School Committee: February 17, 2022

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.

0:42 all right all right i will call us to order at 701 welcome everyone um emily is in the process of putting the meeting materials on to the website so we apologize for the delay in that this evening um it’s going to take her a few more minutes but she will work as we work through commendations in our initial business so i will ask if anybody has any commendations this evening sarah this is someone outside the scope of the schools but i feel like she’s part of our the schools because she’s been with us for so long i want to um commend chris stevens tonight um it would have been her last night of covering our school committee meetings and reporting on

1:28 reporting on reporting on local news in marblehead but due to a family emergency she actually is going to have to watch the recording but she tried and true for years and years chris has come to all of our meetings even when there was only one or two people in the audience um and you know going back many years i’ve i’ve always enjoyed you know sitting next to chris in seeing how involved she was in all things marblehead and and she just seemed like part of part of our town and um she’ll really be missed her reporting on marblehead schools would be very um very much so missed she was a great partner whenever something exciting was

2:14 going on in the schools if there was a fundraiser or an event like a fun run chris would show up and and give that coverage for all that great work happening um and i just i think it’s going to be a giant loss for our community and i just wanted to commend her for everything she’s done

2:36 thank you sarah yeah that’s i was just catching up on all of that news so um yes i agree with that commendation wholeheartedly does anybody else have any accommodations this evening

2:51 no all right uh that moves us along to yasen welcome yafin and i will hand it straight over to you thank you um we haven’t been super duper busy but we still have some updates uh i wanted to commend alexis erp for winning the brotherhood award from the anime chapter of the jewish war veterans they give this award to an individual for community engagement strong school citizenship and academics as i’m sure many of you know uh february 7th mvms mhs and village went mask optional as far as mhs goes i believe most students are not wearing masks but are still many of us who are wearing masks so

3:36 i’d say it’s i’d say that we handled the transition pretty well

3:43 we also started a coving covet testing program so we’re handing out those weekly kobay tests and that’s also been a really good event um on february 9th the national honor society had a fundraiser and on the 11th and 12th the drama club had a showing of macbeth today members of our national green school society went to village to lead an eco brick workshop with fourth graders it’s basically like reusable plastic that they can build things with it’s really cool uh tonight the finals of marbleheads got talent are at the cabin theater i want to wish everyone who’s performing good luck

4:29 uh the sophomore class sold tickets for their semi-formal and they’re gonna have around 140 people which is pretty exciting considering our times and their event is on march 11th freshman class held their valentine’s day fundraiser with stowaway suites the senior class is working on senior show and their raffle i wanted to give a shout out to the swim team as well they had an excellent nec championship meet they won 14 events and the overall me and the girls and boys basketball have games tonight boys have their senior night also with a best buddies event which is an organization that creates friendship for people with disabilities and girls also just made the playoffs so congratulations to both teams

5:15 all such good stuff thank you so much jason yeah thanks appreciate your report all right that leads us to public comment um i will ask that anyone who wants to make public comment please use the raise hand function and we will call on you we will also ask that people keep their public comment to three minutes or less as stipulated in our policy this will allow us to hear from everyone who wants to comment but we’ll also keep our meeting on schedule as we are looking at everything for the district all right aleene elaine moore

5:52 hi sarah thank you eileen damore brown school teacher

5:58 we submit this letter on behalf of concerned teachers and staff at the lucretia and joseph brown school we were extremely disappointed to learn of the administration’s decision not to renew dr satterfield’s contract for the 2022-2023 school year dr satterfield’s 24 years of experience as a teacher and principal in the marblehead public school district undoubtedly make him makes him one of the most senior educators to serve our community in fact the three elementary principals whose contracts were not renewed by the current administration had a combined total of nearly 50 years of experience and service to marblehead public schools over the years dr satterfield has offered his staff and families support and consistency throughout the often

6:43 tumultuous changes in direction among upper administration and school communities committees he has displayed those same leadership qualities throughout his tenure as principal of the gary and coffin schools helping the school community navigate through sudden school closures and subsequent moves through the careful hiring or acquiring of teachers and staff he has been tireless in his efforts to bring together this current team of dedicated teachers and staff that make up the brown school dr satterfield has always prioritized work-life balance for the staff and his understanding of the pressures we face in our personal and family lives likewise when the pto needed someone for the monster mash dunk tank or the glow-in-the-dark zoom dance party he always showed up he has been and continues to be a dependable leader for

7:30 students families and staff while it is likely no secret that today’s educators are facing unprecedented levels of stress and burnout the current administration appears unaware of how this decision amplifies our feelings of overwhelm and unrest for those who have not kept track in the current school year alone the same administration has tasked us with the challenges of a mid-year move a new math curriculum a new writing curriculum master schedule changes that include additional win instructional expectations and formal grade level professional development in his effort to embrace these new initiatives dr satterfield has been a familiar face during wind blocks and at plc meetings he provides a calming influence and a we are in this together perspective

8:15 quite literally he began the new school year at our project adventure experience walking a tightrope 20 feet above the ground leading by example even as a seasoned leader he was not afraid of personal growth and change to increase staff communication with his largest staff under one roof he just this year began a communication document where teachers and staff were kept abreast of changes in our collective effort to improve our new school it is demoralizing to us as teachers and staff to see our committed and hardworking leader let go in order for the administration to pursue an unspecified new direction when teachers feel uncertain and unsupported student learning is negatively impacted we are deeply saddened that such a decision was made without discussion input

9:01 explanation to those most heavily impacted by this loss we have no doubt that dr satterfield will continue to excel as a leader in his professional career and any district will be very lucky to have him his departure is a great loss to the marblehead public schools and we ask why mid pandemic and when learning loss and change are unprecedented why is this administration willing to risk this it was only last spring that dr satterfield proved to be the best candidate for the job after an extensive principal search what’s changed it is our hope that our brown school community will have our concerns heard and that communication on the direction of the district is headed in his forthcoming thank you

9:45 thank you eileen ramsey hogan

9:54 oh hi um hi ramsay hogay 45 norman street um i just uh wanted to comment um just first of all thank you i mean the the policies you got has done to date this year i mean you’ve avoided remote learning while other boston school schools haven’t uh haven’t been able to avoid that you’ve reduced absences uh prevented disabilities um with lon covid and you saved lives we don’t know how many but you save lives um you know my only question is what is the accommodation policy um at the school uh you know our family’s not seeking one but you know you’ve got two and a half percent of the population that are immunocompromised that are taking medicine um

10:41 you know for stem cell organ transplants undergoing cancer treatment and you’ve got kids uh that aren’t in school for the last two weeks after your most recent announcement um so um you know yeah case rates have spiked low that was predictable we could have predicted that a few months ago um the um last spring we did have a spike up again after april break as you mentioned at your last meeting but if you look at the numbers if you look at it and say all right so you’ve got 51 cases and then 19 and younger um age group uh the two weeks before christmas last year then you look at it and say all right we had 180 cases the two weeks after christmas right um two

11:27 weeks first week two weeks in january uh when you make went at mass optional we’re at 75 so we’re actually when we went mass optional you’re actually at a higher rate of cases than we were before the christmas break um and then you’re also seeing a reduction in testing so you know you look at that and you say oh my god like for the risk is not reduced for an immunocompromised person and um telling them to wear an n95 mask during a pandemic is the only solution that’s not a solution right you can’t put that on a kid you can’t ask a kid to be responsible for their entire family you can’t ask one kid alone to do that cdc basically makes it very clear your mask protects other

12:13 people their mask protects you and your mask also protects yourself right so you know mask optional creates a challenge for you and i recognize that it’s complicated but you had a lot of time to put into it put together policies for mascots for mask optional to protect immuno compromise and to allow them to con continue to have education at our schools um so you know cdc still recommends universal masking at schools um and 10 seconds remaining okay um that’s about it i think it’s unreasonable during a pandemic um and uh you know putting that pressure on a kid to wear a mask perfectly it’s completely unreasonable and

12:59 you run the risk not at our school but across the country of some kid thinking that they were responsible for a family member’s death and that’s scary and i think you need to really think hard about it

13:29 so i am a sixth grader at village school and i would like to comment on the current situation rolling the master at village i have a younger sister who is immune compromised and is frequently hospitalized and i recently transferred classes because i was feeling insecure about the lack of mask wearing and the safety of my sister i was beginning to feel safer until the mask made it was revoked um during the school committee meeting two weeks ago i heard that the mass mandate was being revoked and was immediately concerned to then hear a school committee member sign and say did you hear that sign of relief was deeply unsettling and felt extremely hurtful and belittling like my thoughts the things were insignificant and unimportant that may have not been the attention but it was the result as a result of the provoking the mass mandate i was unable to attend school for the following the following week i was given accommodation so i could attend school this past monday through conversations were not ideal in any way and they’re not something any child would enjoy i

14:15 know that everyone at village school is trying extremely hard and i really appreciate what they’re doing for me i feel like as a school committee it’s your job to have a plan that benefits all students and i feel like that has not been accomplished i’m not asking for everyone to be asked i know some people of medical needs that don’t allow them to mess i think that a classic room for a great children is entirely possible at least i’m looking for a more inclusive combination accommodation i simply am asking to be included in a class with full-time teachers and other children while still feeling like i can keep my sister safe children got mass exemptions while the masked mandate was someplace you made accommodations for them in the aada stance that states that you must do the same for everyone else i feel like the current situation is not an accommodation it is you checking a box i want to be able to attend class with teacher guidance as well as my friends and fellow peers i simply want to be

15:01 included i do not feel like this is a big ask i just want to be able to get an education and keep my family safe at the same time i would also like to say that the teachers and staff at village school have gone above and beyond to help me during this difficult time and i do not feel like this is their fault thank you thank you grace you did a really nice job i know how hard that is

15:24 all right all right that is all the hands that were raised um so that will move us along to our consent action and agenda items uh first up we have minutes this evening um i don’t believe that the 10 19 minutes made it in i think there was a little bit of editing that still needed to occur on those um so i will ask for a motion to approve the minutes from 8 24 20 21 9 2 20 21 9 14 20 21 9 15 20 21 and 9 23 2021 so moved megan moved

16:02 second emily second any questions or concerns on any of those there was a some names lisa had mentioned to me that were in red she’s checking spelling on those and i guess aspen was down when she was working on them and didn’t get a chance to get back to them today so those will be fixed all right so i will call for a roll call vote sarah gold yes megan taylor yes emily baron yes sarah fox yes and david harris yes okay thank you everyone five to zero and thank you lisa for all the hard work on those and emily okay um that moves us along to the proposed program of studies uh agenda item but we um dan has actually

16:48 asked that we table that this evening he is going to come back to us on the third with a more comprehensive overview on both the program of studies changes as well as the pieces being worked on with the schedule for next year so he made that decision um to athletic get tabled sarah did you have a question um yeah two things i i received a correspondence regarding this that i sent out to everyone um and after having read that can i just request that um any memo or explanation or show or i’m sorry my words are failing me um or presentation that might be made be available to the public ahead of time so any students or parents at the high

17:34 school that have concerns about um the program program of study changes have an opportunity to review those in and make public comment yeah so well so um dan’s memo from this evening is up correct um or it’s getting there we’re having some technical difficulties focus on that all right so it will be there um and then yes uh you know anything changing from there just we’ll that will add that thanks okay david through the chair

18:06 let me move myself so i i don’t necessarily disagree with that sarah but part of the challenge is it’s it’s doesn’t technically become a public document until it’s presented in an open meeting so um and oftentimes and i think back to when covet first started in 2020 and we went through some changes about going remote and going hybrid and we put a 12-page document out about what the schools were doing and the superintendent didn’t have a chance to present it and people make various assumptions by reading a presentation without the person having to explain it so i think that creates a um

18:52 creates a lot of difficulties i i certainly don’t think there’s a requirement that anything you know by law that anything needs to be out there we we need to present our documents at the time we we have a public meeting and so certainly if if dan has that information and you know somehow we can we can make it available but it becomes challenging when the presenter of an idea you know doesn’t it would be like if um you know we put out all of our building committee documents you know a week in advance of the meeting before the architect or the opm or anybody has a chance to discuss them and people are trying to sift through them and figure out what they all mean so um and the second piece about that sarah is um it’s great that someone left you an anonymous letter but i think generally

19:39 we don’t respond to anonymous letters they need to be um name and date and address of who the citizen is so while it’s great that they left you an anonymous letter i think we generally don’t respond to anonymous letters as well megan um so you know with this i appreciate wanting to get the information to the public but i do agree with david here and i think we’ve seen this a number of times where we push out documents before we have a chance to actually have them presented at school committee because there will be questions but quite often you know those questions are answered in the presentation and i think one of the things that i’ve

20:25 you know not to be uh you know beating on the drum a lot of times but what we talked about in our retreat also is having something presented having the chance to digest that information and then coming back and voting in the next time because we do want to make sure that the public has the opportunity to make public comment but we want that based on the information that’s presented um so i you know i think i’d recommend that we take that approach i think that’s a good point we haven’t talked a lot about unless there’s some you know um schedule of bills for instance we vote our schedule of bills we don’t present them and then wait two weeks to vote our schedule bills but you’re right i think we have um enough of a past practice when things

21:11 are presented you know whether it’s uh readings of policies or the like that we might present them and then vote at a future meeting i think that’s a good point as well so i can absolutely do that we can make it a plan um with the agenda so that it’s the presentation um at our next meeting and then any vote that would take place would come back at the subsequent meeting in march so that it does give us a time to receive feedback it gives a time for dan and nan to receive feedback as well um so that so that you know the office of teaching and learning and can work with the principal and and go over things and and talk with concerned parents and everything as well so um it sort of allows for that process to to play itself out um yeah sarah

21:56 um yes and i just want to clarify because you know i think this has been a long-standing misunderstanding of um what a public document is if a public document is on a server at any point that’s funded by public money if it’s created on a computer funded by public money if it’s sent via email that’s funded by public money it is immediate and we can i think we actually should have legal weigh in on this once and for all um because it seems to be that there’s an ambiguity but i know that one of the court cases that our legal team sent out to us clarified this um to that extent and gave us bullet points that just stated exactly what i just said so i don’t know if it’s that we pull that back up and re-read it or we have legal

22:43 come and just say it once and for all and because reading the document was not clarification um but it’s that that is the the qualifier of a public document you know although otherwise our dropbox would just be a public document that’s and that’s not the case so it is the case david it is a public document it is no

23:22 after a meeting so if so if the finance director is working on documents to present at a finance meeting that he has on his computer and it hasn’t been deliberated on or discussed i i suppose someone could ask for a copy of the finance committee’s computer and confiscate it i don’t know but i mean it hasn’t been presented so sure let’s let’s put some more money on legal costs and get a reference on whether and when it’s a legal document i have no problem with that sarah if you could just resend that document that you quoted just so we all have it kind of front and center that would be helpful uh definitely i will resend that and i’ll follow up with colby um i’ve got that um written down on my agenda

24:08 emily the meeting materials are now up on the website sorry it took a little longer tonight but they’re there sarah sarah fox do you know do the selectmen post their meeting documents in advance of their meetings i don’t know david you’ll have to ask them okay all right i will move us along um to the superintendent’s report i forgot to mention at the beginning of this meeting that dr bucky is away in nashville attending the national superintendence conference today so we have with us assistant superintendent nan murphy and she is going to be our administrative guide this evening so thank you for joining us nan thank you for stepping into dr bucky’s shoes

24:55 and i will turn uh this portion of the meeting over to you for district initiative priorities conversation okay terrific i just want to make sure everyone can hear me with the headset that i’m using great so i’m excited tonight to present to the to the committee and to the community overview of all of the different initiatives that we have made happen in a very short amount of time and to be able to to bring forward anything new that’s pending so we have both past accomplishments and pending accomplishments for you this evening so i’m going to share my screen

25:45 can you see the presentation guys yes all right

25:55 all right so the overall initiative that dr bucky and i have set forward is around alignment so when we came on as a new administrative team we spent a lot of time talking with teachers talking with building leaders and trying to unpack what are some things that are going to become priorities for the new administrative team and it was quickly discovered that um both teachers and administrators were looking for alignment so alignment throughout grade levels and so having a comprehensive understanding of what happens at each grade level as

26:41 it relates to state standards to assessments and to reporting out to parents so um already on the table when i arrived was the need for the selection and implementation of new math curriculum k-8 so that was already underway prior to covid and so regardless of the challenges of teaching during a pandemic we gathered together a group of 22 educators and leaders and were able to select last spring a new math curriculum k to six and then a new math curriculum for seven and eight so this year those teams have been getting some professional development and offered times to work

27:27 collaboratively as teams to unpack that curriculum and to bring about the more inquiry-based philosophy and pedagogy around teaching math to students it is a challenge to say the least to bring new curriculum forward but our teachers are doing remarkably well and for all the challenges of having to learn the layout of a new curriculum our teachers have been getting really good support through our district math lead who is leela dixon who’s been doing some really great school-based professional development with the team the other thing that was quickly brought to my attention or that i noticed was that there was no common assessment throughout

28:14 throughout throughout a marblehead so there was no tool that was currently in use to be able to gauge how kids were doing in a formative manner so we brought on i ready and that data program provides us information on how our students are doing k to eight based on grade level standards in both ela and math and also provide teachers with materials to help with differentiation and response to intervention and to be used during the wind block for instructional small group instruction as well as a what they call my path which is where students can log in and be exposed to

29:01 standards-based instruction at their own level so they’re able to work and practice at their skill level so those two things are implemented and running well teachers are being supported with professional development and starting to have some data conversations around how kids are doing with kids and using those data sources to help kids set goals so we also rolled out a aligned k-3 master schedule and this master schedule prioritizes inclusive practices and professional development for teaching teams so all of our teachers are able to be professionally developed once a week by coaching staff and

29:46 and and i have gotten very very positive feedback from that opportunity and teachers seem to be really doing well with that they appreciate being able to collaborate with their grade level team members and to share resources and information further curriculum alignment we did not bring on a new math program we aligned i’m sorry a new writing program we aligned what was already in place in the district so um at this point it is a fully aligned k-6 in that teachers are now all using what was purchased and continued to be purchased for teachers so it’s not something that i brought to the district

30:33 it was here in the past but now the expectation is that all students have that opportunity to be exposed to that writing curriculum and because it spirals that’s important we i have here that we also reviewed and updated grade 9 ela texts and i actually meant to write grade 9 through 12. so last summer i’m working with lindsey page over at the high school our english lang our english department spent a great deal of time looking at their texts and updating for both diversity and just is there better literature out there and

31:18 so they examined those they looked at the standards that they teach selected texts that were more updated and appropriate and we were able to fund some of those sources to come come into new instructional settings and um we are working to align our curriculum that is a process that has been happening k-12 but this year working with dan bauer and his teacher leaders were really starting to compile all of the different pieces of curriculum documentation to compile it to begin to develop some of the work that we’re doing as a

32:05 planning for success team so those those pieces of curriculum are there um they’re just not visible and in a cohesive manner and so we’re working to make that more transparent and organized next up we have the alignment of instruction and so we are

32:29 lucky in that the school committee supported bringing on some more instructional lead teachers so we have actually teachers at the k-6 level that guide our instructional support for teachers that means they’re able to provide the professional development i discuss their coaching in classrooms if teachers are struggling with anything from a planning lesson to implementing a lesson to teach student management these are all uh expertise teachers and they go in and help support teachers in those situations they also meet weekly with principals and have their work aligned with school goals the again the targeted professional development is provided regarding uh

33:15 whether we’re unpacking standards in math whether we’re talking about how we’re going to align communications around homework to families what what are we doing instructionally and ensuring that it’s happening across all grades and in a cohesive manner and getting communicated out well we’re also working at aligning district professional development so prior to our arrival principals would have their hour with their schools on wednesdays and when i started talking with teachers and leaders there was a on um there was a sense that they they would appreciate some unity and alignment to the professional development acro again across schools

34:04 and across content so we prioritized our math curriculum so teachers are getting some of the support from our our program providers during that time we have concentrated uh professional development on our diversity equity and inclusion work and then in november december we started talking with more teachers and getting the sense that there was a lot of people feeling overwhelmed with different things that were happening in the district as you’re hearing there’s a lot of momentum and so we debriefed and went back to teachers and leaders and said use this time that has been previously

34:49 allocated to district pd for school-based pd do what you feel needs to be done for schools in your school so i took less of a role in organizing that outside of the the dei work and principles have been guiding what they’re doing with teachers in the building to address some of those feelings of exhaustion feeling of overwhelm feeling like there’s a lot going on we wanted to honor that teachers were starting to it was starting to catch up with some people and reminding ourselves that we are still teaching in a pandemic and um allowing some space for that in fact we had an early release day three hour early release day when students were dismissed and we had pd planned for teachers

35:36 and dr bucky and i um gifted teachers with time for profession for personal development as opposed to professional development we asked teachers to go home to walk on the beach to meet a friend for lunch to have a cup of coffee with a colleague and to just enjoy themselves personally and hope that the better we are emotionally and personally the better we are as academic providers so our professional development around multi-tiered systems of support has continued and particularly at the middle school and high school level and um we organized and support k to 6

36:21 instructional coaching and professional development so those are all things that are kind of working towards getting us all of us kind of rowing in the same direction with our curriculum and our instruction i know if you want me to continue or take some questions at that at this point what would be most helpful i think keep going okay so planning for success if you’ll look up there we’ve got as one of our first initiatives to align curriculum by engaging in curriculum mapping that includes scope and sequence so a scope and sequence which is displayed here is a road map for teachers it gives you directions to what should be happening throughout the year and during what

37:10 times it helps you stay on track prior to last year there was no aligned scope and sequence teachers at certain grade levels had their own that they had created but there wasn’t a district scope and sequence so this work started last year and is still continuing we’re still working on this in school-based teams led by building leaders at compiling from our grade level teachers what are you doing and when so that is what our scope and sequence work is pre-k through six because i’m sorry pre-k through 12. and then the next step and hopefully we’ll get to this in march

37:55 our goal is to have the scope and sequence completed by the by the end of march so then the next step will be to take our roadmap and look at the what and when and then we start talking about the how what are we doing how are we teaching what is on our scope and sequence and so that then becomes your curriculum map so you have your tracks so to speak as your spoken sequence and then your your map your curriculum map is going to tell you how you’re getting to what is on your scope in sequence you are supposed to be addressing this particular content area and the curriculum map is how you’re

38:42 getting there what are you gonna what are your essential questions what materials are you using what will students be able to do how are you going to assess moving forward

38:54 then our ultimate goal and this is the work for next year during the this working group for planning for success is you look at your scope and sequence you look at your newly defined curriculum map and you start to ask yourself what do we need to do what we do better so that’s where curriculum purchases and conversations about growing instructional support staff will come into play so we’ll start talking about well um you know we don’t have right now a reading series at the elementary level so our roadmap is going to be disjointed because we don’t have a shared

39:39 experience across the grades so what can we do what purchases do we need to make and and then we’re going to do the same for social studies because there is no social studies curriculum um either and then you know at the high school and at the middle school they’ll be looking at their content areas using their map and asking making requests based on what they need to get to where they’re going this would also be where the conversation around our curriculum coaches for the high school and instructional support and coaching staff once we have right now we have a substantial amount of money that we allocate to teacher leaders so the

40:26 teacher leaders are we i changed the job description last year to be more curriculum forward and so their work this year has really been on supporting curriculum and so they are a big part of helping principals collecting all of this information and um once we get all the information collected and sorted and figured out then we can start conversations about expanding those instructional supports

40:58 our diversity equity inclusion team has been meeting this is has been very exciting we started this team last winter since we’ve been able to establish the team we have now grown to the point where we have every school has a student dei team so we have student-led opportunities in every school we’ve also been able to provide aligned professional development that is teacher-led which is the best kind when you can look to the experts that are already in the room and have them bring the learning to their colleagues that’s the best kind so there’s been a lot of that there’s

41:44 been one a month this year we um have provided guided student-centered learning so talking about those multi-tiered systems of support getting more interventions i’m sorry to um [Music] getting more of those student-centered learning opportunities for kids so that they’re going out and having more community-based opportunities and also we were able to host our first parent and community conversation entitled race and standing up to racism we’re meeting again in march and we’re hoping to bring another parent opportunity to the

42:30 community and um and also to our staff

42:38 and in development that’s ongoing we will be chained transitioning to a standards-based report card next year k through six this will be next december parents will be receiving this card officially we are transitioning to a standards based report card the report card that marblehead currently uses is from what teachers are telling me 10 years old and does no no longer reflects everything that a classroom teacher addresses and assesses so we really needed to update that this report card was developed by teachers during some of that professional led time in schools so teachers all had a voice in what

43:24 standards were selected and in the performance indicators that were ultimately chosen the the parent piece we will send home a report card in with the next marking period in march so that parents can see what their report card looks like what it will look like for next year we will also offer parent forums in the spring and in the fall and i’m also bringing in with rebecca brand a professional in standardized grading and assessment to work with teachers because this is a shift in looking how you look at student work and how you look at rubrics and how you look at assessments and helping teachers

44:12 prepare for this transition so when it comes it’s going to be very natural and they’ll they’ll know and have all the resources available to begin the year with the standards-based approach kindergarten registration is coming up it’s going to open next tuesday february 22nd we have a very streamlined approach this year our fabulous i.t director has figured out a way so our pre-k students who are going to be enrolling into kindergarten for next year their parents will receive an email and all the parents will need to do is click whether their student is attending kindergarten next year at the marblehead public schools and their students will be automatically enrolled

44:57 automatically enrolled automatically enrolled they will also receive their kindergarten screening in june in their pre-k classrooms so that data will then be able to be used for our pre-k assessment benchmarking for the pre-k staff as well as all be ready and sorted for our kindergarten staff new parents will get the same opportunity to start registering on february 22nd which is next tuesday and we will have screening opportunities for them both in june and in august and we are also beginning to talk about and work around how we are going to fund our summer program

45:44 initial conversations are around still targeting our struggling readers our students that need some support with decoding and some phonics-based work overwhelmingly positive feedback from parents and teachers about the program that we ran last year so we’re hoping to to run a similar program again this summer and um i think that’s all i’ve got

46:12 wonderful thank you very much nan we appreciate it um questions

46:20 megan megan not much going on then honey not at all that’s kind of a boring job i took a lot of notes but um i don’t really know where to start but i guess maybe just with the pieces that you have in motion at the moment um the math curriculum in particular and i think just because it’s online but maybe just thinking about as we roll out new curriculums um is it possible and i know the teachers you know have to get up to speed too there’s a learning curve but once they’ve kind of got it under their belt to do kind of like a show and tell for parents um because it is a shift and um you know it’s a shift to the way homework is happening for some of our students too so just you know so the parents know

47:06 you know what this curriculum looks like and how it impacts their students absolutely and one of the conversations that we had early on with the instructional support staff was do we have a curriculum night for parents to come in and see the new have teachers kind of walk them through some of these new approaches and the feedback we got is please just give us some time to figure it out ourselves

47:33 to present so it’s on our radar it’s something that we have every intention of doing we just want to do it um at a point when teachers feel really confident and being able to say what were some of their experiences like and what um maybe even have some students leading conversations for parents that night telling them what it was like from a student perspective so that is something that we intend to do before the end of this year okay all right great um the changes for kindergarten registration i think that’s great i think that streamlines it and makes it easier for existing parents so that’s great to hear um and i may have asked this before so i apologize but how do we communicate those dates and that information out to new families

48:21 so i am going to contact our local press and last year we publicized we also contacted other pre-k programs and sent our flyers to outside pre-k programs to let to ask them to share with families about the opportunities here in marblehead we will put it on our website and push it out you know different avenues um we last year were very successful with the with the outreach in the in the paper outreach with the other preschools and then within the district so we’re open to expanding that if anybody has a great idea of how to how to reach more people that would be in need of kindergarten but we were successful last year with

49:07 that approach okay all right great um you mentioned the summer scheduling piece and i know that there’s a lot of moving parts that goes on there but i think some of the feedback that i’ve heard is just getting that scheduling to parents sooner rather than later because it’s really hard to get your children you know there when you don’t find out until kind of the end of the school year because parents are working they’ve got a plan you know they’ve got to figure out how to make that happen so if there’s a way just to i mean i know you’ve got a lot going on there’s a lot of variables but if we can just kind of try to get that information out to parents as soon as possible yes so right now we already tentatively have four weeks penciled in in july but we are

49:53 looking at our funding to see where you know we want to make sure we can cover all of our bases with the funding as soon as we get that determined it will be early march when those dates go out to families okay all right thank you because our intention is that they come with the commitment that they’ll attend all of the days this it’ll be an intensive spiraling curriculum and daily attendance will be uh most advantageous for the students that are in attendance okay all right thank you um and then just more of a first questions there’s a lot of initiatives that um that you went through and i think you know like you’ve said a number of

50:39 times it’s kind of meeting some requirements that we haven’t been meeting and so that work is you know time sensitive obviously um but from this list i guess i’m not 100 clear are those are we kind of wrapping these up these at the end of the school year does that all kind of continue next year the so our goal for next year is to just continue to do what we’re doing now and do it well so teachers will not be getting anything new to implement we will not have any new programs it’ll be year two with the new math program it’ll be uh year well i’m sorry yeah it’ll be year two with the new math program it’ll be year

51:24 three with our writing expectations and so there will not be anything new introduced to staff we’re just gonna be focused on looking at our instructional practices unpacking our curriculum and make sure we’re all in alignment with how that data is collected we’re still getting used to our data source and working with understanding that reporting and utilizing all the the resources that come with that data source are vast and so and can be overwhelming so it’s just going to be about getting to know what we have and and getting more comfortable with it okay all right good because that was you know like i said i i can appreciate that there’s a balance right of kind of making the changes that we have to make but also and you know we heard it in

52:09 public comments that you know the impact we have to consider the impact to our staff too so i think that was one thing that’s kind of been bubbling in the back of my head yep yep but okay all right good to know um i think i’m good for now i can’t promise i won’t follow up with you later but okay great thanks for all the information awesome sarah

52:32 okay so um i i’ve been taking notes as we went along so i apologize a lot of this we’re going to start at the beginning and then work our way through sure um so when we talk about the work we’re doing with the mtss one of the things um that has come up in a lot of conversations at least at the school advisory councils that i’ve been to is you know the benefits that come out of the mtss but also the fact that to really maximize the impact in from everything i’ve read on mtss is true as well um that you need the right staff to student ratio so that people can really be be able to break down those small groups and give everybody what they need in their classrooms so how does how does your mtss work and the new curriculum alignments and things

53:19 like that get get reflected in the budget because in the budget you know one of the things i hear here at the building level is that you know if we had more tutors if we had more access to tutors we could do right now we’re doing we’re having a tutor once a week during our win block but if we could have a tutor every day we could really really be like you know hit this mtss thing out of the park so how can we um give this this great option or the this great path we’re taking the wings it needs to be fully successful and how does that look in our budget um so that right now if you want to come back with that later you can it’s just one question that’s kind of been at the

54:06 forefront as we go through this stuff no i i feel i feel confident enough to be able to to give you a rationale behind that so i’m coming from urban education where we had nothing and we had to rely on our mindset that all children can if we if we as teachers give them what they need to be successful and so that is mtss so it is advantageous to have more staff it’s always going to be to be able to break kids up into smaller groups but it’s really about skill level and developing the understanding that we have to we can’t teach to just certain students that we have to get every student what

54:51 they need to be able to access grade level curriculum we can’t take a student who’s not able to access third grade reading standards and and send them with a tutor to do second grade work we have to keep them in our third grade classroom exposed to what we call tier one which is our solid good instruction and then we have to within that instructional block find a way to scaffold for kids so it’s a lot of work it’s a it’s it’s about giving teachers the professional development they deserve to be able to do that really well it’s about providing a win block in the schedule so teachers have the time to meet students at their at their

55:37 independent level in small groups so yes staffing is important and tutors and pairs are essential to you know small group settings but they but it but we have to get to the point where we have the skills developed and it and one we don’t it’s not that we can’t do it because we don’t have the staff um we can i i want to be respectful because you you do come to us with a a lot of experience but what i’ve often heard you say man is is how you’ve come you know from a background of at-risk districts and we’re we’re not an at-risk district and we don’t want to operate as if we are

56:23 one or that we’re trying out of being one because that’s not where we are and that’s not where we want to be right and i think it’s really important to to just and no one is saying you know take a third grade student operating a second grade level and send them down to the third grade what we’re saying is keep them in the third grade with their peers but give them enough personnel so that they can flourish and do what they need to do and not feel like they’re floundering because they don’t have a supported classroom or don’t have enough um but when teachers when teachers have the confidence and the skill levels that all can happen you can you can meet kids at all different levels it’s not about

57:08 urban or suburban or low achieving and high achieving it’s about meeting the kids where they are and being able skilled enough to be able to give them the tiered support whether they’re high achievers or struggling learners give them what they need to be able to be successful with you as a classroom teacher and that’s that’s what i’m getting to that that’s what we’re building and you don’t you don’t have to have additional staff to get to the level where you can have those different tiers for kids so you ex so is is the goal that we will have a teacher in a classroom giving tier one in tier two supports at the same time to 25 students it there’s no goal that it’s about building capacity

57:54 building capacity building capacity and so we’re we’re working with our with our teachers right now to build the capacity to be able to do that and you know that would be a conversation we’d have to look at data to see how well we’re doing and if if we’re able to to do it or not okay because my concern is we’re we’re actually less inclusive this year than we’ve been in years past because we don’t have you know we don’t have the supported classroom or things like that where we have it had in the past and i want to make sure that when we say we’re meeting everyone’s needs where they’re at that we are getting the kids that are below grade level and we’re getting the kids that are at grade level and we’re also giving kids the enrichment that they need because when a child needs that it is it

58:40 needs something a little more challenging and they don’t have it then you know we can see anxiety in school absolutely you just you’ve just beautifully explained multi-tiered systems of support it’s not just for one subgroup of students it’s for all kids so that yeah so that if if anything it elevates the level of rigor for everyone because everyone’s getting that productive what we call productive struggle um within their core instructional block okay and you feel that one teacher in a classroom can meet all those needs in a class block i’m not saying i feel one way or another i’ve seen it done and i’ve seen kids get what they need when teachers

59:25 have been developed um to be able to do it and support it in that and i’m i i will agree that having more staff is helpful but it’s not necessary you can do it in situations it and what we want to do is get to the point where our students that can have more of that independence and success in the classroom and not have to go out of the classroom or have to go to somebody else to receive those supports

59:59 okay unfortunately i think what what is actually happening is more kids are getting pulled out now than than may have previous um the scope and sequence that you put up in the curriculum maps can you provide those to us outside of the slide because it’s hard when you zoom in to like read the content of those and i i would be really interested in in reading all that work you’ve um put in just as as long as you understand they’re in drafted form oh yeah no it’s a plan for success it could be very different the next time we meet we could make a a change to that and it wouldn’t yeah no i just think yeah as you talk about it it’s good to know this is what exactly what she means this is what one this is what a document like this looks like and it’s a document absolutely you talked about the dei

1:00:46 teams and the dei work and i one question on that is um as we all know dei is refers to anybody who is an at-risk or a marginalized community um how are we representing people of disability both physical um learning and mental disability in our dei work so i think that’s an ongoing conversation our dei team the adult district team did receive some professional development and we did start talking about what does that look like for our special education students and for what does inclusive practice really look like and sound like

1:01:32 so we’re starting those conversations and we are not forgetting any particular population that inclusion we really do want to get to the point where we say all is all in marblehead and you have a um a safe secure learning environment and that’s the ultimate goal but but we’re nowhere near kind of having all that sketched out but but it’s part of the conversation the inclusive practices is definitely part of the conversation okay and so when you have these teams at each school will you include a person of just the various disabilities on each of those teams i think some of the teams already have students with disabilities on them okay and could students how does that are those picked or can students volunteer

1:02:18 to be part of that or request to be part of that i think i’m not exactly sure how interest was generated but i don’t foresee any school leader uh discouraging anybody i don’t think we would limit the size so if a student was interested in being part of that they would be welcome to be part of that okay um and then with the standard feast report card in the past at least at the elementary level we’ve always had a section that um you know it was the number section and then their letter coding section but there was always one that was reflective of exceeds expectations um is there a path to putting that in there because for for students that do have that i think you know it’s it’s powerful for them to

1:03:03 see that um their report card reflects their everyone’s report card should have something that reflects their capabilities and i think for students that have that that would be an important mark to continue to have so teachers felt pretty strongly unilaterally that they that we wanted to get away from the conversation around advanced and so when you talk about standards-based assessments you’re talking about meeting progressing beginning or not yet so when you ask about the personalized student view the one thing that is different about this report card is that students will get narratives from teachers families will get personalized narratives of how the student is achieving so the comment section will be personalized

1:03:51 from the the teacher and if you were to see a meeting prior to the end of the year because the end of the year is the meeting goal the standard is the work a teacher is doing with students throughout the year the meeting the standard is the end of the year benchmark so if your student is meeting something mid-year then there would be a conversation at uh conferences about what what’s next what other multi-tiered system of support is being put in place for your child who has already met that standard how are they being challenged through those scaffolds to access deeper learning related to that standard

1:04:41 and then you had touched on um i think you talked on ela pd can you talk a little bit more how that you talked about the math a lot a bit can you talk about how the ela pd is going to uh provide some alignment throughout the grade levels so it’s it’s all about taking a standard and seeing what that standard looks like across grades so what is what is kindergarten doing to meet that standard what and then that work then feeds into what first grade needs to do to meet that standard so some of the work that’s being done is one they’re looking at standards with teachers our instructional support staff they’re saying okay this unit on um informational text

1:05:27 what are we going to use what are we all going to use as our anchor text when we do this lesson what kinds of questions are we going to present to talk about character characterization what are we going to use how are we going to develop an assessment to measure whether students are able to master this particular standard so those are the kinds of things they’re talking about in the classroom settings and they’re also talking about high-level questions what do we ask kids about complex texts to help them become deeper thinkers when they’re reading so those are just some of the examples that i’ve seen coaching staff talk with teachers about when they’re coaching them in literacy

1:06:14 so will so the teachers will get pd yeah on that okay yep they they have been getting pg a lot of writing pd in particular right now um so they they’re they’ve been getting that emily emily yeah i have a um just a quick question on mtss so have we fully implemented that no right so we have we’ve done is it happening in classrooms now it’s happening through uh right now at the elementary levels through our wind block we’re talking about interventions and how do we design instruction to meet students needs and

1:07:01 get to to close achievement gaps and at the high school and middle school they’ve gone a little bit deeper with talking having outside providers to come in and talk with their staff about uh planning a lesson so if you teach one particular course how do you teach that course and then also offer opportunities for students within that class that are at different levels so it’s still fairly new right like it’s it’s still very fairly new okay and it’s not a it’s it’s not something that you walk away from after you’ve done it a year or two it’s really something that you continue to grow the culture around right so it’s like we’ve we’ve started but we don’t even we i’m

1:07:47 just trying to figure out like we don’t know everything about it yet so we don’t even know what we need to make it fully successful right right but congratulations to clarify that because right yeah it sounded like we put it in and we don’t we’re not doing enough no we are just starting to get it going right so that okay i just want to clarify that and and again our teachers are amazing this is not easy work when you take a lesson and have to decompose it if you will to be able to reach you know five different skill sets it’s that’s hard work and so we have to give our teachers the time and the background knowledge and the support and the exemplars of how what does it look like in practice

1:08:33 to be able to get good at it and it takes time to be able to do that [Music]

1:08:44 and i’ll just quickly clarify that the report cards are only changing for k-6 not for any of the upper like the middle school or the high school correct all right let’s make sure that everyone was very clear about that yes um because that will impact the sick the current sixth grade into rising seven that they won’t be a part of that right all right david did you have anything or all questions been exhausted i think no there’s been a lot of details there’s an echo a lot of detail and questions answered all right well man thank you very much um that was wonderful to hear and we appreciate all the work that’s going on by your office as well as everyone throughout the district in the classrooms

1:09:32 okay that leads us on to our early education organization um so paula donnelly our director of student services welcome and i will let you take it away do you need to share your screen at all paula um i don’t i think this can be fairly brief but i’m certainly open to answering any questions um so obviously there was a shift in the early education programming next last for this year sorry with the addition of the transitional kindergarten class um we’ve been working on getting some feedback from parents we met with the preschool and tk teachers yesterday um and you know tried to get a sense of how they felt like the year has been going the good news is we had over 70 parents respond to the survey that i finally got

1:10:19 out just yesterday but the results were overwhelmingly positive which is really good news um that isn’t to say it hasn’t been without its challenges but i think we talked through a lot of those yesterday will continue to keep working on some of those things um but one of the things that we that i that was a challenge to start the year off um especially for me not really having been an in-depth part of the planning for the change coming into this year um was the start times finish times all all of that was um was certainly certainly an issue so in short uh what we intend to do next year is to make the shift for pre-k and the transitional k

1:11:04 to all operate um on the whole from 8 15 to 2 pm monday tuesday thursday and friday and for all of those kids to have a half day with a 12 noon dismissal on wednesdays so that’s adding a half day for our existing pre-k program um the dis the half day would be a little bit shorter right now it’s 12 30 we would do 12 for next year just to try to the primary reason for that is what i would like to see us do in the afternoons is to have the afternoon time be a smaller group of students so that those students with disabilities are getting a little bit more

1:11:50 intensive services during those times without quite as many peer partners that are that are in the room um that would build these hours would build in a little bit more common prep time for the for the teachers um that is also in line with their contract and also allows them to participate in those you know kind of after school collegial activities that that sort of are naturally occurring um we would also start the year for our littlest learners a little bit earlier than we traditionally have so we’re looking at a september 8th start date um for pre-k tk in kindergarten um 1 through 12 starts on the 6th

1:12:40 and that that’s sort of the big picture of it there’s obviously still a lot of nuts and bolts scheduling that we need to work out that we need to address um but that is the shift that we would like to make for for pre-k and tk and then i know that the district certainly wants to move forward with the full day um tuition free kindergarten but that’s really more of a budget conversation than a programming conversation at this point all right wonderful thank you paula sarah i see you’ve got a hand up

1:13:15 um yes thank you paula um so if i understand correctly in the afternoon you want to be there may not the peer models would not would they not stay all day the peer model i think what we would do is we would cap the number of full day peer partner slots so that those class sizes in the afternoons could be smaller so that students can get those more can get more intensive services because one thing that is lacking from our preschool programming right now and i say preschool and i’m including the tk and that as well one thing that is lacking is a more clearly defined continuum of services which is required by special education regulations is for there to be a more delineated um like this this is how we’ve this is how

1:14:01 these are the guidelines that we’ve set up for students to require this much programming this these are the students that really require the full day four days a week um and this would allow for us to be able to provide that full continuum of special education instruction okay so um would we would we be affected by the ratios to peer because i know that there’s rules with ratios for it to be an inclusive um is it i’m forgetting the terminology but there’s there’s ratios yeah there are so it’s real um so the regulations are around instructional groupings so it’s the there is a balance that you have to that it’s um

1:14:48 and it’s not even 50 it’s the number of students with ieps per the number of adults that are in the classroom um so it is capped at i think it’s seven students identified with disabilities with two teachers that are available um so it that part of it is we would still be aligned with aligned with that okay so there’s not the peer model piece because for some reason i thought you once said we had to have one more peer model than there was so what’s interesting is i did call the department of education about it last week because you know i

1:15:31 there are some sort of gaps in the regulations um which they acknowledged as well because it like everyone believes there has to be that 50 50 thing it’s not so clearly stated that it’s got to be 50 50. um one of the things that comes up is what happens if you have a student that might have just occupational therapy as a service but like you know behaviorally socially language wise they’re functioning right at right at a developmentally appropriate level are they considered a peer partner um or are they considered a child with a disability when they can serve um is a model you know obviously iep or no is a binary choice but interestingly deci didn’t say

1:16:16 yeah no that you could that’s it it’s either one or the other um you know they allow for some of those shades of gray um as well so what i think we would we would be looking at because it not every student that has an iep requires a full day of instruction either some of them are only there half day so the afternoons may have a mix that is closer to 50 50 or it may just be students with just disabilities in some of those classrooms but i think we would want to make sure that we have the full continuum available to folks okay so that wouldn’t give us any problems with yeah i just wanted to make sure we still could call our our program like an inclusive preschool program that we would have

1:17:02 enough of the ratios to meet those requirements yeah so the language is actually is is integrated um not inclusive and this would be yeah and this would be a line this would be aligned with what other neighboring districts do um like salem for instance where i was um the coordinator for several years has the whole continuum um where there are some classes that are integrated throughout the day some that have just special education students in the afternoon um and then there there is the whole that whole continuum thank you and i i knew i wasn’t getting the right word i couldn’t grab it today um do you know when you’ll be able to commit to families because i know you know planning

1:17:47 a lot of families plan soon for the fall as far as child care in school and things like that go how close would we be to being able to commit to families that which which one of those spots they would get a half day spot or a full day spot and things like that right so for students for students with disabilities that are already identified like their placement stays the same um so we’re really talking about peer partners and i i’m trying to shift the language of calling them partners um because models i feel like denigrates a little the skills that kids with disabilities have there’s plenty of things that they can model and model very well um so i think if we identify them more as partners that’s the push that i’m trying to make and haven’t

1:18:33 even put that on paper yet um but i think if over the next couple of weeks i think that we can um but i’ll take a look at what the lottery and registration processes i know that it would be a little bit different this year because just because i know the move to the other building with the addition of the sub separate classroom at brown for students that need aba based services i think over the next couple of weeks that we’ll be able to figure that out so hopefully that gives families enough time to plan for the fall but kids that are already in the program their day will continue to be defined by their iep team have you gotten um good feedback from the ei programs and what might be coming

1:19:19 our way or are they just not able to really give that all to you um no i i haven’t to be honest i haven’t checked in with ei in a while but meredith wishart and i did meet with them early in the year um i think that’s something else that’s obviously been pretty significantly impacted by kovid families some you know they may refer families families don’t follow up on the process um they couldn’t do in-home services for a while but i do think generally the e.i process goes okay because we’re not dealing with a huge number of agencies i think it is primarily just the two um i think that we’re seeing a bigger influx actually of community-based preschools um you know and parents feeling a little bit anxious about their kids being ready um for kindergarten

1:20:05 which is certainly understandable um but i think that that that’s where we’ve actually had i think a much bigger a bigger jump than a lot of us anticipated

1:20:20 megan did you actually yeah to that point one of the things that um i was talking with um some of our some at least a couple of our admin team about was maybe doing some um some collaborative work with the local preschools or offering them some collaborative work with the local preschools especially around some of the things around like speech you know speech and language development fine finding gross motor skill development um some of those things that you know are i think that you know for everybody covet has sort of shifted the goalposts a little bit and you know helping them to understand what we can expect to see that are all within the normal range knowing that that within the normal range is a really big there’s a very broad range

1:21:07 megan megan yeah thanks for this paula i appreciate it and i’m you know happy to hear about the addition of the half day on on wednesday um and glad that we’ve done a survey out to um parents since this was a new program so i would be interested um just if you could kind of send along to the committee at some point some of the themes that you’re seeing from the feedback just so we have an idea of kind of where we’ve been really successful and maybe where we’ve got some opportunities there yeah absolutely thank you

1:21:43 all right i think that wraps us up paula we appreciate the update and um glad to hear all that all the good news about those programs and i agree with megan that that half day um both my kids went through the integrated preschool and that wednesday was always a rough day so i think there will be a lot of parents out there that will appreciate it

1:22:05 all right um that will lead us into the finance and organizational support part of the meeting so first up we have the memorandum of understanding with the abbott public library so i know michelle is here and um we do have kimberly from the library with us as well i believe um so we can we can kind of go over this and then um kimberly i know had a few things as well sarah you’re you look like you’re trying to get a hold of me um i just want to let you know that i’m going to need to i have a little bit of a family medical thing um so i’m just going to excuse myself and i apologize

1:22:47 hi i just want to make sure you can hear me i’m actually it’s probably better that i keep my video off but can you hear me yes we can hear you okay good um can i um actually before we talk about the mou could i tell you about a program that i think you might be interested in i don’t know if this is the time and place for it but it it dovetails we have tei initiatives we email about that offline just because we have to stick to our agenda otherwise we can get in trouble with open meeting law violations of speaking about things that people weren’t prepared to speak about um and come and listen to so but i would love to hear that and we can absolutely email okay it’s it’s just a program announcement it’s on our website so i can tell you about that later yeah great great um okay wonderful thanks for

1:23:32 having me here tonight yeah i’m glad that you were able to join us um i know you know you’ve been on for a little while so i apologize that as as often as the case we’re running a little bit behind where i thought maybe we would be but as an educator myself i i appreciate hearing the conversation so thank you great all right so we’ve got michelle with us um the memorandum was in everyone’s dropbox um and so does anyone have any questions or michelle did you want to kind of kick things off before we discuss it yeah no i just wanted to tell you that you know we had distributed this um emma memorandum of understanding it was actually drafted by colby brunt our attorney um and i think it covers everything and didn’t get much feedback

1:24:18 in terms of anything we’re missing um so we we hope this you know relationship is great and i’m looking forward to it but this is the official document that will basically memorialize the the library for using the coffin school while it’s vacant and the library is going through their renovation project

1:24:43 great and i know really um you had requested that you could be here so did you have anything off the bat that you wanted to share well actually i’ve had all of my questions answered um it’s clear to me fairly much but most of my questions are answered anyway um it’s clear to me the division of labor between the town and the library it’s clear what our responsibilities are and so it’s it’s all coming together but i also wanted to know when it takes effect and when we when we start assuming the responsibility of the utilities and so on and and changing the locks and putting different keys on and when does all of that happen um it really depends on when you would um

1:25:28 need the building you need need continual you know access to the building and that’s why we left the blade the date blank at this point actually so that is a good question or a good point to bring up before the official vote is taken yeah um and i can i can report in that we are still in schematic drawing plans you know we’re still um getting some code reports and we’re getting sort of the workflow and where we’re going to put things and how how it’s all going to work so we’re still in that phase so we’re not anywhere close to getting in there yet but i could see doing that late spring in still anticipation of a fall move so they’ll we’ll need to have workers

1:26:14 and they’re doing some work but the actual move won’t take place until the fall

1:26:23 michelle is that um is that something that we can add at a later time when they’ve got a better idea of when they want to assume because it if i’m remembering correctly i know i read through this the other day but that it i believe that they will come back to us a couple of times throughout this or sort of as needed throughout their process with with making any changes for just so that the school committee approves where you know where things are headed and um just sort of what what’s going on in the building so can we once they have a better idea we can sort of approve as is sort of with a late spring idea on this for everybody’s financial planning but then come back to it and actually fill in dates when they’ve got a better idea of when dates

1:27:09 hard dates are there where is that okay yeah we should be absolutely able to do that okay and that’s why i kind of left it almost with just seasons originally i don’t know if that actually made it into there but that’s what i had had shared with colby you know because we did we did not know specific dates or specific months but um yeah we could certainly enter into it with an understanding that it will be you know by the fall the move will definitely be before you know right mid-fall right all right um anybody have any questions completely that wraps up your your concerns correct yes i i think it does thank you all right wonderful thanks um does anybody from the committee have any questions for michelle at all

1:27:55 i mean i think it’s pretty comprehensive so all right great so um michelle correct me before we get the motion um what i’ve got written is a motion to enter into the mou with the abbott public library and authorize the chair to sign yes sounds okay all right so can i get a motion to enter into the memorandum of of understanding with the abbott public library and authorize the chair to sign so much so much negative move second david second all right um megan taylor yes sarah gold yeah yes david harris yes

1:28:41 and emily barron yes yes all right thank you everyone that passes forward um and kimberly you know whenever you need to come back just reach out and make that happen great thank you i’ll keep you all posted wonderful thank you thanks again and thank you

1:29:01 that moves us how long david i’m just going to meet you because i’ve got an echo um that means it moves us along to the early education uh 2022-2023 school year tuition michelle i will we had a memo but i will let you sort of walk us through that yes so um we reviewed the um early education tuition rates that we are charging and as paula dr donnelly explained to you we are we’re changing the program a little bit in terms of the schedule um so for next year we are just going to have at this point i should also note we are asking you to vote a full day kindergarten tuition rate um at this time i know we’re in discussions and in hopes that we will have a free full day

1:29:47 kindergarten program next year but that is budget dependent at this point so really we need to open registration next week so we want to make sure we have a tuition um determined and we are prepared to collect that if the budget does not go forward for um full-day kindergarten at no cost to these families so we are asking you to approve a rate for that tonight we have the half day preschool program which is going to run the five days a week um the full day preschool program which will be the fourth full days plus the half day on wednesday so that’s also five days a week and we have the tradition transitional kindergarten program which will also be that four full days and that one half day per week

1:30:32 but is also considered part of the preschool program because technically it’s not yet kindergarten’s preparation for kindergarten so currently we do have an enrollment um we have actually you know for kindergarten we are back to the levels that we were pre pandemic which is encouraging so we have 131 tuition-based full-day kindergarten students brings in approximately 425 000 for this year in revenue the preschool program has 40 um what we used to call peer model students we are changing that terminology now but we had 40 peer model students who are tuition paying and that actually brings in revenue about 225 000 and that was um previously just under a

1:31:18 hundred thousand dollars but with the changes that we made last year and the expansion of some of our preschool programs at the new brown school um it has increased pretty significantly which is great because our program has expanded as well so we’re planning on running all those programs again next year um the full-day kindergarten rate we actually want to keep the same we do not want to increase a rate on a program that we’re actually hoping to eliminate the fee so we’re going to hold that fee or i suggest that we hold that fee consistent for next year for preschool program both the half day and the full day program we’re increasing or i’m recommending the increase of tuition of the 500 each which represents they’re actually going to get an extra two hours per week we are

1:32:03 we are we are reducing each day by 30 minutes but we’re also adding that wednesday morning so um by doing that it’s an approximately two additional hours per week over the over the year and it comes out to roughly five hundred dollars so we’re requesting um a half day preschool program at four thousand five hundred full day preschool program at six thousand five hundred and our transitional kindergarten um basically i put just roughly a one and a half percent increase on that which is the cost of living increase that our staff received um in the program for this year so if we raise that by a hundred dollars that will bring that to seven thousand one hundred dollars um for next year and it’s i think by

1:32:49 streamlining this a little bit more um you know into this new organization scheduling it will make it a little more efficient in my office as well so i’m looking forward to that great thanks michelle um does anybody have any questions on that all right yeah i think you have answered them all that i had as you if you walked us through that so i will ask for a motion that the school committee approved the tuition rates for the 2022-2023 school year as follows full-day kindergarten program for 3500 preschool day program for four thousand five hundred preschool full day program at six thousand five hundred and transitional kindergarten program at seven thousand one hundred

1:33:41 second family second all right i will have a roll call megan taylor yes and emily baron yes all right that passes four to zero thank you michelle great thank you okay so that then leads us to our schedule of bills um can i get a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling three hundred and eighty one thousand three hundred fifty eight dollars and sixty seven cents so moved megan moved second emily second any questions for michelle on those all right uh megan taylor yes sarah gold yes david harris

1:34:27 uh emily baron yes okay that passes four to zero all right thank you everyone thank you and thank you michelle okay okay so that moves us into our school committee communication part of the evening um so the first step is the policy ebcfa face coverings discussion um so dr bucky left us with uh a memo um and he is continuing to recommend that all marblehead public schools um move to mass optional but on monday march 7th so that we can have that week as he had noted in our last meeting that we would

1:35:13 have that week after the february vacation masked by everyone so that would mean that our current mask optional schools at village the vets and the high school would go back to a week of mandatory masking as we come back from the break um nan do you uh you know you’ve worked with dr bucky on this uh on this entire agenda and um do you want to add anything at that at this point or no no pressure no i i think um you know i think in anticipation when the decision was first announced that we would go mask optional at the middle school in the high school we were anticipating what has happened historically and that is after a break that we have a spike and in an effort to

1:36:00 kind of contain what might happen in the week after vacation the recommendations put forward to move to mask optional on march 7th for all of our schools thank you nan so as everyone probably knows the department of ed has said that they are not going to renew the mask mandate um as of the 28th so the monday that everyone comes back from february vacation um so you know i think dr bucky did a nice job of laying out that the fact that although he’s going to stick with his original statement that this really is something that the committee can take under discussion and and make a decision on as we feel fit

1:36:46 fit fit the additional piece that we need to take up this evening is so dr bucky is also recommending that the committee act to rescind the policy um as of the as of monday march 7th um he and i did have conversations i think everybody received the email from masc on monday afternoon with an updated or highly revised policy ubcfa that basically states that you know as the district is sort of contin star continuing to move through uh the the pandemic as it you know continues to to morph and change that this would require basically that face coverings um be

1:37:32 be be worn on students and staff after returning from their five-day quarantine flash isolation after testing positive um so that that’s the current guidance um from from all the departments of of health and cdc that masks will be required in all health uh school health offices and that per federal public health order all students and staff are required to wear a mask on school buses um as i sort of dug through that this week um emily and i you know it came out monday late afternoon um so we did not have time um neither one of us could get a policy meeting together today so we did not pull a subcommittee meeting on this but in my head it sort

1:38:17 of made sense to put it forward to the full committee anyways because i don’t i didn’t see us sort of dicing and slicing this the the revisions um sort of it’s pretty straightforward there’s the they’re the things that are somewhat i guess i you know i don’t know what your words even use anymore if they’re required i think it’s probably the best word to use um you know the piece on the buses is absolutely a federal mandate um so there’s no working around that um and then obviously the the five days of masking after someone tests after someone has tested positive and done their five days of isolation is also um required and then the school health offices is a piece that i believe

1:39:02 is written into deci guidance um so you know i’ll just sort of turn it over for discussion at this point um and and we can you know we’ve got multiple ways that we can handle this and in multiple ways that we can multiple emotions that could be taken and voted on so megan i see your hand up can i i’d like to make a motion um and then we can discuss um i motioned that we rescind our mass policy and effective as of february 28th all right so megan has made a motion does anyone want to second that i’ll second it okay emily seconded can i explain my rationale or absolutely take it away um so i think with rescinding the mass mandy

1:39:51 and that’s right um with my reasoning for kind of rescinding the mass mandate is because i think you know the deci regulations and the federal regulations we will follow those i think we’ve been following desi regulations the entire time i think we should continue to do that and that covers the pieces that you mentioned earlier so i don’t think we need a specific mass policy for that because we follow the deci regulations around that i think also with the february 28th this you know is a debate where there’s valid points on on both sides um and i think um you know like many issues related to covet there’s passionate perspectives and opinions on both sides of those as well but i think um you know

1:40:36 we had i know dr bucky did message that we were going to be march 7th um but i think since then there’s been a number of changes like you mentioned the um jesse has not renewed their mandate past the 28th the town has also rescinded their mass mandate so i think we have to also adjust in real time and um and i think this is a case for that um so i think we really need to use the data we have available to us and make the best decision for our districts obviously i think everybody has the same goal right we want to keep our students safe and healthy we want to keep our staff safe and healthy and we want to keep our schools open but one of the shifts that we’ve been doing is not mandating those those pieces anymore because of where we are with covid we’ve

1:41:22 learned a lot and a lot has changed since this all began and now you know we’ve got the testing available at home we make those available in advance to our families that have signed up for it the at-home testing is available you know much more much more available than it has been previously in addition we’re still doing our pool testing which we’ll plan to do monday and tuesday upon return from from the break um for again the families that are involved in that and then you know i would hope that as we kind of shift make this shift that we’re part you know families are partners here we’re all in this together which we’ve been saying all along and so if you you know from a family’s perspective if you are at greater risk

1:42:08 for you know being exposed to covid then hopefully you’re testing and masking if you need to and same thing for anyone who has you know who has the health you know health concerns as well so i think you know i choose to believe that everybody like i said has the same goal and we’re all gonna partner and do what we need to do to make to make that a reality um so i’m not sure that the mandate is necessary um and i guess i’ll stop there and let others continue you know comment all right all right anybody else want to weigh in

1:42:49 so on the policy that you said megan where there are now the three stipulations that remain in the nurse’s office on a bus and for people students that have had coveted for the balance the five days we don’t think we need to have that option as a policy that’s part of the jesse regulations it’s part of the deaths of regulations yeah that’s my understanding i mean anyone can correct me from wrong but from what i’ve read that’s my understanding yeah so it succeeds any we’re not creating a policy that doesn’t exist as a desi regulation right it just it mirrors what it is and we need to adhere to that anyway and when it goes away it will go away

1:43:35 okay i agree with that and i think i think a couple of key points that you said are true i mean so going backwards most recently on friday the board of health removed you know their mandate for mass requirements indoors and marblehead and at the time we had our last school committee meeting that that was still in place and then um prior to or after our school committing it was governor baker and the department of education and the massachusetts support health that made the decision that february 28 would be the last day for mass requirements so i think um a lot has changed and i think the trends of um numbers of cases going forward are also continuing

1:44:20 you know to show that it’s it’s dropping significantly as well as um it’s able to be managed a lot better as you say through testing and um the types of illnesses from it all are able to be managed a lot better and i think we’ve really come a long way in being able to do that and i would uh i would agree with those comments

1:44:47 and i also you know want to say that i think it would be exceedingly challenging to put an expectation on our administrators and our staff to um you know be standing at the front doors of our schools with a couple thousand masts trying to hand out mass to people and students and people that have been without masks for not that they wouldn’t be team players but i think there would be some challenges there that i think is just one more thing that detracts from the focus of being able to provide education being able to get back to back to normal and and but now we would end up being you know mass police again after the policy has already been rescinded and we’d be going back back to that so i

1:45:33 think that would be a little bit burdensome to have an expectation that that we could manage that emily emily sir um i’ll just kind of reiterate like two things that changed um my mind on this from what megan said and what david just said so at first i think i was for doing masking after february um break but that was before we actually went mask less or mass optional so it was before we had like megan said had done it had the information and now um like what david said now that these kids have been unmasked to put them basket back in mass is going to be

1:46:18 difficult for some of them right and it’s going to be like um david said it’s going to be policing it right because they’re going to it’s just going to be a whole lot of confusion and we don’t need that unless they want to and then what megan said about the testing um we have so much testing available to us now that if you did do something where you could have been exposed go get a test even if you’re not signed up for pool testing or are free testing that you bring home which everyone should do that because you literally get a test in your kids backpack it’s a great program um you can go to cvs and get a free test so we just need to be responsible that we are have this um option so just test your kids every

1:47:05 day that week if you do something and we can all do that and it’s easy it wasn’t before but they’ve made it accessible to everybody so i think doing this is going to be okay so so this has been one um one you know the hardest decision that has sort of rolled around in my mind it’s in quite some time you know it sort of took me back to about this time last year when we were trying to decide whether we could put kids three feet and six feet and roll all the way in

1:47:46 i’ve you know i walked in tonight really not knowing how i felt um and still we’ll probably continue to perseparate over it after the meeting um but you know one of the what i keep coming back to is the idea that the that one we’ve followed dusty guidance all along and obviously the mandates which we did not have our hands were tied on that one um but we followed dusty guidance and the guidance you know if if they had wanted to extend the mass mandate until the seventh that they could have done that and so i am really struggling with us sort of saying well you know it was good enough up until now but now we’re gonna do this um it’s it kind of there’s a disconnect

1:48:32 there for me um i also i also you know absolutely agree on the on the policing at front that to ask the kids to put it back on you know we know that that morale with the kids and the masks was pretty low particularly at the high school before we allowed them to go mask optional and that was causing behavioral issues and discipline issues and

1:48:57 you know from for me there’s always been this trade-off clearly you know i’m in a mask this evening and so i i’ve always taken the masks incredibly seriously and you know for myself i’m not ready quite to make that next jump um and so i think that but that’s my decision and so i think if we start to try to kind of take some of that back it leaves me sort of sitting in a conundrum and i and i worry that our administrators and our teachers are gonna have to fall back into that role and that you know it just it’s it’s not what school should be about at this point is discipline over a mask um and and i do hope and i do think you

1:49:43 know much like you said megan that that you know the majority of our families have taken this very seriously and so if people are traveling over a break and or concerned coming back from break more than they have been the past couple of weeks that they’ll test and that they’ll mask and you know it’ll certainly be a conversation in in my home with my children um so that we are working together and again as this as this has been pushed from the schools controlling the the mitigation efforts to families and home controlling mitigation efforts much like many other illnesses that that circulate in our society that it’s

1:50:28 again that it’s a disconnect for me how we sort of say like okay but yeah not this time um you know i try to think in the future into next next you know winter holiday season and everything i don’t know where we’re going to be at that point and so i may live to eat those words um but you know that that’s where my head is at right now and so you know the i’ve i’ve said many times in the past few weeks like my biggest priority is protecting in-person learning and i think combined with sort of families taking this over and taking it seriously and that there’s also the piece that not only do we have such a high vaccination rate but we also there’s been a lot of people

1:51:15 that have had covid and so there’s a different layer of protection right now within communities than there ever quite frankly has been um and much like a lot of this you know we don’t fully understand what that data is going to and how that protection is going to span out but again like i just i come back to it and i’m i’m kind of tired of our kids taking the brunt for this as well and so where we don’t have mass mandates everywhere else and everyone is making their own decisions everywhere else i just am having a hard time saying like oh yeah but this one last time i’m gonna i’m gonna overrule that so that’s where my head is at

1:52:01 so we’ve got a motion i’ve all had a chance to talk um so i will call for a vote i’d just like to add one other thing i think like like all of us do at this table um i had an opportunity to speak with dr bucky like i do before every school committee meeting about various topics and he encourages that so i did reach out to him and among other items even though it wasn’t that he wasn’t going to be here i do that as a practice for for every meeting and and talked at um and had a pretty in-depth discussion about that and as his memo to us in our public documents says he understands as a case to be made um both ways and that you know with with

1:52:49 the the north shore um regional consortium of uh what is 12 schools the other 12 schools that you know it’s it’s split there as well but this case is to be made with both and so you know i really appreciate that you know had the opportunity to uh to have that discussion with dr bucky in advance of uh our vote tonight thank you david so just to you know reiterate um because we do have one more day in school this week um so the policy remains for this week the policy would be rescinded effective um i guess february 27th so that when students return on the 28th there will no longer be a policy ebcfa face coverings and it

1:53:35 will be mask optional um in all of the in you know in basically everywhere but those places where that have been defined by duffy all right so i will call for a role called vote megan taylor yes sarah gold yes david harris yes and emily baron yes all right can i just um can i just add one thing though um so i think some of the feedback we got when we um had the mask optional discussion for the upper three schools was around the communication piece and making sure that that’s very timely right because again we’re going into a friday and then we’re off so i guess my request nan and you can work with john on this is making sure that we get that communication out

1:54:21 to families like as soon as possible in the morning tomorrow um because people will be going away and probably not checking their you know i know i’m i’m going away and i’m off the grid um so just making sure we get that out to them as quickly as possible so that everyone’s got the information i know you know we’ve got 100 or so people listening in but you know i’d like us to drive that information as quickly as possible thank you megan totally agree all right so that leads us then to um an in-person meeting discussion i had sort of tossed this out at the very end of last meeting um that i wanted to talk more about this this week we know we’ve obviously made mention of it at other points in the year and then things have spiked and and we haven’t actually ever um you know the four of us and in our leadership meet in

1:55:08 person um but allowing the public to rejoin us in person um and function more as we have um pre-coveted um so i would like to propose and you know we don’t need to vote on this i would like to propose that we pull in person as of um march 3rd that’s our next meeting so that’s the week that we return from february vacation um and that we would go back to meeting in the library um so that mh because mhtv is set up there so that they could um utilize their equipment i did make a statement last week that i believed that mhtv was able to live stream um if they contacted me afterwards and said they’re actually not able to live stream the live stream was i think from um principal bauer that was

1:55:53 for the um mental health forum that i had attended um but we are able to live stream and so and stephen you know he and i have not worked out all the details yet but we have talked multiple times at points throughout the year to to make sure that we are able to live stream and so similar you know the committee is back on headsets this week but similar to sort of how we have been in the past few weeks at the board table type situation that it would it would look somewhat similar to that but in my hopes is that we would be back in our in our sea in the library um with our our audience and obviously you know again we send our children we have a lot of ventilation and a lot of air

1:56:38 purifiers and people can absolutely wear masks if they would like to attend in person um and and sort of take it from there thoughts yeah emily um i am excited to go back to in person i don’t think i ever went to one as a school committee member

1:57:01 so it’s exciting um but i know some people aren’t going to feel comfortable to come in so there is a way i know that they can do public comment they can write us their public comment and submit it so i just want to make sure that we um put that out there that uh and all like how they do that and how um or how people can do that so we don’t want anyone to feel like they can’t be heard in that um in that way absolutely yeah thanks just be the one yep and i think that just to sort of clarify on that we we are not in the habit of reading those those public comments into the record but they will be entered into the public record um so that they’re a part of our minutes and um you know whether that

1:57:47 i’ll have to look up whether public comment emails go into public comment or whether we put them into correspondence which is at the ending section but they are there and in them and in the main would they be um in our packet so other people could read them like in our materials packet uh yeah i would just think just so that i want to make sure everyone feels that we are being you know accessible and inclusive so if we get them early enough it could be in the materials packet so others could read and um people could have that voice there so it’s i don’t know if we could make that yeah absolutely part of it yep that sounds good we can do that um any other questions comments concerns on that

1:58:32 it’s a long time coming sure it is yes all right great um [Music] all the time and then i don’t know that i’m muted so um i i think there is an opportunity if individual members aren’t unable to attend right you based on a vote that’s been taken previously by i forget them i think it’s been so long town meeting that people can um attend the meeting remotely correct yes that’s correct we need to have a quorum of the committee in person but then others

1:59:27 all right um any subcommittee or liaison updates emily

1:59:38 so i have a few updates i’m just getting the information up so that i can say it correctly um the first one was that we got an email from the marblehood racial justice team and they have some events coming up that they asked if we would um just promote and the first one’s february 28th at seven in person at the library and it’s um the president of mecco inc will be their presenter for conversations on race discussion um so she will be you have to register if you want to um be in person or in zoom so you can register through the library i went to

2:00:25 that presentation i think last year or they were before and it was great you really get a full understanding of our metco program and what it means um for everybody involved and it’s super informative so i would suggest anyone who’s interested to go or um zoom in this is sorry what was the date again uh march february 28th at seven yeah at the library or zoom the second one is march 23rd at 10 a.m um the racial justice team will be presenting two artworks um harriet tubman and john lewis to the school district at the la crucia lucretia and joseph brown elementary school so there’ll be

2:01:10 an event for that um i think that’s more asking us as a school committee if we would go but then i’m sure it’ll be documented and we can post about it for others to see what um what happened and the last one oh they wanted us to plug for metco presents the program which is their um performances that they provide to almost co districts the urban and suburban families you can go to these amazing performances for ten dollars they have a block of tickets and there’s dance performances um theater music they’re really amazing so i was thinking there if there was a way that i could get that out um

2:01:55 um um in an update or something so people have that link to order the tickets and then sorry there’s a lot of systems there the dei team is going to be putting let’s see if i can make this these flags called it’s the peace flag movement we have one for every school and the flag represents every culture race spiritual spirituality gender sexuality age and ability and the movement was created in boston and they are spreading these flags and i’m going to quickly read their mission because it’s really

2:02:41 great so the peace flag movement works to unite the world in the fight for equity and justice for all people it starts with a flag making the hope of change visible and it grows when we turn education and conversation into action raising this flag is a promise to speak up stand up and rise up and i thought you know when i first saw this and over the you know last couple of weeks what’s been happening this is a great representation of what we want to do in our district and where we want to go moving forward so these will be going up soon i hope in all of our schools this is awesome flag so you can go to peaceflagmovement.org for more information and that’s it

2:03:27 thank you emily megan i think you had something yes i also have a a few dates it’s a lot going on in march um for the cpac um so on march 9th dr donnelly will be presenting on the iep process at 7 pm so you know even though i’ve been at this for a long time i still listen into those because you always learn something so i highly recommend listening into that and then also on march 30th at 7 p.m there will be a speaker um ashley harris wally i hope i’m pronouncing her name right and the topic is ableism so um two cpac sponsored events i highly recommend wonderful all right and as i said emily and i didn’t get a chance to meet um and

2:04:13 facilities i don’t believe met either correct um we are meeting i think it’s on the calendar for the 28th that monday would be great okay yeah i just was wondering if um we’ve had a chance to think about the mou with facilities that puts facilities communicating with the town on properties i was able to acquire the list of properties so we have that for our meeting so we can move forward wonderful great all right i think budget is obviously moving along we’ll probably have a larger discussion on that once dr bucky returned all right and we are just waiting to catch up since the interim count administrator started uh two weeks ago

2:04:58 you know he needs an opportunity to get um up to speed with where everything is and then um we anticipate that steve and john mcgann um will be reaching out to us at that point or if not steve and then we’ll have some further meetings with with the finance committee and reestablish the date that will when we’ll be presenting the budget uh to the finance committee all right thanks david all right so in within closing business um does anybody have any new business all right uh correspondence um i think we need to just make sure that whether or not we can submit that one piece uh but we all have it um within our emails speaking about

2:05:45 the program of studies so um anybody else have any correspondence all right so i will adjourn us at 906. thank you man for joining us and for filling in with our superintendent for the evening