School Committee: March 3, 2022

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

0:37 We’ll be back in a little bit. All right. Stephen, should that be giving the feedback that it is? Stephen? Shouldn’t be giving feedback like it is. It is muted. But I need to have my Zoom on, and it’s going to pick everything up. There it is. All right, wonderful. All right. Clearly, we’re doing our best here. We’re going to work out a few little kinks as they come along. Sarah, welcome. I had called us to order at 7 p.m., and I will just make an announcement quickly that we are going to be tabling the schedule update portion of Dan Bauer’s presentation this evening. Dan presented to the high school, SAC, this afternoon, and a number of concerns were raised about the changes that are being proposed. Dan and his crew will be offering listening and learning sessions this coming week for parents to attend. And I just want to ask that parents who choose to attend these sessions, and I would encourage everyone to do so, that they attend with an open mind and a mindset that our educators and our administrators are committed to the children of this district and to doing everything with the well-being of the students as their highest priority. So stay tuned, high school parents, for updates from Dan as to when those will be scheduled.

2:14 That moves us to commendations. Does anyone have any commendations? I do. Is our student representative here this evening? He is not here this evening, actually. He is not. Okay, so I’ll lean on Dan to get this right, since it’s sort of hot off the presses, but the MIAA Alpine Ski Championships were held on March 1st, and we know the record that the team has had the last couple of years in town, the last three, four, five years, and the girls came up short by three seconds. They were runners-up in the state championship to the Mohawk Trail Regional High School, and, yeah, they just barely missed out by three seconds. And one of the top finishers in the girls’ standings for Giants’ thalem was Kate Honos, and she finished in second in the Giants’ thalem, so wanted to recognize her. And then also, the boys must have fallen off a little bit, but they had a really awesome showing by Baxter Jennings. He finished first in the thalem, and then he finished second in the Giants’ thalem, which is pretty remarkable. So pretty much the best skier in the state, and he’ll move on to the Eastern Regional Championships, as I would imagine Kate would, since she qualified for that. So they’ll be more skiing for them to be had, and so a great turnout there.

3:44 And then also, in seventh, we had Charlie Pingree in the thalem, who finished in the top ten. So another really good showing by the Alpine Ski Team. Wanted to throw that out there. Thank you, David. Yeah, I had a note for the ski team, kind of a search around Twitter, because I know there’s been a bunch of things that have gone on in the district this week, or recently. I believe the Girls Swim and Dive Team also finished quite high. Were they second? All right, thanks, Sam. And then there was a note on Twitter about the Allstate Choir, and we had, I think, four students attend that as well. So, all many great things happening. So, anybody else? All right, I will move us to public comment at this point. If anyone would like to make public comment, please come up to the microphone and stage your name and address for the record. Jonathan, by the way, welcome. I think this is the first public comment in two years. Yes, it is. In person, so you hold that honor. Watching on TV are able to make a public comment. They have to be here, and I’ll address that. I think that Sarah’s comments about mindsets are really important. I think parents need to have a mindset that people are trying to do the best thing, but I think that there needs to be a real focus on parent-having mindsets where they’re looking out for their best interests of their kids. And I think that things happen when there’s not communication that gets people agitated,

5:17 and things don’t always go the most peaceful way they could, because people are kept in the dark. Yeah, I originally was coming to speak about the situation with regard to the program studies and the schedule, but that was settled earlier, as Sarah mentioned. I think that it is really shocking that you guys are still unwilling to publish your meeting packet in advance. Seven o’clock, someone pushes a button. I was just on the computer a little while ago. Someone pushes a button. Do you really think that we as parents or taxpayers aren’t smart enough to think on our feet in advance and ask good questions? It’s unbelievably frustrating. We used to publish them a week in advance so people could have thoughtful, intelligent questions. What’s the big deal? Why can’t you share the documents that are on your desk with the rest of the public? And I’m speaking just to the people, to all of you at the table, because I know that that sentiment is not shared by the person who is participating remotely. I just think it is an absolute disgrace and I complete this honor to your role as public servants to keep this in the dark. It just creates suspicion and for good reason, I guess. Now, coming today, I didn’t bring a laptop computer because I didn’t think that I would need to, but I can’t see your meeting packet because I didn’t bring a computer. My bad, I guess it’s the first public meeting after COVID, so that’s okay. I have a sense from the agenda of what’s going to be in the meeting packet, and the one big item has been tabled. So other than the budget, which I guess is out there. Finally, I think that the fact that the public can’t participate remotely makes this double bad,

6:53 because basically everyone who’s watching at home could just now, a few seconds ago, be able to see your meeting packet. So if they want to ask a question during public participation, which is at the beginning of this meeting, they have to drive down here after seeing it, or they have to be here in person. They have no way of knowing in advance. That’s not right. It makes no sense. We’re the parents and taxpayers of this town. We ought to have a right to see these public documents. Okay, the last thing I want to say is that I commented that the public can’t participate remotely. We have the technology. We’ve had two years to prepare. Why is it that only a member of the committee can participate at home? And I’m glad she can because she needs to say his name. But the reality is there’s no reason why every single member of this community can’t participate remotely. It’s within the laws of Massachusetts under the COVID rules. We have the technology to do it. Let’s figure out how to do this right and get more participation. Share your meeting documents in advance so people can ask thoughtful questions and let people participate. That’s all. Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. All right, that moves us along to the minutes portion of the meeting. There were quite a few meeting minutes in our packet. Does anyone have any questions or additions before I ask for the motion? Sarah? I think you’ll need to pull out the minutes from 8-9 separately because Meghan and I cannot vote on those as we weren’t at the meeting so we can’t approve those minutes. Okay, thank you for letting me know that.

8:23 And then there was just some spelling and typo-type things, but if we can get those corrected before they get put up online. Yeah, they always are. Thank you. All right, so I will ask for a motion to approve 8-9-2021 first. So moved. David moved. Second. Emily second. I believe since Sarah is remote, we still have to take a roll call vote. So Sarah Fox, oh, sorry. Yes, Sarah Fox. David Harris? Yes. Sarah Gold, yes. Meghan Taylor? Epstein. Emily? Barron. All right, that passes 3-0 to 2. All right, and then can I have a motion to approve the minutes from 8-26-2021, 10-7-2021, 10-19-2021, 10-21-2021, and 10-28-2021? So moved. Meghan moved. Emily second. Roll call vote. Sarah Fox. David Harris? Yes. Sarah Gold, yes. Meghan Taylor? Yes. And Emily Barron? Yes. All right, those all pass 5-0. Okay, that moves us into the superintendent’s report and the first group that we have up

9:54 is our Special Education Parent Advisory Council presentation. Meghan, do you want to say a few words and say the liaison? I’m not prepared to say a few words, but I will. So yeah, I’ve been liaison with CPAC. You know, I’ve been working with them all year. They’ve recently, I think I mentioned, did a parent survey to get feedback from parents, which was, you know, they had great response to that survey. So I’m assuming that they’re going to talk about some of those survey results tonight. But really, I think they came to speak for themselves. So welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having us. I’m Meryl Schell, one of the co-chairs. Jennifer Jackson, the other co-chair. And I don’t know if you guys can hear us back there. We’ll try to talk as loudly as we can. Okay. So after we’ve been through so much as a school district and countrywide with everything that was going on in the last couple of years, we decided to take a deep breath and figure out what parents really want to do now. And we wanted to hear directly from them. So what we did is we created a survey. And I want to give credit, while it’s on my mind, to Jeff Levin, who’s our secretary, because he was the architect of the survey. And because we had such phenomenal response, which we’re really happy about, he had to transcribe a lot of the data by hand and then put it into an Excel spreadsheet for us. So thank you to Jeff Levin. We also want to say thanks to Paula Donnelly, because Dr. Donnelly actually disseminated the survey for us to the entire community by her and e-mail blast.

11:27 So the purpose was to really figure out what people wanted. And some of the interesting data that happened, which we’re going to share top line, we’re not going to take the whole evening, was that across all of the schools in our district, the results were virtually the same, not only in terms of what they wanted to hear more about, but in terms of the response level. Village Mandy was a little bit higher. Thirty-two percent of the survey respondents were from Village, but across all the others it was pretty even. It was like in the 20s. So we were very gratified that so many parents were interested, no matter what grade, no matter what school their kids were in, they wanted to participate and they wanted to be heard. So without getting into too many of the details, what we’d like to share tonight were the top four areas where they really wanted to learn more. And I just want to say that we had given them some suggestions, things to just prompt their thinking, but we always left a space for other. And we got a lot of other, which was a good thing. People have a lot in their minds. So I’m going to just read them to you. We’re not going to unpack them tonight. First and foremost was anxiety. That’s still very high. What does anxiety mean? When we looked underneath the numbers, it could mean anything from mental depression to wellness. There was a lot of focus on high school kids. Parents wanted to know about social-emotional wellness at the high school level. So we have a lot of digging to do to find out what that actually means, but it was still number one on this particular survey. The second one was social skills in general. And we really wanted, that was interesting, right?

13:00 And we want to really get to the bottom of what do people mean by that and which grades. We have a lot of ability to cross-tab, but we have to have to do that. So we’re waiting, you know, we still have to do that. But we can get to the bottom of that. What do people mean by that? And does it affect more some grades versus others? We don’t know that yet. Third on the list was executive function. That’s always a problem. And again, we would like to find out a little bit more about which grades, which schools, what are the areas of problem, and we’re going to tell you how we’re going to try to get at that too. And then the last one was ADHD. And interestingly enough, there were a lot of people who wanted to know about ADHD with regard to girls because the manifestation is usually different, and that’s the first time we’ve ever really seen that. So we’re going to explore that further. Of course, you would expect some of the usual suspects to come up, which they did. People still want to know about the IEP process and understand it more and get to the underpinnings of it more. When we ask people, are you interested in Marblehead CPAC offering education, let me read it from, put my glasses on, educational forums. Yes, they all want to come to events. 65%, whether they’re webinars or whether they’re in-person events. And secondly, they were looking to us as a conduit, which is really what we’re supposed to be. I’m going to read it directly, an avenue to bring concerns to the school administration. So that ranks second.

14:31 So that’s what we’re supposed to be doing, and that’s what we’re hoping that the survey will attempt to do to some degree. One of the other things that came up very strongly, we asked them, how do you prefer to obtain information and updates about Marblehead CPAC? And the number one thing was email advance notification. They want to be told before. And because they wanted to be told before, a lot of them shared contact information with us. We had 114 respondents, which is a really good number, which made SurveyMonkey say pony up because otherwise we’re not going to keep giving you data for free. So that was a good thing. But more than half of that 114 shared their contact information with us. As a result of that, we have formed yet another committee. We have a subcommittee now that is strictly going to be devoted to making sure that we deliver on the promises that we made to them through this survey. They will get advance notification. The first one has gone out, and Jen’s going to talk about that because we have a bunch of meetings coming up. And we’re also going to have a meeting. We don’t know when. We have a board meeting coming up this month because we also want to have these people come and talk to us in person. We would like to hold an event and say come and hear the results of the survey and let’s discuss. We want to hear what do you mean by anxiety? Where are your issues? We want to start unpacking the information we have in top line format here. And we’re hoping we’re going to get a good response. We think that we will.

16:02 And that will help us to lay our plans as we go forward, not just for the end of this year, which is pretty much getting filled up, but for next year because we really want to take our time and we want to do it right. And we want to foster the relationships that these people indicate they want to have with us. So we’re very gratified and happy to share that with you this evening. And we will be posting this at some point on our website, but we want to have the first meeting with parents first and see what kind of response we get from them and see what else we can learn. So I’d like to turn it over to Jen because she has a few updates that have nothing to do with the survey. We’re taking advantage of this opportunity. Well, I just want to say that anyone is welcome to our CPAC meeting. We have a meeting with the district every month. It’s the first Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. Those meetings are posted on the town website because they’re open public meetings. And then our board meetings are always the third Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. And again, everyone is welcome to come to those. And then we also have a standing meeting with Paula every third Wednesday of the month at noon where it’s just a listening session where parents can come and bring whatever questions they have to Paula. And she’s been very open and forthcoming in answering those questions. So that’s been a great forum for parents as well. So just want to put the word out on our sort of standing meetings that we have every month. And then also this month we have Paula is going to talk to

17:33 parents about the IEP process. So IEP is 101, unpacking a complex process. So that will be next Wednesday, March 9th at 7 p.m. And that will be all these meetings are on Zoom. And then we have at the end of the month a speaker coming, Ashley Harris-Waley, who will talk about ableism. That’s on March 30th at 7 p.m. And I think I covered, that’s all. So we have a lot coming up. And then the last exciting thing is we are planning to do the Unsung Heroes again this year. Unfortunately, we’re not going to do it in person again this year because it’s, all these mandates have been lifted too close to when we could actually plan an in-person event for the end of the year. So we will do a similar style to last year where we’ll open up the nominations in April for the month for parents to nominate people in the district for an Unsung Hero. And we will still publish the book and print the certificates and honor those folks. So just want to, that’s coming. So they’re coming soon. Wonderful. So I think that’s it. I think that’s it. Thank you again for inviting us. Thank you. And I think just to kind of highlight what they’ve mentioned is the accessibility now for both the CPAC board and also Paula. Paula I think has been great with having those, you know, hosting those monthly meetings. And I think they’ve been really beneficial.

19:04 You know, I try to listen in to them and parents ask really good questions. And I think, you know, honest, like they said, honest conversation with parents. So I definitely recommend that if you have a question, you know, log on those Wednesday lunchtime sessions because I think they’re very useful for parents. Thank you for organizing. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Dan, would you like to join us and go through the proposed program of studies? Sarah, can I ask, is there some type of screen that you guys see presentations on? I’m going to put it up right now. No, I can see it in the screen. I don’t know if it comes through. You should have came up on the screen, but for a little while, could you hear me?

20:35 You can see it. Okay, great. Thank you. And we have to wish the hockey team good luck. They’re playing right now versus Whitman-Hanson. And the girls were plugged for them. They play Friday night at Arlington. So, and the scholarship took fifth in the state and the high jump at sixth was two inches. So, yeah, it’s hard to imagine somebody jumping that high. But anyway, thank you for having me here tonight. And I appreciate the updates. A lot happened at the high school, and I’m very excited to present our program of studies. But I do want to mention in terms of the schedule update, as it said, being tabled for tonight, that allows us time to work with our students and families to create informational listening sessions. And as we said, we’ll report back in two weeks, the findings on that piece. But we do need to continue the scheduling process in terms of gathering data for recommendations, elective selections, and the course review process. So that piece can run independently as we work on this. So thank you for that piece. So in terms of the program of studies, as we know, it’s a collaborative effort. It’s a living document. It’s one that is, so it’s a large body of work that includes not only courses that are offered,

22:09 but a lot of our operating procedures in terms of the academic side. So I have to thank our leads, our departmental members, school counseling, student adjustment, our assistance team, and our administrative team for all their feedback and time. It’s a lot of work, but it’s a great exercise for us because we’ve reviewed not only any errors in there or any changes, but any substantive changes that we bring here for a report to the school committee. So I have to thank all those involved. A number of meetings that we’ve had, and we feel good about where we are at this point, too, because it’s always an evolution working for the best interest of all of our students to make sure that we improve our offerings to provide the best educational opportunities for our students. So as we go into the first two pieces, there are two items that are tabled. The AP European History will run next year, and largely there was a communication piece that I’ll own on that as we were working through in terms of timing. That allows us the year to review other elective AP options for grade 10. Secondly, the 35 credits per year, we’re tabling that as well because that does connect with the schedule, okay? And we’ll report back on that piece. So for the meat of the presentation, one item that is in here in terms of our program we offer is our Essex Tech After Dark program. We actually started that last year. We had late approval that came after the program of studies. We have four students actually go through the program,

23:40 and it’s been wonderful. Our students will take courses here in their core classes until 11 o’clock, transported to Essex Tech, where they receive everything from automotive, technology, construction, health, sustainable horticulture. They have advanced manufacturing, which piques our interest for going back to visit. It’s just an outstanding opportunity for our students, and we have a great partnership with Essex Tech. Our school counseling department and our administrative team have already put forth the presentations for this year’s applicants. We have 16. Actually, check that 17. And they’ve changed a little bit Essex Tech for their procedure for this. We’ll now include an interview, and I believe they’re planning on being here March 16th to interview our students, which is an awesome opportunity for them. So we’re looking forward to continued partnership with Essex Tech. It’s been a wonderful opportunity. Next is the advanced manufacturing pathway that we discussed earlier in the year in terms of receiving the grant that allows us to plan for this. And we’re still in the developmental phase, and quite frankly, to sum this up, it’s an opportunity to align courses that will allow students to leverage advanced manufacturing in their senior year, whether it be an internship or project, but also provides credentials that they could go out into the labor force and be highly successful. We have courses already in the pipeline, and we’re working with our committee to streamline courses for down the road. But it also affords an opportunity for our students to be in a cohort where they also have an opportunity to work

25:13 to not only gain exposure to advanced manufacturing opportunities, but also the real world. And I think that piece of cause and career readiness is really important. We’re very excited about this. There are a number of pathways offered by the state. We’re starting small with advanced manufacturing. But it’s more than just coming out with the credentials. It’s the whole process in working with students, providing another safety net to work together, and really reaching out to those and showing rigor and relevancy within our curriculum. So we’re very excited about that. So stay tuned. We’ll provide more updates as this evolves. Next, for our RTI, which is Response to Intervention, we currently offer an RTI program in math, which runs during our study halls, and that’s manned by our math department. And that provides assistance and strategies and interventions directly with the math teacher for all students. We are going to add and upgrade additional RTI coverage for English and for science. We have not offered that. So we’ll be able to provide that two or three interventions. And we’ve run as a semester, pass-fail. And that way it allows students with their gaps in any area of science, English and math, they can work toward that in the semester and then move back, move on, or continue for another semester’s worth if necessary. This is highly successful, and we’re looking forward to the expansion of this. We’re looking to add a college and career block

26:44 because we’ve heard loudly from our students, as well as our school counseling department, that there’s so much that goes into the college and career planning process. And if you note, their suite has been totally changed, where now we have an opportunity to work in small group settings that can be informational-based or allow students to work in small groups or whatever it will take to help navigate that college and career process. So we’re looking forward to that as well. Moving on to some direct programming within our applied arts, our woodworking two-course. And really, this is a small tweak, but I thought it’s worth noting for the committee that making more connections in our woodworking to advanced manufacturing. So we recently purchased the CNC machine, which actually came out of proceeds from the tiny house. There was money left from years ago, and I’m very proud of Mr. Taylor and Ms. Landrigan for putting that together and pushing this through. So the CNC machine is now operational and can be used to design anything you can imagine. And that actually has connections with CAD, which also can streamline into advanced manufacturing. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention, and we’re very proud of that addition of technology. Next up, our mindfulness and chess electives. We’re going to move those to our magic block as activities. They’ve been very successful. As you know, the chess class is a great opportunity to take a break. We do have some great games that take place. I haven’t joined in one yet, but I’m looking to reactivate my chess knowledge.

28:15 In mindfulness, actually, ironically, in today’s SAC meeting, a few of the students asked about a mindfulness room, which is actually behind you and down the hall. By moving this into a magic block scenario, it allows for more access for more students. So it’s not in as a class, per se. So students can access either one more frequently or as needed or as desired. And we’re very excited about having opportunities like that move into those realms, because it does open up other opportunities for students to take elective courses, but still keeps those alive, because mindfulness is so important. And I can see that room being full every magic block, and the chess is well. Next, moving on to English electives, there are a number of electives that are being added. Our English department has been working to look at the programming in ways that they can certainly add more options for our students, provide, obviously, the rigor and relevancy that’s required, as we feel very strongly our students are well-prepared when they leave here for writing and critical thinking. And as they’re going through, they want to offer the electives and have a wide net that they will be open for all grades 9 through 12 and create an honors and CP option within there to attract more students. That helps for the scheduling purposes. So there are a number of them listed, and I won’t read each of the descriptions, but they’ve come together collaboratively. They actually had a list of 28. They were going to propose.

29:47 So they’ve whittled this down, but again, it’s an ongoing work because currently we offer, as you know, film studies and creative writing that have been there. So this will all go as the scheduling process is for student demand. Students choose and select if there’s demand to run the courses, we will run them. So everything from African-American literature, 20th century, best-selling fiction, which I thought was kind of an interesting one to attract, and that actually connects to our summer reading program to some degree. Drama is literature, dystopian literature, which I should probably take that one. I think that would be interesting for me. Nature writing, the reading zone, and actually the reading zone was kind of started as an activity in the magic block that is being parlayed into an elective class. Which again, I think the last sentence in that is important, a great way for students to decompress, slow down, and read. And then writing to win, as you may note, Jen Billings has done a great job in her English classes offering up the New York Times and competitions for various essays, and our students have done very well outstanding. So that’s an outstanding opportunity for an elective. So that’s the English elective offerings. Special education, it’s important to note that the curriculum support has shifted as we know, it was approved last year. But the description, we’ve done more work to show what the course is actually about.

31:17 So, Jillian Bradbury along with Leah Feldman and the special education department and supervision with Paula Donnelly have worked on just providing more narrative in terms of what the course offers. Including the SEL piece, which is wide and encompassing executive functioning, study skills, vocational and transitional planning, and section it up into great appropriate instruction and bringing it to life, which is important. They’re preparing for life after high school. We’re eliminating that course, but honestly it hasn’t run in several years. However, as we’re introducing the MyCAP program, which is the college planning and career and college planning for our students, and the innovative pathways, we feel that there will be more career, college and career readiness opportunities for all students. So that course hasn’t run and we’re just taking out of the program studies for cleaning it up. In our Latin programming, we’re very fortunate that we have a new teacher involved. He’s hit the ground running, Mr. Judkins, and we’ve looked for ways where we offer many sections and it’s difficult to manage with one teacher in terms of the levels. So we’re looking to streamline the sections into honors level offerings and we worked really hard with the previous teacher as well as our lead teacher of world languages and our admin team and Christine Tchaikovsky to review ways we can do this. And with a mindset for students that they’re not going to be left behind, we’ll make sure we make that work so it’ll broaden out for students that might be at the college prep level so they’re not going to be left behind next year to continue Latin.

32:52 We want the Latin program to continue to be strong and work in the right direction. So that is it for the program of studies for 2022-23. Hi, Dan. Thank you for that presentation. Hi, Sarah. So I do have a couple of questions. One of them is I just wanted to know more about the magic clock, but some of that I’m happy for you to kind of fill me in offline if you want. It’s more, I mean, that’s less of our purview of what happens during that. I’m just curious. I don’t really quite understand what happens during that time period, so I would love to hear more about that. So, in the reading zone, is there a discussion component or is it pretty independent? As far as I understand, working with Tom Higgins, our lead, there are components. I don’t know the discussions will be deep and lengthy, but there are pieces that will bring the literature together. Okay. Now, the 35 credits per year, I know you’re going to be tabling that, but as we move through this process, I think that concurrently the school community should be looking at us.

34:24 And our policies, because I know that the graduation requirements are a policy that we have, and we’re going to want to look at, I would think, how the change in the credit per year requirement would augment in some way possibly that graduation requirement credits. So I would think it would have to have an impact on it. We’re going to want to be looking at our policies and how we need to maybe tweak some things so that the two are working together. And then there have been a change to the lab block. I went back this year and through the program studies last year. I didn’t see a change, but what I’m hearing a little bit is that the labs aren’t being run the way they were previously. We, like, before we augmented it for the hybrid learning. So is that something that is included in this or no? No, it’s not included. It’s not included in that. And I’m happy to. If you have further questions, I can go. I certainly would like to address a couple of if that’s OK with the committee. I say I have to look over to the side. You’re on the side over there. I know it’s bizarre. I know what you look like. But we’re talking about Finn. I hope I look thin. Trying. So I’ll start in the order of the magic block Sarah.

35:54 I’ll give a quick thumbnail sketch and I’m happy to continue with that. But it was designed as a way to revamp our advisory program. So the origins of the magic block actually come from Winchester High School. So we have we had a committee that reviewed our advisory program. They studied other schools and they looked for schools that offered an opportunity to make adult connections with those in the building, because that’s critical, but also an opportunity to allow students to decompress if they need, but also to be able to access faculty members throughout that block. So we actually brought that in this year as a pilot and we’re running this every Wednesday. It is a 50 minute block which requires us to reduce the course, the time of each course on that Wednesday by nine minutes to make it work. I’m happy to report out on that too, because we’ve done some surveys. We have a student survey coming up. But my estimation has been very successful because it’s allowed enormous access to teachers at the same time when we have very scheduled students that struggle after school sometimes to make those connections or before school. And I can talk more about that in the next meeting, but we’re very happy with how that’s worked. We have a whole program called MyFlex Learning, which allows students to select where they would like to go for that. Currently with this pilot though, we’ve used it for some assemblies. For example, this past Wednesday, our school counseling department had the seniors in for half the block to talk about scholarship opportunities. So that did not take away from any class time.

37:26 And we’ve worked with our seniors for other items and other class meetings, but it’s been very successful. We call it magic block, frankly, because we’re the magicians. There’s no mystery in that piece. So that part of it’s important in terms of the graduation requirements. And I can talk more at the next meeting on that. But our committee that reviewed has reviewed the schedule. Also part of our purview was to review graduation requirements as such and understanding that we have to be very mindful of any change that would go into a graduation requirement. Obviously, we’d need school committee approval based on the policy. But more importantly, mindful that our our findings were that our requirements are quite high versus the competitive schools in terms of the four year requirements for math, science, English, social studies and are in the typical two year requirement in the same language for world languages. The PE requirement for each year, each semester, as well as we have a one year fine arts requirement that leaves us from cushion for voice and choice. So I’m happy to talk more in detail in the next time on that. And then you asked me the last question, Sarah. I was all fired up and I forgot what the last question was. But I missed that. I said labs because I know that a way when we went hybrid, it was too much to manage. I didn’t know if that was that or if that was part of this change in program of studies. No, that’s it. And as is that allowed us to balance the schedule during that time. And we’ve worked with our science department to ensure that they’re able to provide lab opportunities.

39:05 Magic black, Dan, to the kids know where they’re going. The students have in the science spot during that time that they go. It’s not that during that period, they choose where they need help and they just go. They choose that choice and go. So good question. So by Tuesday afternoon, I’m supposed to make an announcement at two twenty five that reminds students to sign up for the magic block. Miss Donaldson also has an email that goes out. So they’re signed up. So then she steps back. She’s working with Alicia Dolan, the two advisors, to make sure that every student has signed up. If a student hasn’t signed up, they work to ensure the student gets into a place so they all have a place to go. It does interface with Aspen. Some of the bumps are just learning that piece and working with that. If we have a large group that will be out of that block, for example, if we have an assembly, we can actually put the block on that. So students will go to the auditorium so they won’t be able to sign up for that. And that’s worked quite frankly with the MyFlex Learning, that program. Steve Kwiatek is here. He assisted with that to get this up and going. That really has made the difference. So students have the ability to sign up to where they want to go. And also teachers have the ability to change what they’d like to offer each week. And that that’s really helped us throughout the course of the magic block, because there are some teachers that offer activities, but they may shift gears. They get toward a larger summit of assessment where they want to use that time to review with their students. So I’ve seen that happen in the different subjects. And sometimes they may just want to break or can change activities as well.

40:36 So some some of our teachers have taken advantage of that. And I think the feedback from the staff has been very supportive. They enjoy it. And the feedback I’ve had from the students, they’re getting a lot out of being able to access. And I’m looking to leverage that more to make sure students have the opportunity to work with our staff. And as at the same time, the management piece has been good. I park myself in the cafeteria. I had a sign up to meet with Mr. Bauer and none of my students showed up the last three weeks. But I’m down there. I’m watching. And I see a few of the kids move around, but generally speaking, they’re doing a nice job with it. And we’re looking to make more improvements. I’m going to look over there now. I can’t believe no one’s signing up for that block, Dan. Well, I don’t know if I’ve advertised it well, but I was down there with all my friends. Nobody had my yogurt and did some paperwork.

41:37 The high school currently, I think it he seems to think that it runs really well and he appreciates the time and the flexibility from everything that I’ve heard. So yeah, I think that the big thing is hearing it from the students and really seeing the work and some of our teachers who I thought were might be a little reluctant seem to be jumping into it as well. So I think they’re dipping their toe more as we move into the spring. So it will be interesting to kind of hear what those survey results are. So absolutely. And I could certainly provide a listing. We have a weekly listing of the activities. And today in the S.D. Lindsey Donaldson talked about how actually there are more students and activities than actually quiet studies, because you can’t opt to be in a quiet study with your teacher. And that that’s also a positive because you have that adult connection. I just want to make one more plug, if possible. We had a meeting this morning with Gina Hart, who’s done our our YRBS or Youth Risk Behavior Survey work. And one of the items that stuck out to me as she presented to our faculty and then this morning’s meeting is that 64 percent of our students back in October said they have an adult connection to the building. And I was a little sad by that. You know, it’s a little higher than the state average, but I thought it would be much higher. And I’m hoping if we did that again, that question would be higher today because of the magic block. And I’m hoping that the work we’re doing, magic block will increase that connectivity with our students and staff, because that that really is key, I think, for SEL. But more importantly, for positive school culture.

43:08 Just in terms of the program of studies, I mean, I appreciate all the work you and your staff have done. And I think there’s especially with the English electives, some really great electives out there, you know, some really interesting ones to kind of, you know, offer that opportunity for students. So, you know, I’d like to take some of them, too. I don’t know about the dystopia. I definitely do not. The nature. No, I think there’s some really good opportunities. So I appreciate that. It’s nice. And it’s nice to see that our English department is they’re working together. I’d love to see that collaboration and the fact that they’re excited and looking to bring that to our students. I think it is a very positive thing. Absolutely. Thank you. The pathways. I forget what it was called. The whole thing. Advanced manufacturing. Yeah. Has that started? Has not started, though. It’s still in the planning phases. So when do you think that I’ll I mean, just sound so cool. We’re a little bit behind, but we’re working. Our contact at Dessie’s been outstanding and is really working with us. And Scott Solberg has been outstanding connection as well. I’m sure he’ll be giving me a call soon to make sure that I picked up the pace here. But we actually had a visit scheduled at Uxbridge High School that has extensive pathways. They really they really have done a great job. That was canceled because right. But we’re looking to have it set up so that we can launch next year in unison with the my cap. And I think that’s next year. It may not be a large cohort, but we can add as well.

44:39 And so if that one’s successful, we’ll look at adding other ones. Yes. Great. That’s the plan. Awesome. And it offers really advanced course opportunities. And that’s the piece where it allows students to stretch that might not necessarily stretch and see the relevancy in school as well. And our high level students can really jump and run with this too. Well, if it’s something that you’re interested in and have access to classes that might not be normal, I think it’s great to lead you out to because they’re saying they want more people to be in like hands on work. So if this is a way to get more kids engaged in that, that’s great.

45:21 All right, Dan, I just wanted to say thanks to around that AP Euro class. You know, you and I had a pretty extensive conversation before the last school committee meeting when you decided that it would be best to table it. And I appreciate that you really took that feedback and are continuing to take it and dig in and figure out how each class can best to each child in the school and bringing in other offerings and just sort of how we move things along and move things forward. I appreciate you saying that. And I’m very proud of our social studies department. I have to give them a plug because this has been a discussion for a while. They’re looking for ways to improve the programming, never at the expense of harming anything and setting anybody back. And we are also open minded to know that we need to do what’s right for everybody. And, you know, our research has shown that we have a lot of landing spots for our sophomores as is and also overall offerings. But we’re always looking to improve. So I’ll have more updates later. Great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Dan. I did one quick question. I don’t know if it would be for Dan, Nan or John, but do we, I thought I read in the presentation when I prepped for last week’s meeting for the AP Euro. Do we require all our AP students to take the AP exam and that subject? Yes, we do. Do we pay for that as a district, the fee to take the exam? No, we do not. There is a public school.

46:52 How can we require something we don’t pay for? I do know that we do have an opportunity for those for free and reduced opportunities as well, but that’s that’s been our policy. Yeah. No, I don’t I don’t disagree at all about the requiring them to do it. What I want to make sure is as we move through particularly around this budgeting process, if we are requiring something in public education, we need to fund it fully. So I just want to make sure that we’re allocating those funds for that because I really I think that I have a fundamental opposition to requiring something in public education, not paying for it. But I do think legally if we require it, we have to pay for it too. Thank you. All right. I got to look forward to starting one. All right. Thank you very much, Dan. Great. Thank you so much. Have a nice evening, Stan. You too. All right, John, I’ll turn it over to you for some district updates. Well, the first update is the FY 23 budget update. Is there a document that went with this? Yeah, the documents are in the folder. There isn’t much that has changed in the needs based budget that we presented the last time. I think the budget process this year has been different in that the former town manager accelerated the process. And so we got to a point in the budget in December, January, that we might have normally been at this time of year.

48:25 And then there has been a transition in town. And so getting the new town administrator up to speed, Michelle has had an opportunity to meet with him. I’ve had an opportunity to meet with him. We have had some conversations around, like the special education tuition, part of the budget. I think Michelle and I would agree we would prefer that that not be in the operating budget. And I think there’s some receptivity in our initial conversations that that could be an area where that’s funded through the reserve.

49:04 We’ve vetted the budget with the leadership team. I sat down with each of the principals again today to ensure what we have put forward captures the needs for their schools. And they have confirmed that what we have put forward does indeed do that. I think the budget lays a foundation for future budgets. It’s aligned to our planning for success. We’ve had some good conversations around the capital budget as well. But I’ve had some conversations with the superintendent in Norwood, whose community just went for a successful override. I’m having a conversation tomorrow with the Shrewsbury superintendent, whose community just went for a successful override. And so we have an upcoming budget subcommittee meeting Thursday, next week, the 10th. We’ve tentatively scheduled the FinCom budget presentation for the 28th and the public budget hearing for the 31st. I guess my question to the committee is, is there anything in this budget that is not reflected or are there any areas of the budget that you have further questions about? And then I will put out to the committee too, and we can talk about all of this, that just the budget public hearing on the 31st, that would be an additional meeting for us.

50:36 And so just to approve that and make sure that that works for everybody. Who wants to start off? I will. You know, I appreciate the work that continues to be done on this. And from my perspective, I think, you know, this continues to move forward from the seat that I sit in. You know, I think we have done some really excellent work over the past three years in digging into the financial situation that we had found ourselves in. Really understanding things, really cleaning up our lines and making sure that the correct things that were taken out of those lines are going into those lines. And that they reflect the real meat of the budget accurately. You know, I am incredibly appreciative of our administrators and the hard work that they’ve put in on this and really digging down and figuring out what we need in this district to provide an exemplary education. And I appreciate, John, that you know, that directive from the get-go in this budget season. You know, we’ve been saying this is coming for a long time at this point. And I’m really pleased that we’re at this point.

52:07 It, you know, there’s been a lot of hard work over many years with a lot of people. And I’m, you know, I stand behind this budget. Anyone else have any questions? Just one quick clarifying question. Are we all set on the stipend adjustments? Have we reached an agreement with the teacher? We’re still working on that. No, but we’re in a good place. We’ve been meeting weekly. Okay. This afternoon, athletics is putting together a kind of final presentation and other stipended positions like team leaders, clubs, and activities. They’re going to present those next Thursday. And so we’re keeping that placeholder, the $65,000 in mind as we look at those stipend adjustments. Okay, good. And we think that that number is still a good number to beat. And Charlotte and I are out for this type of stipends. Okay, good. Thank you. Sarah. It’s a little weird because I can’t see you guys right now. And Sarah, if you want to reference a different document, I have up the budget tracking sheet right now because I feel like that’s the best sort of overview. No, I have some documents. I have the documents in front of me too, so that’s okay. It’s more like, it’s fair talking to you guys, but I can’t see you. So I, first of all, I want to say I fully support the idea of going for an override.

53:37 I think it’s been abundantly clear for quite some time now that we needed more funding to really do what needed to be done. And so for that reason, I fully support going for an override. I do think we have some more work to do on this one, but I also recognize we have time to get that work done. There’s some things that I think, to be an exemplary school system, we still need to tweak. I had a great conversation with John and Michelle yesterday. I think they’re, I explained my thoughts on that. So I just want to say, I think we have the time and we have a little bit more work to do, but that, overall, I support going for an override. So Sarah, can you just clarify on what tweaks we think we need to make just so we’re all up to speed? Yeah, no, I think, for one thing, we’re hearing things like, what I just said about the AP classes, that’s a small, smallest number, but I feel like where that provides equity, that’s one of our goals. That’s really important to include in bed in a budget. I talked about a grant writer. I still feel very strongly about the curriculum directors.

55:08 I think it would be really, really important to have those people, those specialists on hand, to design those curriculums and to choose those curriculums. And then I asked John for some more information on the DEI position, some data to drive that, what districts are doing it, what the scope of that job looks like, what if there’s some data that’s come out of that, about what has been able to be achieved through that, and just what districts are doing it, and just more data on that. He actually was able to say he’s talked to some districts, there’s, I guess, five districts that he’s in touch with various superintendents of, that work as a consortium where those five pay into one DEI director position, knowing that Marblehead is a small to medium district. I think that if those five are having success with the idea of having one director to cover those five districts, that we may want to look at buying into a consortium to do that. The argument was made, we don’t need, that we need to put off curriculum directors until we know what curriculum it is they’re doing. So I feel like if we’re using that argument, having a $125,000 DEI director without really having ground work of what district has one of these

56:43 as a sole person just for their district, and how does that work. I just think we need more data to drive that point, and I also want to explore the idea of these districts that had done it as a consortium as well.

57:01 I mean, I think on the grant writer piece, and I think, you know, I spoke to John and Michelle about that because you did bring it up in our last meeting, and I think that’s one that can probably self-fund itself. So we could probably, you know, I think it’s definitely worth looking into that because it can help us with our… The first year it usually doesn’t because they write for the grants for the following year, so we would need to embed that this year. And then hopefully, you know, the grants come in to fund for the following year, but, you know, we would need to start paying that person right away when their grants, you know, come downstream a little bit. So we would need to embed that. I’m agreeing with your point to add it, though. So, then the curriculum director, I mean, that one, again, I’m not going to argue with John and Michelle and our administrators on this, but I think my understanding is that there is a plan for how we move forward with that both next year and the following years. So that piece, you know, again, I’m not disagreeing with it. I’m just saying that I support our administrators in terms of how they want to move forward with it and how they want to fund it. The AP class thing, I think we should absolutely look at that. So let’s, you know, see what, you know, let’s price that out and see what the numbers look like. That’s the new one. And the DEI one, I am going to push back a little bit on that. You know, and again, it’s open for conversation, but I think, you know, the reason why I recommended it is because it’s been such a push from our community and from our staff. When we did the planning for success there, which you were a part of, that came out as one of, you know, it’s one of our themes because the community,

58:36 both our students, our staff, our parents, community at large, all recognize that that’s an area that we want to focus on. And we can’t create a curriculum without having someone who’s got the expertise and the experience to help us do that. We don’t have that expertise or bandwidth within our district right now. So that’s a priority from the community. That’s part of our planning for success. And I just don’t see how we deliver on that initiative over the next five years without having someone to help us leave that. There’s clearly a lot of work that we need to do in this district. There’s been a number of examples there. So again, that’s just my perspective on it. I’m open to the conversation. Well, I think one of the ways that I, particularly speaking to the curriculum directors, but I’m wondering if it doesn’t relate to the DEI director position, is that the curriculum directors, it isn’t that we have to do it one way or the other. It can go top down or bottom up. And right now we’re working bottom up. And so I think, Nan, you had said you would like for those teachers who have been working on it, our leads to really see it come to fruition and then the directors to come in to really manage it and move everything forward and make sure that it stays in a position that it needs to be in. My assumption would be that if we had a bunch of people We have a lot of DEI work that really had strong roots like this as well, that the DEI position could function in a similar way.

1:00:10 We’re sort of at the starting stages of a lot of this DEI work. And again, I would love to hear, and I don’t want to put you on the spot today, so you know what I’m saying, so this is today. But in subsequent conversations around the budget and around that DEI position, I think Sarah checking in the consortium is an interesting thing. I always get a little antsy with things like that. I mean, even the sharing with the town can sort of just make sure that we’ve got enough, that this person has enough time with us. And what is the best way forward with this? Is it going to be this top-down where we put somebody in to really get things going? Or there’s obviously been good work that has started, you know, do we go, again, sort of similarly to the curriculum directors and go bottom up? Emily has her hand up, and then I can follow up. Yeah, I’ll probably say some of what Nan might say. So with the DEI director and the curriculum, I think those are two separate things. The DEI work that we’re doing, we’ve been doing for two years, and we are at a point where we have this amazing team, or yeah, a DEI team that’s worked. We meet, and we are, I don’t do as much as everybody else, but we are out there working with teachers on PD. We have, it’s been scheduled for the entire year.

1:01:41 And my thing is that we are volunteering and our teachers and Nan and the principals, everyone who is on that committee is volunteering time outside of their workday to do this stuff that we need so badly that we have taken our time to do this because we’re free, we have such passion, but we need help. And we need someone who can take over some of the things that we just can’t get to and help respond to the incidents that happen instead of all that relying on Nan or John, and all organizing everything and organizing all these events and everything that we’re doing. It’s wonderful that we have such passionate people, but we can’t do it without much more help. And someone who is dedicated to just that need of helping this district come over or get over a lot of things that we need work on. And so I feel strongly that we need this, we need it now, and to come in and to support us in what we’ve been working so hard to do and just get those things that could be better than what we’re doing to get that exemplary education to our children. We owe it to them because of obviously what we’re lacking. Have we seen what the scope of the job would be? I mean, do we have any data? I know that we all like the idea of this, but have we seen, it’s a lot easier when we add a HR director.

1:03:13 We all know what an HR director has done with the scope of their job is. I’m just wondering, have we seen a data point to see what the scope of the position is going to be, what the qualifications are going to be, what, how much work they’ll do through student services versus their direct curriculum. Have we seen any data on this? So we have Sarah, and I was going to follow up on Emily’s point about the staff, this team doing so much work and professionally developing the staff and doing a lot of that work. This position would make the work come alive during the academic day when all of the rest of us are doing our regular duties. So there would be a more student-facing component. So in terms of the data that you’re talking about, Sarah, John and I have been reviewing job descriptions. So I go on school spring every once in a while, and I’ll do a search for DEI coordinators, and I’ll print all of their job descriptions. I found one today, as a matter of fact, that’s called Social Justice and Community Connections Coordinator. So it can be kind of a, as we talk as leaders and as a school community, we can create the position to fit what we would like it to be and address the different populations within our community, adult and student.

1:04:45 And some of the job descriptions actually have percentages of time when it’s student-facing and adult-facing. And the student part is 60% facilitating the work and then a certain percentage of time in classrooms doing the work, shoulder to shoulder with teachers. And so I think that would be a direction that if I were to write a job description for Marblehead, I think teachers would be appreciative of a position like that that can come in and help facilitate different conversations or help kids understand complex concepts related to different issues as they, as developmentally appropriate. So there’s been a lot of conversation. We’ve started the conversation as our DEI team. Next Tuesday we meet as a DEI team, and I’ve put it on the agenda to kind of talk about if this budget goes through and we are lucky enough to get this position, what does the team think that position should look like? And how would that team write a job description and what would be the title? It doesn’t have to be a DEI director. It can be all kinds of things. There can be SEL-related components and all kinds of inclusive practices embedded into what we make that position become. Thanks.

1:06:16 And to continue on, one of the things I want to make sure to, another thing we kept hearing about, planning for success, and I’ve just heard about for years and years, is people really, you know, students, teachers, parents, really I think want more of a co-towat model as much as we can provide that. That I think is really going to provide as much inclusion as possible. And I’d like to know how this budget really allows for an increase of availability to the co-towat model. I’m happy to have Dr. Vannely come to our next meeting and talk about the conversations that she’s had with the special education chairs and… Okay, great. Okay. And this one, I’m not, I should have remembered yesterday and I apologize, I did not. So I’m not putting anyone on the spot for the answer, but I want to make sure we’re looking at the, when we look at the kindergarten tuition, I think we allocated 350 for that. But the last several years, what we’ve carried in our budget as a revenue driver from that was either 425 or 450. So I just want to make sure that we’re allocating for that delta. Michelle?

1:07:39 Okay, we answered that for me before. I knew that I, okay, perfect. I apologize for not retaining that answer, Michelle. Well, I think Sarah, to your point too, you know, and I’ve said this and I’ll say it again, you know, this is what we need right now that our administrators are asking for, so that they can implement. And, you know, in my conversations with John about, with his conversations with Norwood and others who have gone for overrides, you know, it’d be lovely to be able to promise that we aren’t going to be back for another five or ten or whatever many years. But, you know, I am not willing to make that promise at this point. I think we’ve been underfunded for a long time and we have made the best of it and we have, you know, we have amazing teachers and staff that have made sure that this district is highly functioning. And it’s time to start really shoring up that foundation again. And I think this budget is a great first step towards that and really, you know, allows for a lot of good ongoing work in moving us forward. And, you know, education is constantly changing. Needs are constantly changing. And so, you know, this isn’t going to be our last act. It’s just not. Anything else on budget? Did I miss it?

1:09:12 I don’t think so. Sarah, can you clarify just a second? When you say it’s not going to be our last act, I mean, we definitely know this won’t be our last act. Well, everybody has to come back periodically for overrides. But are you saying, you know, we may be back at the table next year or the following year? I mean, I would never say, you know, when we’re coming back, you know, maybe it’ll be sooner rather than later. Maybe it’ll be later. You know, I think, you know, to me, what I promised years ago was that when we can tell people what we need, we will ask for it. And I stand by those words and I always have. And that’s how I want us to move forward as well, is that as we work on budgets, when we find needs and areas that really need support, that we put them together. And if we can’t figure out the creative ways to fund them, and, you know, there’s always a lot of moving parts within these budgets that, you know, the curriculum directors I know in the conversations for next year, then we put together a comprehensive and well thought out and well planned ask to the taxpayers to support the children of this town. And so, you know, that, again, that’s what I said a few years back. It’s what I’ve said every year. And here, again, here we are this year with a really well thought out budget and with quite a few asks.

1:10:48 And I stand behind it. And next time there’s another one, if I’m still on this committee, I will stand behind that as if it’s well thought out. No, Michelle, we have the proper warrant article and wording for this, correct? We did. Okay. Sounds good. Sarah, can I just request when we have the budget hearing, you said on the 31st, can we please offer that in person definitely because, you know, thankfully that’s the way that the majority of things are moving, but also as a Zoom component, that’s a really, really important meeting. And I think that there are still some families in situations like mine. And I think it’s really important to make that event as accessible as possible. Yes, I totally agree, Sarah. And I was going to put that out there. It’s really, really hard to run a Zoom meeting at the same time as an in person meeting. So I may pull us back completely onto Zoom for that meeting, but, you know, I’ll work with Steven to see what’s best and how to run it best. But yes, absolutely. That one, you know, your point is completely taken and totally agreed with. Does the 31st work for everyone for that hearing? All right. The date. Okay. John, town report submission? Sure. I’m just going to make a note before I go into the town report. This is the first in person meeting that I’ve had because the last time I was here, I was to the…

1:12:24 seated over there interviewing. And so before I read the town report to you, I would like to offer to the administrative team the opportunity to go home. Your days start very early and this is… could be a longer meeting. And since I’m going to read the town report in this entirety to the team, I just wanted to give them the exodus. All right. Yes, you’re out. I’ve got my gavel and I’m using it. So the town report, we’re following a very similar format as we did last year, giving an in-depth look into the prior year. And so sometimes it’s awkward reading it because you’re reading about 2021 school year and you knew how complicated that year was. But it gave each school the opportunity to tell their story, each division, the opportunity to give their reflections. And so it’s a more personalized town report. And again, I’m not going to read it to you, but at least I had provided the submission in the packet for you. Thank you for not reading all 2019. I was just getting a little. Are you super-actions if you don’t mind? I just… before Richard leaves, I’m going to not give him permission to leave for two minutes. Is that all your questions? You’re on the agenda. If we can correct the term expiration, they’re not May, they’re June. That was part of that Warren article.

1:13:55 And then it’s a small thing. And then in there, it talks about the fact that we developed a strategic plan. Can we just change the wording on that for planning for success? Because I think that that’s confusing people too. Okay. Of course. I know that’s a big undertaking every year. So I appreciate all the work and I’m glad that is done for you guys through the year. You are looking at me, but you should change your days for me. So because you’re the one that’s working with all of that. And then the next thing on the agenda is the food services director position. Richard has announced that he is gleefully going into retirement and I just wanted to say I will miss Richard. He has been an exceptional food service director. And while I can’t share the conversations that we have in my office, they have been a highlight of my tenure as superintendent. So Richard has been able to share insights and perspectives like no other member of the administrative team. So I just want to wish Richard well and thank him for his service. Thanks. Richard, thank you very much. You will be very, very missed. I want to leave mine a great set. I want to leave mine as literally. Absolutely. I want to ask if you’re leaving your recipes behind. Is it also going to be available?

1:15:28 If I can just for I want to. Richard is always like held a very special place for me. I mean, he does so much for food services, but a lot of people might not know when we had programs that fell like the Harvest of the Month program, which really was a wonderful, wonderful program and it continues on right now. Richard largely was one of the reasons that that was possible. He came to that with a ton of enthusiasm and support. He was just a wonderful part of that program. And that’s how I got to know Richard. And I just went above and beyond anything he was required to do or that was part of his job description. And he was so supportive of doing that for the kids. And it made it really exciting. So I want to thank you for that. And Matthew and I are going to miss you. And Richard, I know how much you stepped up to the plate over the last two years in particular with all of the meals within COVID and for families who are really struggling and with food insecurity. And I think that is a real aspect of your legacy that you leave with the district. Thank you. And thank you. Let me assure you this is not the end of meetings to make you feel uncomfortable.

1:17:04 We’re going to have a marching band play, I think. Thank you, Richard. That’s the end of the superintendent’s report. All right. Thank you, John. All right, Michelle, would you like to come on up and go over the monthly financial report? Thank you. It’s nice and quick this month. There’s not much to tell, which is good. So as of the end of January, we had spent a total of $18,791,253 of the general fund operating budget, which represents just under 45 percent of the budget. Last year at the same point in time, we had spent 44.5 percent. So we are exactly on track of where we were last year, which is great news because we actually had a surplus last year. So hopefully we will get to that point as well. There’s just three areas that we’re continuing to watch closely. We’ve been talking about these for months. So nothing of a surprise here. Our special education or out-of-district tuition is currently projecting a deficit of $265,000. We previously were projecting a deficit of $112,000, so we’ve had some additional placements. We do think we will be able to cover that with carryover circuit breaker funds and possible we have a new potential tuition in student.

1:18:36 I’m not sure if that student will be starting this year or next year, but we just learned of that today. So that will definitely bring some revenue in as well. So at this point, we can definitely cover the deficit, no concern. The second area is our substitute line. We are using this line with great enthusiasm, which is great because it’s really making a difference in our schools. And we’ve spent $151,000 of this line or 65 percent of the budget. And typically the spring is the time of the year when we see an increased use in that line. So teachers start taking their personal days. But we certainly have had a considerable demand for substitute teachers this year with all of our COVID absences. With that being said, I do also want to mention it’s not reflected in this financial report, but just yesterday or the day before we received a reimbursement from the state in the amount of $95,113. And it’s four sick times for all of our COVID absences. So they reimbursed every employee who is out, who was able to prove to us that it was COVID related up to $850. So we received that since we pay the employees a full salary during that time, even if they’re out of sick time, we do pay them because we get the reimbursement. That will go back into our general fund. So we are putting that $95,000 into our substitute line. So I do not expect that we will run short on that line this year, even though we are running higher than projected initially.

1:20:11 And lastly is our custodian overtime account. We have continued to have some staffing issues in our custodian division, whether it’s unpaid leaves, the worker’s comp, just a variety of issues. So we are running a little bit higher than normal. So we’re at 73% of this line or total of just under $55,000. I do expect we’ll go over in this line, but due to having some unpaid leaves, we will be able to absorb that within our custodial salary budgets. So really those are the only three points that we really should be monitoring. The rest of the budget looks good. There are some lines that are in deficit. We’re still cleaning up. It’s significantly better than it has been in previous months, but we’re just tweaking where those payroll charges are and trying to get them 100% accurate. It has been a long haul to trying to get that correct, but we’re a lot closer than we have been in the past. And also attached is a COVID report, COVID expenditure report. I took off all of the funding sources that had expired last year. And so the report just contains the ESSER 1, 2, and 3 grants at this point. Really those three grants are ESSER 1 and 2 are essentially completely spoken for. We’re really working on the ESSER 3 at this point in time. Of the ESSER grants, the combined total, we have spent $657,000. We have encumbered another $113,000, and we have an additional $480,000 that is not yet committed.

1:21:43 I want to mention that we have another two and a half years to spend this ESSER 3 grant, and a lot of districts haven’t even started spending it. So I don’t think there’s any rush to go spend it. Certainly if we have a need, we should use it for its intended purpose. But I would not rush to say, okay, we need to spend that last $480,000. We really should hold on to it until we truly need it. And that’s about it for the month of January. But the ESSER report is actually through February. It’s a lot easier to do it as of just a few days ago. So those are up-to-date, accurate figures. But if there are any questions, please let me know. Any questions? Sarah? Mr. I noticed the student services line in the ESSER 3 was one of the higher lines. I think it was over $200,000. Can you – you don’t have to speak to that right now, but at some point can we just kind of speak to what that’s reflective of? Yes, it really – I could certainly give you some more detail on that, but really most of that grant is intended to provide supports for students and for groups that are at – are disadvantaged. So primarily we’re planning on using most of that. Initially we had budgeted for one year of free tuition – tuition-free kindergarten. And we’re tweaking that because we had to use it for some other IT-related costs, so –

1:23:17 but the rest of it pretty much is earmarked for anything student-related. Okay. We just – not right away, but in the next – before the next meeting, would you mind giving me like a breakdown of that? Yes, absolutely. Okay. And then how close are we to hitting our, like, threshold with the energy before it kicks back to the town? I actually haven’t looked at that specifically. I know we haven’t touched it yet. We typically hit that usually in March and sometimes early April. Yeah. So I do expect we will be dipping into that very shortly, but I will take a look at that to be sure. Okay. And then with those sub lines being one of the three categories that you’re watching closely, do you have an idea of what long-term subs via, you know, medical leaves, particularly maternity leaves, which usually predict – those are one of our medical leaves we can kind of predict a little better – may play into that, and if you feel we can still cover those? Yes, we’ll be able to – I mean, typically when someone’s on an extended leave, their leave is not 100 percent paid. So there’s usually some savings towards the end of those leaves with unpaid days. And when that happens, we actually are supposed to charge the long-term sub to the teacher’s salary line. So it’s not all encompassing of, you know, completely substitutes 100 percent.

1:24:50 But typically our spring season is also when a lot of the extended leaves happen for medical purposes because the teachers want the summer break. So if there is a possibility of planning when you have a child, typically you find that in the spring and summer months a lot of times just because of that summer break. I won’t speak to that. No experience with that whatsoever. That’s a planning part. So do we anticipate having a hard time locating those long-term subs? I don’t believe so. We’ve been able to cover all of the leaves so far. And in certain instances where we’re not able to find the long-term subs, we’ve actually been utilizing some of our more qualified tutors, which has been working out really well. And then we backfilled the tutor positions. So that has been working out. And then we had increase in the special education. We’re continuing as we go through the budget process to update that and any definites. But also, are we updating it on the likely out placements where we might not have signed the paperwork yet but we know they’re coming down the pipeline? Yes. And that was part of the reason towards the end of the initial budget process. We all of a sudden increased our out-of-district tuition costs because we knew of some more potential situations that we became aware of.

1:26:24 So we are still budgeting for those. And the figures we have right now are good. Okay. No days are unpacking at so closely. Thank you. You’re welcome. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Aro, as always. Thank you. All right. That leads us to our schedule of bills. Here. Find that. Can I get a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling $764,454.94? So… Megan moved. Second. David second. Any questions on any of those? It didn’t come up beforehand. All right. I have one or two questions but I’ll take them offline with Michelle. They’re minor. I’m prepared to vote. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks, Sarah. All right. Sarah Fox. Yes. David Harris. Yes. Sarah Gold. Yes. Megan Taylor. Yes. And Emily Barron. Yes. All right. That passes five to zero. Thanks, everyone. All right. That leads us to school communication items. I included the protocols that we had voted over the summer in. I just wanted to… It feels like it’s, you know, somewhat kind of-ish mid-year. So I figured it was a good thing to just sort of wrap back to these. And go over them and put them in the drop box or the folder and just sort of acknowledge

1:27:54 that we have all committed to these and make sure that people don’t have a problem with any of them. Do you want to read them all like Dr. Bocky did? I do not want to read them all. Is it for us now? No. So, yeah, I just want to, you know, we didn’t end up setting goals. So I think, you know, sticking to our protocols is a really great goal for us as we sort of continue to try to, you know, get everything back on track from the, you know, kind of years of upheaval. You know, COVID certainly is a perfect example of that, that, you know, things have had to sort of waver a bit. And I just want to make sure that we’re all on board and sort of maintaining these protocols as our goal. Thoughts or comments on that? I agree we should follow the protocols. But I think also, you know, now that we’re in a much smoother rhythm, I know you’ve said this for like two years now, but the weekly meetings with the superintendent, you know, especially as we’re leading up to a meeting are really important, not just, you know, to build a relationship with the superintendent, but to make sure that we’re prepared for our meeting and that there’s no surprises, because that’s been one thing that, you know, we’ve all talked about in terms of building that trusting relationship. So if you’re not doing it, I highly recommend that you do it. You’re welcome.

1:29:26 Any other thoughts, concerns, or anything on these? All right. That was easy. Any subcommittee and liaison updates? Well, I’ll just add that some really good work was done over school vacation, over at the Brown School. Believe it or not, you know, there was still some punchless items that needed to be accomplished. Finishing up the media center and some of the stories. The storage area is there. Steve identified some areas near the stage where we needed new data connections, some improvements with railings, some final paintings. A lot of work was done just to clean up, and I’d like to just recognize that. Oh, by the way, Gilbane has left the building officially, so they are now out of that room, Sarah. And so I hear already that there are people moving into that space and looking to make the teachers are going to be using it, I heard, as makerspace and some combined STEM work, maybe, or STEAM work. And people are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to get in and use that space, and Gilbane did write by us, they painted the room and cleaned it all up, so that room is all in play. And then we’ll have a building committee meeting the third week, so not the 17th, but I believe it’s the 24th.

1:31:03 We’ll give one last update on where we’re at, and a couple of final things that’ll happen in the spring is some fence work, for instance, with the, adjacent to the Tower School, some fence work on the property. And it’ll be an opportunity for our landscaper due to the guarantees that are provided, you know, once things start growing, there might be some things that need to be replaced that didn’t winter over well, or things like that. But, you know, Gilbane, left field, RDA, they’re still at the table every Wednesday for an hour, following through on it, they’re not moving on, they’re very committed to making sure every last detail is finished, and I can’t, you know, speaks volumes to the team and their level of commitment to finish through when they all have other projects going on. And they’ve done some really great work there, and once again, I just need to throw some recognition to Ralph Wallace. Ralph was at the school every day during school vacation, and has just a great rapport with our contractors and subcontractors and professionals on site, and Ralph has really been there to see it right through to the end, too. So thanks to Ralph for being the eyes and ears of our ownership team and helping, you know, see the final details get completed. Great, very exciting. Sarah, I see you’ve got your hand up.

1:32:35 I don’t think any of us can recognize Ralph enough. To be perfectly honest. But one thing I wanted to ask you, David, and you don’t have to give me an answer on this right now, but if you can look into what it’s, I mean, I know what we, what it is when we first moved out of the ballot was that they were going to protect that PTO shed, the PTO and purchasing to get back. One concern that was brought to my attention is the PTO is now bought paying to replace that shed because the wall, and I think we’re needed to house some equipment. So if we could just make sure that we can connect with them and that we hold true to that promise and that they don’t buy that shed and we replace the one that was removed from the site. Can you just help? Was that the plastic shed or the wooden? It was the wooden shed. We were supposed to move it and then they wound up needing it for a hand washing station because COVID hit and they said, don’t worry, we’ll replace it. And there is a shed going on the site, but then we figured out, I think we needed it to house and tractors. And so that is that that’s going to get shifted to that. So it looks like we need a second one, but I just want to make sure that we’re making good. I know you’re going to make good on this, but I think it’s just a coordination piece that we at the PTO know that we’re going to pay to replace that shed and we need to pay parents money to do that.

1:34:06 Okay, great. Yep. I’ll give a quick little update. Earlier this week, I went to the Marblehead Racial Justice Team’s METCO presentation. They had METCO headquarters, well, zoom in and present on the METCO program. And something that was really, they’re starting is METCO 2.0 and it’s a, their thought on it is how can they make the program better? And they have three big initiatives that they’re working on and one, and it’s to help districts diversify their teaching staff, create curriculums that represent everyone and bring restorative justice to every METCO district. So I just wanted to share that it was great and I’m so excited for those programs to come here and what we can do with them. Wonderful. Any, is there an Emily, any facilities work? I just know, you know, it’s sort of we look at buildings and all that. I know that’s going to take some time. Yes. So we, the last week, we had a meeting and then Michelle had asked if we could put it off for a couple of weeks because we’re in the holding pattern right now is the town hasn’t gotten back to us. We kind of brought our capital plan and presented all that information, but because of the transition going through, they haven’t really been able to give us any feedback and so we’re in a holding pattern. So Michelle has been checking in regularly and is going to let us know when it’s appropriate for us to schedule the next meeting.

1:35:44 And what about can you guys move forward some of the stuff with the MOU about our facilities and our land? I just would love for us to… I continue to try to get that list of what we actually own and I have another tea that got lost in the transition. I have it. I got the list. I emailed Becky. How did you get it? Because I’ve had no response to my email. I emailed Becky and she sent me a link to get the list. So I have it and I will have it for our next meeting. Okay. If you can forward that to me, then I’ve gotten the response. Great. So we’re ready to move forward with that piece. Next time we need… And related to that, probably should have mentioned this earlier or sent you all an email, but so for the roof, for the high school, we need to apply for an accelerated repair plan through the MSBA. And left field has been nice enough to provide us provide… Todd has templates of accelerated repair submittals. It’s pretty straightforward on how to get it done. And so Todd before the meeting tonight and Todd is working to pull that together. He’s leading the charge on that Sarah and Emily. And I offered to certainly provide an extra set of ears and eyes on that to work through the submittal so we can get that into the MSBA.

1:37:21 And certainly won’t be approved by town meetings. So it would be like what they did with Fort Sewell where you’d ask for an amount not to exceed and then if the money comes in, it would offset the amount that the town needs to spend. So thanks again to left field for giving us some samples there, but we’re going to work to get that done. And if you all want to look at it and take a stab at that, give Todd some help, I think that would be great. Wonderful. That was discussed at one of our meetings that Michelle had brought that up and that connection had been made. If you too David, any of that paperwork you have, if you can forward that to me and if Emily you can forward and share what you have, that would be great. Yeah, I’ll send you the template that I had for the one example that actually was a roof project. So you can see it’s really pretty straightforward, like five pages and it’s pretty not too in depth, but I’ll send that information forward. And then hopefully we’ll have some time when Todd does have some time to work on that. We’ll make sure we get that in. Awesome. Yeah, that’s great. Wonderful. Thank you to Todd. All right, I will move us into closing business. Any new business this evening? I just wanted to ask that we maybe it’s there if you can sit down with Steven and ask him to kind of give you the truth on the owl cameras and what the app on your part would be to get those running so we can have a hybrid meeting.

1:39:00 I know we own them. I know that they were purchased by some private, the private sector when we were doing hybrid model at the schools. And then I know town also allocated a fair sum of ARPA money to buy owl cams with the hope of moving all town. And I believe they’re doing that within the next few weeks, I believe. So if we can connect with them and they’re doing it and connect with Steven and just see if we can make that happen, too, that would be really great. Yeah, absolutely. I can definitely do that. And I think from my standpoint of sort of running it and managing the waiting room and sort of, you know, the assigning those tasks, it would be helpful to have somebody sort of who’s not participating in the meeting to be able to really do those controls because it’s a lot. And then particularly when you’re adding in the function of being in person as well, I think that it would detract from my ability to run the meeting as well as be a participant in the meeting. I don’t think there was any correspondence that we had this time around, so I will adjourn us at 8. I believe some correspondence came in later today that was asked to be entered into the record as public comment, so if we can add that in. Oh, sure. Yep, I have not been on my email much this afternoon, so I will look at that and make sure that you’re requested. We can put that through the minutes.

1:40:32 All right, so we will adjourn at 8.40. Thank you, everyone.