School Committee: August 4, 2023

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

0:00 To the cloud, and then we can post it. I’ll have to figure out what’s going on with that. Okay. Um, good morning. Um, thanks everyone for attending. We still have some folks coming in. Um, we trying to let people in as quick as possible. Yeah.

0:14 Okay. All right. So, um, I called this to order already, so I’d like to, before we start, public comment, we have a lot of folks on, so it’s likely that folks are gonna wanna speak, which is great. Um, we, our, our public comment policy, um, pertains to subcommittees as well. So we are normally asking folks to, um, limit their comments to three minutes. Um, and we do have a lot of folks on, uh, we wanna try to get everyone the opportunity to speak if they would like to. Uh, but we do also have some, some work we need to get done today. So I’m not at this point, and Alison, you can jump in. We’re not gonna limit the number of comments, but if we tend to go for an extended period of time, we may have to cut it off. The policy does allow us to up to 15 minutes. Um, but,

1:00 uh, we’ll just see how many folks would like to speak. So I will ask for public comment.

1:08 Okay. Bear with me a minute here. I’ve got Carla Strobel.

1:15 Hi. Yes. Hi. Welcome. Mute myself. Great. Hi. Good afternoon. Um, thanks for letting me, uh, address this group. I’m a parent of three kiddos in Marblehead Public Schools. I have, um, a brown, two brown school students coming in this fall, and a village student as well. Um, I’m addressing the school committee today. Um, the policy committee, because I saw that recess was an agenda item on the public meeting announcement. Um, it’s a little tricky to make public comment before, uh, the nature of the agenda item, but I would like to take this opportunity to, um, address this group. And just one, um, I am an advocate of two recesses in the school,

2:02 and I implore this committee to consid, consider reinstating two recesses in the k K through three and two. I’d also just like, if this is an up for discussion, again, a better understanding of why recess is up for discussion, why the schedule was initially changed, um, in conversations I’ve had with Dr. Bucky Nan, both school principals, um, when this was up for discussion, it was a time on learning issue. And so if there is something that has changed, what has changed, and if we are able to implement a second recess in the school day, that would be amazing. Um, and I can only underscore, you know, our own local teachers and educators,

2:48 as well as top educators from across the country discuss and imp advocate that recess helps people better focus, um, have better test scores, and just in general helps social emotional development as well. So, thanks for letting me address this group, and I look forward to hearing more about, uh, recess in the schedule. Thanks, Carla. Appreciate that. Appreciate your comments. Um, it’s a little bit later in the, um, in the schedule. I think it’s number three on our, on our agenda, but, um, uh, we will be discussing that and your, your points are very, very well, well taken. I appreciate it. All right. I don’t see any other hands up. Allison, do you? Nope, we’re good.

3:33 Okay, good. All right. Last chance for public comment. Comment. Um, okay, great. Alright, then we will move on to our agenda. The first discussion is around athletics. Um, and Sorry, Jen, We do have a hand. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Um, Naomi. Hi. Welcome.

3:54 Let me just see. Hi. Okay, you can unmute yourself. Great. Welcome. Hi. Terrific. Thanks for, um, letting me, uh, have a chance to talk here. So I am a professor, um, at the College of Education at Boston University, and the mom of a six year old who’s gonna be in first grade this year. And I also wanted to speak on the recess, um, um, issue. He, this past year, what I understand from his teacher is that the schedule allows for more recess time than they were actually allowed to take. Um, the morning recess had, um, was snack slash recess, which means that getting that number of kids all with their coats and gloves and all of that on meant that often their morning recess was maybe five

4:41 to 10 minutes long. Um, and he really suffered from it. He’s a, uh, high energy kid, and, um, really needed, um, the movement breaks. And his teacher said that, you know, she tried to get them as many movement breaks as they could, but was scared of getting in trouble for not being, having time on task. And with a kindergarten kiddo and, you know, uh, early education, the task oftentimes really is that movement. Um, and so I feel like it’s really, really critical that he got it. We were at, you know, at one point over this past year talking about whether he needed an, an evaluation for an I E P because he wasn’t really coping very well with the lack of physical movement. Um, and I think it’s a lot to ask the five-year-old to, to sit for six hours,

5:30 um, in, in a day. And while I think we could have, you know, pursued that sort of direction, it didn’t seem like it was right for, for him. Um, it would’ve been a solution that solved a problem for one kid when I think it’s not just a problem for, for one kid. I feel like it’s a, it’s a, a, a, a problem for, for lots more kids than than just, um, than just him. Um, and I, so I really, I really encourage you to, um, to reconsider that that recess process, uh, you know, plan. I think now that he’s gonna be in first grade, I’m concerned that it’s gonna, you know, be worse. He, he found out that his little sister was gonna start school. She was starting daycare. She was like one and a half at the time, and he wanted to know if she was gonna have to sit all sit still all day too.

6:19 Um, and he was really horrified that she was gonna have to, um, sit still too. And I think it has really impacted his understanding of what school and education is about and his joy for learning, because he’s really, really struggling trying to, to stay in his seat for, for as long as as he is. And again, I don’t think it’s an issue of just one kid. I think, I think it’s a, a broader problem. So I’m glad to to hear that you’re willing to reconsider the issue, um, at this point. Thank you, Naomi. Thank you Naomi. And just so you know, and Carla, if that is, I can’t speak for Allison, but that’s my reason for asking this on the, on the agenda is to, is to rethink the second recess. So, um, appreciate, I appreciate your input and hope he’s off to a good start this year, or both of them actually. Um, okay.

7:05 I don’t see anyone else. Lemme just double check now. Don’t see any other hands raised. Okay. So I am gonna move on to the agenda. Um, the first item we have, as I had said is athletics. Um, and I don’t have, um, a specific policy that I’m referencing in this discussion today. I had mentioned this to Michelle yesterday. I think what one thing I, I would like to do, whether this is a new policy or whether it goes into an existing policy, and this is just up for discussion, Alison, is, um, the idea of requiring by policy that our coaches, our extracurricular co-curricular athletic coaches be required to be

7:53 certified m i a A certified. Mm-hmm. Um, I didn’t see that anywhere in our policies. Um, I believe it’s in our handbook. I think I was going through the handbook, but, um, I, I am feeling very strongly that it’s something that we ought to have as a policy and also that we adopt the M I A A handbook as our athletic policy, as our athletic handbook. We do have a Marblehead school system athletic handbook, but it is not the same as, and it is not as, uh, detailed as the m I A handbook. So I’m con considering that we think about this as a policy.

8:31 So, uh, I am on board with that, especially after, you know, some information that we’ve received and, and looking at how many of our coaches are or are not certified. I do think that that’s an important part of the process and I think that that is something that a policy would be well suited for. Okay. Uh, as far as the handbook goes, I think it’s fairly standard that a lot of places, I don’t want to speak to specifics, they haven’t done all of the research, but I think it’s fairly standard for places to use the M I A A handbook for their districts. And I don’t see a reason why we wouldn’t. Okay. Uh, just kind of standardize the process,

9:17 but I’m open to that discussion if there’s, you know, Okay. So Michelle, I’m wondering if it makes sense to, we probably should be looping in the athletic department on this and maybe the high school principal, Michelle. Uh, I’m not sure if that that’s appropriate, um, if we wanna move forward with creating these, this athletic policy. Absolutely. Um, I do wanna mention that, um, we have made a movement to start requiring all our coaches to become M I A A certified, um, that is gonna begin with this fall season and we’ll move forward with that. Um, so that necessarily doesn’t, not, does not need to be in policy for us to take on that action. And that’s the benefit. It, it would be a benefit to our district.

10:04 So we are requiring that moving forward. Um, in terms of a policy, we can absolutely look into it. Um, I’m not very familiar with the M I A policy, um, but certainly we can look into that, see if it’s something worth adopting, see if it just needs a little tweaking or if there’s pros and cons to, you know, adopting that policy. And certainly we would have to bring in the athletic director as well as the high school principal, Michelle Carson, to that conversation. Okay. So we can certainly start that. Okay. So at this point, you, you’re, there’s a expectation or directive that the coaches will be certified? Um, am I aa certified by the start of school? Yes. All of the coaches may not have heard that just yet because we made that decision yesterday. Okay. Um, so that mean we had been talking about it for a little bit,

10:50 but we finally made the directive yesterday that all coaches, um, by the middle of September will be required to have that certification. Okay. And then going forward For every Season thereafter. That’s great. I, um, ‘cause I went online, they do list as of the updated list as the July 12th. Mm-hmm. Um, and it showed, um, I think there were six coaches from Marblehead that are certified and I counted, we have 28 coaches with a mm-hmm. With I think two or three openings. Um, so that’s, you know, that’s a lot of people. So you just wanna make sure that, again, I don’t know what’s involved. I, what I read is that there are, um, in-person, um, trainings and there are online trainings. So we just wanna obviously make sure if we’re gonna be sending through this sort of volume possible mm-hmm. Well that’s all seasons, I guess. So maybe it for at least for fall, maybe it’s a smaller amount, um,

11:36 that they just have enough capability, you know, yes. To do that certification for that many so that they can, they can meet that deadline. Absolutely. So that, that was the initial deadline we put out there. So, I mean, if there are, you know, difficulties in meeting that, certainly we’ll take that up for discussion. But that is our intent at this time. And from a budget standpoint, is there, uh, is there funding in the athletic budget for that or how does that Work? Um, we’ll be taking that out of one-time funds that we have in, um, a donation account. Okay. ‘cause yeah, I think it’s $95 per coach. So, you know, if it’s one thing once we get this rolling that we ha maybe we add one or two coaches a year, it’s, you know, that’s pretty Exactly putting through it, won’t it, it won’t be as big a deal once we start this process moving forward. Absolutely. Okay. So at this point you’re gonna,

12:23 you’re gonna go back to the athletic department. Do you want, or do we wanna maybe have them at another meeting? Do you wanna talk to them first and maybe come back to us? Yeah, no, certainly I will, um, you know, I will work with them and then also get, um, a copy of the m I A A policy book and we’ll, we’ll take a look and talk about, you know, the benefits and, and whatnot. And if it will restrict our hands more than necessarily we need to be restricted. ‘cause they’re, it’s always a possibility, but, um, we certainly need to look into that. So yes, I will take that lead and meet with them and then possibly bringing them back at another future meeting. We can certainly continue that discussion. Okay. So we’re not gonna necessarily pan a policy today and I’ll go back and do a little more research on, um, I didn’t do a ton ‘cause I did more on the recess side, um, on the other school district’s policies.

13:10 So I’ll do a little bit more of a deeper dive just to see what other school districts are doing. Um, and then we can have that conversation with the athletic director or the athletic staff. Yep, that’d be great. And again, the point being, we obviously want our students and our ath student athletes to be as safe and as possible and to have, you know, the the best credentialed, um, coaches that we can, um, to obviously keep them safe physically and mentally. Absolutely. Okay. Um, wellness is next on our, or Alison, did you have anything else? I’m sorry about, um, no athletics. That’s Good. No, I’m, I’m happy to hear that that was decided yesterday, Michelle. That’s exciting. I think that’s a, a great and a smart move for Our children. No, it’s a benefit for all. It’s a small financial commitment the first year, um, after that it’s minimal and I think it is, it’s a benefit for all. Yes.

13:58 Great. Thank you. Um, so we’re, and actually before we jump on that, I’m assuming that’s, um, all coaches including middle school coaches? ‘cause we do have some middle school athletics. Um, I would have to double check with the athletic on that, the department on that, but I would assume so if it’s part of the m i A program. Okay, Great. Um, so wellness, we have wellness and then recess, which actually are the same policy. So it’s a little bit, um, little bit clunky what we’re trying to get through here today. So Michelle, I’m gonna have you update us on the status of the current wellness policy and what you’re looking for from this committee and the, and the full school committee. And then we’ll go into the recess portion. Just so everyone knows that recess is part of the recess policy

14:43 is embedded in the wellness policy. So we have kind of, we have sort of an emergent issue we need to deal with with our wellness policy and then the, uh, the recess consideration. So yes, why don’t we start with you, Michelle, and then we’ll, we’ll figure out what we’re doing with that and then we’ll move on to recess. Sounds good. So last year, um, Dr. Bucky put together a wellness committee. I believe it was last fall. We met throughout the year to come up with a new revised wellness policy. Um, the state had put in new guidelines that we were not compliant with. Um, so we took our time, we crafted a new policy. It does follow the previous policy, but it adds some additional safeguards in there. Um, on June 12th, the committee vote and recommended the current version of

15:32 the policy to be, um, to move forward as the updated policy for the district. Um, I do wanna mention that I did have to take one bullet out of there because it referenced another policy that we have not yet put into place. Um, so I will be coming back probably in the next couple months asking for an amendment to this policy so we can add that reference to it for a life-threatening allergy, um, situation. The current policy is in, um, it meets all the Department of Education nutrition guidelines that we were required to meet. And unfortunately due the timing of the new school year, we have to have this policy adopted before the beginning of the school year for our free and reduced lunch, um, program. So we’re kind of under a time crunch and that’s why we’re bringing this forward.

16:19 I didn’t realize that this requirement was, um, or this policy was required to be adopted in a before the school year started. I do wanna mention the current, um, bullet within the policy regarding recess just requires that, um, elementary students will re, will receive it least 15 minutes a day, 15 minute minimum of recess per day. It doesn’t specify if it’s one or two, it just requires that those minutes. Um, so certainly we can take that up for discussion, but I would recommend, um, moving this policy forward just due to the timing constraint right now. And certainly we can, um, take up a policy at any time and amend it, um, through the normal channels. But this is kind of a time-sensitive manner in order to start our school year.

17:09 So I just wanted, before we, I can hear some voices in the background, everyone seems to be muted. So it might be, is someone talking in your office? Is that you, Michelle? It’s probably me, yeah. My husband’s on a conference call. Okay, No problem. Alright, I just wanna make sure I didn’t because everyone else looks muted. Um, okay, so just quick question. You s correct if wrong, did you say the school committee did approve this policy on six 12? Or No, I’m sorry, the wellness committee did. Oh, the wellness committee did. I’m sorry. I misunderstood. Yes. Okay, so you’re asking the school committee to go forward to approve this updated wellness policy. Okay, so I, I don’t think our policy committee need, do we need to adopt this? I mean, I guess we can take a vote and adopt it, but, but it really needs to go to the full committee. It really needs to go to the full committee. So that’s why I was bringing it to you. Um, I don’t know if it, like we,

17:57 we discussed it might require two additional public meetings on the matter, but, um, certainly we wanna try to get it through before the start of the school year, if at all possible. And it only needs to be adopted by the school committee. Okay. So that we don’t need to take a vote. Um, I will do a little more research. My understanding is that the school committee can vote to waive three readings and just do one reading on a policy. So we basically can vote to amend our policy about policies and adopt one. So let me, um, log that over to Sarah Fox, um, to kinda get a reading and if that’s the case, you know, put put it onto the docket for the next meeting, which I don’t think we have scheduled yet. Um, and we, you know, assuming, you know, everyone’s in agreement we’ll or whatever, we will, we will vote on it. Um,

18:43 and then that will get us in line for whatever is needed for food service, um, to, to be all set for the start of the school year. Alison, what do you think about that? Uh, that’s fine. And then subsequent to that, we will do the work on, or we’re gonna have a subsequent discussion on recess. I just wanna make sure we’re not, those are two separate things, right? Yeah, I understand the need to get it through for, for the free and reduced lunch a hundred percent on board with that. I just don’t wanna lose sight of the recess discussion. Yep. Nope, totally. Okay. So you will get that into the, um, agenda for the next school committee meeting, Michelle, for approval, right? Yes, I, I’ll, Okay. Um, all right. So that’s wellness, which is a D f I believe.

19:30 Um, I believe that’s the, um, Yes it is. Yeah. All right. So it’s a d f and we don’t have an A D F dash r I don’t think. No, we don’t. Um, okay. All right. So, uh, you’ll let her know that I’ll give her a heads up as well, um, on that. So, anything else, Allison? You’re good on that? Yeah. Okay. So let’s move on to, and I’m just opening this up real quick, um, to the recess issue. So I’m looking at the policy and I’m afraid I’m on this kind of clunky laptop, so I’m afraid if I share my screen, I might not come back. Um, so I did a little research, I did a bunch of research on recess and other school districts.

20:17 Um, and the recess, as I said earlier, the recess is embedded into this wellness policy, which is policy A D F, and, uh, most school com school districts have this PO have this policy as, as we all do. Um, but they have different, uh, they differ from, from, from district to district. So I just wanna give Alison a couple of, um, some background in Michelle on what I discovered. And I looked at a whole bunch of schools. One example is Norwood. Um, they have policy A D F A D F, uh, for wellness. Interesting. They have a physical education or physical activity policy in their wellness policy, which they take as recommended by Shape America,

21:03 which I don’t know what that is. So I’ll a little research, but the recommendation is 60 minutes a day of physical activity or 300 minutes a week, which they have adopted in Norwood. Um, I did check to see that their school days are the same length as ours, which they are both at elementary, um, six hours and 15 minutes middle and high school at 6 35. Um, so again, I haven’t reached out to Norwood, but 60 minutes a day, it, that’s inclusive of pe, right? So you do have, you know, you do have PE maybe twice a week, but that’s still a lot. So I’m not, you know, like, so that’s an example of, um, a lot of activity, which is great, um, in how they fit that into their school day is, um, is something we can probably dig in a little bit deeper. Wellesley, um,

21:49 has a policy they adopted. Um, by the way, Norwood adopted their policy in 2022. Wellesley also adopted theirs June of 2022. Wellesley schools, for instance, does not give any specific time for recess, but they say that schools will endeavor to schedule recess prior to lunch because research Indic indicates that physical activity prior to lunch can increase nutrient intake and reduce food waste. So that’s something to think about just as an example, in terms of timing, um, Lexington Public Schools adopted in July of 2012, interestingly, so it was a while back, um, quote unquote, two recess breaks will be provided. Um, and the other thing about Lexington as well as Wellesley in almost every school district I saw,

22:34 is they have a line or portion of their policy that indicates that the withholding of recess or physical education will not be used as a form of punishment or discipline. So that’s also something we might wanna think about with the administration. So Lexington, um, does have the two recesses and, um, they have a little bit of a different school day. They have a slightly longer school day, Monday through Thursday, and they do a Friday early every Friday, early dismissal at 1230 for, uh, teacher planning and, um, professional development, which I thought was interesting. Um, Newburyport has, um, uh, one recess per day, um, for K through eight, which I thought was interesting. They also have the no punishment or discipline clause. So, you know,

23:20 the point is school, you know, school, different schools are doing different things. Ma I saw a few other school districts that have that same 300 minutes a week under that Shape America. Many school districts that I saw had, um, when they did, they weren’t saying how many recesses, but they were saying 150 minutes a week, right? Which ends up being 30 minutes a day. So again, if is that two recesses or is that one 30 minute, you know, that’s, you know, that, that is hard to say. Obviously they don’t have that in their policy, but different, many different school districts have policies around timing, um, and one that I found has a mandatory two recesses. So I think the point here is, you know, I think it’s worth re-looking at this, um, in terms of having a second recess in our elementary school. Um,

24:10 and we would need to work with the administration to figure out how that will happen and how that will happen in regards to, um, you know, dessi requirements and all that. But I think that, um, there’s a way for us to do that. And I strongly consider that we amend this policy to consider some amendment to the recess, whether it’s minutes, whether it’s two recesses, whatever. I’m, you know, I’m open to that. Alison, what are you, sort of your thoughts? Um, so this is definitely something that, um, makes my heart smile because it’s something that I talked about when I ran two years ago. Uh, we just didn’t, um, it wasn’t gonna work last year. I have done some additional research. I had, you know, a number of teachers reach out to me. The reason for removing recess,

24:57 uh, my understanding is because of time on learning. I had a number of teachers reach out to me to note that that was never a problem. Teachers that have been here for 20 years, uh, some whom, you know, were really passionate about it, um, that time on learning was never an issue. They didn’t understand where that was all coming from. I also did some of my, of my own research last year. I reached out to Dessi, uh, as well as, you know, m a s C about it. Just for a little more clarification, there is no statute or rule that says time on learning, particularly when you’re talking about K through three, is not inclusive of putting on your snow pants and waiting in line, patiently walking between learning how as a class to walk in

25:44 line patiently and politely from class to class. Um, and I’m happy to do even more research into that as well. I feel incredibly strongly that it should absolutely be K through three. And I would venture to even suggest that we should look into K through six. I think with Covid, every age group of children was affected differently. There are some, um, overlap, of course, but I think that children going into fourth, fifth, and sixth this year particularly, were very affected by Covid from a physical activity perspective. Everybody was affected that way, just an in-classroom physical activity perspective. Um, I also just think, and I believe it, it was Naomi, uh, the parent that spoke earlier,

26:31 when we’re talking about the benefits of physical activity, there’s countless amounts of research that we could all pull up. Anybody can Google that will show doing that physical activity, 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there will then provide for an incredibly IM amount of improved focus during history or during math or during English. And given our need to do some more catch-up in that area because of Covid learning loss, I, I just think it’s almost a no-brainer that we put in some type of policy. Again, whether it’s time or, you know, the number of them or maybe some combination. I do think breaking them up makes a little bit more sense just from a, a workday perspective. Um, and then of course,

27:18 understanding that those things are part of learning, that’s part of what a child needs to learn. A child isn’t gonna learn at home to stand in line with 20 of their friends. That’s, that’s just not possible. Um, and I think it’s an absolutely critical thing that we should change and that we should change, uh, for this year, starting in September. Okay. Great. Um, I agree. K six. Um, I, I’m, so I will need to go back to probably Michelle or the other administrators. I’m, I’m, I’m pretty sure there is recess K through six. Do you, you may not know that necessarily off the top of your head, Michelle. Okay. I know fourth gets one, fourth and fifth gets one. Yeah, I believe there is. Um, Julia is also on the meeting here.

28:04 She may know for sure. I’m pretty sure there is. Oh, I do wanna, the schedules have been already set for this year. They have been distributed. It takes an enormous amount of time to create a schedule to get all the blocks, the required blocks, and to get all the services in. So I would, I would hesitate to move anything ahead really quickly. I mean, we are welcoming teachers back in just two and a half weeks from now. Mm-hmm. Um, so really we are at the, the very last minute of our summer planning basically. Um, I’m not saying that recess is not a great idea. I understand the benefits of it, as I understood it, it, well, it was a time on learning issue. I wasn’t heavily involved with it at the time. I did review the schedules, I reviewed ‘em with the union as well. I was actually in those meetings. Um,

28:50 so it does involve union negotiations. It does involve principal scheduling. Um, there’s, there’s a lot of moving pieces. So I certainly want everyone to be aware that we can visit this issue, but it’s not going to happen overnight. And while we know the kids will benefit from it, um, there are reasons that this change was made. So I don’t wanna rush into anything. Um, in terms of the specifics, certainly, um, Julia might have a little bit more information. She’s also new to her role. So we’re all kind of just trying to figure things out. So I just wanna caution you, you know, does seem like a great idea. There are implications. So I just urge you not to rush ahead with anything at this point until we have the time to investigate this and really dive into it a little bit further.

29:39 Julia, did you want to say something? I think you had your hand up, but now you’re, thank you. Hi, welcome. Um, So as I enter the new role of assistant superintendent teaching and learning, I’m really excited to collaborate with you. And I think this is a topic we really just need to sit together at the table and discuss with our, um, school leaders as well. Um, so just to echo what Michelle said, uh, we would love to collaborate. We just, if we could slow down the process so we can all sit and talk this through together, I would really appreciate that. But looking forward to collaborating, um, to discuss how we can engage our students with more physical activity. Okay. Just so, um, Michelle, you know, I was just looking through the Marblehead, a d f. There’s actually nothing in our policy about the 15 minutes that I can see. So I’m assuming that’s a, like a school handbook or a, you know,

30:25 a school building procedure, I guess if, if you will. So it might be a new section in the new revised, A D A D F, because I did read it in the brand new one that we’re bringing before the school committee. Okay. All right. So I haven’t seen that. Okay. Um, okay. So that if I, I haven’t seen that, right? So I’ll have to take a look at it, but we may wanna, I’m just telling you how I feel. I may want to amend that portion, not include it until we’re gonna come back, um, because it will still get our food service thing done, I think, I mean there’s, you know, ‘cause obviously the, the recess varies from school district to school district, so that would not make that policy void, um, if we didn’t put a time number in there. Mm-hmm. And I guess my question to you,

31:11 Julia, is like from, again, I don’t have a student in elementary school, but from the parent that talk spoke earlier, I think it was Naomi described a morning snack slash recess or activity that takes place. So there does seem to be some in practice, um, opportunity.

31:31 Yes, Jen, absolutely. We, we value physical activity with the students. Um, and it’s all a balance, right, with the time on learning and the requirements that we have from Dessi, um, with also just, um, the constraints of the school day and our contractual obligations with our teachers as well. Um, but again, we can, I would love to talk about this, uh, with the committee and, and with our school leaders and really dive into the details of it. Um, again, just excited to collaborate with this. Okay, great. So it would be appropriate for, obviously for you, do you think it would be appropriate to bring in principals? Or do you think that would be like, you’d go speak to the principals and then come back? Or how do you, how do you, how do you see that? Absolutely. I know our, our, our elementary leaders are here today because they’re invested in collaborating

32:17 with us as well. Um, to my knowledge right now, we have about a 20 minute, um, midday break, I believe. Um, and again, I’ll have to double check. I don’t have the schedule pulled up on my screen right now. But again, our leaders have spent hours and hours and days working with our teachers as well. Um, so we can really, I think having everyone at the table would be really helpful. And I do hear the parent perspective, um, as a parent myself, I know how valuable this is to have this conversation. Okay, great. And like I said, you know, other school districts also do it, you know, other ways too. And I think, you know, maybe we also can learn ‘cause I’m not sure what they’re doing with their school schedule that we’re not. Um, so I think that’s worth looking into. Um, so Alison, what do you think in terms of moving forward with this? I just wanna add one more thing there. Is that, that 20 minute,

33:02 having had a child at Brown, um, there is a very wide spectrum over what is done slash allowed in that 20 minute period by teacher. Um, some students were still allowed to go out in the playground. Other students were allowed to walk in a single file line around the playground, and others weren’t allowed to leave their classroom at all. So I, I think it’s important at the very least, that if we’re providing that 20 minute snack mid-morning break already in, in the calendar, that we make it clear that students can go outside or

33:51 that there is no, uh, repercussions or issues with, with students going outside, with teachers taking their, their class outside during that timeframe. Um, I think that at the very least is something that, you know, we could make sure it is widely known because that’s not what historically has happened, and that obviously causes a whole host of other, you know, concerns or complaints or problems. Um, so Yeah. And that also speaks to why having a policy about these things Yeah. Levels the whole field. So there’s no question about it because, um, sometimes practice, you know, doesn’t, it just, it varies. So, um,

34:39 you know, I think that’s a really good point and something we, you know, can take back to our, um, building principles that, um, you know, you can discuss maybe Julia, like what is, like, I don’t know what the directive was because there isn’t a policy that I, at this point, um, regarding it. So what the directive was to teachers for that morning snack break.

35:00 Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, if it’s another meeting with the leaders and us here, you know, whatever that might be. But absolutely to my knowledge, that 20 minute recess is an outside recess time, but the morning break may vary. Um, so to Allison’s point, would like to personally also learn some more, um, and, and develop a consistent system. Um, so our students are engaging in physical activity and having that time. So definitely we can continue to talk about that and collaborate. ‘cause I mean, we’re talking about, you know, thir, you know, two, maybe 30 minute, 20 minute or 30 minute, um, breaks. And there are school districts that are doing 60 minutes a day. Now, again, some of that’s pe maybe twice a week, but I don’t know how they’re fitting it in. But that’s great. I mean, it’s, it, you know, the, the mo the, obviously the more we can have is the better for our students. So, um,

35:47 I think also we should be pushing, I will continue to push back that that is not included in time on learning. I would yeah, Be curious Since Desi couldn’t point me to where it states that that is not included in it. Something, I mean, since I went to school here 463 years ago, we had two recesses. So, um, Right. And other school districts are doing

36:13 in their policies, they have more minutes than we do. So the, so somehow, I mean, I don’t know, I don’t know if this is co constituted without Having a longer school day. I think that’s important to know without Having a longer school. Right. Um, and how that fits in with the WIN block, I guess is my, I mean, again, I’m not an expert on this elementary school or K six schedule, um, but there may need to be some, some looking at the overall schedule to Michelle and Julie’s point. Um, and that probably does have some larger ramifications, but it, you know, we we’re feeling strongly that we need to do that. So, um, okay. So next steps would be, um, I guess another opportunity to sit down. And again, if we’re gonna do it with Alice and I, we’ll be an open meeting, um, and, uh, I guess with you and what team you think should come in. Um,

37:01 I guess so I can schedule that and we, I’d like to do that, like, we’re gonna keep this rolling, so maybe we do that next week. Does that work? That Works for me. Thank you so much for, for giving us this opportunity. Mm-hmm. Great. So I’ll, we’ll schedule that offline. Does that work for you, Alison? We’ll figure out our schedule. Yeah. Okay, great. Totally Fine. Thank You, Julia. Um, okay, bear with me a moment. Um, the last, um, item was, um, review of ke uh, policy ke, which is public complaints. Um, and the only, and again, I’m not, I don’t have a specific, um, written expectation in terms of, um, this comp uh, this policy bear with me, and I’m just gonna pull it up here. Um, but policy ke speaks to how the public is

37:49 able to submit complaints, for lack of a better word, um, to the school district and really sort of defines what the chain of command is, if you will. So, um, what it says is that, um, the proper, it’s a lot of verbiage, but the proper channeling of complaints involving instruction, discipline, or learning materials will be first going to the teacher, next to the school building administrator, which would normally be the principal, then to the superintendent, and then to the school committee. It then says that if a complaint, which was presented to the committee and referred back through the proper channels is adjusted before it comes back to the school committee, a report of the disposition of the matter will be made to the committee and placed in the official files. And I just think I wanted, and again, I, I looked around a lot. Most school districts have the same policy.

38:36 I just think it, um, I would like to consider adding, um, some verbiage around memorializing and documenting complaints that come up through the chain of command, perhaps to the principal level, or more likely to the superintendent level or both, that we have some kind of policy around how those will be documented, how they will be, um, you know, sort of filed electronically so that when, and if something gets either to the superintendent or to the school committee, there is some elect electronic paper trail that will show, you know, what happened with this complaint, how it was dealt, you know, how, what, what the resolution was, and if not the resolution, how it got escalated to the next level. So there’s some way to,

39:21 so that the next level that seeing it can see what happened. And it can go all the way back to the teacher level. I think we would just need to be, you know, speaking to the leadership team about that. And I, I think one other thing I would add to that, uh, that would be critical is, you know, the timing. Um, so when we’re documenting this, we’re timing, you know, we’re, we’re noting the time of when the complaint came in, when there was initial response, when there was a follow-up response, et cetera, down the line, um, in a really detailed fashion. Okay. Um, great. Michelle, did you have any thoughts on that?

39:57 Just,

40:00 Yeah, I, I I think we should look into this. Um, my initial reaction is I don’t see any issues with it. Um, certainly would like to discuss it and review it a little bit more. Okay. Um, but I, I honestly, I don’t know how many complaints make it to the school committee or superintendent level. Okay. I’m not familiar with that yet, but, um, I don’t, I don’t see an issue with it, but I, I can’t say that for certain without investigating A little bit more. All right. So why don’t you do that and then we will come back. Um, and Allison, you and I can work on, or I, one of us can take a stab off offline at just some verbiage, uh, maybe even speak to M A S C, just kind of get their thoughts or, uh, yeah, I don’t wanna involve the attorney yet. Um, I don’t think we need to. Um, and then, I mean, I only, I can see it being just maybe a couple of lines or a paragraph just describing,

40:47 we don’t need to be prescriptive about spreadsheets, but just what, what the expectation is of, of memorializing complaints as they come through and having them available, um, either for public records requests, um, or for the next tier up, um, to, uh, um, be able to, to be able to see what the, um, how the events rolled out, basically. And yeah, I mean, I, I think that that is the important, that’s why I added in that time factor, because I think that’s sometimes part of, of the concern, um, as well. Yep. Yeah. How quickly people are getting back and setting time expectations. Okay. Great. So, we’ll that will be subject for, so obviously we’re not ready to write that policy, but that will be again,

41:34 on our next, um, agenda. And maybe we’ll start to formulate it and, um, at a future date in the, maybe in the early fall, get that to the school committee for a reading. Yep. I think that’s a great plan. So that was the, um,

41:50 last item on our formal, um, agenda. Um, I do know, so the next one is new business, um, to request it to be on future agendas, which I think basically is all three of those. Um, and then Michelle, you spoke yesterday about, um, just general about the o oversight of the policy manual. So I don’t know if you wanna speak to that. Yeah. When I attended the, um, MASC MAs conference this past fall, um, learned of that, Sarah and I attended, and Alison did attend one day as well. Um, it was a great conference and Sarah Fox and I received a pamphlet on MA’s, um, ability to review all the policies. ‘cause all of our policies are basically standard,

42:36 pretty much M A S C is the one that de details, the numbering, the lettering, um, how we keep our policies. And it’s a service that they can come in and review, which I guess that they have done in the past few years, shortly before I arrived in Marblehead. Um, which is wonderful news that that had actually been done. Um, but since that time, I’m not sure our policies have been 100% up to date. So I think that we should talk about, you know, maybe we can review any changes that have occurred since our last major review with M A S C and make sure we have captured all the requirements, if there’s anything changed on the state level that we need to be capturing. And then there’s also an option, um, where they can host our policies online through their server and not host

43:22 ‘em ourselves, and they make changes to them automatically. That does require, um, an annual payment. So I necessarily don’t wanna jump towards that because certainly, um, funds are tight and we don’t wanna overextend ourselves and maybe it’s not something we need. But I do think we need to take an overview of our policies at this point and just make sure we haven’t missed any required changes in the past few years. Okay. I think, I think that makes sense. Um, I was part of that, which we did in 2018. The policies in Marble had not been reviewed for over, I wanna say it was like 12 or 13 years, and it was a voluminous project. It took us, um, it took us over a year to do it of monthly meetings. I don’t think that would be the case this time around, but it’s,

44:07 my understanding is as members of M A S C, part of what we get as members is that they do send updates to either the superintendent’s office or the school district showing, um, you know, outlining, um, the need to update or change or add policies at that. If we don’t pay the fee to have the policies on their server, uh, they wouldn’t be able to change ‘em automatically without a school committee vote anyway. Correct. But I think it’s a higher level of oversight if you’re hosting on their, on their, um, site. But I do know, my recollection is it was a pretty significant cost. So by housing them on our own website, we obviously taking the responsibility that we’re monitoring it. So I think we probably can do that. Um, we can find out what the cost is,

44:55 but I think we can, you know, just again, you know, feel confident that we can keep track of the updates that come in, but it’s probably not a bad idea to have them give us at least, um, a cost estimate to come in and do a re a review with us. I do not think it would be as extensive as it was back in 2018 or 19 or whatever, 18, I think. Um, but, but probably would take some time and would have a cost associated with it. Um, and it would normally be with the policy subcommittee. Mm-hmm. And then my, my recollection is unless they’ve changed that, they would go through, it may take several meetings, uh, policy by policy and they would’ve have reviewed it and said, okay, these are the fault policies we think are either out of date or incorrect, and they would give us the, um, expected, updated policy,

45:42 and then we would have to do the three readings and, and vote. Um, so I think that makes sense, Alison. Yep. Agreed. Agreed. Okay. I think so, um, if you want Michelle, I can reach out to M A S C, uh, or if you, if you, I mean, I, you got a lot on your plate, um, and just find out what’s involved and I can copy on that. Yeah, That would be great. Okay. I mean, I, I think the, the, the previous policies have committed a great job keeping up. I’m just, I’m just wondering if, if things had fallen through the cracks during, you know, transition to administration last time, um, because obviously there was a, the big lapse right after you had the last review, and I, and I have heard a couple little, um, changes that have been made to policies that I don’t believe we’ve, we’ve caught up with. So Yeah. And it’s easy to have that because they send a, like a monthly newsletter and that’s where they list it and it’s just, yeah.

46:29 Okay. I mean, it’s not through anyone’s, you know, fault, no document or anything like that. Um, not at all. It’s not, it’s just not a bad idea. And oftentimes it’s like a little tweak here and there. Um, usually when there’s a major policy change or major new policy, they kind of send out like, you know, red flashing lights saying you need, you know, you need to do this, so mm-hmm. So I’ll reach out to them and find out what’s involved, obviously cost-wise and, and time-wise. And, um, I’ll come back and we’ll, um, discuss it at the next policy subcommittee meeting. That would be great. All right. Um, anything And maybe just that, um, just in thinking of kind of like where, where they’re housed on our website in general and our website in general. It’s not really a policy thing though, so

47:18 Well, um, well, where they’re housed probably could be, um, a policy. Do you think that they’re not easily accessible or what do you Yeah, I was just, yeah. Yeah. I think that there are some improvements there. Okay. We, we can work on that internally as well. Okay. Work with, with, with Steve Guek and look at the placement of our, our link to our policies. Because right now I believe it’s under administration and under school committee, school, the whole policies, but we, we, we can make it more, more apparent right. On the website as well. Yeah. The thing about the M A S C when they’re housed on the a s C ones, ‘cause because as I was doing this research, I was looking, I probably looked at, I don’t know, 30 different school districts. I’d say less than half, slightly less than half. How is it at M A S C?

48:04 And it is pretty like, you go right to their website and it’s, it’s really easy to click through what you want. Others have similar to what we have where it’s, um, you, you can see the policy manual, you can see it by, um, by chapter if you will. And then you go on and you just have a list of PDFs. So it’s a little bit clunky that you have to open up the P D F to see the full title. Um, so there probably are some things that we might be able to do. I mean, it’s not, you know mm-hmm. It’s not screaming as a priority, but I think it, to me, no, but I think it’s something that needs to probably be, you know, we looked at and I know it’s work. I mean, I know it’s like you gotta load up the pdf, it’s ti you know, it’s time consuming, um, without a doubt. But obviously imp you know, it’s important. And I think the overall website, Alison’s probably something for a school school committee agenda. Okay.

48:53 Probably. Yeah, That’s fair. Um, Coming outta my mouth, I put it together. Yeah. Um, anything else you think for, for future meeting? For subcommittee? For policy subcommittee? I’m not sure if I, I had a couple things. I’m not sure if they would be policy. I may be policy, but, um, in the same vein as part of our recess discussion,

49:21 I don’t know. And this might be unpopular opinion, but Hi, uh, the wind block was also something that, I know it was new, uh, and I don’t know the details of how exactly it was rolled out or what the expectations were, but I think that’s something else that we might want to consider.

49:48 Either not having or having more policy and standards around what would be done during that block. I can only, I can speak to Brown School. Um, I think that that would be helpful, uh, from the perspective of ensuring, you know, I, I understand the, the guise of it. Certainly I’ve read enough about it online and where it’s wildly successful in certain districts. And that’s wonderful. And I would love for that to happen here. I think there needs to be some more, I’m not sure what the word is around it, so that children aren’t playing with Legos during WIN block or on an iPad necessarily. You know, doing kind of whatever and making sure that it is

50:37 in fact, whatever your level is that you are as a student getting what you need. Um, which my understanding was supposed to be the point of it. Um, and so I, I think I’d like to just do a deeper dive into that and how that is either was rolled out or is being rolled out and what not, rules and regulations. It sounds so strict, but I, I guess rules and regulations a a around what is allowed or viable and how we are ensuring that that block on a daily basis is being used in a manner that is in fact giving the child something they need. Whether it’s harder work, whether it’s additional support in,

51:24 in the on grade level work, um, whatever it might be. Okay. So from what I can tell, um, in my sort of dive into our pol, so I didn’t see the wind block as anywhere in our policies. Um, it looks like it’s a, you know, it’s a, it’s in the handbook, it’s in the schedule, Right? Yeah. It’s definitely more of a scheduling issue. Um, my understanding of the win block is actually, it’s not necessarily new, it’s called has a new acronym. Um, instead of win w i n, it was response to intervention the r t I block previously. Um, so that’s another acronym you might have heard previously. I don’t know if it was in all the schedules. Certainly we can dive into it,

52:10 get some more information, but I really don’t think that is a policy issue, but it’s something that we can certainly bring the school committee up to speed on. Well, What I was gonna say about that to, you know, into to, to Allison to your concern is that what it may very well be is part of the i policies in the instructional policies, because we do have policies around that. So it would seem to me that something around that wind block and there are other blocks. I mean, there are directed studies at the high school. I mean, there are other buildings that have similar, whatever time you wanna call those blocks, um, that I would think most certainly would fall under the instructional policies. Um, and actually probably would be, uh, appropriate for the, for school committee policy. And again, we can do some work on that. Julia, Thank you. If I may. I don’t. You’re all Julia, you’re all set. Okay. Thank

52:56 You so much, Alison. This is something I, we could also discuss during our curriculum subcommittee meeting. Um, this sounds a lot of, um, some of those ideas I’d like to bring to that group, um, to discuss. I, I think one of the biggest things is just communication about what’s going on and how things are looking and, um, while it’s very operational for us, ‘cause we’re in it every day and we, I I wanna make sure we’re clearly communicating, um, all the wonderful things that we’re doing as well. So I think that might be a chance for us to talk. Yeah, I don’t, and, and thank you for that and I really, really look forward to having way more discussions with you, Julia, in this new role. Uh, I, I should be clear, similar to what I said to recess, I know there are wonderful things happening. I just wanna make sure it’s consistent and that’s why it

53:44 lended itself to policy. But I’m fully open to the fact that that might not be it. And um, just looking forward to having more discussions about it and appreciate you being open to the discussion. Yeah. And what may happen to your point, Julia, is that it may sort of live in the curriculum subcommittee and if there are ideas that come up or, you know, um, suggestions that then this curriculum subcommittee could ask the policy subcommittee to set a policy and to review policy so that I could see that being kind of a, um, a normal um, um, kind of flow, uh, between the two that we wanna then codify this in the form of policies, which is, is important, you know, so, ‘cause pol policies really are saying like, this is what the Marblehead school committee or the Marblehead School District,

54:30 um, is, um, um, setting us, you know, sort of standards and expectations across the board. Um, but you don’t need a policy for every single thing, right? So that’s what we, you know, so I think that makes sense to, to kind of defer to the curriculum committee and let them sort of bubble up what they think should be policy. I also have, or consider it for policy, I also have one more, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. I wanna try and get everybody, uh, on a Friday afternoon. So, and this is something admittedly everybody knows my child is younger, so I don’t have personal experience about this. I’m, I’m going off of my understanding from being on the committee, uh, and being in the community and what I’ve heard from so many parents and teachers alike in regards to ap, um, testing

55:16 and forcing, requiring students to take the test, but then they have to pay for it. That is obviously hard for some families. Um, a lot of families, if you, you know, if you have two kids and they’re both in four classes each, it’s a lot of money. Um, I, I’m not sure if it would be against another instance. I’m not sure if it would be policy, but I think it’s something that I’d like to, to dive into and to understand more about, um, to see if what the options are there. You know, if you’re, if you’re required to take the test and you have to pay for it, um, and I know timing is of the essence as well,

56:03 because there are some tests that you have to, you know, if you have to sign up for right away and then you take the test and you think, oh gosh, you take the class and you think, oh, this really isn’t going to be my, I’m not, I’m not doing as well in this as I thought I would. I don’t necessarily want to spend a hundred dollars on this test. I think there are a hundred dollars. I may be wrong there. Um, and then particularly when we’re talking about ensuring that these, if we’re forcing someone, requiring someone to take, I keep saying wrong word, requiring someone to take the test and pay the a hundred dollars, is it a course that would even be accepted, you know, from colleges? Um, not, not all of them are all the time unfortunately, I realize. Um, that’s just, I think something that we need to, um, address.

56:51 Okay. Right. That’s a good point. I think, I think that’s also something that we probably ought to start maybe with Michelle Carlson and understand. Um, I don’t understand necessarily understood the reasoning behind requiring the test, but I’m sure there is one. Again, I don’t think it’s a policy at this point. I think it’s a practice. I think it’s part of the, either the handbook or the practice of the high school. So that’s something that’s certainly worth investigating. Um, and that if it’s more of a, if the concern is more of a financial one, there may be solutions financially, and I don’t know if there already are in terms of, um,

57:27 financial aid scholars. I’m not sure what we may call it to help a student or not, um, to, to pay for their AP tests. Um, so that, that’s a good point. And maybe we can ask, um, task Michelle Carlson in one of our meetings to come back and maybe do a whole AP sort of discuss, review Discussion. Review, yeah. Yeah. With the school committee. And then if we think it’s something that needs to fall into policy, we can, you know, we can certainly talk about that. Yeah, I think that’s where my head was, so, you know, have that discussion and there may be policies that we can gleam out of it. Okay. To, again, just kind of set standards. Got it. All right. Great. All right. Um, anything else? So I don’t have any correspondence, uh, that I’m aware of, uh, which was next on the agenda.

58:16 So I will adjourn us at 1 29. Alison, that works for you in favor. Thanks. In favor.