School Committee: April 6, 2023

Transcript captured from YouTube auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:12 but not girls oh you’re calling us to order at 7 00 pm and I’m going to pass it I’m sorry and I’m going to pass it to doctor yeah

0:38 all right last week uh on Friday uh president of the North Shore superintendent’s uh Roundtable I had the privilege of moderating a legislative luncheon at Whittier Tech we had close to 60 superintendents uh Senator lovely and representatives there including representative armini we presented uh four asks or four things for their consideration legislatively um first was OSD which I’ve talked to you about the 14 increase which is unprecedented uh for the last 10 years to spend about two percent uh we talked about circuit breaker we talked about Chapter 70 and chapter 71b

1:24 um Brian forgett the Michelle has worked with in Triton talked about chapter 70. chapter 70 was a product of head reform in 1993 with the promise that every three to five years they would review the formula the first review came in 2015 22 years into the Chapter 70 funding formula for four years that commission brought us the student Opportunity Act which was a step in the right direction but there’s a lot of work to be done in chapter 70. chapter 71b uh also Brian forgett from Triton really gave an entertaining overview of special education legislation chapter

2:13 7766 intercourse 603 CMR of that legislation was developed in uh 50 years ago so in 1972 and he gave Parallels for what cars looked like in 1972 he had this cute graphic of where he was which was in utero in 1972. and so we had some great conversation uh with legislators about some of the things that need to be fixed Statewide for funding one particular example with regard to special education one of the districts pointed out that you know I think was paying boat in the Manchester Essex people often talk about declining enrollment declining enrollment well we do have declining enrollment but we see increased need

2:58 in our schools and this was an example in one District over the past 10 years they have decreased their head count by 50 teachers but they have increased special education teachers by 10 and that doesn’t include service providers counselors social workers that’s just special education teachers one of the things that I’m proud of in the district is our use of i-Ready there has not been a robust history of using data in the district and as you can see from this slide iready is our Assessment program and one of the things that even in the reduced Services budget we’re committed to

3:43 maintaining and so you see the two graphs this is a district level view for reading results uh K to eight the kind of wisdom is you want to grow the green and shrink the pink in these graphs and so you can see in the fall you had 52 students that were at uh or early on grade level that’s moved to 60 and you can see across the board that numbers are improving the great thing about iready is this is a district view so as the superintendent I can see this information but building principles get a building level view classroom teachers get a classroom level view students then have

4:31 their my path learning and it tells them or it helps them in the areas where they need support but it also provides opportunities for extension and so you can see I put together a slide for you regarding math data as well and that’s encouraging so you have 38 in the fall that are at grade level and 57 at this point so it’s a robust program it’s informing our instruction on both ends students who need support but also opportunities for extension and this helps us with the wind look as well and there’s certainly work to be done in the Wind Block but this data gives teachers the opportunity to support students who need extra support but also to provide

5:18 those opportunities for extension as you can see in this District level View High Performance high growth that’s the quadrant that you want to be in and you can see all grade levels K to eight are in the High Performance Hybrid clutter unfortunately historically we have used MCAS data or what some people will call autopsy data because it’s at the end of the year and those students have moved on to the next grade level this gives us formative growth and so when we get to MCAS we can be more predictive about how our students will perform okay can I ask you a question before we leave already please so this is a new program over the last year or so two years two years and so it allows

6:05 teachers principals and you to look at intra cohort comparison so from the beginning of the year and then making progress throughout the year what interventions will a teacher take let’s say on reading if at the beginning of a year a child is assessed as being kind of below average or needing intervention what what do we actually do that leads to that growth so they have the personalized path that is part of the iready program and so it will provide interventions in the area that they need in the Wind Block as well a teacher can do small group instruction to support interventions that students need whether it be in phonics or decoding or comprehension got you and then we’re in that kind of top right corner which shows growth in all the grade levels

6:52 which is great and that’s obviously you know using our own children’s Baseline how many years of data do you think you’ll need to be able then to correlate that with other measures such as MCAS or other measures of academic uh assessment well the great thing about I ready is it’s nationally norm and so it’s aligned to our state standards as well so there’s significant cohort data for that but within the district I would say three to five years okay great thank you I might just interject the next layer to that is parents also can see this and I I don’t know that every parent knows that and that’s why I just wanted to note it as a parent I get I I request my kids data and I look at it and it’s incredibly informative the

7:38 amount of information that’s embedded in that you can see growth you can see areas that they might not be growing as quickly um you can have conversations with your children or with your child’s teacher or a much more educated manner because you you have this data I think it’s really great as a tool for parents to also be able to utilize to kind of see what’s going on I appreciate you saying that I meant to say that but with the older students Nan and I were doing a walk through at vets as they were getting their uh January I already assessment data back and they’re taking ownership as well teachers are facilitating conversations with students about what they need to do and it’s wonderful I know at vets they send it home and

8:24 parents sign off that they’ve seen it so there’s that follow-up the schools are making sure your child is owning this but also having a conversation with their parents about it which I think is wonderful so I just want you know the community to know that we’re also I added this because we got our NASDAQ enrollment data people talk about enrollment all the time that our enrollment is going down this is comparative data for this Academic Year we do an October 1st submission and then a winter submission and you can see orange compared to Green in every grade level we have increased John let me ask you I know that our Cherry sheets are based on October 1st enrollment yes where we’ve had such growth is there any

9:09 type of appeal or anything that was one of the things we talked about legislators about it is almost a year lag yeah it’s it’s especially in an anomaly year where you see growth in every grade level it makes a difference

9:24 then just an update on our College acceptances put out a little trivia question for you pretty sure Sarah Fox will get the first one correct maybe yes it can be photo frame how many seniors do we have this year

9:39 228. okay 228. okay very close yes 231. much closer 233 how many applications for post-secondary education

9:56 2337. you’re on The Price is Right you would have lost for sure

10:06 2088 applications and so as the that data comes in that’s everything from Alfred College to Worcester State um and I’ll get the committee complete um they have to make most of those decisions by May 1st

10:22 questions questions I didn’t see West Point on that I was just going to ask for Tom are there any other military I do not know the answer to that but that’s okay I’m sure Dr Bauer would know

10:46 any conversations any conversations I just want so Rising fourth grader in the fall and the Village School had their parents night and children were invited to come and I just want to commend principal Murphy as well as all of the tour guides and everybody that was involved in that evening it was fantastic they were warm and welcoming answered my child’s 482 questions about everything happily um and they just it was a really a wonderfully and well put on I didn’t expect anything less but it was just it blew me away how wonderful everybody was um and for anybody that has a child go

11:33 in there I think it certainly brought them a level of comfort because it’s a much larger school there’s a much larger child base there and certainly age ranges too and it was just it felt like a home and I I just want to know that and thank you so much from me as as a parent but also as a smoke mirror was really nice to see and the children did just a remarkable job so please let them know anything else um I want to commend Elsa Schaffner who received the Fulbright scholarship she was a graduate of the Marblehead High School class of 2016 and that is a tremendous honor I’ve been telling literally everybody I know upon that one

12:19 of our recent grants received that so I just wanted to take a moment

12:26 okay okay so that brings us to our student representative yes thank you I actually just want to say a quick congratulations on behalf of the student body to miss Carlson for her new role as our principal next year and um

12:48 and obviously thank you to Mr Bauer for his years of service yes

12:56 um so on March 24th the Triad music Honor Society hosts today coffee house at the veterans Middle School and they raised 300 from the music department the National Honor Society had donut fund research during MCAS on March 28th and March 29th those for the sophomores as well as a bake sale on April 2nd where they raised 500. the National Art Honor Society hosted a very successful community art night at the high school on March 31st where they raised twelve hundred dollars the sophomore class has held several fundraisers recently at a Cookie Monster and also um they have bagels for epcas the 20th and 29th as well the senior class held a bingo night

13:43 fundraiser on the 24th tomorrow is actually the last day for seniors who are going on senior project you can leave that and quarter four will start on Monday uh April 10th uh the break is April 17th through the 21st the music department which consists of band horse and Orchestra is sending several members to Disney World over the break where they will perform which is pretty cool and take two of the parks and myself and 17 others in the French Department are also headed to France

14:22 um and after the break uh MHS will host the production of Legally Blonde the musical at the high school from April 28th through April 30th and in terms of sports many sports have started recently baseball and sailing all started their Seasons yesterday girls lacrosse has a game today against Ipswich ways or against Wakefield today as well girls tennis has their first game Monday status is holding a fundraiser April 10th at the Warwick they’re showing King Richard at 12 30 depending on the speakers and the outdoor track team has their first meet Friday against sponsored okay now um we have a musical coming up and it’s uh Mr Bowers last year so I don’t know

15:07 about anybody else but I’m expecting you to have your game and not just have a cartwheel maybe see a handspring all right well then

15:20 so it will it is not to be missed do you seek approval from the school committee on Senior Skip Day is that something you come to us for yeah yeah I historically I don’t believe so

15:41 sometime in May bringing his successor to us to me which is going to be really exciting I’m not going to fill the beans but um him and Dan have worked that out and that will be on the agenda

15:56 enjoy your senior project yeah I’m actually on my phone

16:02 I wish thank you I will that brings us to public comment if anybody has a public comment if you can just raise your hand and I will call him um that brings us right to the consent action and agenda for the approval of minutes 10 13 and 11 1 are going to be moved to the next agenda so it will just we would just be voting on the 11 10 321 and 327. so I’ll ask for a motion to approve the so moved I’m gonna finish first um you Bob mentioned these as well as the schedule of bills and the anonymous search okay

16:50 all in favor all right I suppose no motion carries five zero superintendents update best I’ll just give a quick thank you to over that anonymous anonymous oh as well that was that was really cool yes thank you that’s funny when Mr Bauer came to present the program study with um Mrs Carlson they talked about the Innovation pathway we received affirmative word this week that we got the Innovation pathway Grant which will be 75 000 in the first year and fifty thousand dollars a year uh in the subsequent four um it’s a really great opportunity for our high school and our students I attended the faculty meeting at the high school yesterday um where they celebrated people that put

17:35 in the work for Innovation pathway as well as the World Language Department sealed by literacy I did a review what they’ve been doing this year with an outside consultant to kind of re-engineer how World languages are taught which is very exciting and so to see the applied literacy to something else that our students will have an opportunity to do that’s wonderful Neil Mike am I correct are we looking into another pathway as well currently or not did I hear that somewhere

18:07 okay perfect okay perfect perfect I’m very excited thank you um so that brings us to the school committee communication discussion items we are very happy to welcome Miss Michelle Carlson um to come up and meet us if anybody

18:40 I’d just like to say as a member of the search committee it’s a pleasure to to see you stepping up and taking this role and to see the strong support from the faculty and staff here at the district and it was clear-cut they’re behind you to 100 of the way and uh looking forward to seeing you you know step up and do great things and put your own little spice on things here at the district and you know be bold be proud and you’ve got the support of the committee

19:15 political knowledge it’s always wonderful in any organization I think to see someone grow through the organization because it speaks to the climate of mentorship so yes that definitely and I’m happy for the high school too I think you know there’s always a concern um when there’s changing roles that there’s going to be lost years in there and I think you know with your historical knowledge that there’s going to be a lot more continuity so that’s you know right now the lone High School parent and I’m happy about that um just excited for you thank you I have not met you but I look forward

19:58 um but I have heard wonderful things and knowing all the support that was behind you I am very excited to see everybody doing this role and of course to get to know you much better so I look forward to that unfortunately you don’t Dodge the bullet of getting a Wolverton like Dan did everyone else has had to deal with one so welcome to the club oh so with no further Ado I will ask for a motion to approve Miss Michelle Carlson as the approve the contract with Miss Michelle Carlson for the Marblehead High School principal second

20:36 I suppose I suppose approved five-star thank you thank you

20:49 welcome Miss Julia Ferreira um and this is actually an appointment rather than an approval um so we I was part of the search committee for Julia and very excited about everything we saw and heard and again very excited to see someone move up through our district to leadership role again it keeps to our mentorship does anybody have any questions so uh if you could just for the public just give a little blurb about um your backgrounds through the different levels because that’s what it was so wonderful to me is you’ve worked with all different grade levels so first of all thank you so much for this incredible opportunity and I am familiar too

21:35 um I I’m coming for almost 20 years experience in public education from classroom teacher um so middle school and high school English teacher as well as team leader English department chair and assistant principal I’ve worked in school district very school districts in Massachusetts as well as many years in California as well thank you um so I will ask for a motion to appoint and approve the contract for an assistant superintendent with Miss Julia second Taylor circled all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries five to zero and welcome to you as well [Applause]

22:19 I really am excited to work remarkable safely so thank you for this opportunity we still make these poor kids read Beowulf

22:30 [Laughter] [Laughter] thank you

22:41 oh my gosh oh so that for instance you planning for Success strategic plan development next steps

22:55 that’s fine so do you mind if I just say a few words so this is something that I had um I requested that we just bring up as a school committee um now that we’ve uh deliberated on the budget and moved that forward to the the town meeting um with regards to plan for Success I’m obviously new to the committee came into this with fresh eyes and see that as a high level guidance document really important for the district as we shape our strategy over the next several years however I thought that there was a real need for us as a committee to work with Dr Bucky and the team just to really hone in now on what we can do not only to kind of understand how do we know when we’re there but also to really think about even our limited resources

23:43 how to best you know to advise the committee on how we’re doing on achieving some of these goals and so I think that if you look at the five pillars of the plan for success and I mentioned this in our January 30th meeting you can think about things or emphasize in any given year it’d be important really for each of these pillars to be evaluated in of themselves and think about maybe as modules or just really a call to action for the committee really over the next year as we think about fy25 budget what we want to emphasize and plan for and budget for I also think that there’s been some you know I’ve heard discussion from the community about thinking about how we can best uh outfit

24:30 our district to teach to all levels and um that’s been a point of discussion I’m not expert in this but I know it’s something that the committee may want to take up with the administration over the next year so that was really my my point in adding this to the agenda and I’d welcome comments from other on the committee as to how we may attack this over the next year

25:06 um so I welcome that opportunity I think something that I have felt all along is having some additional benchmarks for that plan for Success like you said or to your point where we know we’re headed in the right direction and we don’t have to wait to 20 25 26 to then say did we get there um I think that that is important from a strategic perspective and then to your second point on planning what we need condition planning next year’s budget um thinking that far ahead we haven’t even you know completed this on we’ve completed the budget but you know we haven’t even voted on that yet um but it is something that I’ve talked at like with Dr Bucky about in looking at our enrollment in more detail I know a lot of what we hear from the community

25:53 and you look at those deci numbers and it tells a different story and what is actually happening in the classroom and that is a little bit frustrating for me um because I just think we need to do a better job of explaining that displaying that whatever whatever the right word is to the community and then developing you know classes around the actual enrollment and sharing that with the community and determining with the administration of course um and our excellent leaders at each School the class numbers that we need and what those actual sizes are going to be because I can tell you they’re not 17 and we hear a lot in the community about that and that’s just not what they are right now and looking into things like

26:39 you know ensuring that we’re meeting kids at all levels where they need to be met ensuring that in every classroom it’s happening consistently and doing what we can to help facilitate that for our education so I I love the the idea of fleshing out this into the measurable steps in the initiatives with the budget drivers of the next layer I think the planning for Success where we went out to finish the community we got feedback that gave us really the markers of what we want and I think the next step is really fleshing out like that is the skeleton and putting you know the Flesh on it if you will to kind of get those measurability markers and things so I think that this is

27:25 definitely something as a committee that we should work with John and the leadership team to do you know we can talk about what the best ways to go about that are is it in a workshop format is it that we give them certain directives and then they come back with those so just you know talking about that but I think we really do need to get to the next step of having that longer term just for the budgeting piece because as we go into another year where we know we’re going to need to have a lot of information I think having this will be really good thank you thank you no I think you know fleshing it out um obviously I had some questions about that over the summer and just sort of

28:12 what that meant and I still have some concerns because I think someone’s if you know there is accountability to not meet in ghosts but the kind of like that for not also getting funding to meet them then the accountability is somewhere in the middle there um so that’s my biggest concern over that um but I do think you know in Dr Bucky and I recently talked about the curriculum aspect of that um and what what his ideas are for really fleshing that out um and I think that they’re really great because I think you know with the feedback that we’ve gotten definitely last year in progress of continuing to receive this year being able to point to you know last year that all the one time asked for a very big deal and I think if we

28:58 can do this with Fidelity it’ll help us explain where the one-time assets are going this year we’re the ones that school next year and the year after that so I think you know it’s it’s hearing the feedback from the community and moving forward on it because that’s exactly it we have one time asks but there’s a reoccurring need for you yes and people want

29:34 after um in order I think it’s helpful so yeah absolutely

29:41 um um I think one thing we continue to have with us be careful of you know

30:02 uh I do think also this is one thing you’ve talked about the plan together and that’s how well and through it but we also have to have a process in place so that we’re reviewing how we’re doing towards that plan and that’s one thing that I think about it every year but we actually don’t have a process in place to be measuring how we’re progressing towards those so that we you know we get halfway through the year for example we might have it’s relevant reading itself right because that will impact that may have an impact especially you know this year that will then have a knock-on effect so absolutely flushing that out a little bit but having a process in place

30:48 so maybe I can just conclude by saying that I would hope that this committee between now and the end of this term can sort of figure out what we want and uh from kind of defining what the process is and then with a new school committee seated and went through the summer really taking this body of work up as I would recommend as a as a full committee and maybe performing ad hoc subcommittees that’s necessary for certain elements uh like curriculum for example and then make recommendations to the broader committee Etc uh I know that’s part of the the review of The Five-Year curriculum review but I think it would be really important for us over the next couple of meetings really come with ideas about what we’d like to see in this process then let’s all lock cans on

31:33 what that should potentially be and then get going as soon as we can we’re not going to do it tonight but obviously I just wanted to bring it up because I I know it’s on a lot of our minds so as the next step can I suggest an intermediate every step between there because a lot of work is being done on these and a lot of it has been fleshed out in terms of the technology the teaching and learning professional culture there’s a point person for each of those to have the point person come and present the work that has been done and then if there’s additional fleshing out needs to be done certainly we take that up you have those documents I think compiling them from each of those Point people into a document in sharing that with us so we know where we are and we

32:20 can give some guidance on what we want but yeah I think that’s the point well taken because I think that you know that sort of was my trouble over the summer is that I I know and trust that our administrators and and um you know building directors and Lead teachers and everything they have a very specific idea of where these things are going and how we’re actually getting there and so I appreciate that point because I think sharing that information and that knowledge is sort of a great Next Step and I don’t know of the people doing this work are attributing budget drivers to it but we’ll certainly need budget drivers attributed to all of this because that’s how we’re going to get

33:05 the work done all right that’s good so that brings us to the discussion of super intended review I reached out to Dorothy presser and got some information from her asked her how most I asked her you know if she could come back and kind of do a walk through with us again I asked her how most districts do it and she walked me through kind of what happens and what he doesn’t she said the number one way districts do it is everyone fills out their individual review hands it in and the chairs the second way the second talk when they do it was that the chair and the secretary go through compile that together I asked her how many do it with the whole committee and post it and

33:51 she said she’s seen it down a time or two it’s the rarest way it’s done um and then she and I asked her and then I asked her how she did it because she was you know 27 years and she said she didn’t play with the chair um happy to do any discussion but that’s just the data I got when I was at Vasco I knew we had nine members and so we did all basically uh provide our feedback in the way that you said it we did have deliberation as a school committee and reached consensus on sort of the output of that so it wasn’t one pen or two pens okay I think it was deliberated I would feel probably comfortable with that as long as that’s what I’ve been through before I don’t know what others have done absolutely

34:43 is we would compile it together rather than a person compiling it and then delivering it right yeah I mean it’s up it’s up to you guys it’s the will of the committee it’s just from my perspective

34:58 yeah yeah just because you don’t want to introduce too much bias from God forbid if I had the pen I mean be a tough year for you Dr Bucky no in all seriousness I think that um you know we just want to be cognizant that we’re a small committee and so we could have an outsized influence we I would just recommend we do it in a workshop format so that we can yes because I think having having done that with Lisa one year and I know have you talked with Emily afterwards last year it’s many hours but yeah I was trying to make sure that there’s that voices are represented and it was interesting because I asked about you know do some districts give it to now and she said that although deci sometimes or it seems

35:43 as recommending having an outside that the Massachusetts new school committees highly recommends only having members of the school community be part of it nobody else because whether they’re employees in the district or whatever it it can create awkwardness can you can you walk through that again here well let me just see if I understand you’re saying one person on this committee compiles everything into one document and then we all review that uh we could either do it that way or we could also bring our comments for deliberation and compile it after deliberation compile it all together oh so one other clarifying Point she made

36:28 is that when it gets sent to us the final copy for review at the same time we have to make it public because that the document in and of itself she said is the deliberation and that all of our individual reviews are public as well she clarified that with me so I guess that clears that up if we all bring our re documents right the day off and we sit and we I’ll do this office

36:54 I don’t mind I I don’t mind as long as we you know set aside a date and figure it out and just know that it’s not going to be like a 30 minute right but we also shouldn’t break into jail we can do before so not a crazy amount of time I think actually having us all do it together will make it quicker because then there’s not well did I make sure this person’s voice in a small committee you have one or two people who compile it could really have if I like I said if I was compiling it you would have a strong reflection of my voice and no matter what it’s just inherent bias you can’t yeah

37:34 um so I’ll I’ll send some dates around sure um I’m I’m looking like end of May I mean not because the next step is Doctor before we do that Dr Bucky does it self-assessment against that to us and just because um Tom’s in here when you send it all out can you make sure he has your goals and everything now you may already have something successful

38:22 and then whatever date we land on I’ll back him up

38:28 that’s one that’s one um okay so that brings us to FY 24 budget planning and discussion I just keep this on here through town meeting is through the boat um on Monday we have the warrant hearing um I don’t know who if people are planning on going I’m going to post just in case for all of us no no we already vote right now

38:57 and so I will not be there so yeah and as I understand it they’ve set up the beach so speak at the council and age but I just heard that that’s a great one on the town side uh that’s your Moses

39:14 um can I just say one thing on it it’s so I know we had the fincon presentation of the Town departments and Sarah I know you made a passionate uh discussion at the the town meeting I think you know kind of where we are now we all we have said publicly what we need to say about you know I think the Public’s highly aware of the reduction of services contemplated by the you know balanced budget and why we’re so supportive of article 31 not only for us but also for the town it’s really important but I do think you know it’s really important for us to really advocate for the benefits of that and maybe spend a little less time on you know worrying the town about you know things falling apart because you know this this Administration these building leaders will do a great job under any

40:01 budget and I think you should vote 31 and advocate for that so thank you for your advocacy

40:11 um one other thing I did say just to kind of put it out there in the larger sphere is that as I’ve sat and watched this year move forward I suggested that our friend come Liaisons be in meetings earlier next year so that they have a little bit more of a granule view of all of our all of the Departments that exist within the school department um because I I found that to be a place where there was a little bit less information on the school side than there was for the town side I think there’s just a very different structure in how that goes but I think it would be really helpful in just a more full understanding of the school department

40:56 and all of the arms that we have it’s interesting because the school department has all these has more sub-arms in the entire town yes on their side so it really is an interesting Dynamic I do think it’s important I know Michelle you’ve been advocating for this with the fincom and with uh and that is to capture an our income statement all the indirect costs such as Retirement Health Care Etc so that as we deliberate a budget we truly understand the impact of an FTE what that means on both sides of Ledger both direct and indirect expenses so from what I’ve heard and I think there’s real momentum to do that and I heard again great kudos to you and Dr Bucky for the way you prepared your financial planning and got us to a budget that we could approve and so it’s

41:42 really set The Standard Hotel so thank you for your hard work yeah I know you’re drinking margaritas down at Dominican Republic last week but on vacation well deserved I will say we have got I’ve gotten nothing but tremendous job year about the transparency and fincon meetings they were saying we set the gold standard I mean those are the things we haven’t heard and so that in and of itself I think is a really great indicator of where we are financially with our financial transparency so I’m really proud of that all right oh um John had a little bit of information today on the capital Labs that’s still kind of being worked out here and there I think we’ll have some finalized

42:29 answers in a few days it’s something that is being talked about and it’s just later um all right so subcommittee and liaison updates Tom you and I have a false meeting next Friday correct you’re the chair I know off on my days I believe we have a policy meeting next year sounds great like a do you have a date for unsung heroes yet okay if you find out before our next meeting you just let me know because yeah because that’s a great event I want to make sure I Mark that down um okay new business anybody can I ask a quick question will we have a date

43:16 um a possible date or two days to do an uh meeting in the city I think I have not um um new business correspondence we had some emails come in this week regarding um I don’t know how to put things in the drive Dropbox so I will make sure Lisa does that um where do the emails come to some came to the full okay um so some emails have come to this full school committee some have come to Allison and myself and Nan and Dr Bucky I think there’s principles on there at one point um but the the toll of it is we have a policy in place

44:02 we just re-voted it um and I think the standard reply is just to to notify people because about this policy where it is where the forms are that anybody can find um and Sarah if you can reform that to me so I I can just hit reply yeah um the policy the nice thing this year was we put a extra piece to the policy that shows the steps and really lays it out um so that’s all out there which all else who are we talking about book review okay book review so this was the complaint that came from parent about a book in the library as being

44:48 yeah we’ve gotten a few minutes this week from different parents so doc you receive the email or was it a school committee member or they’ve come in in various forms yeah so I I think one of the things that I was a little troubled by is that I know we have a policy for handling any public employees which is basically to take the complaint from the school committee member give it to Dr Bucky that gets adjudicated at the lowest level at the teacher level then the principal level etc etc and it’s really not our role at all as hard as it is as parents as far as it is it’s involved and invested members of the school committee to get our hands in it we are not operational people I don’t have enough degrees behind my

45:33 name like a thermometer like you guys do but having said all that we have to resist that that very temptation to get involved because it’s not our business as a school community we have a policy and so anything outside of that is a no-go for this we can address questions that come to the committee but we cannot handle complaints in any other way than our policy for handling public complaints so I just want to remind this committee and remind myself to refrain from getting involved in operational matters in the district is not our business so if you can send that Dr Bucky and I talked about that the best um approach is is just to respond with that policy and the paperwork that that gets

46:22 attached to it and asks that those steps be followed because that isn’t really I know that that policy came straight from our Librarians in a way so that it was a very fair and unbiased process um and so you know they felt very passionate about that so you know that was a and that’s one of our our few policies that doesn’t just have the policy but has this actual additional addendum that lays out the steps so I think it’s good good to have those two pieces together that that people understand

46:59 I think his Committee of that um because I do think as a group this community probably does you know too much weight into the operations more more than we should um so I think just a constant reminder

47:16 so thank you no and I think you know I think it’s a really great reminder and I think you know there’s there’s obviously this district has has had a lot of stuff go on in the last five to ten years and so I think you know when when there’s leadership changes just like the comments about Michelle being able to step into the role at the high school that when leadership changes in really solid ways like that there’s less room for wiggle and there’s been a lot of room for wiggle in at the top levels in in this district and so I think there are probably some really good reasons why things are what they are right now but it doesn’t mean that they should stay that way

48:01 um and I think you know there’s confusion amongst the community at times too as to how why we can’t just step in and why it’s not healthy for the superintendent to just you know make make blanket rulings on things um but it really there that fall leads to Megan’s Point earlier the process around things is very very important I will remind this committee one other thing our role as a school Community member our only point of contact with the district is period and if we have parent-teacher conferences that’s great but it’s inappropriate for any of us to reach into the district unless we’re going through Dr Bucky period so it’s hard as a parent I don’t have a kid in the district so it’s easy for me

48:47 but I can remember when I was at Masco my wife was the only one that could talk to the district about anything other than the school Community stuff because I was always viewed by leadership by teachers as being a school committee member that put me at an asymmetric relationship that’s unfair to leadership and teachers and therefore we as school communities cannot speak to anybody in the district unless it’s regarding our student with our teacher unless it’s through Dr Buckley remember one thing they always talk about at the mass Association of school committees and they send us repeatedly at no point do you ever forfeit your parental parental rights to deal with anything as a parent so you know that that is

49:34 important number two because especially as we get to people like thinking do I want to run and they’re thinking wait I can’t be a parent anymore nope nope everybody can still be a parent I will tell you that is very hard it’s hard I have a true single parent so I don’t have another person to fall back on um so I and I realized it’s probably hard to not see me now as school committee and I I don’t know that I thought about it before um before running pull those papers um but it is very hard and so I find myself constantly whether I’m going to school to drop a football off that my son forgot to bring for recess or whether I’m meeting with a teacher or a responsible or whoever saying a million times during those conversations or interactions and here’s parents here’s parents

50:20 parents parents staff and our professional their level of professionalism I think it’s really important to acknowledge they’re all we’re blessed with some wonderful professionals and they know how to do their job and they know how to be professionals and they know how to view as differently as a parent and I think yes we wear both hats but I think it does a disservice to our professionals to say they’re unable to be professional and understand the difference because they all did and they all do professionals

50:53 and I think it I think to Allison’s point because I I get myself into similar situations and it’s more of my own stuff at that point than the actual administrator right or teacher um just you know wanting to make sure that I’m not overstepping any boundaries um like it is you know it makes this point before it is tough to put one hat on and take another hat off they they switch really really easily um sometimes I have the added professional piece and in contacting staff as well um and you know I found that you know I don’t do this 100 of the time but if there’s a something that I have a concern over I will just like even if it’s a parent thing I’ll just email John and say hey I have to reach out to this teacher and you know I just wanted to give you ahead that’s that’s a great one

51:39 and he’s you know and I did that with Bill and I did that with Marianne like and no one has ever said no you can’t do that so so without further Ado we made it before eight I’m going to adjourn us at seven