean the priorities aren’t gonna i mean maybe they’re gonna change a little bit but i would be surprised considering all the work that the superintendent’s done at this point that the priorities would change at this point so i think you know in terms of what he’s looking to do next year this it’s worth getting community back and i just want to point out too that i feel the same way that sarah doesn’t that these have never there was never a question that this stuff would not be funded right i mean as far as i’ve been um you know talking and

1:39:38 asking a lot of questions it’s that’s the answers that i’ve been getting so that’s another

1:39:47 i feel the same way that has never come that no we are not going to fund our priorities and that’s how we left today to be honest for this morning we left that with you know john and jason are going to get together and still report back to us yeah so we still don’t know i think you know it’s would it be great if this was all wrapped up in a nice little bow absolutely but i i haven’t experienced a nice little bow you know i look forward to that maybe at some point um but that’s you know that’s not been been the experience that i’ve had with the budget so

1:40:31 can i ask do you believe more funding is coming our way or do you not see that i mean because the way i see it is if if what we were told today is true and this is the final number we’re we have no other funding mechanisms i mean we have a limited by massachusetts general law a way to fund our budget we can do it through the general fund we can do it with a combination of that in an override we can i mean in theory challenge the number that fincom is presenting at town meeting with our own number but i i mean legally we can do it i don’t think that it’s going to be successful um but there’s there’s a limited legal amount of legal ways to fund this so if their number is 331 000 off of our number

1:41:17 number number and we fund these pieces we have to cut from somewhere else there’s only so much money in our wallet to buy what we need and if if we don’t want to cut anything then we can’t get these things and for every one of these things we want we have to cut something else it is simple arithmetic well i think it bears noting we are not the only budget process in town right now and so just as we’ve discussed over and over and over that this is an iterative process priorities are being maneuvered you know some of them are being found that they’re not necessary anymore you know they’re being filled in other ways my assumption is that that’s going on at other levels of the town as well and so as with previous years that i’ve been

1:42:03 involved in this these numbers have continued to kind of develop and come forward as we’ve gone through this process up until our vote and so that’s that’s where my head is at this evening is that you know i i didn’t i was working i could not sit in on that meeting this morning um but you know i’ve heard a few times at this point that jason and john are getting together to to discuss and figure this out my sincere hope is that it will be discussed and figured out and that this 331 000 delta will be met if if it’s not then we discuss other options

1:42:50 anybody else anybody else so just just let me address the override conversation because i think it it might be the elephant in the room and depending on who you’re talking to it’s credit or blame but as the new superintendent i did not think this was the year or an override now i realize if i had been here the last three to five years and heard this isn’t the year for an override just how frustrating that might be but the schools have been closed for a year we’ve not operated the district outside of abandonment we’re opening a 50 million dollar new school we’re closing to other schools we’re on the precipice of a strategic plan

1:43:36 which will have a lot of budget implications for next year and so we didn’t go for the override the ship has sailed i don’t think you have time to make a cogent argument or an override this year and again credit or blame we’re not going for an override but i’m not done advocating for the schools and so my focus is that next meeting with jason and recognizing that i think i read the feel that in override this wasn’t the year and again i haven’t i don’t have three years of experience of hearing this isn’t the year so i appreciate that frustration but coming out of a pandemic the school’s being closed knowing we have a facilities on it coming in we

1:44:21 have a strategic plan coming up none of those pieces added up to make a decision in august november to say we’re going for an override and again i’m just coming off an accreditation visit at a school community that just did an override it was a two-year process and they did it because their high school students couldn’t take ap classes the sections filled up they had to offer them on alternating years they were cutting co-curriculars again it’s an apples and oranges comparison but if we go for the override we want to be in lockstep with the town make this a joint effort and do it successfully and so as the new superintendent i didn’t want to advocate for an override

1:45:08 and see it fail so if that’s the elephant in the room that we didn’t go for the override credit or blame we didn’t i’m not done advocating for the schools that’s what you hired me to do i have a 331 thousand dollar delta that we have to figure out and that’s what i’ll do i will work with jason and again i feel like we have a good collaborative working relationship and we will be able to get there and all the communication that i have with people tends to lead me to that conclusion that we will get there and i really appreciate you saying that john because i think you’re right it is the elephant in the room we’ve talked about it for so long and

1:45:54 no one wants an override more than me right like that was the first thing i said to you when you when you started probably before you even started in marblehead but i i also have to understand and i do understand the logic and the reason behind that and you know if we were in a different situation maybe it would have been a different decision but we’re not we’re in a pandemic and we like last year we just got the budget cleaned up and we’re still finding issues so that’s like our base year right that’s where we start kind of developing our trends from and this year would have been a great thing to have a second year of that and we don’t we kind of like because of covet everything went up in the air so you know to even build some of those

1:46:39 long-term trends is going to take some some work and we’ve got one year to base it on right now one year of good data um so yeah i think you know for better or worse that’s a logical rational reasonable decision to get to and you know that’s that’s where we’re at and we’ll figure it out and not to i don’t want to diminish anyone’s frustration because it’s real yeah and i get it but i do have colleague superintendents who the conversation in their communities began with find a million dollars to cut you’re not being level funded you’re going to cut a million dollars and so

1:47:24 as frustrating as this 331 is we’re starting in a place better than some neighboring communities i also think it bears noting that there’s a lot of stimulus coming in still and i know that that is not sound budgeting generally speaking but there’s a lot of money coming in not a lot of taxpayer money being flushed into the town which the town has done a great job of filtering that a lot of that money into the schools so my assumption is is that that will continue to happen and you know that that yes we’ve got to vote our budget and i and again i’m i

1:48:10 just as much as john i’m committed to that three hundred thousand thirty one some odd um but you know just as we’ve seen this year there you know these things happened these things happen and there’s some fluidity with them and there’s other you know there’s there’s other ways in which this is this you know some of these other things may be able to be taken care of as well again this is not something that we want to punt into the future for sure but it’s it’s also it’s a reality where we’re at right now and so and with all the covered pieces sort of coming in and out of all of this it i just i think it they’re saying david i know you’ve got your hand up sorry if i spoke over you

1:48:56 no i i just want to speak to the lipstick on a peg analogy you know probably the single biggest thing i take offense to lived in marblehead for 22 years i have a son who is a sophomore in college and he was probably as well prepared as he could have been from coming from any public school or any private school in massachusetts and i’ve i’ve said that to dan bauer when he was a freshman on you know how ahead of the game ryan was when he got into school and that that’s a thanks to the teachers the staff the administration it’s a lot more than lipstick on a pig we have an excellent school district here we have

1:49:43 dedicated employees that have gone through a pandemic they’ve shifted through multiple phases they’ve worked through difficult conditions to come up and try and do the best they can for our students and marblehead will continue to be an outstanding district and this town has has funded education and we’ll continue to fund education we’ve funded a new glover school we’re funding a 55 million dollar school that will open in september that is the last phase of a 20-year master plan if we want to add up all the money that this town has put in to fund our schools and so marblehead doesn’t turn its back on our schools

1:50:28 we’re working through this process to do the best we can and just like dr bucky said he hasn’t given up advocating for the schools no more than anybody at this table on school committee has given up advocating for our schools we’re trying to find a solution in a difficult time and i think we’ll come up with the right solution and we’ll move forward to be able to fund what our district needs but i’m offended by the lipstick on a pig comment we have an outstanding school district we provide an excellent education here and we have over 600 people who come to work every day to provide the education to our students and we’re providing 43 million dollars

1:51:14 close to 43 million dollars we’re not laying anybody off we’re not furloughing people are getting raises people are getting step and lane changes we’re doing the best we can given the circumstances that we have and additionally having been a finncom member and working with the town this is a town process and as jackie said on our meeting today these meetings have been more transparent than they’ve ever been in the last 20 years people can zoom in you don’t have to come to meetings in person you can hear what’s going on you can ask questions in public comment and it’s been about as transparent as it could ever have been rather than having to take time off and show up at a meeting at eight o’clock in

1:52:01 the morning at widger road as opposed to being able to zoom on so i want to thank everybody for their efforts at getting us to this point and i think that the comments that have been made it’s an iterative process we’re not at the end we’ve already had an infusion of close to 2.3 million dollars of federal funds and as an example we bought over 330 laptops for our educators and we’ve been told that another six million dollars is coming to marblehead for expenditures in the next three years so um it’s maybe it’s not the situation that everybody wants but we’re in a pretty good place and i think everybody’s committed to

1:52:47 making it uh the best education we can offer uh pre-k to 12 and marblehead and i’m proud to be a school committee member and i want to thank everybody for their efforts

1:52:59 sarah sarah so i want to be very clear that i have always and continue to be incredibly impressed with what all of our staff is able to do with what we give them i think they show up every day with enthusiasm and forethought and provide amazing you know things what my what my concern is is every year we make it harder for that staff by not doing our job and getting these additional funds um and i i for one want to

1:53:45 to give them the tools that they they can use i don’t ever doubt that you know the teachers and the principals and the staff and everybody that we employ she will show up every day and do an amazing job i do not personally feel that as a school committee member as a collective unit we are giving them our best effort and giving them what we need that is my personal opinion agree or disagree that is my personal opinion and i you know and i i know what your opinions are david i heard what you said tonight and it was the same thing you said last year and the year before and i know you don’t agree with the lipstick on the pig and i am sorry if i

1:54:31 offended you that was not my intention however when we have the same conversation year after year after year with no varying results i see a problem and that is where we are again this year

1:54:53 it’s not about offending me sarah so thank you for your comments though

1:55:02 so i think that leads us into our final uh item this evening which is the budget public hearing discussion this is something that sarah you had asked for at our last meeting um i know we’ve talked about it a little bit earlier um and kind of how weather it’ll run and a little bit of how it will run so um i will open the floor i know you know megan’s talked with dorothy i’ve talked with dorothy um and does anybody else have anything or you know anything anybody have anything to add

1:55:37 i also spoke to dorothy and um my take away between that and the way we’ve handled it in town and the state guidance on what a hearing entails is that it’s the opportunity for the public to seek clarification and answer their to their questions and concerns so i want to make sure that we as that governing body are answering their questions and concerns

1:56:08 so in my conversations with dorothy um she talked about it as a as the superintendent’s budget he presents it at this hearing and then the community gets to weigh in um and in a similar fashion to public comment you know if there are things that we can speak to whether it’s the superintendent or the school committee and we absolutely can um but that it’s not it’s not a forum it’s a hearing and that you know

1:56:43 we we haven’t voted it we we you know it we’ve said tonight it’s still it’s still being worked on as it has been in years past um and so you know i

1:56:58 can’t we can’t be if we don’t know the answer to something i’m not going to be pressured to put words to something that i’m not prepared to speak to megan i know you talked to dorothy too yeah i think um it’s similar to what you what you said um i guess i’d like to just maybe see if we can because yes public you know yes public comments get the feedback but i think in this case you know there probably will be some questions and it’s i think the challenge is you know sometimes we get a 200 or 1000 people on these so the interactive piece makes it challenging just surely from the volume but i do think if there’s questions we should address them so one suggestion i have is that as people make their comments or give their

1:57:43 feedback you know their constructive feedback we should just be taking notes of those questions so at the end you know we can say all right let’s let’s address some of the questions we’ve heard if there are questions we can’t answer them that’s okay we just have to say that and then also identify themes that we’ve heard throughout the night and you know i’m sure there will be some themes and then just be able to kind of replay that back so again that people feel not just like they have the opportunity to speak but they’re really being heard and that we’re addressing their questions and then the important part is taking that feedback through through the next step in the process right so that would be my suggestion i can get behind that yeah i don’t think that’s it’s yeah i’m sorry if i was unclear because that’s not too far off yeah i think so okay

1:58:30 anybody else have anything to add on that i’d like to motion for a second round of public comment we had said a few meetings ago we would try to offer it at the beginning and end the meeting so i’m making a motion for public comment at this time all right so there’s a motion for public comment does anybody want a second megan second megan second all right um sarah gold yes emily barron megan taylor sarah fox yes and david harris yes all right um catherine martin i see your hand up

1:59:16 good evening catherine martin 29 west york drive um i do have a big issue with you going forward with your budget hearing without having a clean number it’s going to all of the questions that people have are going to be based on a finalized budget and going forward with a hearing with 300 000 delta is disingenuous one two our planning board our zba and our conservation commission all hold public hearings every two weeks so maybe you could zoom in and see how it works the public has interaction with the boards they answer questions there’s a back and forth there is clear guidance from the state on how public hearings work and it’s not a

2:00:01 collection of questions that you answer at the end it is a back and forth in order to fact find and get information this this is not this is a no-brainer i mean these hearings happen all the time across the state you don’t get to pick and choose which questions you you want to answer at the end of the day if you don’t know the answer just like sarah gold said you don’t answer you say i’m sorry i don’t have that information tonight but i’m going to tell you you’re going to have a lot less information if you don’t have a final number and you’re going to box yourself in a corner if you go into this public hearing with this delta and the town does not give you the funding because then you have to explain to your constituents why you were able to answer questions

2:00:46 about funding that doesn’t exist so i would really really take a minute and think about going into a public hearing without having a clear budget number and also take a minute on the format in which you do it thanks again have a good night thanks all right um i don’t have anybody else’s hand up so i will adjourn us at 902 thank you everyone