School Committee: August 24, 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.

0:59 all right we’re just waiting for emily to be able to get this up on the live stream sarah fox are you here with us

1:46 just waiting for one more committee member

3:34 okay i think we’re going to go ahead and get started um someone’s computer is unmuted in here

3:47 i will call the meeting to order at 703 um [Music] the members present are sarah gold megan taylor emily barron and david harris sarah fox are you here with us yet

4:01 okay so sarah is not so hopefully she’ll be able to join us soon um this meeting is being recorded by mhtv and it is being live streamed to youtube um just as a little kind of preface to this evening we just wanted to alert everyone to the fact that earlier today the board of the department of educa of elementary and secondary education granted the education commissioner the authority to mandate masks to all k-12 school buildings throughout the state as it is currently proposed this mandate will remain in place until october 1st this is a mandate and it must be followed in our district buildings while we are sure this is relief for some on this call it is probably upsetting for others dr bucky will be talking more about this

4:47 in his presentation this evening we have a packed agenda for both tonight as well as thursday so we have a few requests for the public joining us this evening in case everyone isn’t aware we amended our agenda for thursday and added the k-3 third grade schedule tonight our agenda is focused on dr bucky’s update for back to school these are both incredibly important topics and hearing from people is important as well for this reason we are going to ask that people keep their public comment to topics that are on the agenda each night we also will ask that people keep their public comment to three minutes or less in length as stipulated by our public comment policy this will allow us to hear from everyone who wants to comment but we’ll also keep our meeting

5:34 on schedule as we work to understand everything going on in our district emily will be helping keep track of the time for each of the public comments in order to be courteous to the professionals we have joining us with within their hiring process if there’s still a long list of people in public comment around eight o’clock i will ask that we pause and approve the hiring of these two professionals if needed we can then resume the public comment finally in the true spirit of gary spies we will ask that if someone has already made the point that you want to make know that you can simply take your hand down or state that you agree with the points made by so and so without having to make them again with that i will ask anyone who wants to participate in public comment to use the

6:19 raise hand function and i will call on you please remember to state your full name and address for our record sarah glad to see you sarah fox has joined our meeting

6:31 all right uh jessica shot go ahead hi jessica shot three oak circle um so i’m speaking tonight because last week i emailed the school committee and the administration in regards to the proposed schedule for this school year um the morning recess had been done away with and while i completely understand the core curriculum requirements of five hours a day i’m really still concerned that more that morning recess has only been promised through the first trimester the perspective of which i am about to explain comes from a dual certification in elementary and special education and at one point in my career i held licensure in 42 states morning recess needs to stay intact for the entire school year for these three reasons research and is a lot of it shows that

7:18 kids in grades k-3 benefit from two recesses a day it increases on task behavior improves memory and attention and increases precognitive performance abilities secondly our special education children those with add adhd autism spectrum disorder executive functioning behavioral impairment sensory issues and children with many more disabilities will be significantly impacted by the schedule change these children need frequent sensory and motor brakes in order to thrive in the classroom lack of daily morning recess for the entire year would harm our most vulnerable population third mental health in this country has deteriorated in the past 18 months

8:04 recess is the time when kids socialize this is when kids run and play engage in sports and games and see their classmates laugh and smile recess is where children play we have a mental health crisis in this country and we must ensure a twice daily social opportunity in regards to the proposed schedule a remaining concern that i have is the shortening of the school day by 15 minutes if you multiply that by 180 days in a year that equals 45 hours of missed social and academic time that’s nearly a week and a half less of school from what i understand lack of monitors due to budget issues and teachers contractual time is an impediment of this 15 minutes

8:49 i would like to suggest a rotating coverage schedule utilizing special teachers to increase our school day back to what it was and what it should be we must be flexible in our thinking to avoid this deficit of 45 hours that is a lot of time to miss out on of interacting with friends and classmates lastly school committee this is a message to you of how much of this proposed schedule were you aware you often speak about your concern for the emotional toll that covet has taken on our children and yet you initially chose to approve a schedule second warning okay a blessed socialization we cannot defer this decision our kids need to play together twice a

9:36 day every single day for the whole year i want this schedule to be solidified and i want our children to have two daily recesses in an increased 15 minutes every day thank you for your time thanks jeff thanks jeff um i will ask just once again um just so that we can keep everything um and be addressing what’s coming up on our agenda um that we are talking about the things that are on the agenda this evening and then on thursday when the k-3 schedule does come up on our agenda so that we can address a lot of the concerns that are out there all right um i don’t have anybody else’s hand up so i will move us along to our veteran school nurse approval

10:26 john john sorry people with a thumbs up because we were having some technical

10:47 try mine do you say the picture is pixelated sir no i said your voice sounded pixelated but that that wasn’t the right word this is coming through now it’s still really choppy unfortunately you may want to unplug your headphone and plug it back in again and see if that might do something sir i’m sorry interrupt if i just use the computer it’s a headphone it’s still bad i think you have a choppy internet connection unfortunately you want me to just jump in jon yep okay i’m pleased to bring to you uh outstanding finalists for our nurse position amanda mavros she’s right here uh amanda comes to us with two bachelor’s degree the first for the mass college of pharmacy and both health

11:33 science and nutrition uh the second from the mgh institute institute in nursing she currently works the brigham and women’s uh in the pediatric and adult radiation and college unit she’s also worked in the hematology and oncology unit there too she has also worked the spalding rehab at both her adult and pediatric units and she’s been an on-call substitute for both marvel and swampscott for this past year um past folks that have worked with her and uh supervisor described her as organized energetic professional caring and compassionate and we really like those last two so i present to you uh amanda thank you welcome amanda hi everyone my name is amanda um like matt said you know my history for nursing experience um i’ve been in the

12:20 marblehead community for um about 10 years now babysitting and just getting to know different families um so i when i saw this opportunity as a per diem um nurse i definitely was really interested in it um and i immediately messaged diana um for this opportunity so thank you for having me on to this school committee and i look forward to working with all of you we’re pleased to have you here this evening thanks for joining us um i will ask if any of any of the committee members have any questions for amanda i think your resume speaks for itself the institutions that you worked at are are definitely top-notch and we’re happy to have you thank you

13:07 couldn’t agree more all right well if there’s no other questions then i will ask for a motion to approve amanda mavros as the nurse for the veteran school position so moved megan moved second emily second all right i will roll call sarah gold yes megan taylor yes david harris yes emily barron yes and sarah fox yes all right that is approved 5-0 welcome aboard amanda welcome amanda thank you

13:52 okay let me let dr bucky in from the waiting room we’ll see if this works better

14:23 not a word all right he’s going to trade seats with megan i think

15:04 here we are so we have recommended a long-term sub nurse with um evoluth opening this fall we needed to have coverage for a nurse position there um the state has really expanded their covid testing program which we will hear more about later and so we are recommending uh joseph griffin for your consideration as the long-term sub and the covid testing coordinator so joseph is here with us this evening if he would like to say a few words before the committee has any questions for joseph welcome joseph welcome are you here with us

15:57 all right i actually don’t see him right now let me i don’t think he’s with us at the moment okay um how would the committee like to proceed on this are you okay to vote or do you want to wait to see if mr griffin

16:19 is uh is uh maybe he’s thinking i’m assuming it’s a technical problem but i think it’s probably best to um wait until he’s here apparently they’ve cut this school day all right um so that yeah i would i would agree with that sarah um so we will just wait and move it to the thursday agenda yeah yep or if mr griffin is able to come back on we can absolutely swing back to him on this agenda as well okay all right let me find my agenda

17:08 dr bucky that brings us back to you for the event that i’m sure everyone is waiting for this evening the back to school cobid preparedness plan take it away ah so i’m gonna have to go old school because my computer

18:22 so that computer is totally out of service so i think that people have access to the materials in the materials packet online yeah that would be great if you could share your screen

18:58 so planning for uh returning in september has been ongoing all summer and although we didn’t have um a 57 page document which i’m sure megan is very thankful about um there is a 12-page document that outlines our returned schools this fall some of our priorities information much of it remains the same because we so successfully concluded the year with full in-person instruction so the guiding principles that we had last fall when we reopened and then this this fall we will reopen with similar priorities the next slide is kind of the

19:43 guidance that desi has provided over the summer and in may they said that schools would be required to be in person full time five days a week and as i said we successfully were able to do that to end the year then desi and the department of public health put out some guidance for districts that was released on july 30th the superintendents the north shore superintendent started meeting weekly in august to review the guidance and to make decisions primarily around masking but other return to school policies on august 11th they hosted a covet 19 testing program webinar where they rolled out this really comprehensive

20:28 program that will include three different components have a significant support system um from cic health and provide uh district districts with resources i asked andrew petty and deanna mcmahon to attend that with me all three of us were very impressed but realized the expanded program um last spring the pooled testing program in the state because it was generally unsuccessful and people didn’t participate in the numbers that they wanted to are consciously trying not to call it pooled testing and so we realized with the expanded format that putting that work on our existing nurse staff

21:16 would not be doable manageable so that was the decision to advertise this as a one year grant funded position as a covid testing coordinator they then sponsored another webinar two days later deanna and i attended that we applied that day we have already been accepted into the program and a lot of people have been asking you know why haven’t we announced other districts have announced and many districts were voting this week and waiting to see if the commissioner or the governor would weigh in in some way and i think everyone is aware that on friday the commissioner called an emergency meeting and then today asked the board of elementary and secondary

22:05 education to mandate masks until october 1st and so that’s the position we find ourselves in this evening the marblehead vaccination rate for our students and the community is very very high the incidence of covid in our community is relatively low and so i can’t predict what will happen on october 1st but if the conditions are similar here and there isn’t something that has changed in the public health domain i think we come back to this conversation on vaccinated unvaccinated staff mask or staff and students mask or unmask but for this evening that is not a choice for us if you go to the next slide

22:52 this is the information that we posted that prior to today uh desi was strongly recommending that students k to six wear masks went indoors except for medical exemptions and behavioral needs mask or not needed outdoors and may be removed while eating similar strongly recommend for unvaccinated staff in students in grades 7 to 12. when i put this information together we were waiting to see what the board would do and as i think i’ve said now three times the board voted today and it really is out of our hands next slide please so some of the safety considerations and mitigate mitigation strategies remain the same as they did last spring

23:39 we will have masking in the schools we have an expanded uh diagno diagnostic testing program which deanna mcmahon is going to kind of outline for you there isn’t a distancing requirement in the deci recommendations now but as we said last fall we are able in most instances in marblehead to maintain three-foot distancing if not more in most of our classrooms and we will try to do that whenever possible ventilation we continue to use the merv 13 filters we have air purifiers in every classroom any staff member who requests one gets it if there are larger spaces there are multiple air purifiers we have once again significantly invested in tents to encourage

24:25 alternative spaces for eating for uh class work we make we encourage teachers to take their classes outside and utilize fresh air as a significant mitigation strategy continue with hand sanitizers and maintain seating charts so that as we need to do and hopefully we don’t need to do close contacts we have that information readily available masks are still required on school buses and so it’s children riding the bus but they have adjusted the language around close contacts on school buses if mask and the windows are open and that is really how detailed information has gotten

25:10 so i will turn it over to deanna mcmahon right now to walk us through what she has shared with the superintendent’s advisory and leadership team the last two weeks in reviewing the expanded state testing program issues around close contacts and need for quarantine so deanna

25:36 welcome deanna hey how are you good evening um so the testing services are going to be included for cover 19 testing it’s a three tier program and in marblehead we’ve decided that we’re going to take advantage of all tiers we would rather have everything available to us dial back if we need to uh we think that that’s the best direction to go in so in these three tiers symptomatic testing is clearly stated there in the first block it’s orange for when individuals present symptoms while at school individuals should not go to school if experiencing symptoms while at home so that being said we’re still going to have a daily health attestation it’s been updated and um changed for the guidance that’s happening now i i will discuss that in a little bit and that will be a student

26:22 and staff uh daily attestation that first brief paragraph there means if you don’t feel well and you’re not you’re feeling ill you shouldn’t be coming to school um samples are collected at school using the bionx now rapid antigen test and those tests those that test negative will be able to that hey wait a minute those testing negative will isolate with iso isolated symptoms constantly i have to go over that again i’m sorry so if you come to school and you’re fine in the morning which happens we all know this happens and a child were to feel sick during the time in school the nurses are going to have a bionx now rapid antigen test in their office and they’re going to be able to test that student should they have symptoms that are similar to covet you should not come to school if you are feeling sick and do not pass the daily

27:08 attestation that’s how i would like to to frame that

27:14 the next category tier is called test and stay and for test and stay it’s for close contact testing when an end when an into four individuals who are close contact with coven 19 positive individuals while at school samples will be collected using the bio next now rapid antigen tests and tests are administered daily for at least five days from the date of exposure so what this means is if you’re in school and you’re closer than three feet because we’re all gonna be masked at least until october first due to um commissioner riley so if you are closer than three feet which will occur in certain cases especially in the elementary schools you will be considered a close contact even if you have a mask on and in that situation we will have seating charts in the

27:59 classrooms and the nurse’s office and administrators will be aware of who is going to be identified as close contacts those families will be notified that their child is a close contact and at that time if they have consented to test and stay which we’re hoping most people will do they can come into school and for five consecutive days they will be tested with a bio next now test by the school nurse in order for us to assess their coveted status in five consecutive days after the last time they were exposed ideally they want this to be for seven consecutive days but weekends are going to fall in and we only go to school five days a week so it all is going to depend on the date of last exposure i have a more detailed

28:44 bit of information to give you after we pass through this slide um tests will be administered daily for at least five days from the date of exposure the last category is routine covered pool testing routine pool testing is going to now be called coveted safety checks

29:02 routine pool testing and school-based follow-up testing samples are collected at school if a pool is positive following up testing at school with either bionx now or individual pcr testing as necessary routine pool testing and lab-based follow-up testing this is the one that i’d like to have us do here at marblehead public schools samples will be collected in a pool and if a pool is positive the individual follow-up testing will occur through lab without a second sample collection what that means is we will have covet safety checks pooled testing once a week at each building ideally after october 13th we will have five schools so we will have five days of the week each school will have the same day of the week that they will have pool testing we’re going to buy for using the uh

29:49 nasal swab and we’re going to have each student nasal swab two swabs at the same time one swab will go into the pool and be sent off to the lab the other swab will be saved with their identification number on it and so if a pool test were to come back positive we’d be able to know which pool came positive take all the second bit the second swabs from those kids or staff and retest them individually without having to ask families to bring their kids back which i really like i think that this is a great change for our uh coveted safety checks pooled testing yeah if i could just jump in there for a second because we got a priority status in the application that is the program that we are approved for so we will be doing the lab-based testing and they’ll

30:35 be able to identify if there’s a positive who the positive is via the lab great

30:43 so that’s basically the testing program i don’t know if you want me to take questions all at the end sarah gold or if you want me to take questions on this now because i just discussed it john do you have a preference

30:58 the close contact in contact tracing and quarantine is pretty complicated so if people have questions around the new testing program it might be good to ask them now great that sounds good to me sarah

31:11 um so i have a couple for john from before but i can hold those to the end and then as far as deanna’s questions go first test and stay that will be like right when the children come to school they’ll immediately get tested they’re like not going to go to their classroom first and then come to you to get tested right we’re going to isolate them and do that test to stay that day prior to them entering uh any type of group setting that would then push us to have to you know possibly test or quarantine more kids correct best practice is that those children that are identified and have consented for tests instead come to the nurse’s office first and they will not be out into the building until we know that their their bio next now test is negative

31:56 should their tests come back positive in the 15 minutes they’ll have your their parents will just be called and they’ll be sent home this is going to happen during school hours not prior to school hours okay perfect and then the symptomatic testing that’s also available for teachers and staff as well right it is but it’s i don’t want people to be confused this is not symptomatic testing like you’re symptomatic at home and you come in to get tested because we’re not going to be a testing site this is symptomatic testing if you become ill during the school day which we know this makes sense okay i just don’t want families to get confused we can’t do that kind of volume yeah but like if a teacher you know say mid-morning starts to feel a little off they they don’t have to make it through the day and then go tests at a

32:42 site they could also pop down to the office to get tested correct during work hours of course yes okay perfect thank you

32:58 i think you need to put the headphones on

33:23 all right thanks deanna for this i appreciate it um so just two quick questions one is the consent process for the in-school testing especially that’s you know the symptomatic testing that you mentioned what’s the process for that the cic is is um providing us with a link that’s going to go out to everyone that link also comes in several different languages so when people when people sign up for consent on the link that’s going to be sent out they’ll sign up for consent my understanding is they’ll be able to choose the language that they need the consent in and then at that time that’s how they’re consenting and i believe when they’re consenting they’re consenting to each of these levels because we are um

34:09 we are qualified for all three levels but i may not be correct on that but i do think consent is we’re trying to make it very simple and very you know less complicated for people so that come out in like an email from the principal so it’s very very easy for prior to school start yes okay okay and the wrong john can just add whatever he needs to add okay and then um with the coded safety testing where i’m not sure if i’m calling it the right thing the previous test yeah the what was hopeful the code safety check well yeah yes yes um what what are some ideas to increase the participation in that especially for you know the younger years where their vaccination isn’t available yet

34:55 i would just hope that everybody would want to do it i mean we’re trying to make it really simple it’s ideally it’s going to be first thing in the morning it’s going to be taking place in the classrooms uh desi and the ndph all say and i agree with this that kids kindergarten and higher can test themselves um so the materials will be dropped off to each building and each building is going to have a set day for instance i would like the high school to be on thursdays i set that up because i feel like that’s five days after the weekend i think it’s a great day for the high school we tested and i just really feel like if we’re gonna have positives they’re gonna fall somewhere on thursday or friday um so each thursday first thing in the morning at the high school all the supplies will ideally be in the classrooms the kids that are consented will do the testing with the two slobs

35:42 those will then get packed up and sent off by carrier to the labs and that’s what joe griffin’s going to be doing as the cover nurse so each each week he’s going to be at different buildings in the mornings to get this all wrapped up and taken care of um as far as incentive incentive is freedom so if we can get people to do the testing especially those that are unvaccinated um because it’s more important that we’re testing them in a sense i think that we could do really well here at marblehead public schools we want to be in school every day we want our kids to be in school every day with us and so we want football and we want cheerleading we want you know all the extracurricular activities that we want we want our lives back so i would hope that that’s incentive enough okay all right thanks deanna yeah

36:32 emily emily um so one option might be whoa sorry um to send out maybe at the lower level uh actual handout to every student um because that sometimes is easier for parents to actually follow through with because not everyone reads the full email or reads the email i think actually getting that paper in the homework folder um might help get more people signed up and if it’s bright yellow that helps too [Laughter] i certainly do think that we are allowed to do it any way we feel best so that’s definitely something we could talk about with the younger school principals for sure um sarah i see your hand up again i’m

37:17 just going to ask a quick question if that’s okay or two actually dana how does this if we have vaccinated students who are close contact uh what do they what’s their protocol is it the same where they come in tests each morning or are they okay to just remain in school without any additional testing so if you’re a vaccinated student you’re going to fall under the exempt um examples which i’m going to talk about in a little bit when i start talking about quarantine and close contact however anyone vaccinated or unvaccinated who becomes symptomatic or with similar symptoms will have to be tested so ideally they will go into a situation if you’re talking about a vaccinated person we still want to be able to identify people that they were exposed to covid because i think that knowledge is really

38:03 important um we would be able to say to them oh well i’m vaccinated they would say to us and then we would say to them okay well we really do want you just monitor for symptoms over the next 14 days uh if they become symptomatic they should then not come to school go and get tested and if they tested negative we could then shift them into the test and stay at that point because we’re still going to be looking at seven days post-exposure so if they wanted to immediately participate in the test and say would they be able to do that i don’t see why not i mean jesse says no like they say they don’t encourage it jesse even went as far as to encourage that vaccinated people don’t be part of the test and stay however with what happened in provincetown i don’t know that that’s our best decision

38:49 like that’s our best choice um as a town we can talk to andrew petty and the board of health and see what they think um i’m not an alarmist but i do want to try and do this as well as we did last year absolutely and then will the consent that people did last year will that carry over into this year or will we have to redo those it does not it’s all it’s all new consent all right great to know uh sarah so that that piece was one of the pieces i was going to ask about i wanted to make it really really clear to parents don’t think just because you enrolled in that beacon program from last year that’s a carryover it’s like a new permission slip for a new field trip for a new year essentially um

39:35 but one of my questions is so the symptomatic testing makes sense what happens if we have a child come to the office with symptomatic and they we don’t have consent to test them um are we allowed to test and manage kids period my guess is no and if they refuse consent is that an automatic then they have to go home and if so for how long i’m gonna be able to cover that for you when i get in my quarantine discussion but you already kind of answered it if a family does not consent we cannot test their child and if they decide not to consent they will be treated just like last year under the scenarios last year if you have symptoms you’re gonna have to go get tested and if you decide not to get tested you will be ice you will be quarantined for 10 days not able to return to school until the 11th day

40:21 unless you have a doctor’s note that says you have a different diagnosis other than pelvis all right i think that’s it you can carry on deanna thank you okay next slide so the next thing i was going to talk about is the covet symptoms they’re basically the same symptoms as last year but there’s a couple of new nuances i’m just gonna read them through so symptoms list fever 100 or greater chills and shaking difficulty breathing or shortness of breath new loss of taste or smell muscle aches and body aches those are the bolded symptoms those are the top five symptoms that we’re really looking for when we go a little further there’s cough but not due to any known other cause like a chronic cough that won’t

41:06 count as a coveted symptom sore throat when in combination with other symptoms would count uh nausea vomiting diarrhea within combinations of other symptoms and no other diagnosis like ibs would count headache when in combination with other symptoms so it be headache and fever and sore throat fatigue when in combination with other symptoms and nasal congestion or runny nose not due to other known causes such as allergies when in combination with other symptoms these have changed because we know more about covid even though there’s different variants we still are looking for these types of symptoms when we’re thinking about a student or a staff person coming into the health office with covet the daily health attestation has been

41:52 updated it has basically the same questions except for updated all of those new symptoms that i just mentioned and how they were written up and then we have in the past 14 days my child has not been exposed to anyone with the following those symptoms again listed then in the past 14 days my child has not been in close contact within six feet indoors of an infected person for at least 15 minutes over a 24 hour period to anyone diagnosed with covid19 and then we do still want to have up to four emergency contacts because we will need students to be dismissed should they become positive or symptomatic and ill at school um the this is the daily attestation we

42:37 ask that people look at it each morning kind of look and ask those questions whether their staff or their students this does not need to be filled out and taken into the school nurse but we do have to diligently think about this because like i was saying we’re not a testing site we do not want sick people coming to school we want kids to stay home if they’re sick and have those families follow up with their primary care should they feel like it’s something that needs to be um you know that goes beyond a normal illness for a child

43:06 we also i i’ve sent that the new daily health attestations to emily dean because there will be some languages we need those translated into and she’s on on doing that now as we speak um are there any questions on that because then i’m going to move on to close contacts and uh quarantine kara um just because it popped in my head and it will be going otherwise can we find a way on the website to have i’ve seen other schools have a list of area testing sites with like their web link and even like sometimes their phone over their hours i think the easier we make it for people to get tested the more likely they are to do the right thing and into test um so i’m just wondering if we can do a

43:52 page for that somewhere on on our website why not it’s pretty easy uh there’s a link on mass.gov already that does exactly that you just stick in your zip code and it gives you numerous choices to go get tested

44:14 all right does anybody have any other questions okay i think you can continue on okay so the definition of close contact this has only changed very little closed contacts are defined as individuals who have been within six feet of covet 19 positive individual while indoors that’s a big one while indoors for at least 15 minutes during a 24 hour period please note at-risk exposure time begins 48 hours prior to symptom onset of the positive person or contin or time of positive tests if asymptomatic and continues until the time that the positive individual is in isolation multiple brief or transitory

45:00 interactions less than one minute throughout the day are unlikely to result in 15 minutes of cumulative contact do not meet the definition of closed contact per cdc definition of close contact are there any questions about that go ahead okay so closed contact exemptions certain closed contacts are exempt from testing or quarantine response protocols as long as they remain asymptomatic so everyone in the exemption has to remain completely asymptomatic to still fall under the exemption the exemptions are as follows asymptomatic fully vaccinated close contacts if you are a fully vaccinated

45:46 staff person a fully vaccinated student and you have been identified as a close contact if you are fully vaccinated and asymptomatic you do not need to do test and stay you do not need to quarantine you do however need to be able to mod you know assess your symptoms for 14 days from that last day of exposure because if you do become ill and we know that there are breakthrough cases happening that’s when you need to not come to school not come to work go get tested and figure out what’s happening with your health the second exemption classroom closed contacts individuals who are exposed to coven 19 positive individual in the classroom while both individuals were masked so long as the individuals were spaced at least three feet apart they are exempt

46:33 and not considered a close contact that is why i am encouraging that where space allows we use three feet distancing at marblehead public schools because it will cut down on kids that need to be isolated kids that need to test and stay and kids that need to um would be exposed in the younger schools i know that this is going to be an issue but we’ll be aware of the building rooms activities all of those things will all be traced with who’s in what group who’s sitting where and what’s happening at those times so that we will be identifying those kids as close contacts and hopefully they’ll consent and we’ll get them in test and stay the third exemption is bus close contacts individuals on buses must be massed according to federal requirements as such individuals who are amassed on

47:20 buses with the windows open are not identi they’ll be told that there was a positive on the bus but they are not identified as close contacts again we’re going to want those people to also modify um assess their symptoms for 14 days from last day of exposure and then closed contacts who have had coven 19 within the past 90 days if they have been exposed as a close contact they are exempt exposure must occur within 90 days of their symptom onset individuals must also be fully recovered and symptom free at this time those are the four categories that exempt you from having to do test and stay or be quarantined we will still notify families because they need to still look for symptoms 14

48:06 days past exposure any questions on that megan megan okay plugging in headphones just a minute

48:25 deanna can you hear me yes um is there a way to boil this all down so that it’s easy for parents to understand i mean i know there’s a lot of information here but is there a way to have some type of summary or flow chart or something that’s easily understood for parents so they know exactly what they need to do in a given situation i wrote notes myself today my notes are only for this they’re they’re only three pages long i i told um john that i will be sharing them i can share them with you i can share them with him you can certainly put them up on the nurse’s virtual you know we can share them this is just i’m i’m looking at all this paper and i’m trying to dial it down to like make it as simple as possible um so i can certainly do that and i think i told you at the last reopening

49:12 meeting jesse is supposed to create a flow chart when they do i’ll take a look at it if it looks good we can use it if not we can either dummy it down to make it simple a lot of this there’s too many words in some of these things it makes it very confusing so that’s why i’m trying to carve it as simple as i can yeah i know i appreciate that i just think um you know my head’s spinning trying to i’m not sure how i’m gonna remember at all so i think if we want everyone to know exactly what to do just you know there’s a way and that is what we did last year last year we had five i created five steps of what to expect when we would end up having people these situations the nurses had all this stuff we just sent it in the emails to the parents we went over it all with them because i want them to not be lost in the woods i want them to be able to understand it the more that we can

49:58 get everyone to understand i think the better we’re going to do right and i guess i’m just thinking off the top of my head too but maybe this is something that we can make sure we address in each open house as well like really go through this um again just so parents hear it again and can ask questions if necessary of course and and i think that the nurses are very open to taking phone calls and emails from parents about all this oh yeah we’re in the same place and not in the same place all at the same time right okay thank you yeah i don’t think we have any other questions right now okay so this is the protocols this is if you think that made you dizzy this is going to make you dizzier here we go so testing and quarantine response protocols protocol a pretty simple individuals who test positive it’s the

50:44 same as before they have 10 days of isolation from symptom onset or date of positive test that’s a slam dunk easy to deal with done okay moving into protocol b asymptomatic close context this is the one protocol b has three different options b one is called test and stay we will allow asymptomatic close context to remain in school and participate in sports and extracurricular activities as long as they take a bionics now test daily for up to five days if you want to participate in weekend school sport activities you will need to test on those days too this will not be managed by school because on the weekends we’re not there

51:30 so i know just as a mom and as a medical person that people can buy bio next now brand um rapid antigen tests at cvs i’m sorry that it’s not going to be a free thing this might be something we all need to kind of talk about and figure out but if you are placed in test and stay and i don’t know there’s a saturday soccer game and you’re in and been identified as an exposed contact you cannot go to that soccer game unless we know that on that morning you tested bionx now and you were negative that is considered a school activity but when you are in test and stay at school we are controlling you in our school environment when you are on the weekend and you’re

52:16 not having extracurricular activities and you’re not having school sports you are in quarantine does that make sense these are only you’re only exempt for these school qualifying activities not for the rest of the world so that’s i think really important for people to take away here so you have the rapid bionics now test daily for up to five days you wear a mask at school at all times except when you’re eating and drinking when you take off your mask for eating and drinking you need to remain three feet from others when you’ve been identified as a close contact when seven days from the date of exposure includes weekends or holidays the individuals should quarantine on those days and if they remain asymptomatic may return to school to be

53:01 tested immediately in the morning that following monday or whatever the day is that we then return back to school you must conduct active monitoring for symptoms through day 14 and self isolate at home if symptoms develop that is be one test and stay protocol protocol does anyone have questions on that sarah i saw your hand go up and then megan so a couple things first i don’t think we’re carrying along with our slides here i think we’re several slides behind the presentation okay it was like b1 i don’t send you this if you would like it i made it in notes today oh okay um and then

53:48 as far as the the weekend extracurriculars go so if they’re buying the test at cvs like this is totally on our system that they’re really buying the test it’s like we’re not seeing results from you know the cvs results if they’re doing it at cvs like if they’re doing the over-the-counter one it’s completely the honor system well i don’t know see this is all this is the moving parts that we have going on right now because this is all new so honestly i haven’t sat down and had a discussion with anybody about how we’re going to do this on the weekends okay i have to be honest with you i have no idea okay i just as terrible as it sounds i i don’t have a ton of faith in the honor system where this is all concerned like my level of faith is i i have my results and here’s the printout from the counter

54:36 at cvs or from urgent care or from wherever but i don’t i just don’t have it in the other way and i think about it also because we’re bringing in people from other communities so say at the at the i don’t know the baseball or the basketball game or whatever it is on saturday we could be bringing in a team that has five students that should be on quarantine but we’re on the honor system like and we’re bringing them into our community i’m not going to go for the honor system in this situation yeah i think we could you know i could talk to athletics we could talk we could have some conversations in regards to you know i can train people you don’t have to be a medical staff person to do bionx now we could train those people that are in charge the coach of the team i don’t those these are all things that

55:22 are moving and we have to figure out and then they could test those students prior to the activity to make sure that they actually 15 minutes later are negative and continue to stay but i can’t speak for that because i don’t have that power but those are the thoughts in my mind okay that’s that’s good to know though thank you yeah any other questions on b1 testing’s day megan did you have a question i appreciate that dna and certainly i’m sure greg and the coaches if there’s a way to make sure they’re adhering to every policy and procedure we’ll do that like we did last year but i want to say i have great faith in the community from a standpoint of the honor principle i mean we’re all in this

56:11 together people want to be safe i think the attestation is an honesty principle and we need to make sure that someone doesn’t have symptoms at home and come to school um that’s going to happen with the 3 000 kids we have in the district every day we want people to stay home if you’re sick that is going to be an honesty principle and then certainly if a student exhibits some symptoms in school we’ve identified another way to handle that but i’m i have a high amount of confidence that everybody in marblehead is in it to win it and will participate but if there’s a way we can support that which in these instances the it’s only going to be someone who’s

56:58 been identified as a close contact prior to a sporting event and i’m hoping that those numbers um will be very low given that we are talking about a lot of uh students that are already vaccinated at a high vaccination rate and we’re going to be going back to school with masks so just wanted to make that general comment thanks thank you megan i think you’ve got a question as well yeah the only thing i wanted to add to it and dean i appreciate that you know the athletics piece probably still has some moving parts to it um but can i just ask john if maybe greg and deanna can come back to us sometime relatively soon on what the plan is for athletics and if there’s

57:44 something we need to do for example if we need to make sure that there are those rapid tests um you know available for coaches and athletes then then let’s look at what it will take for us to to do that but they can come back with a recommendation that would be great thank you just really quick um someone has their hand up and our public comment the section was at the beginning so i apologize

58:14 okay so moving on then to b2 is is um so we’re still on protocol b asymptomatic close contacts section b2 is traditional asymptomatic close contact individuals who have not chosen to participate in test and stay if you are an individual whose family has decided not to participate in test and stay you will quarantine for seven days from last exposure just like last year you will not come to school you will not go to activities you will quarantine for seven days from last exposure if you remain asymptomatic you may test on day five or later and with a negative result may be released from quarantine on day eight you will also conduct active monitoring for symptoms through day 14 and

58:59 self-isolate should symptoms develop that’s pretty straightforward that’s the traditional way that people could test out of quarantine early last year as long as they remained asymptomatic any questions there

59:20 sarah sarah i’m sorry i don’t mean to interrupt when are the parents allowed to speak at the end do they ask questions during or is there another day where parents get to see so the public comments section was at the beginning of our meeting we will have another public comment section at the beginning of thursday’s meeting as well thank you very much i appreciate it

59:43 so again still protocol b a symptomatic close contacts section b3 is no testing alternate protocol for those who choose not to test quarantine is at least 10 days from last day of exposure same thing as last year remain asymptomatic and you may return to school and activities on day 11. you are to conduct active monitoring for your symptoms through day 14 and self-isolate if symptoms develop that is basically protocol b which is the asymptomatic close context the third category is symptomatic individuals they call that protocol c it only has two sections c1 return to school post symptoms with a test the duration is dependent on the symptoms resolution

1:00:29 symptoms resolution symptoms resolution you may return to school after you have received a negative pcr test or so long as the individual is not a close contact if a medical professional makes an alternative diagnosis for cova-like symptoms the individual may use a written medical recommendation in lieu of a pcr test to return to school they also must have improvement in symptoms before they return to school they must also have been without a fever for at least 24 hours without using any fever reducing medications to return to school note if the symptomatic individual was a closed contact who is not exempt from testing in quarantine response protocols after symptoms resolve and they receive a negative pcr test they should be

1:01:15 followed in the b1 protocol for test and stay depending on the last day of exposure so if that being said if someone within three days has had symptoms they were a close contact they went and got a pcr test it came back negative we’re still in that seven day window of the last time they were identified and exposed to that close contact we’d like them to slide into the test and stay at least until those days are complete does anyone have questions about symptomatic individuals who return to school after the symptoms after their test you’re completely right my head is swimming yeah it’s crazy i’m really not an alarmist sarah

1:02:01 i think if there is a way that we could get this information before thursday just because our thinking on these two meetings was that we could digest information and then be able to ask more questions come thursday i think that might be helpful if it you know it’s not funny this is what i created today for myself i’ll just send it to you great john so in the document that’s in the materials folder there is a link to the desi guidance document that has these colored boxes that deanna is reading from so you can have a chance to go back and see symptomatic asymptomatic protocol a b and c b1 b2 b3 because obviously it is very detailed and confusing and so the public has access to those now and school committee has them in your packet

1:02:46 thanks you do but sarah i really cut them i i really made them very i don’t mind sharing what i have because it’s crazy thank you uh if no one has questions on c1 i can just move on to c2 okay c2 return to school for individuals who are not closed contacts and have chosen not to receive a covid test isolation is at least 10 days from symptom onset return to school after 10 days returning on day 11 just like last year have improved symptoms and have been without fever for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medication i believe that is all my information for you tonight is that it thank you very much deanna thank you

1:03:33 deanna so we’ll go to the next slide and uh i listed some department updates i am not going to have each department or director report out this evening but there is some good information that i think that you will appreciate having um it didn’t make it into a 57-page document this year but i’ve asked richard kelleher to talk about the federal lunch program that’s continuing i’m going to ask steve quiatek to talk about some of the technology uh enhancements that have happened this year and then if you have other questions for that are departmentally specific i wanted to allow time for that so we’ll ask richard to jump in all right good evening everybody um that’s my grandson finn in case anybody was wondering it’s not like i’m proud of him or anything

1:04:19 anything anything um this year the federal government has deemed that they will be paying for all the meals um there’s a upside to that and there’s a downside the upside is uh it may enhance participation the downside is their reimbursements don’t generally cover all of our costs so we’ll have to see how that’s going to affect us uh an issue i think that’s near and dear to a number of people in marblehead is that we no longer have any foam products in our possession

1:04:55 um so uh you know that that’s been a long road it’s not an inexpensive process but uh i think it’s worth it and uh it supports the community at large um my staff is back for the most part we do have some shortfalls in terms of bodies but we’ll manage that and as this whole process unfolds after listening to deanna and john and everybody else i’m very i’ve been here 26 years i’ve been very impressed with the entire leadership group um both community school committee and the administrative group in in the uh at nine wedges road i’m very proud to be a part of that group

1:05:41 that’s very kind richard the check is in the mail um steven quiatec has a lot to celebrate in terms of advancements in technology it’s uh last year at this time our woes were in technology and so i think it’s worth celebrating all that he has been able to accomplish so stephen thanks dr bucky our tech team has been working hard this summer we’ve been able to accomplish many upgrades and updates this summer we’ve increased our internet bandwidth to a 2 gigabit fiber internet connection for the district we’ve purchased a new firewall allowing for the increased internet speed to go along with the new fiber internet we’ve been adding more wi-fi in all of our buildings we’ve

1:06:27 probably completed the high school to about 95 of what the three to one wi-fi plan will be for us going forward we’ve had uh an upgrade for our phone systems we’ve upgraded our district office the village school the high school uh we’re planning to move forward with the vets in the glover schools next we are waiting on some additional equipment to be delivered but some delays have happened and we’re expecting all that equipment to arrive over the next few weeks our brown school is going to be a wonderful new school and it was just connected with a new fiber yesterday and we activated the internet connection to the building today besides the needed hardware upgrades

1:07:12 we’ve been working on we’ve also deployed a new website and just today started using our new blackboard notification system so a lot of good new technology for our district thank you stephen i’m sure it’s not lost on anyone that the superintendent had technology trouble to start the meeting this evening so it’s nice to be able to pivot back and to celebrate uh the advances in technology that we’ve had next slide please so so i’ll open it up that if individual committee members have um questions for me or any of the directors um uh mr griffin has joined us uh his technology troubles are over so we can circle back uh to hiring of the long-term sub-nurse

1:07:58 long-term sub-nurse long-term sub-nurse and covet coordinator wonderful all right yeah i think we’ll stick with this and then we’ll circle back to the the nurse piece megan i see your hand up

1:08:19 um it’s not necessarily a question at this point but i do just really want to thank richard specifically for getting all the styrofoam pieces out of school you know this has been a thorn in my side for a long time um so i’m really appreciative for the work that you have done there and also um steven i love the new website it looks amazing um but that in conjunction with everything else you’ve been working on i know you’ve been working really hard at the brown school and there’s so much great um availability i guess is the best word i can think of at the brown school i think the students there are gonna have some really great experiences so um you know in all the issues that we talked about with our remote learning and hybrid learning last year you know i know you’ve taken that

1:09:05 and really run with it so just you know great work guys thank you so much the summer’s been short and you’ve worked really hard so we just appreciate it i mean not that everyone hasn’t worked hard but those two are the ones who spoke so thank you any other questions sarah i don’t have you open my screen but i’m i’m going to guess that you’ve got a question

1:09:30 always a safe guest so i um my questions for richard um i know that we’re participating in the federal program for the lunches um what i’m wondering is are we even able to but are we going to also be having those a la carte items that are available and i asked that because i know that’s a big revenue driver um and that might help offset some of the loss of revenue by what the reimbursement rate is so i was just wondering if we’re allowed to do that as part of this and if so if we were going to um and then the second to the question to that is will it still be the program where parents order like a week at a time ahead of time or no can they do choose day to day

1:10:22 sarah i can play the role of richard on one piece of that and that yes a la carte options uh will be available uh for students and uh we were talking about the revenue generating piece of that as the reimbursement does not cover the cost of the quote unquote free lunch program and each building principal is sending out they’ve been working with richard and todd on lunch in general and where lunch will be in spacing and all of that so i will have him connect with you on the ordering options and how food service will be delivered that sounds great and i know at one point richard had some creative ideas of other ways to kind of make some food offerings um

1:11:08 to offset some of those revenue drivers um so if if we want to explore some of those as well that might be a good idea

1:11:21 so i’m going to ask a quick quick question um to kind of follow up on ferris i think it would be great if we could get the info because that was one of my questions about is it the pre-covered lunch offerings or the covid style that we had last year both are great just kind of wondering um and then the lunch overages i think it’s great that we’re going to look at creative ways and old ways that have worked for us and be able to utilize those is that something that can be covered by esser if at the end of the year we don’t have um room in any in other lines to cover it i will get you an answer to that i don’t want to say yes we can use esser funds but the guidelines for using esser have been so liberal but i wouldn’t want to say that

1:12:07 yes you could use that to make up a deficit in your operating budget john i think one of the very few clear pieces of it if i recall are you cannot use it to replace lost revenue i think that that was spelled out really quick clearly that it can’t be to make up a revenue debt deficit and where this would be that i think um can i jump in just for a second here i do have the answer to that question uh welcome michelle thank you um we cannot use it as a revenue offset however if we do have a shortfall in um one of our revolving funds now we can actually charge the salaries and expenses for that program to the grant so essentially it is a revenue offset now allowed that was new as of june and

1:12:53 um so if we do have a shortfall in any of our revolving programs due to covid we can transfer the cost to the grant so essentially it would cover a shortfall so yes we do have that safeguard but we do not anticipate um we’ll need that we we are being very creative richard is putting on vending machines with water bottles with credit cards that can be accessed after school hours and and whatnot so we’re trying to be very creative in terms of of increasing our revenues at this point and i just went to the first meeting with the town administrator on arpa funds and the allocation coming to marblehead and what those might be used for so i will work with him as well to see if you know maybe it can’t be used to cover this but another aspect as michelle said

1:13:44 great and then i’ve got a quick question for steven i know the answer to this question but i just really want to highlight how much you’ve done so the you mentioned three to one at the high school can you explain that and then remind us what it was last year um so pretty much three to one means that in every classroom if you have one student that they’d be able to connect three devices at the same time so uh if a student has a laptop a cell phone a tablet and by some chance they want to use them all at the same time that the infrastructure would be able to handle uh the traffic and the bandwidth for all of those devices so we’re very close we’re not quite there yet some of the equipment we’re

1:14:31 still waiting on but it is arriving very soon so uh we’re getting close that’s great and where were we at last year at this time or when you came on probably less than one per student we were able to use a smith corona sl500 typewriter on the system with whiteout [Laughter] that’s great and i think you know i sat on the high school sac um the last two years i think and that was one of the things that the students regularly brought up you know pre-coveted as well so i think it’s just it’s really great that we’re addressing those types of things um and it’s exciting for the students i think it’ll cause much less frustration on their side so thank you thank you any others

1:15:18 is this a good time to answer because i still have notes here with questions from the beginning of the slideshow yep go ahead and go back um so one of the questions the notes was air purifiers any teacher who wants one can has access to it if there is a parent that really wants one in their child’s class can they make that request through todd as well that that specific classroom have one yes okay and then um everything we we see coming out it says k through 12 for um masks i i’m assuming that what we’ll convert that to is all of our students seeing as we go beyond 12 when we start before k um but i just want to make that clarification

1:16:03 i think the mass mandate is applying to any student but early childhood often has separate regulations so i want to clarify for our youngest learners but i think students in that receive services up to 22 would be included um if we can hopefully for maybe by thursday get some clarification on that pre-k piece because i know um a chunk of that pre-k program does our children that are you know have some higher needs medical included so i think that that is a piece some parents would like it to know if if those will be required um and then a couple times during the presentations i heard you know deanna and john a couple other

1:16:49 people talk about reopening is reopening still meeting no it’s the superintendent’s advisory and leadership team that is includes uh new representatives from mea um it has uh new the directors um so it’s an advisory group um that still meets and are there school committee members that sit on that and if so who are they sarah and megan i plan that to put that back onto the first uh meeting so that we could discuss that because we had kind of punted it as john reorganized this group um so megan i think megan you were on the last call i was on the one before um and so we’ll we’ll circle back to that

1:17:37 anybody else have any questions megan you’ve got the headphones on okay um john on sarah’s question about the air purifiers um do you know around about how many air priorities purifiers we have with any kind of ratio to classrooms oh that’s a great question todd is on the call my guess is he could or michelle through purchase orders tell us how many we have ordered across the district and then do that calculus and get you that number for thursday but todd or michelle if you know how many we have ordered to date uh to date we have ordered approximately 350. um so the way we went about it is that uh if they

1:18:24 the rooms did not have windows we automatically put air purifiers in them we also installed registers to circulate the air through the uh the hvac systems uh any rooms that had windows weather permitting of course even in the winter though we did have a lot of windows open but because that was a recommendation we’re going to be doing that again you know have fresh air is the best thing so the rooms that have the windows we open windows uh we circulate air but as john said if anyone asks for one they get one you know no no questions asked and we

1:19:09 try to keep stock of some just in case you know someone asks for them and i did have a i received an email from a teacher earlier in the meeting uh about a room and i replied and i said of course we’ll bring one over so we’ll put one over there tomorrow great thanks todd we also have ordered um four various rooms at the uh the new brown school just in case people want them i want to have them in case they need them but that is also opening with entirely new system and merv 13 filters already in place thank you todd i knew you’d have the answer

1:19:53 so i have a question as the parent of an incoming freshman it’s freshman orientation tomorrow um as far as i know um commissioner riley’s sort of official mandate is coming at some point tomorrow how are we handling that so i went to some tours that they have been doing building tours at the vets for the last month and some people were masked and some people weren’t and so principal bauer reached out to me and before today’s decision and i said you know follow suit if the mandate goes into effect at noon tomorrow and the orientation is at 12 30 we’ll provide masks for people to participate in orientation great um i think you know i think it’s

1:20:39 bears saying um sort of with this little bit of a window here as as we approach the school year that there’s no intention ever of banning masks or not allowing kids to wear them so for tomorrow’s freshman and orientation if that mandate doesn’t actually come through before noon then it anybody who wants to can show up and wear a mask and we always have masks in our buildings um for any student or adult to wear um so you know and i think it’s it’s one of these moving pieces where um you know hopefully we can get and if if commissioner riley’s mandate does come through before uh 12 o’clock maybe we can get a quick email out um

1:21:25 or i don’t even know if we could call freshman parents just to sort of give that heads up that expectation has gone through and we will have to mask kids i think that that’s an important point that we want to normalize mask wearing because we have over 200 students who were fully remote last year who are coming back without a remote option that are concerned about being in public spaces and so we want those students to feel as comfortable in our schools and so normalizing mask wearing for those students so that they don’t feel that they’re standing out so we’re sensitive to that and we’re already working with principals and teachers to make sure that we’re doing

1:22:12 outreach uh to those students coming back the one that resonates with me is a student that was a kindergartner in march of 2020 is coming back this fall as a second grader and that’s a huge developmental jump and to be back in a classroom uh when you were fully remote last year so that is definitely uh on the radar for us and i think speaking of the freshmen you know if if you were a freshman in 2020 you are now a junior and that’s also a huge developmental gap um so there i think you know it’s sort of just highlights what a lot of students are are going to be experiencing and dealing with um but i also think

1:22:59 it bears saying that we have i’ve heard it i think it’s a 94 vaccination rate at the high school um so that’s that’s amazing so i think you know as we all try to process through all of this information that’s coming our way and what’s safe and what isn’t and and what when masks are mandated and when we get to make our choices you know that statistic to me is is comforting and very helpful excuse me sarah again i’m sorry this is lori whalen i’m a parent i just all right i can’t allow people to um just kind of pop in um because if i do it for you i’d have to do it for everybody um and then i’d lose control of the meetings so um there will be an additional public comment um at thursday’s meeting

1:23:53 any other questions from the committee uh sarah you’re muted [Music] yeah i had an injury right at the point that i had my question sorry my injuries running away um and i’m regrouping oh lunches lunchtime i think that this is a big question particularly in the younger grades where we have no one vaccinated how are we handling lunches because that is an unmasked um time obviously i know the tents are coming back will we offer outdoor lunches i know that this is a question that’s kick’s been kicked around the community and we might not have that answer tonight but i’m just um putting it out there to say it is i do

1:24:40 think it is a question particularly in that um unvaccinated population yep it’s a conversation that is happening building by building because each building is unique in how the cafeteria is laid out and how many students they can safely accommodate and so um it’s one of the faq things in the 12-page document that talks about lunch and the steps that we will take to make sure that unmasked students eating are maintaining a certain distance and are safe but lunch is certainly one of the big questions for many schools and so having the outdoor spaces as an option is good

1:25:30 okay um i will just kind of you know again reiterate that our thinking with this with these meetings this week um and obviously some of the things have changed since we posted them last week um both for marblehead public schools as well as at the state level but our thinking was that we wanted a chance to be able to have this presentation be able to you know in the public comment at the beginning hear some of the concerns of the community hear and ask questions from dr bucky and the administration and then really have time to digest it and come back together on thursday be able to again hear from the community as they’ve had time to digest everything so that we can make any decisions that we need to make and so that everybody feels as good as they can possibly feel moving into the school year

1:26:21 so with that i think we’re finished with the plan and we will circle back to mr joseph griffin hello i’m glad that you were able to join us welcome and um dr bucky you want to introduce him again and then we’ll give him a chance to save a couple words sure you were provided his resume cover letter background and experience he is certified as a school nurse he’ll be our long-term sub uh across the district starting at evolith because that building will be opening until october 13th we have a nurse at every building we are not down nurses and uh then he will also coordinate the detailed

1:27:08 covid mitigation program uh that you heard about this evening so i don’t know if joseph you want to say hello to the committee uh and then give them an opportunity to uh ask you questions hi sorry i’m late uh had some technology problems so i’m not very good with technology all the time i just like to say that i really love the marblehead community my son’s a senior at marblehead high school this year and so i was very impressed with everything that uh how everything was handled last year so i’m very excited to be starting with marblehead

1:27:43 welcome and we very much so understand technology difficulties as we’re experiencing some of our own this evening so we’re glad that you were able to iron them out and and join us um does anybody from the committee have any questions for mr griffin all right then i will ask for a motion to approve mr griffin as the long-term sub sub nurse as well as the covid coordinator nurse so moved so moved emily moved megan i think if you say it we can hear you yeah all right all right megan’s second

1:28:28 all right roll call vote sarah gold yes sarah fox yes emily barron yes david harris yes and megan taylor yes all right thank you that is voted through five to zero mr griffin welcome to the community the school community since you already live in the larger community thank you all right that leads us over to the buffy update um and i’m going to turn it over to i believe it’s michelle and todd again i will let you you wrote us a memo so i’ll let you bring us up to speed on that and the public up to speed before we have any questions great thank you

1:29:15 so yes i put um a memo before you in terms of um i just wanted to bring you up to date on um transportation in general for this current year um this coming year rather so we have um roughly i want to say about 250 to 300 eligible kindergarten through sixth grade students that we have to transport if they live two or more miles from school um not all of those students will be taking the bus because currently we have roughly 200 seats on the bus with two buses that we will be running

1:29:53 the um the um we currently have an issue with attracting drivers since i have been joining marblehead for the past um oh going on two years now we have not been able to attract new bus drivers so we have a bus driver shortage this is not necessarily marblehead related it is not massachusetts related it is actually a national bus driver shortage that we are having um so right now we are transporting these um students that we have to transport we are requiring actually a registration process this year which is actually new to the district so we can get a handle on which students will be riding the bus to be able to judge how many seats we

1:30:39 have available on the bus for other students so we will be opening the registration for any eligible students later this week and we will see how many students we have to transport who are interested in riding the bus live more than two miles away this transportation is mandated for students in grades kindergarten through sixth grade currently we do not transport any middle school or high school students that is something we may entertain discussions of or possibilities in the future but right now with a bus driver shortage we can’t even entertain thinking of implementing such a program because we’re not mandated by

1:31:25 mass general law so in addition to what we are going to be offering in our new registration process we are going to um start with this pilot program that has been long discussed since i actually joined marblehead a while back and it’s kind of a gamble in terms of how many seats we can throw out there initially and offer it to our students so we would like to offer this pilot program this will be offered to again kindergarten through sixth grade students as our buses do not go to the middle school high school and we’re going to open it initially to eight students which is equivalent to four bus seats on a bus we actually believe that most of these seats are going to be desired on the bus route three i’m not sure if

1:32:11 the bus routes are posted yet to the website but we will be getting those up any day now if we haven’t done that already i do want to mention even though we have added a number of bus stops which will be available to either students who live the two or more miles away or to these brand new um pilot program paying bus students these eight eight student seats that we’re adding to the bus right now will be paid option they will be at the cost of two hundred and fifty dollars per student um i did not yet set a family cap on that but i was actually going hoping to get some school committee feedback and see if we want to put a cap on that as well

1:32:57 we will not be offering any reduced or um fee waivers due to this because it’s actually an optional program but we do want to pilot it and see if we’re able to fill those eight seats which i am sure we will be able to and then honestly if the registration does not go as high as we anticipate then we will open additional students to those paying families so i have proposed that we open open this registration as optional pilot program registration on friday um i think by the end of the day friday if we were open to open it at 9am which is what we were thinking we’ll be able to reach back out to the families by the end of the day and let them know if they’re able to secure a seat it will be on a first-come first-served basis um

1:33:43 it will be through email so we’re able to track very adequately who was the first to respond we have a general email set up it’s called transportation at marbleheadschools.org

1:33:58 and we can certainly do it that way um we are going to be as dr bucky mentioned earlier operating under coveted protocols which means that all students on a bus must be masked at all times the windows must be opened and we will also have assigned seats and that will actually be determined by the drivers and it will be basically who’s first on the bus they will see towards the back of the bus so that students don’t have to walk around other students to try to minimize any exposure so we would like to offer this pilot program because it is actually a fee school committee will need to vote the actual fee um i know we have talked about this pilot program at length and um i believe at the thursday night

1:34:43 meeting school committee will actually take the vote to approve this fee but uh we would like basically you know to see if the school committee is on board to offer this program and to see if there are any questions in terms of it i do want to mention that of the stops we have added we did have to run those by the police department we always have to get police department approval of any new stop so we worked with our one of our drivers who was the most knowledgeable of all the marblehead streets and um we got input from the bus the police department got approval of these new stops and some of the stops that we were entertaining were not able to be made because of it’s not possible to fit

1:35:30 a large bust on certain streets in marblehead um the unique situation here but um so we have outlined them and they are on it’s all in run three in our bus list so uh turn it over for any questions the committee may have thanks michelle um i saw sarah’s hand first and i saw megan then emily

1:35:55 um thank you michelle so i know that this kind of all got launched when um dr jessica benedetto approached the school committee about safety concerns about her children and getting to school and things like that so i know that you know we need to be fair and do this lottery but i’m wondering if we can somehow prioritize people that make a case that their child does not have a safe brew walking route because of you know the sidewalk or lack thereof situation in marblehead um that we can kind of prioritize those safety pieces first prior to just whoever gets the email in it um so i’m wondering about that and as far as like the family cap goes obviously i’m always a supporter of a

1:36:41 family cap so um i would support that as well yeah i was just i was trying to todd and i have tossed this about at length about trying to determine which are unsafe situations which are not unless we get feedback from the police department or some other input it’s really tough for us in the administrative office to determine what is on what is unsafe and what is so that’s why we had figured you know first come first served we will give advanced notice i mean i know with gmail you can actually schedule your emails to be sent i don’t know nothing everyone uses gmail um but if we we set a certain time and give enough notice we’re actually thinking of sending an email out

1:37:28 tomorrow to see if we want to do this registration on friday but a school committee feels strongly we can certainly put it off until next week but we are looking at the opening of school in just um you know two weeks away so we certainly want to give families enough time to learn accordingly well he knows like um in some situations for instance this one they actually went as far as getting a smart roots audit who documented it being an unsafe route so i i think if a family has gone as far as in safe routes you know an organization in a program that we partake in has deemed it to be unsafe i still i still want to prioritize child safety ahead if we can find a way i understand it puts you inside in a difficult position but where safe routes is willing to do those audits i would

1:38:13 think if someone presents one of those we should kind of try to prioritize that

1:38:23 yeah megan go ahead no go ahead i’ll go at the end

1:38:37 yes you guys so michelle you know more seats that open up because you know the those people who are more than two miles don’t um come in at the anticipated rate who might want to be part of this does it just you sign up now and serve on the waitlist as well

1:39:04 i’m sorry i can’t hear megan’s question she’s wanting to know if additional seats open up and there are more opportunities for paying writers how will families be made aware of that or will it be from this initial launch that the waitlist will be created from there and the first come first serve or if there’ll be a second launch saying we have an additional five seats available thank you um i anticipate we will initially probably have a wait list um but i do expect in a pretty short turnaround within the first couple weeks of school we will have an indication of how many riders we have so i think as we work through a wait list and we can certainly include that in our email that’s going out to all families

1:39:50 families families we would if we have an opportunity we will certainly um you know welcome a second wave of registration and let families know that there are additional seats um i think this can be a very very lucrative program for us as well as the families who are interested in busing and you know this this could be limitless at some point i mean a lot of school districts do have optional busing but right now with the driver shortage it really really ties our hands in terms of how how large we can offer this program and then yeah if i can jump in real quick if we if we actually could get more drivers and we are working on it almost every day we have four

1:40:37 large school buses um but we just don’t have the people to put behind the wheel on them so if we did have them obviously we could open up many many more seats

1:40:50 yes thank you todd for adding that and i mean we currently are looking to hire part-time bus drivers full-time bus drivers if they want full-time with benefits we will use them for custodial or maintenance in the off off hours when they’re not driving we will hire bus drivers who literally just want to drive a morning and afternoon route or a morning or an afternoon we are open to making it work any way possible and as todd mentioned we do have four big buses um so we can actually accommodate a lot of students it’s the lack of drivers which are funded in the budget so it’s not a funding issue necessarily it’s just it’s a body issue at this point

1:41:45 i think we need new microphones can you hear me now i can’t hear her yes i can’t hear her i i can hear you megan all right thanks todd and then you mentioned you’ve got roots identified you’re going to post those before sign up yes we’ll either send them out with sign up or post that or and or post them we’ll have them posted to the brand new website and they’ll have the times associated with each pickup right yes we just need to confirm the school start times to make sure that they are what they truly will be next week all right thank you michelle thank you todd welcome emily

1:42:30 um i just have a few questions how many students historically who are two miles away take the bus do we know

1:42:39 in k through six that is a really difficult question and todd may have the answer to that but typically we have not restricted it in previous years due to covid and um the fact that we only have drivers to run two large buses at this time we’ve had to restrict it okay so we we ran approximately probably 120 students daily on on average prior to covid okay uh but uh yeah but that was with the restrictions that was prior to research okay yeah um so when the email goes out to people who

1:43:26 are required are not required yeah required to get it um is that a separate email than everybody else and has that gone out yet no we were actually working on it today it will most likely go out tomorrow okay so just since there’s 250 people who are eligible what if they all want to do it or is that like unprecedented well if if uh i’ll i’ll jump in here if that happens then we would lose our uh custodian at the new brown school and i would have to be i would force be forced to put him on a bus in the morning or in the afternoon too and here’s here’s the biggest thing

1:44:11 if we had to do that and we had three buses running uh imagine what would happen if one were sick and they also they’re entitled to their vacation times and so that he is our emergency bus driver say someone is sick they couldn’t make it in that day he does jump on the bus and he’ll run it in the morning he’ll run back to the school he also runs back in the afternoon jumps back on the bus so he multitasks very well but where the new school is opening that’s going to be very tough uh to do and it would really put us in a bad spot if someone else were to be sick okay so that’s why we’re hoping only 200.

1:44:59 that’s what we’re hoping for yes i’d love to transport them all if we had you know um um okay so i just want to make sure that it all with the emails and people receiving the emails with the time do you have to respond if you get priority to the bus by 9 a.m on friday is that for everybody no we’re going to keep it open um until sometime late next week okay so there’s time for the regular bus so that’s why we’re only reserving the eight seats right oh got it so it’s just that eight people have to send the email at nine yes all right thank you but i do anticipate we will have plenty of additional seats i just can’t guarantee them at this point right

1:45:44 okay thank you so sarah before you say uh your next question i just want to say that i think one of the big reasons that we put this on tonight and then aren’t voting until on thursday is to give time to kind of smooth out any of the questions or concerns that might come up so i think sarah your concern um with the areas that maybe aren’t as safe as some of the other areas maybe you know you could circle with michelle after you know tomorrow um and try to get that smoothed out um and and work with michelle to see if there isn’t a better way to to make that work so i will turn it over to you um um so i i think it go well first of all i

1:46:29 just want to make it sure everyone understands that you know if come september 30th one of these families that’s more than two miles away who said no all of a sudden says i’m done driving my children i want on the bus we are legally required to put and find it and find a bus whether we have to outsource and pay private tahily no matter what we have to do we have a legal requirement to meet this um i’m i’ll be honest i’m like a little bit in a full-blown twitch about this idea that we’re about to open this amazing school and one of our only options is to pull our head custodian um i understand we’re in we’re in this conundrum because there’s a national shortage of bus drivers um

1:47:17 but i mean can we look at incentivizing like i mean there are bus drivers they’re just not enough for everybody so maybe we need to be the employer of choice um which usually comes down to money as everything does um so i i don’t know but the idea that you know we’re we’re in what i would call a precarious situation where we have barely what we might need and if someone’s sick or if we go you know if everyone who’s legally entitled to this program chooses to take it we don’t have a custodian now this pretty much answers my next question which was going to be during the transition plan of of opening the brown school which we are

1:48:05 still in until october 13th we had made a promise to the community to provide courtesy buses um i don’t see any way possible to to even remotely do that with what we have for staffing right now but my question was going to be are we offering the courtesy bus still um and if so how are we managing it and how are we communicating that to those families

1:48:31 is that the bus from coffin to evoluth you’re talking about there was one from coffin to evelyth and then there was one at one point that we ran from the site at brown um for like families that would have been going to the what was the old bell school and lived in the neighborhood that they could actually get picked up i think it was actually the same bus that just made two stops at the site of brown and and brought to their respective schools um so are we doing that if not we need to clearly communicate one way or another we are suspending this this courtesy bus program or we’re continuing it and this is how you follow the information one way or another so last year we did not run the bus from the brown bell location um we only did that

1:49:16 the year before but we did run the route from coffin to evelyth and we will be running that for the first six weeks of the school year this year and i’ll make sure that that’s included in the email as well

1:49:37 all right well again any other questions that come up um before thursday just reach out to john and you can find those answers for us i just want to say i appreciate sarah fox’s comments because the pittsburgh public schools delayed the opening of schools for two weeks because they couldn’t transport the students they were legally obligated to transport and so we are in a very precarious position and if we open um pay to ride and we increase we pull that brown custodian and then somebody calls out sick we don’t want families saying we paid for a bus route and now we have to figure out transportation in the morning and we have been incentivizing trying to

1:50:24 attract drivers we’ve offered to pay for their cdl training in the licensure which is not an inexpensive undertaking we’ve advertised high and wide but let me make this the community appeal if you know somebody that might be interested the district would pay for your training you’re laughing megan you could be a bus driver

1:50:49 megan’s gonna go to cdl training she also has to get air brakes and buck and school bus service she’s game thank you thank you all right actually michelle follow up with me tomorrow because i actually have a few ideas i know with the you know like with the sightseeing companies their high times are very opposite the high times of the schools and many of those bus drivers are are well they’re all cdls and i may be able to connect you with someone that may be able to work that link out okay great i will be in the office all day tomorrow okay so that leads us to closing business

1:51:34 business business any new business all right we did not have any correspondence to submit tonight um so i will officially adjourn us at 8 51 pm and again we really are hoping that people are going to digest all of the information that came out tonight and rejoin us on thursday for the continuation of this conversation as well as the k-3 schedules thank you everyone