School Committee: May 5, 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.

0:51 All right, welcome everyone. Welcome to our in-person audience. This is the largest in-person audience we’ve had in a very, very long time. We are coming to everyone on Zoom from Metco headquarters in Roxbury, and we’re very excited to be here. We thank everybody who has joined us tonight and everyone online as well. So I will officially call us to order at 7.02. I think we’ve got all, yes, we’ve got all school committees here. So I will ask for anybody that has any commendations today. Sarah, David, Megan, you’ve got one? Am I on? I really just want to say thank you to the community for coming out to town meeting for two nights, and it was a long two nights, but I just thought it was great to see so many people take part in our town meeting and who says it, democracy in action. So I just really want to say thank you to everybody. Thank you, so really. Thank you, Megan. And I just, I forgot to say, I always like to say this, that we are live on YouTube. I know it gives us the thing on Zoom at this point, but I do, I do want to say that as well. Any other commendations tonight? I have one. All right. Just want to commend Millie and her staff for a very warm welcome to Metco Inc. and a very informative presentation this afternoon and our Metco families that joined us for dinner and some really great conversation. So thank you to Metco and our families for hosting.

2:23 I already told Millie we’ll have to come back because we didn’t get the full tour.

2:35 So it’s been a lovely evening so far. So thank you for those commendations. I will turn this over to Yasen. Yasen, welcome and you will give us your student update. Thank you. I wanted to give a couple of shout outs first to Ella Kramer on her nomination by Salem News for athlete of the year and also to the six finalists of the Hunts Photography School Pride contest and Sailor Crusoe for winning first place. On Wednesday, April 13th, a while ago, 50 MHS team harmony volunteers, which is like our inclusion club at the high school, went to veterans to present seminars to seventh and eighth graders. The presentations discussed how to combat all forms of hate. This follows visits to all grades at Village in February and freshman health classes a few weeks ago in March, a while ago. Quarter four began on April 11th. Juniors received visits from college admissions officers on April 13th and there was a final financial aid info session on April 26th. The Acapulusa concert was on Friday, April 29th at MBS featured four MHS acapella groups as well as groups from other schools. AP testing is currently ongoing running May 2nd through May 13th at the high school. The junior class auction is running from May 4th to May 8th. The Marblehead Performing Arts is holding

4:08 a fundraiser tonight at the Dolphin Yacht Club. Team Harmony and the Marblehead Racial Justice team will host a Focus on Diversity presentation at Abbott Library on Monday, May 16th from 7 to 8 30 p.m. for anyone who’s interested. May 20th is the annual cultural feast at MHS. The second annual Juneteenth flag raising will take place on Wednesday, June 8th at Abbott Hall at 5 and will include presentations from Marblehead Public School students. And for class news, the freshman class will have a spike ball tournament fundraiser on May 22nd. The sophomore class will be selling lawn signs for the class of 2022 starting tomorrow. For the junior class, our prom is next Friday, May 13th, and we will be selling shirts for senior sunrise soon. The senior class is also selling prom tickets, and the carnival this weekend is a super fun fundraiser for the freshman, sophomore, and junior classes. For sports, we had Boys and Girls Lacrosse who played today, and girls will have a tennis match tomorrow. Wonderful. That was quite a list to think that you had. Thank you very much, Justin. Lots of great stuff. Thank you so much. All right, that leads us to public comment. If anybody would like to make a public comment, please use the raise hand function and remember to state your name and address for the record, and we will have three minutes per person for public comment. We ask that you take your remarks to that, and we will give a time shout out if you reach that three minutes.

5:44 Stephen? Stephen? Oh, yes. I just… Hold on one moment, please. Stephen, you co-host. All right. Okay, Nicole Cohen. Hello. I’m glad that it sounds like Metco is a fun dinner. I’m glad that everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. I wanted to comment on last week’s meeting that I watched. It was a very disturbing meeting, and I’m just going to go over four points that I have. One, listening to the members of the committee saying to, quote, be careful with their words when discussing the override. That really leads one to believe that you are not choosing to be honest with your words. Number two, members of the committee talking about discussing school policy at the Metco dinner. I think you were just not being clear, but you seem to indicate that you… There was going to be a violation of open law meetings. Three, the committee dismissed within seconds sending out surveys to the public and to the teachers in regards to the superintendent’s

7:14 performance evaluation. Again, going with the be careful with your words and not seeking the public’s input is very disturbing. Lastly, but not least, and perhaps most egregiously, was the first five minutes of the meeting in which during public comment, a member of the community went off on a rant in regards to accommodations received by a child who is a child of the student of the school committee and the services that they may or may not be receiving. As a parent, I am horrified that the school committee chair allowed this discussion of the students accommodations and IEP to be aired during a public meeting that had nothing to do with the school committee. Based solely on rumor, the chair and others in attendance should have shut down this discussion immediately as it had nothing to do with school committee. And again, based solely on rumor. Instead, the chair allowed the rant to go on based again on rumor. It is deeply concerning that there appears to be only one member of the school committee who appears knowledgeable of the rules of conduct, while the rest appear willing to violate their duties. And that is my comment. Thank you.

8:47 Thank you, Nicole. And I do promise that we are always striving to do better. All right. We don’t have any other hands raised so that will. Oh, Cindy. Yes, go ahead. So sorry, I’m not used to a live audience. So if you’d like to come up there and then Stephen will put the camera on and your voice will be picked up by the speaker that’s in front of you.

9:19 So Cindy Bowen from Marblehead, Tualcunity Road. I am a member of the Marblehead Racial Justice team and I am here because I’ve been one of the biggest supporters of Metro for a long, long time. And I just want to say it is incredibly touching, awesome that the school committee is finally here, here in Boston. Some came on the bus. I would like to have had all of you come on. But I know some of you did. And so you have a taste of what our children go through every single morning. And I’m hoping that the school committee here today will continue in terms of not only promoting MECO, but also what we do in the district, how we how we treat our families from Boston, our students from Boston. And I also want to say that it’s a pleasure to have an administration that is behind MECO, because that is one of the things that we haven’t had for a bit. And I’m hoping the next thing that we get is an awesome MECO director who stays with us. And then we eventually can get to 100 plus in terms of the students as long as they want to come to

10:53 Marblehead. So that’s it. Thank you. Okay, now we and nobody else correct. Now that leads us to our superintendent report. Mr. Bauer, I am going to ask that we push you down a little bit so that we do have a couple of employees from MECO that would like to hear the MECO update and the DEI update from Nan and Julia. So if that’s okay, Dan, I will have you speak after that. And I will go straight to Julia for the MECO update. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you.

11:43 I can’t start. Let’s start on the screen. No, you don’t need to unmute. Okay. Hello, thank you. I’m Julia Ferreira, assistant principal at the middle school, as well as I’m filling in as the MECO lead coordinator. Thank you so much. So first, I wanted to start with a lot of thank yous. I feel really grateful tonight being here. So I want to say thank you to John and Nan for asking me to fill this role. We’ve had some turnover this year, and I just really appreciate that you trusted me with this position. I also want to say thank you to the parents because you’ve been amazing to work with and thank you for all that you’re doing to support us for your flexibility in your patients this year. I also want to say thank you to Emily. Emily is the liaison for the school committee and for the MECO liaison. I appreciate we’ve had some time together. And also to our community supporters. Thank you so much. And to Nellie and to MECO Inc. So thank you so much. As of right now, we do have the MECO director positions posted. For next year, we will have four incoming students from Austin, and that will replace our four graduating seniors. We have a meet and greet signed up scheduled very soon. That’s when it hopefully will allow us to get even a few more families to commit to Marblehead. We have weekly MECO family meetings every Tuesday,

13:19 and we get to be in person today. And this is the time where I want to say Carla Rose and Lindsey Page. They’ve been extraordinary. So Carla is a village school teacher and is serving as an academic and social-emotional coordinator for elementary grades and Lindsey at the high school. So thank you to Carla and Lindsey for stepping into that role and supporting our students. As you heard from us in our cultural piece is scheduled for May 20th at 6 p.m. I just want to say thanks to Lindsey, David, Anja, the seniors who are working on that for their senior project as well as several ninth or eleventh graders. We are creating summer success skip bags, and they’re going to be distributed to the students before the last day of school. We have funding allocated to give our four graduating seniors some wonderful gifts as they go on and pursue their next adventure in life. And we are looking forward. We recently attended a meeting with Desi, and they’re proposing for fiscal year 23, a base allocation funding model. And that’s important because that’s going to keep us global funded from fiscal year 22. Additionally, Desi is proposing changes to application process. So we can hopefully encourage more applicants to apply to the MECO program. And I’ve been updating Emily and superintendent as more information comes available. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Thank you, Julie. And thank you for stepping into that role and doing such a great job coordinating everything and working with our parents. And it’s great that you’re there. Thank you, Sarah. Appreciate it. And I think we always put a little plug, an additional plug

14:49 for the cultural fees. Tamilie, we’d love to have you up for that. It’s a fantastic evening. I heard that it’s going to be even better than last year. And last year was amazing with talent and food trucks. And just it was really good last year. So I am… What’s the date? 20th of 20th. 6 p.m. at the high school. Just wipe that down. Yeah. Just take a flyer. So to all of our audience, we encourage everybody to attend NACTives. It really is a fun event. Great showcase to the students. All right, Nan, I will invite you. And Nan is here to give us an update on our DEI initiatives. Our meetings. Well, this is…

15:37 Well, good evening. Again, Julie has said it, but I’d like to echo all of the appreciation we have for our internal staff that has just really stepped forward to do the best for kids. And we do it every day. But when there’s somebody that steps out of a role, to be able to have internal capacity with people with such generous and open hearts, and doing what’s right for kids, it just says a lot about Marblehead staff. And I’m just so appreciative to everybody that I have the opportunity to work with. I know Millie, at the re-dinner today, was complimenting how well Marblehead has been moving forward with us with our NECRO program. So thank you for that. So I just have a couple of quick updates regarding some of the work that our diversity, equity, and inclusion team has been doing. We are continuing to focus our work on the strategic objective that was established by our plan for success work. And just to remind the team that work is all embedded around promoting equity and ensuring inclusion by acknowledging and embedding all forms of diversity throughout the district. So we have selected and aligned our professional development with the pre-K through 12 staff. And it’s around Strategic Initiative 3.2. Which is embed diversity, equity, inclusion, in the mission, vision, core values, and training

17:10 of our leadership teams, schools, and district. So it’s been nice this year as this group have framed out what we wanted to accomplish and started this work last year at this time. And to know now we’re living our plan for success is exciting. So just to give you a brief outline of what that looks like. Our staff, again, pre-K through 12, has been getting regular professional development throughout our early really hard Wednesday extended day professional development. And I’d like to just share the titles that have been created. So the professional development titles have been implicit bias, asking ourselves the hard questions, mirrors and windows, changing the narrative. We mid-year hosted our very first community forum with Henry Turner, talking about race and standing up to racism. Small changes, big impact, culturally responsive teaching. We have partnered with the Department of Student Service because DEI is all about embedding good effective practices around inclusion and access and that’s special education. And so we brought in a professional development professional around unlearning ableism through action and allyship. We also have coming up beyond heroes and qualities,

18:45 surface and shallow versus deep culture. And finally, in June, we’ll wrap up our professional development with putting it together, planning within anti-bias. So I’m really just proud of the district of Marblehead and the team that we have put together. Prior to the superintendent and I coming, I don’t know of a path forward that we have been able to create that is as comprehensive and thoughtful as this. So I think to have been able to do this in such a short amount of time and in such a collaborative way with our DEI team, our members, teaching staff, leaders, and central office and school committee members, I’m always part of all of that work. So I just want to kind of give a shout out to our DEI team as well. Thank you so much. That is a lengthy list of things that you guys have undertaken and the learning that you’re doing. And it’s really great. It’s good to hear all the different topics that we’re getting professional development. So thank you. And I just want to find them though, let everyone know that all of the professional development is grassroots grown. And this is work that the DEI team has done collaboratively. Oftentimes, Julie and I and other members of the DEI team are in a Google Docs share and we are creating PowerPoints together for the following month. And so it really is, it’s really a dedicated team that’s bringing this forward.

20:24 Thank you to everybody who is doing that work. All right. Thank you both. So that will lead us to Principal Bauer. And if you would like to unmute yourself and give us some updates on what’s going on with our senior class. Well, great. Thank you so much for having me. Envious, I wish I was done back with headquarters with you. It looks like a wonderful setting. We wish you were here too.

21:04 Oh boy.

21:09 All right. Dan, take it away. God, well, I have to second the plug for cultural feast. That’s May 20th. I just sent the communication out to our community. I have to second the work from our, it’s a student-led initiative. And several years ago when this came out, it really helped bring our community together. And the proud piece for me is that it is student-led. Dave Anjou, who’s a chemistry teacher and assistant principal, Lindsey Page, have led the way, but really the students are doing the work. They’re selling tickets. They have t-shirts and a band are coming. We’ll have great food, great music and entertainment. It’s a wonderful night. So anyway, a lot of our students or seniors are involved with that, our Boston-based students. For senior updates, very, very coming upon us quickly, the end of the classes for seniors will be Friday, May 27th. However, that also marks the end of our senior project. We have over 150 seniors out in the community and about working on senior projects. In fact, the cultural feast is a senior project for some of our seniors. And we’re looking to do things a little differently this year with the presentation. Typically, we have a small group presentation where the student will talk with the accomplished during the senior project, but we’re looking to have something broader and bigger so the community can come and see, as well as our students. More information will be coming out on that. We kick off senior week with Tuesday, May 31st. We’re moving prom to Fenway Park. It’s going to be an awesome event.

22:41 Our senior advisors, Ms. Donaldson and Ms. Berkowitz, are organized with our class officers and it’s going to be wonderful. The Red Sox are also playing the Cincinnati Reds that night and it’s bobblehead night for Kiki Hernandez. So hopefully we get a few of the bobbleheads. It’s going to be awesome. We’re going to have the red carpet again. We’re working on details for that. The kids are going to have a wonderful time and it’s just going to be an awesome way to kick off senior week. They deserve it. The next night, Wednesday, June 1st will be scholarship night. We haven’t had that since COVID. That will be held in the field house at 6 30 p.m. The wonderful thing about scholarship night is that we have donors that will come in and they present the scholarship awards to our seniors so that it’s context and depth and it’s just their proud moment for not only our seniors receiving the awards and their families, but the community because generally speaking the awards of scholarships are well over $250,000 plus and to have that acknowledged that night. We also print the scholarships in the program for graduation but it’s wonderful. 6 30 field house. So that won’t conflict with school committee. We work that out. On Thursday, June 2nd will be the trip to Six Flags. A senior trip to Six Flags. I’m sure they’re looking for chaperones for that and I’m sure they’ll welcome that. Which is nice because they shifted from the main trip which was a tough thing to get a lot of kids to go but with Six Flags we’re hoping we get a lot of students to go. And then the big day,

24:14 the finale of it all is Friday, June 3rd. That’s graduation day. We’ll start the day with graduation rehearsal here at the high school on Piper Field at around 9 o’clock. They’ll receive their caps and gowns. We’re bringing back the senior walk. We get to the elementary schools and walk through. That’s a great moment of pride. And then the big ceremony will be held on Piper Field at 6 o’clock Friday, June 3rd. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed for great weather and looking forward to such a great event for our seniors. Looking forward to senior week and we’re very proud and hope to see you all at the events. Thank you very much, Dan. Dr. Bucky, did you have something to add? No, Dan covered it beautifully. Megan, you had a question? Yeah. Can you just give us a few examples of some of the projects that are being done for senior project? Sure. We have a number of our students that are working in the schools as teacher assistants and that’s actually a great way for students to see if they want to get involved with education as a possible career. We have them at pretty much every one of the schools. We have some students that are doing working with art. I have two that are working to see if they can revive the solar windmill here in our parking lot. So I’m hoping we can get that up and going by the end. If not, they’ll have a way to fix it for the future. And we have a number of others that are working as interns just around the area in architecture, engineering and such. So it’s

25:51 a well, a variety, a wealth of students. In addition, we have the seniors with cultural feast as well on the building. So and we have, Miss Berkowitz is very popular with culinary arts. We have a couple students that are working with her and I did receive lunch one day. They were sampling menus and items. So I’ve been the recipient of a few good lunches. And I have to say that Lindsay Page and Michelle Carlson are assistant principals. They do an awesome job with the senior project. So the art show, the senior art show, medical offices, animal shelter, camp planning, social media marketing. And Miss Page has been texting me this document of the senior project. So she’s keeping me informed and I am very proud of their work and our seniors. And once we have more information about the actual they were presenting, we’re looking forward to inviting the community, the school committee, the select board and all parents. It should be a lot of fun. Sounds great. Thanks, Dan. I know there are two students who are working on something having to do with mental health as well. They reached out to me, so I said reach back and if it would make sense, I would encourage them to come and present to us as some did last year too. So cool. Yeah, great. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. Have a good night. We’re really excited for that senior class. They deserve it. Thank you. All right, Dr. Bucky. Phyllis, I’m additional district updates.

27:22 So I’ve been told that it’s the worst kept secret in Marblehead, but Lucretia and Joseph Brown has a new principal and after a comprehensive search process, I’m pleased to announce that Ms. Mary Maxfield has been named the new principal. She has extensive experience as an elementary school leader. She has been serving as the principal of Barrington Elementary School in Barrington, New Hampshire for the last 15 years. Under her leadership, Barrington Elementary was named New Hampshire Elementary School of the Year. Prior to being principal, Ms. Maxfield was an elementary school classroom teacher for 13 years, which is very important to our search committee. She’s also an elementary school counselor and an assistant principal for seven years. She has an associate’s degree in recreation and leadership management from Colby Sawyer, a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from Keene State. She also has her master’s in counseling from Keene State and her principal certification from Plymouth State. In case anyone is asking, she is certified in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I just want to read a little something from her application. This will all go out in my Friday message tomorrow. In her application, Mary shared quote, she believes strongly in the art of collaboration. She believes strongly that the art of collaboration makes good things happen. Additionally, she noted that quote, respecting all stakeholders and inviting them to the table is critical for the successful

28:55 implementation of any initiative. Mary was well received by both parents and staff during her day in the district with representatives from both groups sharing they were impressed by her experience, energy and enthusiasm. Mary has family in Marblehead and is looking forward to joining our learning community and Marblehead Public Schools. I’ll host a superintendent coffee with Mary at the Brown School before the end of the year. So, exciting news about the Joseph and, or Lucretia and Joseph Brown School. That’s it.

29:36 Sorry. I don’t know any other updates. Great, that was quite an update. Wonderful, thank you so much. And as the school committee person on that search, you know, Mary was a really wonderful candidate. We had a lot of great candidates and I’m pleased that she has risen to the top. She was a very warm person and I think, you know, anybody who has the chance to meet her coming up will feel the same way. And Monique, you were on that committee too and shaking your head. So, it’s really exciting that that spot is filled and everything is moving forward there. All right, so that leads us to our school committee discussion part of the evening. And first up we have, again, on our list is the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, or METCO, the Parent Representative Process. And so, we had talked a bit about that last week. We had a bit, we were posted for dinner and so we had a bit of conversation with some of the parents who joined us on sort of, you know, what makes a successful METCO program and what maybe they would like to see in a representative and how that they would like to see that structured. Emily, I’ll turn it over to you to give a little bit of an update too. I think you’ve got a few next steps that might be kind of coming within that. Yeah, so I think Megan is going to meet with Monique, right? I overheard you talking. Do you mind? She is, yes. And again, we were enjoying a very lovely dinner. So, I mean, it was just not in

31:11 depth conversation at all. But I think my takeaway from it is that this might require a little bit more discussion really with like a group of, definitely with Monique and with a group of parents to really think through like how this might all work to, so that it’s effective, but also a useful experience for our Boston parents. So, you know, that would be my recommendation at the moment to have that conversation first before we go any further. Great. And is that something that it sounded like maybe you and Monique are going to follow up and sort of next steps and get back to the moment and then we can figure that out. All right, great. Great. And thank you. Thank you, the parents who joined us here tonight and had dinner with us and are participating in that conversation. We welcome, you know, anybody who wants to participate. So, it’s well appreciated. So, that’s great. All right. I was just going to say, I haven’t asked anybody who’s not with us in person. So, Sarah, go ahead. So, I would just ask, can we maybe put this as a piece on our summer retreat? Because I would like to also work with our MAS C-RAP to see how this is working in other districts and maybe even invite someone to come from Metco to join our discussion so we can kind of get a little more into the meat of what it looks like. It might be a bigger conversation and then we can plug into one of our meetings here. And that way we can have whatever we’re

32:43 going to do in place for the beginning of the school year. Yeah, no, that’s a great idea. And I appreciate the MASC suggestion because that would be, you know, we looked at Bedford’s policy and I think there was one maybe Lincoln had one as well. So, I can reach out to Dorothy and invite her to weigh in on all of this as well. And the summer retreat certainly seems like a good place for that to go. Through the chair. Absolutely. I have reached out to Phil Conrad who is the superintendent in Bedford because they were pioneers in this work. So, maybe he and Milly could both join for the retreat or as part of the conversation because I think they’ve done some nice work. Yeah, Bedford is very new to this. Weston has been doing it for a long time. Lincoln has been doing it for a very long time. And Conquercarlile just opened up and tried to be an educator in the seats as well. Oh, great. Our families cannot see my name on the dancing. All right, wonderful. Great. So, John, maybe you can follow up with some of those. I wrote them down too. So, you can follow up with some of those superintendents as well. All right, wonderful. We are just, yeah, trucking right to our agenda this evening. And so, that moves us to our subcommittee and liaison updates. I’m not sure. I think we’ve been in full town meeting mode for much of the last few weeks. I’m not sure that anybody has met, but are there any updates from anybody? Do you want budget updates? Sure. See, we have a budget update actually. Our request for an increase to our

34:20 operating budget was passed at town meeting. So, moving on to the ballot in June. Yes. Yep. And so, we will be looking forward to, and I did not have it on our agenda, but I will bring up in very shortly in new business the discussion around scheduling some forums that we had talked about last week. So, we can get those in the books and moving forward towards those. Any other subcommittee or liaison updates? All right. So, that pushes us into new business. And because town meeting was just on Tuesday evening, I did not put this as an agenda item so we will put it here and then be able to communicate out what dates our forums will be in. I will work with Steven to make them, at least one of them, hopefully all of them, available via Zoom as well so that there can be remote public participation. But so, I was talking with John as we were waiting for the bus earlier and we were coming up with a few dates to just kind of put out to the committee. I was thinking three forums, two evening forums, and one morning forum. So, the two dates that I sort of, as I was looking at the calendar, trying to allow us time to really sort of streamline everything and make sure that we’ve got a bit of feedback and questions from the community that are June 8th and then June 14th. The 14th I was looking at…

35:59 So, the 14th is a Tuesday and the 8th is the Wednesday. The other thought on that week with the 14th in it is that we do have a school committee meeting on the 16th. So, if we wanted to put a forum before the school committee meeting, we could do that. But then it would obviously be a little bit earlier. So, depending on the time, if we really thought that it was important to keep a seven o’clock or if we thought that a 6.30 forum would be a good idea, again, especially if it backed up to a school committee meeting. And then the morning forum I was looking at was back in May, so in a couple of weeks, either Thursday the 26th or Tuesday the 24th. I think it probably best to avoid the week of the 30th, which starts with the Memorial Day holiday and ends with high school graduation. So, as Dan just highlighted, there’s a bunch going on that week, I think. You know, although this is not all about parents, we probably will pick up quite a few parents in these forums. So, that just seemed like a week that’s probably very busy, particularly for some of our administrators as well. And that probably best avoided if we can. You said the 24th and the 26th? So, the 24th or the 26th, yes, as the morning date is what I was thinking. But again, I’ll open it up for discussion. I just kind of wanted to put some ideas out there and what people thought. Sarah, so we have a night, a Wednesday night, a Tuesday night,

37:33 and then we’re looking at another Tuesday. Would you mind if we looked at another day of the week? I just know that some people kind of work schedule is day dependent, so I think the more different days of the week we can give, we’ve really just at that we have done everything possible to hit every demographic weekend. Yeah, I totally agree. If maybe a Monday, maybe? It’d be June 13th and avoid my birthday. June 13th, Monday, June, that would be, yes, we should avoid your birthday, especially for one of the evening meetings. Yeah, we can do in a Monday evening, that would work. So, Monday, June 13th. Okay, or was that the day one? So, that was the night one. The day one I had was either the Tuesday, the 24th, or Thursday, the 26th. So, we’ve got a Monday right now. If we stick with June 8th, that’s a Wednesday, and I’m fine avoiding a Thursday. We can avoid a Thursday because all of our meetings are on a Thursday, and if somebody can’t make our meetings on a Thursday, then it makes it hard for them to make a meeting in one of these forums as well. So, we could do Tuesday, the 24th. Yeah, so let’s do Tuesday, the 24th, and that’s the morning one. Wednesday, June 8th. What was it, 7 p.m.? And then Monday, June 13th, at 7 p.m.? Yes.

39:14 Okay, so hold on, David. I’ll go to you after Megan was just asking a question. The expectations for the school committee, do we want everybody? I’m happy to post these. I mean, we’re talking budget, or we can simply do two and go from there and not have to post. I guess my question is, we shouldn’t have us all there. Yeah, I think we should post for two reasons. The more of us that can go and answer questions, I think the better. But also, if it’s posted, it’s just one more place that notifies people, and for them to go look to get information, the more places we post the information, the better, I think. So, I did. Yep, go ahead, David. Good evening through the chair. Good evening, everybody. I wish I could have been there tonight. I had a little bit of an issue come up this evening, and I missed the event. So, I’m glad we could thank you to everybody at Metco for posting us, and I’m sure it’s been a great night. And, you know, thank you for those dates. The Tuesday in May works better. My day job commencement is on the 26th. Great. So, that’s great. We just need to, if we’re all in agreement, then we just need to make, if we’re going to post it, we need to make sure we have a quorum. I wouldn’t want the meeting to fall short if only two of us could attend. Yeah. For some reason. But if you email those dates around, I’ll certainly make every effort to appear at all those dates and events.

40:53 And we won’t post until we get a little closer to those dates as well. So, we can sort of refine that as we, and just make sure that we have a quorum that’s able to come. I know I believe I can make all of those dates. So, I think we’ll be able to do that. And then, Sarah, if we can also make it, you know, far away from drop off or pick up time so that parents who are getting little ones places can. Because we want to make it as available to people as possible. But also, you know, can we post those for say like 9 a.m.? Yeah. That was going to be my next question is the morning one. 9 a.m. works. As someone who carts many, many kids, if I can make it, usually people can make it. Yeah, absolutely. All right. And then that one might be the one where we could struggle to get a quorum just because of people’s work schedule. So, we’ll just keep a close eye on that as far as how we can post it. But we’ll definitely, everybody will always, as always, do their best. All right. Great. Through the chair. Yes. Can I just get a sense of the committee’s expectation of the superintendent and the leadership team for these? Would you like for people to be present? I have found it very, very effective at school committee meetings when there is a question about special education.

42:25 For Dr. Donnelly to address that. Or if there’s a question about a particular ask at high school for principal Bauer to be able to answer that. I certainly have facility to answer them. But I think hearing from our leaders, but I didn’t know the format that the forums were going to take. Yeah. No. And I think, yeah, I think that would be really useful. I think it has been very helpful in our meetings to have those our administrators and our leaders on hand to answer those types of questions. And then I think, you know, we’ll have to just do a bit of work maybe using some of your old PowerPoints that have gone through various presentations. And then, although the one for town meeting is quite short, taking some of that and taking some of the info that we relate at town meeting and kind of combining that. I’m happy to work with you. Somebody else wants to work with you on creating that presentation. I think, you know, the first one is until the 24th. We’ve got time to be able to really tighten that up and make it good. And then that gives us time to because we’ll have the meeting on the 16th that we could possibly talk about input and kind of refining it through what the committee would like as well. And if anybody has things, has thoughts, I would encourage them to send them to Dr. Bucky so that we’re not trading emails and get ourselves in trouble. Send them to you and then you can kind of keep track of them. And if it’s myself or whoever else wants to work on the

44:01 PowerPoints. One thing I would say we learned when we were presenting the building, which is to make this all like a living document. So, you know, when we go on the 24th, people may present questions that we might not have realized people really want an answer to. And just as long as we kind of keep that rolling of asking people, is there something we didn’t tell you that you think would be helpful, you know, and just keep building on that. I think it’s important. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’ll give us time, you know, if there’s any things in public comment or questions that come into us from the public or that, you know, that sort of murmurs that we’re hearing through the community or from other leaders in the community, we can obviously get all of those in as well. Does anybody, I’m happy to work with Dr. Bucky on putting this presentation together to get you guys some more information for the, where are we at, the 16th? Unless anybody else really has a go. We go for an entire set together another PowerPoint presentation. All right. I just have another question. You know how I love to extend a meeting. So,

45:25 when you presented the building project and you did kind of the road shows, the question, I’ve been getting a couple questions for people wondering if things can be added at this point, or can this come out? And I think we need to address that publicly, that the forums are not really intended to say, oh, can we add this to the request because it has been voted at town meeting and there is a set figure and it can’t be added to or subtracted from. And I think that that’s important in setting these up. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I have that in the note because you had said that to me earlier. So, sorry, I forgot that. But that, yes, that for the community and we will definitely make that clear at these forums that we cannot add or subtract from this ask at this point. That our ask is our ask, it’s been approved at town meeting, it goes to the ballot. And now our job is to explain it and educate people throughout the community on it, even more than we’ve already tried to do. So, it’s, we’re not doing any kind of developmental forums. These are educational forums. Just, just as a point of order on that. Yes, it’s definitely educational. And yes, that finite number is finite. But just for clarification, as far as mass general law goes, school committees are very unique in that we do have line item autonomy. So, that number is, is complete. But what is it, how we utilize that number, we do have line item autonomy. I’m not saying we’re moving that and I don’t want anybody to think we do, but I just want to be clear that that is under mass general law, how this works.

46:59 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Sarah. All right. Well, John and I will get to work on yet another PowerPoint. Have fun with that. Yeah. And that was this correspondence. I will, I believe Lisa dropped the correspondence that came in very late. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s kind of a good afternoon to this afternoon. Jerry’s the moderator, the town meeting moderator, he’s also in charge of appointing the Essex Tech School Committee rep. And so, he had given us a letter recommending the, I’m going to blink on his face, Stroud. Mark, Mark, thank you. Mark, again, so at our next meeting, we will just take a formal vote of approval for that, just to kind of recognize Mark’s work and Gary’s wishes, and then be able to do that. And then, John, you had a piece of correspondence come in late that we’re going to kind of set to work on for our next meeting, hopefully, as well. Yes, I did. The Glover School is wanting to put together a group to perhaps do a naming piece for Burke Dano. And so, their principal had emailed me that to all work with him to get something to bring to the committee. Great, great. And, you know, just I think all of us know, because of the naming of the school, that naming of any areas of buildings or buildings does have to go through school committee for our approval. So, yeah, whatever you need us to do is as you work through that plan.

48:29 All right, I don’t think there were any other correspondence that came in. So, record time tonight, guys. We are coming through more often. Yes, very good. But I will adjourn us at 7.49 p.m. Thank you, everyone. All right, have a great night. Thank you.