School Committee: August 11, 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.

0:15 Right. So I’m gonna call us to order at 1202. Um, wanna leave, uh, we have a second sheet. Um,

0:31 I’m gonna start with, um, you please. Yes. Um, I’m gonna start with reading we accommodations on the agenda first. And I’m gonna start by reading, um, a letter that Michelle Cresta had sent to our team of administrators this week that I think really is the best ccommodation and says it the best. Um, these are Michelle’s words. I wanna emphasize that our jobs remain the same today as they were yesterday. We will open our doors in September for the 2324 school year as we normally would. Our goals and responsibilities remain unchanged. We must remain focused on the purpose for which we are here are students.

1:16 It is not lost on me that this change is not easy. Change never is easy. However, it’s important that we keep the focus on our mission goals and jobs. We are in this together. Please reach out to your building principals or directors if there are any questions or concerns about this transition. Also, please know that I am available to you should you have any questions or if I can be of any assistance. I also wanna publicly thank John for all the good work he has accomplished over the past few years. He joined Marblehead school shortly after I did, and was thrust into the center of a changed environment due to Covid helped us navigate our help to navigate us through these unchartered waters. I know you joined me and others in thanking John for his service and commitment

2:02 to the Marblehead, to Marblehead and our students and staff. Thank you for your continued workforce. I am proud of our schools, our staff and programs, and look forward to continue to be your partner. I just read that ‘cause I wanna acknowledge our staff, administrators and the work that they’re continuing to do to make sure that the opening of our schools happen seamlessly for our students. Because at the end of the day, the the focus is the students. Um, that being said, next, or I wanna open it up if there’s other commendations and public comment. I have been advised by our attorney to read our policy for public comment prior to the public comment period. This policy was approved, um,

2:52 about two months ago on May 18th, 2023 by the previous committee unanimously, it was brought forth through the policy subcommittee that was a comprise of, um, Sarah Gold and our inter our, our additional member who joined us mid-year time.

3:14 At the start of each regularly scheduled school committee. Individuals will sign in for an opportunity to speak during public comment. The public comment shall segment, shall not exceed 15 minutes. All speakers are encouraged to present the remarks in a respectful manner. Speakers will be allowed up to three minutes to present their material and must begin their comments by saying their name In city, town, the presiding chair may permit an extension of this time limit, an extension of extenuating circumstances. She recommended because we anticipated so many people would wanna speak. That I not extend that beyond the three

4:09 effective because it constitutes a truth threat that is likely to revoke a violent reaction and cause of breach of peace or excitement to imminent lawless conduct or contains obscenity. I don’t proceed that provision. Um, that yes. Can I just make a motion that we leave the 15 minute minute given the situation that we’re gonna be talking about? Sorry, I made a motion to waive the 15 minute limit on public comment today. Given the situation that we are currently in, I’m absolutely happy to have a second public comment, um, once we get through our business. Um, and we can, we can hear that motion at that point. But the recommendation, and, and if there’s a second to this, I’ll we’ll vote on this. Um, but I do wanna follow advice of counsel that we adhere to

4:57 this policy at the beginning and then absolutely have no problem opening it up for additional public comment after the business portion prior to going into executive session. And I’m fine to have a second public comment, but I think given that we’re gonna be voting, I think we kind of owe it to the public to let them have their say prior to our vote. So we can take that perspec those perspectives into our deliberation. So my motion is to limit the 15 minute or to waive the 15 minute limit at the beginning of public comment. Okay. Is there a second?

5:30 How many people are second? Um, I, I actually don’t think this is gonna be a problem. There’s not nothing. I’m, I’ll second that. That’s, yeah, that’s fair. That’s again, I’ve just, I’ve been very

5:43 cautious to owe to every step of the last three weeks. Listen to our council because I, I just wanna make sure that, you know, I’m doing that, but, um, I’ll ask her a vote. All in favor? All opposed. Motion carries. Five to zero. Um, all right, so I’m gonna go back and forth between, um, um, what I saw online and what I’m seeing in person. So I have Mimi Hollister, seven Glover Square. If when you come up, um, Frank will just turn you on, just speak also. Oh, there was another, uh, piece of this. If you have a comment that goes, needs to go beyond the three minutes, you can feel free to submit it in writing and we can include that in our minutes as well. Just so that your, your comment in its entirety is reflected.

6:35 I got it. Am I on? You should be there.

6:42 So as I try to step back and look at the uproar that arose in the past couple of weeks, maybe a little longer, I wanna express some hopes that a lot of good people have going forward since what is done is done and we must move on. Here’s what I hope can happen going forward. One, I hope that the school committee will be upfront with your agenda spelled out honestly and clearly for all of us, so that we don’t have to guess at what you might really be planning next. Two, I hope that you don’t have a hidden agenda such as banning books or disparaging b e i, diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops that help us all better recognize our built

7:30 in cultural blind spots. Three, I hope that you will look for someone with true vision in a new superintendent, not just someone you can manage easily with your own biases and certainties. And four, finally, I hope that in the future you will indeed be truly transparent and not just cleverly politic in what you think you can get away with not disclosing as happened in this past election. It’s the hidden agendas that cause the current uproar. And I speak as one who, like you, spends many hours a week as a volunteer for important work in our town. Thank you.

8:16 Ms. Would you mind emailing that as well? ‘cause you had some very important points in there. Would you mind just sending that via email so that we have a written copy of that as well? Sure, sure. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I saw Pai Kendall’s hand next.

8:39 We’ll have, we’ll, we’ll do one more in the room. We’ll go back ‘cause you’re having some tech issues. No. Is she muted? Yeah, she’s having an issue. She’s muted. Oh. Um, do we, do we need to unmute her here? Frank Yesi Kendall

9:04 and this, just moving on. Admit, unmute her when you get to it. And I’m gonna move on to, I apologize, I can’t read this as well, but it’s 22 Franklin Street. Yeah, that’s, uh, my name is Rod Shar. Uh, do you mind if I stand? No. Taken the people who’ve actually taken this trouble coming here today, as well as this room, zoom very many thanks to you all for finally holding, uh, a public meeting. Admitting the public in this important matter, even if, as the Romans would say, the spear has been thrown and Dr. Bucky has been ejected at a cost of about $174,000 plus legal fees, plus interim costs, plus circulated expenses,

9:53 all to be found not by you, but by the Marblehead taxpayer. I thank Kathy Ann Swim, hers, whose, who’s challenged to this committee on a possible violation of the state’s open meeting law. May have prompted this open meeting today. I hope you are about to lift the veil and tell us why Dr. Bucky’s contract was terminated one year into a three year contract. Something you have not done so far. And I’ll also draw your attention to an article in Suit’s Current, uh, where Chris Olsson reports on a similar challenge to the school committee in Tonton. Uh, who in 2011 met similarly in executive session this time to

10:39 extend a superintendent’s contract. Uh, it was a violation of the open meeting law. The Attorney General for the Commonwealth, uh, recommended a revote in open meeting. And he ruled that the only way, and I’m quoting here, the only way to fix the violation was for the public body to take independent deliberative action and not merely engage in a ceremonial acceptance or perfunctory ratification of a secret decision. That is the crux of this. We are a democracy. We are a proud town, and we believe in doing things in the open. Thank you very much for inviting the public to witness your deliberations.

11:25 I will remind you that we’re all here and we’re absolutely determined to be respectful and at the same time, to keep this out here open and let some fresh air on this whole unfortunate chat. Thank you. Um, Sarah, I chair Plenty. Order You have a number of people back there who haven’t signed up with speak, but would like to speak. Oh, sure. There’s, I believe there’s a second sheet out. Okay, great. Can you let us know where that is?

12:00 Um, Kazi, are you able to unmute yet?

12:09 Oh, well, let’s turn.

12:22 Frank and I are, so we should, yeah. I don’t know. Its turn. Oh, oh, I think I’m good. Oh, we can hear you? Yes. Oh, thank goodness. We turn the speaker up here.

12:34 So, can you hear me? Not quite yet. Very well Now. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. Okay, Lovely. Okay. So, Cassie Kindle, Jersey Street, Marblehead. Um, so on Wednesday I read that Marblehead has become, sorry, Massachusetts has become one of the states to permanently, um, provide free school breakfast and lunches for the kids. Um, and this is actually great news, and I’m sure it’s gonna make a big difference for a lot of families, but I just wanna point out that it’s not free. First of all, it’s paid for with taxes, but it also comes with some restrictions and, um, and some things that we have to do in order to qualify for those school lunches.

13:20 I’m not gonna get into the things that we have to add into our curriculum to qual qualify for the free school lunches, but just about the food. So my daughter is 16 and she’s in high school, and there are days when she sends me photos of the school lunch and I have to say to her, yeah, don’t eat that. ‘cause frankly, I can’t tell what it is. And there are days when she’ll take me things like, well, I wanted the tainter tots, but I could only have them if I got the chicken nuggets. And I’m a vegetarian, so I don’t eat chicken nuggets. So I couldn’t have the tainter tots or I wanted the salad, but the salad was a side with the pasta and I didn’t want the pasta and I couldn’t get that because you had to get this in order to get that. And the fact that I’m talking about ter tots and chicken nuggets to my high

14:07 schooler is, um, yeah, that, that’s, that’s a conversation for another day. But I do want the school, and especially the wellness committee to take a look at the quality of the food and the nutritional value of the food that’s been presented to our kids, to our high schoolers, because I’m not sure that even with the sp free school lunches, it’s going to be a healthy lunch. It’s going to be nutritious, it’s gonna be appetizing. So I think we still have a little bit of work to do on making sure that our kids get what they need, the nutrition that they need to get them through the day, and the portion sizes. A friend of mine said, A single slice of Domino’s pizza is simply not enough lunch for a high schooler. So that’s it. Just talking about the school lunches. Cheers.

14:58 Um, next I have Sarah Gold Line Reid Street,

15:07 Sarah Gold Line Reid Street. I will start by requesting, once again, that this entire committee step down and allow new people to come into the district so that the district can heal. However, the concern that I’ll raise today is the way in which the public business has or has not been conducted in this committee’s 52 dates. For starters, Ms. Fox, I don’t believe that you didn’t know that the letter of resignation and any decisions around contract negotiations needed to be revolted in an open meeting. I knew that they needed to be revolted to be codified. And you’ve always had a far better working knowledge of Robert’s rules and math general law than I have. I have no doubt that this committee will shrug off the open meeting law concerns that are part of the agenda today. I’m sure the talking point will hinge around the advice of counsel.

15:53 I schedule enough executive sessions to know that the process goes and that the legal counsel is always consulted. However, my concern is not the violation. It’s around the spirit of open meeting law and the appearance to me that this committee has worked to find the best way to keep information out of the public over the past two months. Open meeting law and strict reasons for executive session are not to be looked at in a way to avoid the public. Instead, much like in education, it’s imperative to look at what the least restrictive method of getting information to the public might be. Use of reason two is cowardly. When this discussion first started, the conversation hinged around reason one, reason one would’ve forced this committee to go on record. And having allowed Dr. Bucky to have rights and a vote on this,

16:39 a voice on the situation, he even could have waived the executive session and had the meeting in public open session. The open meeting law complaints that are still need to be determined are on your agenda and will be discussed today. You have chosen to restrict as much information as possible, and if you had cause to terminate Dr. Bucky, you would’ve used it and avoided the cause that’ve been incurred in this situation. The fact that you hid behind reason two tells me that any concern you might have had would’ve been easily dismissed in the court of public opinion, but I guess the public will never know. To that end, I will formally request that if you don’t resign, you schedule a public forum after school starts to discuss your behavior this summer and the implications and costs associated with this situation, it is important that we continue to hold our leader’s feet to the fire.

17:26 Parents have still not received an email stating anything about Dr. Duck Buffy’s departure, let alone the cost it is bringing to the district. And what impacts these things will have as the school year opens. If we had extra money lying around to pay the employees to leave, why are parents paying for the full sports program this year? Why didn’t we just lay off a dozen staff causing this to incur unemployment costs? There is so much money to spare. Why are you scheduling a public meeting in the middle of Friday afternoon in August? You are not allowed to hide from questions like these just over two months ago on June 6th, myself, Tom Mathers, and three of you, Megan, Allison and Sarah voted unanimously in favor of the work we had just done in create. And Dr. Bings about Allison and Sarah gave specific feedback or improvement that the rest of the committee did not disagree with.

18:13 It Bears remind me at this point in time, please improve your engagement with critics. There should be consistent communication across all settings. Focus on a proactive rather than reactive engagement with the public. Stakeholders should consistently be informed of your stance on topics. It’s important to remain invested in the community and obtain continued participation. And finally, ensuring a shared vision is critical. Thank you.

18:42 I believe next is Peter McCarrison. If you can unmute

18:49 Yes. Mary McCarrison Pinecliff Drive. I’d like to say thank you to Sarah Gold because everything I wanted to say you have said, and it’s a shame that the surrounding communities are looking at Marblehead and they’re laughing at us. You have turned this into a circus in less than like two months and having this meeting today at noontime when most of the parents are home working. And we are a parent. We have a 10 year old and it’s disgusting what you have done. Thank you.

19:26 Um, Charles Gesner 20 Gregory Street,

19:35 Thank you for letting us speak. I’m sure that you, uh, understand that if you don’t come up with a public comment that addresses the termination of the former superintendent, that you allow the community to speculate on what is driving your decisions. And if you haven’t had your head in the sand, I think you’ve probably heard the two reasons that I hear all the time. One is that the now member of the school committee didn’t have his contract renewed. And this is payback time. And the other comment is that the school board has a problem with a gay outwardly gay superintendent. I hope that’s not the case in either case, but I think you,

20:24 you should recognize that you, you really must tell the community why you took this action. And so far I have, I have not been aware done that. The second point I’d like to make is that this ongoing removal of superintendents by school committees in Marblehead has an impact on property values. And I think every person in the community is aware of what’s going on and would like to see some clarity from you. And I hope we’ll get that in due course. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Gasner. Um, Renee Keeny, your hand is up.

21:05 Yes. Thank you. Uh, Renee Ram removes kini, uh, Beverly Avenue. Um, I just would like to say that I think the, the process by which this decision was made has, has really created an un unnecessary crisis, uh, 30 days before school starts. And hard cuts are gonna have to be implemented. And more money that we don’t have for students is going out the door. So yes, we’ve, as people, uh, other speakers have said, we’ve lost time and money and credibility with voters who didn’t realize this was a number one item on your agenda. In my mind though, I think the greatest loss might turn out to be our loss of focus on

21:52 the Town and school’s financial situation. We have this year to build trust with a transparent and competent strategic plan to address our fiscal crisis, which will, which will have the consensus and support of the majority of taxpayers. And a lot of good people are working hard at this. And I feel like this decision undermines that critical focus. So I hope today that in, in coming weeks, that you will address and think, uh, about how you as a school committee can repair the, the trust and goodwill of the Marblehead voters and taxpayers before next

22:39 May, uh, when we need, uh, very much need their support. Thank you.

22:48 Um, Raymond Hanssen, 39 Evans Road.

22:59 Hello. Thank you. I’m Raymond Hanssen. I live on Evans Road. Uh, I would like to just remind us all frame this conversation, uh, starting with the mission from the school committee’s website, uh, that our mission is to foster and our students a passion for learning and to provide a safe and nurturing environment in which they can develop the values, knowledge, and skills needed to achieve full potential in their personal, social, and work lives and become contributing members of society, uh, directly from your group’s website. This entire experience seems to have failed every point of that. I would like to remind all of you that you are elected members to represent us, the town as elected members, you cannot achieve this mission with ulterior motives,

23:46 with personal agendas and grudges to be held against a person that you specifically, uh, reviewed just a couple months ago and said all of his work was satisfactory in his annual evaluation. So please bring to light the factors that brought us all to this situation. Thank you. Thank you. Um, next I see Becky, I always put to your last name, I apologize, SU Chu, Becky Chu, um, 38 Lafayette Street. Um, so I just wanna reiterate on the school lunch program that, uh, to add to the earlier comments, free lunch can still be healthy. Um, so that’s my only additional comment on that. I’ve seen districts run the program, the free lunch program, and have wonderful lunches for the kids. Um,

24:34 and as someone who actually got to see day in and day out, the lunches provided at school, um, we had wins and we had not wins. So, um, just at a lower elementary perspective, um, the recess, I, I just wanna make a comment on that. With the wellness on the agenda, I would really be very happy to see a second recess come back again. Um, I have a parent perspective on this, but I also had a, um, being in the school and actually seeing, you know, recess and lunch with the kids every single day for an entire year. Um, and my comment on that is I heard that we might be implementing recess before lunch, which would be fabulous. The days that that happened, which was a schedule flip, uh, flop. The, the kids actually sat down and were more focused on eating at lunch versus just

25:22 trying to get out to recess as quickly as they could. Um, so that would be a great thing to see implemented, especially at the lower grades where, you know, they really just need to move. Um, and their first opportunity to truly move freely during the day might have been the lunchroom where they were being asked to sit still and eat because they only have a limited time to eat. Um, and obviously we want our kids to eat the lunch that’s being provided. Um, and then my last comment, I know there’s a lot of people with a lot of feelings here today, and I would love to see us move forward as a district. I, you know, what’s done is done. And, um, you know, if we find out why that’s great. If, if it’s for, you know, uh, personnel reasons and, and you know, privacy reasons, um, you know, let’s respect that on both sides. Um, I think that there’s probably reason on both sides to keep some things

26:10 confidential. Um, but, you know, if there are things that can be shared to the community, I think it would just help with, um, you know, the ability to support this committee going forward. Um, look, look forward to a great year and, um, thank you. That’s all.

26:27 Um, I, we have a lot more people and I’m gonna keep going. I probably was remiss not to read the prepared statement before all this ‘cause it actually answers a lot of the concerns I’m hearing. Um, I, one, one thing I will touch on is, um, our executive session is to approve the executive session minutes, which our attorney, uh, by Monday, we’ll have, um, put, put forth the brief redactions is what she referred to it as, that are legally required as attorney-client privilege. And then we’ll be releasing those. I just wanna note that in the 10 plus years I’ve been coming to every meeting and paying attention, I have never once ever seen executive session minutes released ever in this town. Not when we went through turning previous superintendents,

27:15 not when we went through previous, uh, negotiations. Never under any circumstances have I ever seen previous executive session minutes released in, in the decade I’ve been paying attention and I understand the need to know the wish to know you’re not wrong. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but from when this started to when we’ll be releasing those minutes is three weeks. And there is a process, we have to, we have to approve them only in another executive session, not having these meetings physically in, in, um, person. I apologize. I’ve been with my family out of state with my parents, um, for over a month now and just returned two days ago. We had another member outta state it, there, there was,

28:01 I know it may be hard to believe the reason we weren’t physically here was we were trying to kind of put our own family things on hold while we were trying to still do this business. So I, I gonna continue, I wanna hear from everybody, but I do wanna assure you, as seen on the agenda today, we are approving those executive session minutes and they will be released, which I think is, is as, should be even though it has never been. So, um, Allison Goldberg.

28:39 So just like the gentleman before I, I’m gonna address long time listener, first time caller and I will sit down, uh, 85 Humphrey Street. Allison Goldberg. I’m gonna say something else, but when you just spoke now, you said in your 10 years here, all the executive sessions that we’ve done changing superintendent was a plural. And here we are again. And as you said, we don’t know the reasons, but we have faith in our teachers. We have faith in our, our coaches, some who wear multiple hats, but the, the variables of the new election and the personal

29:25 versus professional where, I don’t know one of you either personally or professionally, but I don’t get it. I, and I don’t think a lot of people in this room get it. All I hear is in 10 years, different tenants. And for the long term for Marblehead as we, as we’ve witnessed today, multiple generations, people with no kids in school, grandparents who have grandchildren in schools. Myself, I have a, uh, a daughter who’s about to be a senior. She’s my second through the Marblehead system. We’ve got elementary, we’ve got all the, all the demographics here today, which I think speaks to our community and the love we have. And I’m a swamp Scott girl and I have come to really love and respect Marblehead

30:13 for its civic pride, for its, um, Puritan common sense for, um, the coffee at the Muffin shop. And Maria’s incredible muffins where I don’t have faith, unfortunately, is this group of, of elected officials. And in like any true democracy, you will be voted out if the public doesn’t approve of the work that you’re doing. Thank you.

30:41 Um, I see you have from John Dano.

30:53 Thank you very much. Um, John Dano, six Trager Road. Um, I’ve been, I’ve been following the developments in this pretty closely because as a, as a member of this community, I’m, I’m, I’m disturbed at the hostility and the vitriol being directed at the people who volunteer and were, who were elected to the school committee. I’ve heard allegations of bias without any evidence of bias. I’ve heard a allegations of lack of transparency. Um, I’m, I’m sorry, my I someone else speaking. Uh,

31:39 I actually looked at the open meeting Law guide, which is available, uh, on the mask gov website. And my understanding of the open meeting law, um, provisions is that executive sessions and the guide, uh, uh, the guide publishes 10 purposes for executive session. The second purpose of executive session are to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel. Now, my understanding is that on the advice of counsel, this present school committee and Dr.

32:28 Bucky with his legal team, he was represented by council engaged in executive session to speak about the terms of his contract. I find it particularly disturbing that former members of the school committee are calling to disenfranchise the voters of this community by asking members of the present school committee to resign. You lost that election as the previous commenter stated, because the community selected this board.

33:06 These volunteers are doing the best they can with the advice of counsel, the person who’s not alleging any of these very, very serious allegations that are being leveled against our members of our community. These school committee members are our neighbors. Their children are our school with, with our children. And they’re being called names. They’re being called disgusting by Ms. Gold and letters to the current, they’re being called cowards by Ms. Gold in letters to the current.

33:41 It’s not appropriate. It’s not kind. And it’s troubling to me as a member of this community, we should be coming together, not coming apart. The person who’s not alleging animus, discriminatory animus is Dr. Bucky. The person who did not call for open meetings was Dr. Bucky. He was represented by council and he resigned. I’ll also remind Ms. Gold and the other members of the community who pile on the sour grapes to this particular iteration of the school board,

34:19 that there was a public meeting with respect to the premature, in my opinion, extension of Dr. Bucky’s contract after he had only performed a single year of a three year contract during Covid Lockdowns. I was on that call. I objected to that. Those objections were unheated. That’s your prerogative being elected to the school committee. But had we not extended Dr. Bucky’s contract from three to five in year one, his contract would now be up and it wouldn’t have cost the town anything to transition to another

35:05 school superintendent. So I don’t think the name calling and I don’t think the division is healthy. And I think it is that that creates the problem that Marblehead may have in the eyes of others. I don’t believe the school board did anything wrong with respect to the executive sessions based on the open meeting law provisions. And my understanding is that the Attorney General didn’t find any violations, but that the Attorney General recommended a re a required ratification of those contract negotiations in this public meeting. And then what do we hear about this public meeting? It’s scheduled at the wrong time. It’s a new one on a Friday. You, you can’t please you. The school,

35:51 the school board is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. So I just wanted to come and I just wanted to, you know, say, state my opinion as a member of this community that I find those comments and I find the hostility toward this board misplaced. And I find the hostility to this board to be something that isn’t helpful in terms of bringing this community together so that we can focus on the things that we really should be focusing on in these meetings, which is providing excellent education for our students and exemplary working conditions for our teachers. That’s all I have to say. Thank you for the time.

37:00 Sarah. We can’t hear the public speaking.

37:15 We can’t hear you. He needs to be unmuted.

37:22 Start over and unmute.

37:53 Nobody can hear anything. The entire high school is muted right now. Sarah, unmute the entire high school V. Thanks

38:16 Sarah. You’re all muted. Nobody can hear anything. No, you’re all muted now. Can you hear us now? Yes. Good. Please tie off. Can probably sit. Okay. I’ll stand up and speak louder at this time. Probably are. Okay now. Sorry. First, I’d like to thank Dr. Bucky for his time and surface to the community of Marblehead. Second, I’d like to thank the teachers and administrators of the Marblehead Public Schools for being present on day one of this school year. I know that I can rely on them to have our kids ready on day one and to proceed and to place their best interests at heart. Um, I agree with almost all of the speakers that have spoken previous, and I won’t repeat what they have said.

39:03 You know how I feel I’ve sent you a letter. Um, I’m really disturbed by, by the divisions that have been created in this town because of this mess. Um, I am particularly disturbed that a member of the school committee, um, had an incident at her home. And I’d like to speak directly to that. The fact that someone in this community would go onto private property and try to intimidate anyone of you is horrible and it’s deplorable and I hope it never happens again to any of you. Um, but I would also like you to understand that that event, which has been characterized as as terror in some of the, the news outlets, is something that happens to children in this district every single day.

39:51 I have been a parent in this district for 18 years. In the 18 years that I have had children in this district. There has not been one year where my children have not faced antisemitism in this district. Whether it’s parked on desks in the walls, whether it’s chemistry classes that have pennies being made out of slot stick in labs, whether it is my child’s having pennies thrown at him on the athletic field as a varsity player. It happens every single day. So I hope that all of you are very aware that it is not only what’s happening outside, but it’s happening in this building. So the next time, antisemitism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, ableism happens in this school.

40:36 I hope all five of you are the first to speak up and to denounce it. What happens to you, Ms. Taylor is re reprehensible. And I hope you are the first person to speak up when this happens within our building. ‘cause it happens every single day. Thank you. Um, Paul Baker.

40:59 Good, thank you, Sarah. Um, I would just like to piggyback a little bit on, um, what was just said. I would, um, well, first of all, I’m really, really, really, um, disturbed that this committee would spend this amount of money on, um, coming to an agreement to, for Dr. Bucky to leave. I think it’s a tremendous, tremendous waste of money. I’d like to remind the chair that she said on multiple occasions that she would not have any, any further dollar amount, um, steered away from student facing services. This committee has steered away $175,000 from students, plus all the legal fees plus everything else on top. Um,

41:46 picking back at what Melissa just said, d e i, you had the opportunity to hire a dei d e i person, and it was voted down. Dr. Bucky wanted that position in place. And the committee, or the committee or the town was in such up, or that you backtracked on that we need that person in this school district. We really need that person. That 175,000 could have gone some way to, to, uh, hiring that person. And you all need to take a long, hard look at yourself and make sure that this is a priority for our town, our district. This just, just as Melissa just said, this doesn’t just happen in Florida or wherever. It’s happening right here in our town under our noses. And we have to be better.

42:35 And you have to be better. And you have to protect all our kids and instruct all our kids. And the sooner this happens, the better. You’re gonna spend a heck of a lot of money over the next year or so trying to find a new superintendent. And good luck getting an override from these townspeople in any, any, any semblance of a override for the next 2, 3, 4 years. You have lost the confidence of this town and this school district of parents, grandparents, and I’m so disappointed as Sarah Gold, um, asked earlier. I really think the best thing for you all to do would be to resign. Thank you very much.

43:15 Um, are there more people signed up? Yeah. Okay. If you can just come up and state your name and, um, address.

43:27 So I don’t have, um, Nina Pickering Cook 11 Pearl Street. I don’t have, uh, anything written prepared or I would submit it to you. I’m happy to submit something to you later. Um, I would start by saying I’m a municipal lawyer. I’m town counsel in the towns of Acton, Dover, and Bedford. I give trainings on the open meeting law at all different levels to state agencies as well as multiple cities and towns. Um, the, I usually don’t get involved in things, um, in Marblehead. And then this summer has really prompted me to take a look and feel like I need to come here and speak out. Um, I have two major issues that I wanna address with respect to,

44:12 um, the decision to fire Dr. Bucky. Now, um, Dr. Bucky wasn’t fired. I understand no one’s gonna believe you that Dr. Bucky voluntarily resigned. Dr. Bucky signed an agreement with you after it was made clear that he was going to be terminated. I think everyone understands that. So we can certainly say that he resigned and entered into this agreement if you want to continue using that verbiage. But certainly everyone knows he was forced out. So we should just be, you know, again, a little, um, frank with each other about that. The issues that I have with the decisions of this committee are twofold. You have the procedural issues and the substantive issues, right?

44:58 So looking at the procedural issues, um, under the open meeting law, uh, the previous speaker was absolutely right that under the open meeting law, you certainly can conduct contract negotiations in executive session. However, it is, um, absolutely true that any discussions with respect to Mr. Bucky’s professional competence need to be an open session. In addition, any decision with respect to any agreement or contract need to be voted in open session. Again, that’s not even a closed call. I know Colby, your lawyer, well, we’ve worked together, um, all due respect to her. This, this is, this is an easy one, right? You guys needed to vote this in a public session.

45:44 The idea that you are here today to quote unquote ratify that decision is really a sham. Um, this, you’ve, my understanding is that the district has signed a legal binding agreement. Unless you made that agreement null and void before this meeting and are going to resign it after your vote, then this meeting, um, has, has, doesn’t have the impact of solving or resolving the open meeting law complaints that have been leveled against this board. So I would certainly caution you, um, caution you against that. Um, so, so for the folks that say, you know, what’s done is done, let’s move on. I, I understand and I agree, um, that that is done. And, and Dr. Bucky’s not coming back. Um, but the idea that,

46:34 uh, the community would turn the other way, we’re, we’re only in this situation of what’s done is done because you guys messed up and violated the law and didn’t listen, um, uh, to the public and, and allow Bucky to hear the public, uh, support for his position prior to negotiating and entering into that contract. Now, with respect to the substantive, um, decisions that you made, I, I certainly don’t disagree. You have the right to hire and fire whatever superintendent you want. That is your position as the elected school board. Um, but to, but to, um, force out a superintendent,

47:22 so shortly before school in the middle of a budget crisis in a way that’s, um, you have no contingency or replacement plan for, and in a manner that is costing the town quite a bit of money, um, would indicate that there was some kind of immediate concern or imminent threat by Dr. Bucky’s continuing on at the school. Otherwise, like any other organization, you would expect, um, someone to give him notice of the concern or issue an opportunity to cure that notice or issue while the district had time to put in place, um, some sort of, um, contingent protocol in case it didn’t ultimately work out with Dr. Bucky. That’s not what happened. Things moved very quickly this summer, right? Um,

48:09 and so that signals to me, geez, there must have been a real concern, a real issue about Dr. Bucky here. You guys must have had some serious, serious, um, concerns with him continuing to represent our district. And what you heard from a lot of people, unfortunately, many of whom couldn’t be here, is that we just wanna know what those are, right? Like our, I don’t know. I’m not super connected with the scuttlebutt of what goes on with the school committee and Bucky in the past. I don’t know that stuff. All I know is that you all acted as if there was a really immediate concern about him continuing with the district. And as a parent with two kids in the district, I just wanna know what that concern is. Um, and if you don’t,

48:58 if you don’t have, if the concern is simply about his professional confidence, then I am incredibly concerned you took such rash action, um, given the financial circumstances that you all have left us in, in, um, with respect to the district. And, um, given that it is, you know, two or three weeks before school starting and, and we don’t have the superintendent. So, um, with respect to the substantive issues, I do hope there is a good explanation, um, for, for what you have done. Um, because from my position sitting in this seat, uh, it looks questionable, um, and unjustified both from a procedural aspect and a substantive aspect.

49:45 Thank you. Um, is there anybody else? I don’t see any hands on. Oh,

50:16 Checking my notes. SSON 17 CLS Lane. I’m here to speak today regarding the wellness policy a d F At the recent policy committee meeting of the school committee, several parents spoke about the need to add an elementary recess, which actually sounds a good idea. Sure. The need to add an elementary recess, which sounds like a good idea. However, the policy a d f does not specify the number of recesses at all. And the policy a d F says that the issues about nutrition and physical activity are to come through the wellness committee if the wellness committee is in need of, of overhaul. If the wellness policy is in need of an overhaul, that’s a major process. This topic of the number of resources should actually go through the

51:02 superintendent and the wellness committee. That is the entire question of number of recesses is an implementation question and not a policy question. Implementation is up to the educators, not the school committee. This is not an emergency. And if the acting superintendent educators wish it to be done, it can be done without intervention of the school committee to change a policy. Moreover, I feel obligated to ask the committee not to waive its own policy of three readings for a policy change. Three readings for the policy changes are part of your own policies and part practice ensure a full, fair and thoughtful discussion takes place, sometimes involving a public hearing on the topic to give full public input

51:49 because I have to say my own trust in the school committee has been severely compromised. I can negatively interpret what is happening here. And so I really have to say that I feel like I have to protest the use of a subcommittee of the school committee as a pretext and an end run around the educational professionals in the school committee’s own policies appropriating the powers of the superintendent or acting superintendent to yourselves. We’ve heard cautionary tales from around the country about how we need to pay attention to elections at the local level. Blessed we empower those who banned books or otherwise seek to control education for hidden partisan regions or simply for the love of power. Trust is a terrible thing to lose.

52:35 And I hope this isn’t where we are in Marblehead. Thank you.

52:40 Um, I see a hand, Jack Welner.

52:47 Hi, uh, I’m actually Frank Kaner, 24 Pickwick Road on Jack’s computer. Uh, I was, um, an outside therapist in a school system that was not Marblehead. Uh, do you need to stop it from working that, um, had an administrator that was hugely, I’m sorry about the dog. It’s actually just background noise. We Can hear You. It’s it’s docs dog. I can’t help it. Uh, this administrator was hugely prob problematic, doing enormous damage to students, teachers, and parents. And when those three groups finally organized to

53:36 get rid of her, she was allowed to leave with a non-disclosure agreement. So she was free to go on to another job without anyone ever knowing publicly what she had done except for the citizens of the town where the school was located. So I wanna point out that, uh, with, uh, Dr. Bucky leaving with a non-disclosure agreement, you will never know the reason for his termination. And you must, I believe you must assume that it was worthy of termination. And I find it very inappropriate for former school board

54:23 members who lost the election to now be screaming for the heads of the current school committee, whatever, uh, it costs to get rid of him. If there was cause, which we will never know, uh, then, um, uh, they were right to do it and will never know. So I would like to see, uh, all the Viness stop and all the divisiveness stop. And I would like to see us move on and support this school board, uh, assuming that they are doing the right thing and knowing that they won the election.

55:08 Thank you. Um, I see another hand, Jonathan Heller.

55:18 Oh, yeah. Uh, good afternoon. Jonathan Heller, 26 Ralph Road. And I wanna state that I’m speaking as a parent and a teacher and not as co-president of the Marblehead Education Association. Um, I have put in a couple of different letters to the editor and the most recent one I stated that, you know, we’re going to return and just a few short weeks and our kids are going to be okay because of the amazing educators that we have in our district. They will not know anything because we’re gonna go back and teach. And that’s really important. But what I am worried about, which I didn’t include in that recent letter, is our faculty.

56:03 And just to give you an idea, we know that we’re averaging about two superintendents, sorry, we’re averaging a superintendent every two years. And when that happens, it makes it very difficult for teachers to buy into these new programs and initiatives because they know it’s going to change the amount of time and energy that we put in during school, during planning blocks after school at home to make sure that we are prepared and we give our very best and really buy into these programs, gets compromised every time we have change and leadership. And I just did a quick brainstorm over the last 10 to 15 years, just some programs and, and initiatives in science. We had S t C Science, uh, kids in Science, Holt FOS Web and e l a,

56:52 Lucy Calkins Foundations six plus one Traits of Writing the new program that’s coming in this fall. WI and wisdom and Math, everyday Math Goal. Math. Big ideas, math, illustrative Math. Ready Math. We’ve had a, you know, uh, assessment where we collect data on, on students maps, testing aims, web i-Ready, m a s first generation M C A S. Then we switch to park M C A S 2.0. We have instructional blocks where we do tiered interventions. We call them T I V win. We have P L C M T S S, we have social emotional programs. We’ve had creative classroom, responsive classroom, P B I S and K through six. We just changed to a standards based report card.

57:39 We have new schedules in K through six and all these new initiatives in those new schedules. In K through six, we lost one playing block time. But we have technology training that we have to do every single month, which takes a block of time. We have to use some of that plan time to attend i e p meetings and 5 0 4 meetings. Um, that’s what changing leadership is doing to our teachers. We’re going to be fine with our students and we’re gonna do our job and do it well. But I am worried about the, the health of our teachers. And I wanna make sure that as a school committee, that we come together and as a community to make sure that we’re giving our best to the entire educational system of Marblehead Public Schools. Uh,

58:24 it’s time that we put our differences aside for our students and our teachers, teachers, our reading, the comments that are online and it does impact their health. Um, students are hearing us talk and we need to be models in this community. And it’s time that we come together. So I’m hoping that as we enter the fall, I know that this decision is, has been made. I respect the fact that that’s the decision of the school committee, but it’s time that we find a way to bring everybody together. ‘cause we all have the same goal in mind. Provide our students with an exemplary education, provide our teachers with exemplary resources to provide that education.

59:09 So I look forward to sitting down with school committee and our community in the fall and seeing what we can do collaboratively together, the sake of our children. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Hill. Anybody else? If not, I’ll move on. ‘cause you, I just broached an hour in public comment, which I, it’s important we heard from you, but we still have a really full agenda. Um,

59:35 okay. So district updates. Michelle Cresta. Yes. So we have lots of district updates for you. Um, a lot going on. So in terms of the f y 24 state budget, I will start with that. Actually, one of our speakers spoke of that Universal Free Lunch, uh, has been approved at the state level for all grades K to 12 students. Um, as she also mentioned that the speaker, um, it is free to our students. It’s not free to taxpayers, obviously it’s on the backs of, um, state and federal taxes. However, um, the meals are free to our students. They do have to be complete meals. There are certain guidelines we do have to oblige to and me in our order for the meal to be free to our students. We do sell a la co items as well. Um,

1:00:24 so if someone wants an additional piece of pizza, there is a charge ‘cause they’re not taking the whole meal. Um, but the state budget did include free school lunch and breakfast for all of our students. And the intention is to make that permanent going forward each year. We are one of a few states in the, um, entire country that do this and it’s great for our program. Um, also the state budget did include a Chapter 70 schools funding increase. I’ve heard a couple questions from some people within the community. Um, this increase does not have a direct impact on our f y 24 budgets. Town meeting votes to set our budget in May of each year. Our appropriation does not change after that vote takes place.

1:01:11 So while the town is may be receiving additional funding for chapter 70 for the schools, the town is the one that sets our budget. So we are not receiving that direct increase. I just, I just wanna clarify, um, chapter 70 is the money that the state pays per each student. I’m assuming a lot of people know that, but some might know. Correct? Yes.

1:01:38 Um, so that’s all I had on the state budget in terms of, um, what we’ve been doing at the district level. We had a leadership retreat last week with all principals, assistant principals, directors, and some other staff members. It was a great opportunity for all to plan and

1:01:56 to gather plan and plan the direction of the district fleet opening of the upcoming school year. We have some summer professional development ongoing. We’ve offered a wide variety of professional development opportunities for teachers this summer. Most of those opportunities work hybrid with funding from ARPA and Esser funds. So they’re one-time funds. Um, but some great opportunities that we’re, that were offered and a lot of our educators took part in those. We have our new e l A curriculum that many of you heard about WIT and Wisdom. It has arrived. We have huge pallets at all of our elementary schools. Staff has been busy unpacking them, sorting ‘em and preparing ‘em for distribution to teachers in classrooms, athletics. Some of you may have heard, um, we’ve had some issues with athletics.

1:02:44 Um, we’re we are addressing those issues. So beginning with the fall, we’re requiring all coaches to be M I a A certified. Um, we’re hoping to have that done by mid-September due to some scheduling difficulties. We may have to push that out, but all coaches will be required going forward. And this re this requirement will continue into future years. We’ve also planned some student leadership training programs for certain sports teams, um, for the fall. And we hope to expand that in the future as well. In terms of enrollment. Um, at Brown we have consistent enrollment with what we anticipated. Kindergarten is at pretty much maximum class size across the, across the school there. Glover, our enrollment is down a little bit.

1:03:30 It’s not significant village. We are right out our projected enrollment veteran school. We’ve had a significant change. Our overall enrollment has increased by 54 students, which includes 30 new students to the district with the high school. We have a current overall increase of 18 students. Um, I do wanna mention with both the middle school and high school, we may have some withdrawals for students that do go on to private schools that we’re not aware of at this time. But the numbers will fluctuate in the coming weeks. But right now that is where our snapshot is In terms of welcoming students back. Do you have the total? I do not. Close question, but she has the total, total enrollment. Enrollment. We are rolling our enrollment, um, next week.

1:04:16 So I will have figure for then. And Michelle, I don’t wanna put you on the spot or, or Matt, um, that, that’s significant increase at in the middle school, which we do often see a bump in. That seems to be where we see kids coming back for whatever reason. But is this more, is this one of the more significant increases that we’ve seen in the past years or is this kind of Sure. I will have referred to that yet. So over the last 15 years, uh, this number in the seventh grade 24 would be our tied for third highest we’ve ever had in one grade. Um, last year we had a large jump in both grades, like 23 and 22. Um, we had one year that was our highest ever,

1:05:04 which was 44. Charter had some issues that year. We picked up almost the entire grade I chart, but 24 would be the third highest. Okay. In 15 years. So what does that do for your class size? Class size is in seventh grade would be large. What does that mean? Large? It’ll be large. I mean, it’s an average, you know, when you’re talking an average, um, we have one period that’s given us challenges, especially our world language classes are gonna be maxed at 25. Uh, we have one period across the seventh grade G block. It’s going to be 24 to 20 fives. Um, just because I’m basically shorter class. Will Every student that opted to take it a foreign language be able to though? Well, they can always take a foreign languages. Might not get the first choice this point. Okay. You know,

1:05:50 we have French and we have Spanish. Our French classes though are are good sized too. They’re all 20 in the sub eighth grade. They’re actually 25. So I mean we’re, we’re large and it’s something that we didn’t quite see coming down the road. I predicted 2 21 in the seventh grade and we’re at 2 38 as of today, Percentage wise, that’s more than a 10% increase. Yeah, That’s jump. Yeah. If you think of the 2 38, uh, one outta 10 students would be new to the district. Wow. So then the eighth grade was the remaining Eighth grade two 11. Right now two 11 is from whatever it was like one, eight. No, we, we’ve only picked up six students in the eighth grade. That’s sort of more traditional numbers for us in the eighth grade.

1:06:35 Last year was an anomaly. In the eighth grade we having over 20. So six to eight is usually where we come for eighth graders arriving. Those are typically like move-ins and things like that. Um, oh, I thought you said 54. Well, it’s 54 because we graduated a smaller class than the initial class that’s coming in. Oh, I’m sorry. So, So, okay. So it’s 54 total. Uh, we were 3 95 to finished the year last year. We’re 4 49 as it’s sitting today. Okay. Right. So maybe I’m not, just not clear, was this 50 unanticipated new? Well, ev every student is un is unanticipated. It’s new. Um, but we, we tried to make, you know, I sat, I think here, um, talking about class sizes last year and how we, we were making an educated guess because since Covid, you know,

1:07:22 for the last four years, predicting class sizes been challenging. Um, you know, during Covid we had a drop in students. We started to see kids come back. Uh, this is across the district. I won’t speak for school, but I think we can say it’s across the district. Um, but it’s become sort of the last few years mcc pre tumultuous in predictions. Um, I couldn’t predict 45 new students across two grades last year that, that’s never happened. Um, I, I was assuming I took a, a low number, but I was assuming we were gonna be about 2 21 this year in the seventh grade, but we’re not 2 38. So, so get a feel for where, like, what’s contributing to that increase? No, I, I mean, it’s, it’s hard sometimes to, to, you know, pinpoint,

1:08:09 because we don’t really do entry interviews with parents. Like, why are you leaving your previous school? Sometimes it’s move-ins, like, you know, every once in a while we’ll have move-ins. Um, you know, as mentioned, we typically are the reentry point for a lot of students when they go to the charter. So if they go to the charter, a lot of them re-enter in the seventh grade, spend two years with us before transitioning to the high school. Um, you know, charter has gone through some changes this year, too. Um, and so, you know, I, it’s, it’s hard to always predict at a small school, such as the charter or, you know, even Shore Country Day or, well, you know, small schools, a little change can be impactful to parents or be seen as impactful. And so you never can predict what’s gonna head our way. We, we look at 15 year averages. I mean,

1:08:56 we’re going back technically before I was here, you know, I’m, I’m looking at numbers. Yep. Uh, so the 30 new, if there’s 54, then those were, those are matriculating out from sixth grade. That’s, So our, our overall, if we didn’t have any new students, we were gonna grow a little bit this year, and we knew that we were gonna grow by 20 ish, 24 students who knew that, okay. Just because the changes in size and things like that. The 30 on top of that is the, is the predicting part that’s very difficult. Essentially, we added an entire classroom in the seventh grade. Now, I, I understand we don’t do entrance. And actually that was something I brought up, I think last spring, wanting to do these entrance or exit interviews, if you will, so that we can track these trends. Because so much,

1:09:43 we get so much pushback about our enrollment, I think it would be ha really helpful, um, you know, to look at over the next year, possibly seeing if there’s some way to, to track what is at, what is attributing to all this. So that if You, if you look at the, and I don’t mean to interrupt, I’m sorry. Oh, no, no, no, No. I just wanna you get you, you 10% is significant. So yeah, It’s two years running. We’ve got 10%. Yeah. And so it’s, it’s impactful and it’s, it’s, it’s hard. If you look at the numbers, it’s over the 15 years, there’s nothing predictable. It’s not like every couple years or every three years. It’s, it’s completely random. And, and again, in a small community and small sending schools, you know, you know,

1:10:29 we think of sending schools in town. There’s three of them. You know, there’s possible, there’s like three competitions that I have to, you know, you have Hillel Tower and Charter, but then you can lump in, you know, things like shore, you know, another schools around town. These are all smaller schools. So if one or two or three students leave that are fairly connected, that can have a polling effect. And so oftentimes these social decisions of families and, and, and decisions that families make to move into our school, I, I don’t think there is a trackable way of doing this. I mean, I’ve, believe me, if there was any way I could predicted this number, I, I would’ve, I’m a numbers guy. Going back to Kathy Lennon when she was on the school committee. We talked about numbers all the time. Um, and trying to predict, you know, who came in and, and things like that. And it was just, it was impossible.

1:11:17 Is there one place you’re seeing them come from more than another? Yeah. The charter, the charters are, are, Is that a commonality over the years? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s, and that’s, and that’s again, I think, I think some families saw it as like a, a fourth through six switch, and then the idea of coming back to us before heading into high school to recreate connections, things like that. Okay. Thank you very much. Yep. This information. Um, yeah, no problem. Just a couple more. Um, we are preparing for a return to school. We are wrapping up our schools, our facilities department’s busy. Our IT department’s busy. Our administrators are busy. And our staff have been taking part in some great PD initiatives that I spoke about earlier. Our elementary school schedules are scheduled to be released on August 18th.

1:12:06 Um, elementary families will receive that notification. That is assuming we are able to roll our student database this week, which we are planning early, early this coming week. So hopefully that’ll remain on track. Our teachers return to the district on August 29th and students return to the district on September 5th.

1:12:27 We also have, um, we’ve announced transportation and the Paid to Ride program. Um, once again, we will be offering the paid to Ride program for our elementary students. Online registration will be open on August 15th. That particular registration for the paid to ride is first come first serve. It will be opening at 6:30 PM and an email. And, um, a robocall went out about that because we don’t want anyone to not be aware of that opportunity. Last year we did open the school year, or begin the school year with about, I wanna say 15 paid ride riders. And by the end of October, we were able to, um, go through the entire wait list and offer position, uh, spots to all of the students who wanted to take part in our Peter Ride program.

1:13:17 Um, I just also wanna mention, we are working on establishing an account with the M B T A Bus Pass program, and that will be able to provide discounted bus passes to all of our middle school and high school students if they are interested in that. And lastly, I have a financial update. Um, it’s not the typical financial update that you would normally get, um, on a quarterly basis. But given the discussion with finances, I wanted to give a brief update. So in terms of fiscal 23, year 23, which is the year that we just closed and ended on June 30th, um, we were able to prepay a significant amount of out of district tuition that had been discussed at a previous school committee meeting. The total amount we actually ended up paying was $539,000,

1:14:06 400, 530 $9,497. Um, the total operating budget for the school year was 43 million 9 82, 2 73. Our total expenditures through June 30th were $42,676,176. Our encumbrances or commitments that had not been paid as of June 30th totaled $1,306,095. And our turn back to the general fund was $2. So because our prepayment of tuitions happened solely in the year, which literally happens on the last day of allowable transactions, we try to prepay as much as possible. So we did prepay the 539,000 bucks.

1:14:57 Just ask a quick question. Yes. The encumbrances of the one point, um, 3 million. So that was in the budget. And those are just bills that will be paid after the close, correct? Yeah, a lot of those had actually since been paid, but as of June 30th, I see some people jotting numbers. This whole memo with all of this is on our website. It a late add to the website makes it, if it makes it easier, you can just go to our website and get all these numbers in the memo. They will put it out there for you. So when do we get a closeout? We get a closeout report, yes. Yep. You’ll get a closeout probably, um, within the next month. Definitely within the next month. ‘cause we’re closing closing the books and hearing reports right now. Thank you. So that is, in terms of s Ffy 23, FY 24, which is the current budget year that we just started July one. Um,

1:15:43 those regular reports will begin in late October, early November. We typically report on those quarterly. We are at the very beginning of that year. Typically, we encounter many unknown costs, um, and unanticipated costs, but we do plan for a small amount to occur each year. There have been questions about how the district will be able to fund the superintendent separation agreement. I wanted to address that. So there are two primary areas that have been identified. The first is that the school department had budgeted $420,000 for unemployment costs due to the amount of staffing eliminations that were planned for the no override budget.

1:16:29 This was an increase of $300,000 over the previous year. And it was determined back in January when we had to set our budget and put that forward through to school committee, finance committee selectmen. And

1:16:46 most of the staffing in those 33 positions that were eliminated ended up resigning before the end of the school year, either before or at the end of the school year. We ended up only laying off a handful of individuals, which is unfortunate that anyone had to be eliminated for their position cut

1:17:08 because they did not end up being laid off. We no longer will be responsible for unemployment benefits for those employees. So this then creates an available funding within the unemployment line. I am estimating that we will have about between 150,000 and $200,000 available in the unemployment line. There is also a second area that I mentioned we will have available funding is in our staffing lines. Um, while we’re still actively hiring for some teachers in certain positions, significant amount of our new hires are coming in at low salaries lower than were planned back in January.

1:17:56 We typically plan a teacher coming in with five or six years experience. We’re finding that coming in with one and two years experience right now. We do have some that are coming in with a little bit more experience, but overall, we have so many teaching experience to so many teaching positions that we’re hiring lower than anticipated. This additional savings is estimated to be of between 100,100 $50,000 combined. These two areas are estimated to be able to absorb between 250,300 $50,000 at this point. I do wanna mention also, while this funding has been identified, we are still very early on in the fiscal year. This will certainly impact the ability to fund any unknown

1:18:45 unanticipated costs as we go throughout the school year. And just as, um, was mentioned with the previous memo, this is also on the website. It was late added, late today. I was having technical difficulties with, um, the network last night. So I put it on letterhead and added it to the drive and website this morning. And that is, well, the other thing I’ve mentioned too is that we also have a budgeted superintendent salary. Correct. We do have a superintendent salary line, um, which was planned anyways, but Yes. But in terms of the unanticipated costs, yes. And that is it for district updates. Thank you. Um, that brings us to our consent action and agenda items.

1:19:31 The first item is the schedule of bills. Before I asked for a motion, there was a schedule, schedule 2 3 9 2 3, where there was an item on the schedule in the amount of $10,000 made out to two docs in three anchors. Could you flesh that out for a little bit more? Sure. Two,

1:19:54 it’s a, it’s a very odd, it’s not better name. Um, that particular invoice is actually for, um, Dr. Jody Carrington. She is a renowned psychologist, author, and speaker. She, um, will be our keynote speaker for our convocation for our staff on August 30th. Um, this was arranged by the previous administration, so I really wasn’t involved with bringing on Dr. Judy Carrington. Um, but her message is very empowering and especially given the

1:20:26 recent experiences of the district. I think this message will be very well received by our staff. Um, I think it’s timely. It, it, it is a significant cost. Um, I do wanna mention also that P C O has, or the five PCOS have agreed to contribute, um, a thousand dollars each to pay for half of that cost. Right. Do you know what, um, the funding mechanism for the other portion is? The other half is being taken out of our education efficacious revolving tuition fund, um, which is a fund that we use for one 10 costs. So it’s not being charged to the operating budget, but it is being charged to Our tuition costs. Our tuition loan. Now, I know when Ms. Carrington came several years ago during covid, um,

1:21:13 it was, I believe it was very well received at that time. She spoke to the staff as well as the, it was open to the community in the evening. Well, this, will this include an option for the community to attend or is it just, is it just staff? No, this is just for snap. Okay. And is it, is it a whole day thing or how long is it? No, it is just in the morning for, I believe it’s for 90 minutes. Okay. All right. Um, thank you for just, that was an item that I, I didn’t quite understand or know about. So I just, so just, um, so, you know, I’m gonna recuse myself from this just one section. Right. I’m just gonna recuse myself from the both. Okay. All right. I, I, I was doing almost two separate. I have to know which one you’re refusing.

1:22:00 I’ll just repeat. Okay. Um, so I am gonna ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills for fiscal year 2023 to totaling $1,417,073 and 57 cents. So moved by Jen Schaffner.

1:22:19 Second. Um, Megan will be abstaining. All in favor for motion passes more than zero with one abstention.

1:22:33 I’ll ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills for fiscal of year 2024 total and $648,248 90 cents

1:22:45 by Jenner second, seconded by Brian Oda, you’ll be proceeding as well. Um, so all in favor opposed? Motion carries four zero with one Extens. I, um, we also have, um, on our agenda and accept, uh, acceptance of tree donation at Glover. Um, I believe that this was, I don’t know who do you wanna speak to this at all, or?

1:23:17 I brought Kristen, um, Kristen Zales, kindergarten teaching from Glover. Thank you. This was a tree that the kindergarten team purchased. A Barbara Thomas to recognize her for 30 years of service at Glover School. Should just be retired this year, and we wanted to request permission to plaintiff T Um, so I will ask for a motion to accept a donation of a tree in honor of the retirement of Barbara Thomas to be planted at the Glover School. Moved by Brian Oda. Second. Second by Allison Taylor. Uh, all in favor opposed? Motion carries five to zero. You to do. Thank you. Is that gonna go in soon? Is that Yes. Yes. The tree wouldn’t already agree that.

1:24:05 Um, we had minutes in our Dropbox. We’re gonna vote these separately because, um, if you weren’t on the committee for when these minutes, this meeting took place, or if you weren’t present at the meeting, you’ll need to abstain. So the first one, I’ll ask for a motion to approve the minutes of 6 15, 23. Um, Brian and Jen, you’ll have to have seen Megan. I think you are seen this as well. No. Are you doing graduation? You can still, I’ll just,

1:24:39 okay. All right. So moved. So, Nelson Taylor seconded. Sarah, box. All in favor. Motion carries two to zero with accept, um, motion to approve the minutes from 6 29 23.

1:25:00 So, so who said Alison Taylor? Mm-hmm. Seconded. Second Jenner. Um, all in favor? All opposed. Motion carries Board zero with one extension. Um, next, um, on our agenda is the ification of the separation agreement. Um, I’ll ask for a motion and we can enter discussion motion to ratify the settlement agreement between the Marblehead schools and Dr. John Buffy dated 8 2 23. So by Alison Taylor, second. Second by Jen Sch are open for discussion. Um, I’m gonna recuse myself. Okay. Thank you. Um,

1:25:53 um, we, we have been, if there’s a limited bureau consent, I’m sorry, could you guys speak up? I can. I, um, she had asked if there’s anything to say, and my understanding as we’ve been advised is there is limited we can say. So what’s the actual motion? The motion was to ratify the settlement agreement between the Marble County Public Schools and Dr. John Buck dated 8 2 23. Um, well, I’ll say something then. Um, I think at this point we have no, for me personally, I have no choice but to accept his resignation. I’m just so profoundly disappointed that this is where

1:26:38 we’re at. I think as a committee, we did not effectively manage the superintendent. I think if there were concerns about his performance or his actions, we as a committee, we, or committee members, we should have raised those and discuss them as a committee and come up with action plans on how to address them. We just passed his evaluation unanimously with proficient, and that was absolutely the time to bring up concerns. Um, and again, to put goals and checkpoints in place to do that. And so I think as a committee, we haven’t effectively managed him. We did not have, uh, comprehensive smart goals. We didn’t have a consistent evaluation process. And now we’ve, you know,

1:27:27 as a result of that, the district’s at significant risk. We just talked about the financial impact, which, you know, we’re already stretched with our budget. We should be spending any additional monies towards student facing initiatives and student achievement. And so this is not a good use of our funds. And in addition, it is completely distracted. The entire community, nevermind our teachers and our staff who are supposed to be preparing for the school year. It’s detracted from the focus, which again, should be our students. It’s also created instability within the entire district, which we’ve heard repeatedly from our staff, is one of the things they’re asking from the leadership is to provide

1:28:16 stability so that they can do their jobs effectively. And so, I’m just, it’s just so disappointing that this is where we’re at.

1:28:29 And I guess at that point, I’m kind of at a loss for words. Okay. Yes. I just, um, I hadn’t prepared anything. Um, again, to Sarah’s point around advice of council, but I just wanna say this, that, um, we are advised around what we can and can’t speak about, um, whether other committee members choose to take legal advice or not. That’s, that’s certainly up to them. But I did not take this or any other vote lightly or without profound, uh, research and thought and actually prayer. And I don’t vote, take any vote, whether it’s a schedule bills or a ratification of a,

1:29:15 of a separation agreement without thinking about what is best for our students, our faculty and staff, and our community. In that order.

1:29:32 I just wanted, uh, also to say children, make sure I apologize. I I just wanted to make sure, um, you know, you can go ahead. I can go. No, please, please. Okay, go ahead. Um, I had a note from earlier that I, I had, but part of it’s applicable on. We can hear you. Um, I just said, I, it’s, we can’t hear you thank

1:30:03 or we back live. I apologize. Um, so personnel matters and student information is privileged for a reason to protect these individuals as is appropriate. It is not that I don’t understand your frustration. I do it. It is not that I don’t think you are due more information, and it certainly isn’t that I don’t want to give you more information because quite frankly, if, if we, if I could answer every question in the last month, I’ve been asked, I, I, I think that would have turned the vitriol down a little bit.

1:30:51 Um, I mean, just here tonight, we’ve been accused of being bigots. I, I, I, I can firmly tell you that is one thing I have

1:31:01 no concerns about myself being, um, or quite frankly, that has not been a factor for anybody that I’ve ever heard this year.

1:31:13 I have always, for four years, made every decision whether people agree with me or not. And I respect your right to disagree. I think it’s important for us all to be able to disagree without becoming disagreeable. But, and, and many of you have done that. And for that, I’m grateful. I have never taken any vote that I have not deeply believed was the vote that I needed to make in the best interest of students.

1:31:47 That has been my guiding principle for every decision, even in the face over these four years, when that vote has actually not been in the best interest of my own children. Because I’m not here to make decisions in, in the best interest of my own children. Contrary to what’s been put out in the public media and Facebook and everything else in the, the, the last few weeks,

1:32:11 it’s something I have been proud about. I have had dozens and dones, if not over a hundred people come to me over the years and say to me, I don’t agree with everything you said, but I agree. Lay your cards on the table. And I always believe you’re doing what you think is right for students. I may not think it’s the right thing for students, but you do.

1:32:37 And it, it is been very difficult to sit here and hear from so many people that I do hold in high regard. That they have no faith. That they may think I’m a bigot and that’s why I made this decision, or that I made this decision out of spite or hidden agendas. It’s also been really troubling to hear the people we’re working with our council, oh, highly regarded counsel, be criticized by multiple people that she’s not advising us appropriately. I have not put a single thing in writing. I have not posted a single meeting. I have not had a single meeting without our counsel

1:33:26 intricately involved in there the whole time. And I will go on the record saying, I still believe in her professional capability. I have no concerns whatsoever about her professionalism and her legal advice. And I’m disappointed that people are calling that into question.

1:33:48 This has not been easy for anybody. It’s not been easy for any of you. For the other people reading about this, it has not been easy for Dr. Bucky. It’s not been easy about for students whose personal information was put out on the internet. This has not been easy for anyone. The one thing I hope is the takeaway is really terrible. Situations sometimes give us opportunity. And the opportunity I’m hoping we take away here is that we focus on our students. That, that we all move forward and we all make all of our decisions on what we truly believe is best for our students. And we can have a civil discourse about that without me,

1:34:34 it becoming a personal attack. Because quite frankly, I would encourage everybody to go back and read what’s been on Facebook. But instead of reading it as if adults are saying it, read it as if one of our high school students was writing it to another high school student. And I’m gonna tell you, we all would be on the phone. We’d be calling the counselors and the vice principals and the principals. We’d be saying, we have a problem. We need to have a forum. We’d be taking kids’ phones away, right and left. That’s for sure. But for some reason, we have found it acceptable to say these things, neighbor to neighbor, teacher to parent of students, and so on and so forth. Well, you may not agree with every, with what every person at this table did or did not do.

1:35:23 What I can say is every single one of us has not just, well, no, I can say the majority of us have not disparaged anyone. We have not disparaged Dr. Bucky. We have not disparaged the community. We have not disparaged students. We have not disparaged our colleagues. And while you might not agree with what our outcome is, I will say I am proud of the way we have conducted ourselves in that we have followed the advice of our attorney. I’m not an attorney. I didn’t go to law school and I don’t even play an attorney on Facebook. We hire her to tell us what to do. And I have faith. She did it correctly. This needs, we, we need to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.

1:36:11 And we need to realize that there are rules in place with executive session for a reason. And just because they don’t fit our narrative, we cannot break them.

1:36:25 Allison was next. And then I’ll move to you, Maggie. And I’m sorry if I got a little weed. I was inappropriate.

1:36:35 Um, first word, democratic republic. But that’s, that’s a side note. I, you know, a lot of people mentioned we need to be determined to be respectful. Um, and I think Sarah brought up a very good point. Um, I wrote down just in the hour of public comment that we have our head in the sand. We’re disgusting, we’re homophobic, we should resign. We are a sham. We have ulterior motives, we have hidden agendas, we have grudges. I get how frustrating it’s, I can remember there’s, there’s more, but you all were here and you can go re-listen to it yourself. These are terrible things to say to people. And I think it was Jonathan Heller that noted, we need to be the model,

1:37:20 not only for each other and for other people in the community, but for our children. If we wanna all sit here and talk about this is all for the children, then we need to be doing this for the children and find a way to disagree, to dislike, to not even respect someone. That’s okay too. But to do it in a manner that when you look in the mirror, or if you look at your child, if they said these things to somebody, or if someone said these things to them, how would that feel? And I’m not a child and a grown woman. I can take it, that’s fine, but I can take it. But that’s what we need to think, because that’s who’s listening. That’s who’s learning from this. They are learning from us and just need to do better at that. It’s, and thank you to Jonathan for mentioning that we need to be,

1:38:08 we need to be that model, Megan. So what I’ve heard today, it feels like the situation has created, you know, amongst the committee, there’s a divide. And I honestly think that as a committee, we did not provide good governance or transparent governance or public participation in that process. And that has absolutely contributed to the divisiveness. So regardless of where we end up here, I’m hoping if we’re thinking in the spirit of going forward, that as a committee, we really take a look at how we govern at our operating protocols, our policies, our processes, our best practices,

1:38:57 and make sure that we are working within those so that we are providing good governance as elected officials.

1:39:07 We have a motion on the table. I will ask for a vote. All in favor?

1:39:15 Opposed? Megan, where were you on that? I accept his resignation. So that’s the, not the motion. I just motion to ratify the sedimental agreement between the Marblehead schools separation of, between Marblehead public schools and Dr. John B. David to Aye. Object. What the is Do you wanna do the vote again? Yeah. All in favor Opposed? Motion carries three to one with one, uh, with one abstention. That brings us to the open meeting complaint we’ve received two. One was from Kathy Ann Swindlehurst. I will speak to that one first. Um, I have notes from, um, our attorney.

1:40:03 So forgive me while I read them off my time screen. Um,

1:40:09 the complaint from Ms. Swindlehurst, I just interrupt one second. You sort of explain how the process works. Oh, yes. Okay. So the process is, there’s a form from the Secretary of State. An individual fills it out. You submit one copy to the town clerk, one copy to the governing body, which is in this case the school committee. Um, then the school committee in a public meeting will discuss the complaint, um, vote on whether they, on whether the, they believe the complaint occurred, the violation occurred. I understand that sounds very counterintuitive. Can’t shoot me down for this one. I didn’t make this rule. Um, at that point will we’ll bring that determination back

1:40:54 to our counsel. They’ll draft a reply to the individual who filed the complaint. At that point, the individual, if they don’t agree with the determination, has the right to appeal it to the secretary of State who, who will then give a determination. Um, we often hear the, the term thrown around an open meeting law complaint. This is the only mechanism for that. Someone saying it’s an open meeting, law violation. It, it, it’s, it’s not, it doesn’t fall into this. It’s, this is the mechanism. Um, so that being said, as it pertains to Ms. Swindlehurst, um, complaint, Ms. Swindlehurst alleges that the committee improperly convened an executive session regarding the early termin allegation clause of the contract

1:41:41 0.1. Again, this is all via our attorney. The committee convened for a proper purpose under provision number two, which was to discuss potential negotiations with the superintendent about an early termination of this contract. And was clear that it was the superintendent that the committee was discussing. There’s specific provisions we had to like check. So there was not a vote to enact the early termination, but rather a vote to allow the committee’s counsel to begin discussions with the superintendent’s counsel regarding an earlier end of the contract. And that’s really where the nuance is. I, um, there was an attorney who spoke earlier who, who, who,

1:42:28 who talks about, or when she said, used the term we fired. And I said, we didn’t fire Dr. Bucky. That’s an important, um, clear distinction, legal distinction. Um, so just to know there was not a vote to enact the early termination that, that we never enacted in early termination. We took a vote to allow our council to negotiate with Dr. Bucky’s council. The committee and the superintendent were able to reach a mutually agreed term and the agreement was ratified here today in an open session.

1:43:09 Um, so given those parameters or, or data facts and an from our attorney, I will ask, um, the suggested motion was

1:43:27 to enable our counsel to draft a response to the open meeting law complaint submitted by Ms. Ms. Swindlehurst with a termination that no open meeting law violation occurred. As discussed as identified. That from our counsel. Um, once we have it moved and seconded, we can open for discussion. So seconded. Okay, so that Allison Taylor moved. Jen sch or seconded open for discussion.

1:43:55 Does anybody here not agree with our legal can do that again, what we said. Okay. Um, the committee, sorry. This committee convened for a proper purpose under number two, which was to discuss potential negotiations with the superintendent about an early termination of this contract. And was clear that it was the superintendent that the committee was discussing. Okay. Two, there was not a vote to enact the early termination clause, but rather a vote to allow the committee’s council to begin discussions with the superintendent’s council regarding an earlier end to

1:44:40 the contract. And three, the committee and the superintendent were able to reach a mutually agreed terms and the agreement was ratified here today. Today in an open session.

1:44:58 I guess my, um, concern is that while we’re ratifying here, we, I guess my concern was that even though we’re ratifying the separation agreement here, it was signed and sent a press release before we ratified it in open session. I do think we should have ratified it in open session before those things happened because that is actually what makes it official. According to how I read the open meeting law 0.2, I am not going attempt to interpret mass general law beyond the confines of what our counsel has interpreted. I have to trust that she is able to interpret the law better than I

1:45:45 AM’s. Fine. Um, okay. Any further discussion? I’ll call please. But the only, the only other thing I wanna mention, ‘cause I thought this was in the complaint, the initial portion of the complaint and maybe the actual filing, the filing what was filed was different than what was emailed to us. But there was some discussion at one point about not discussing why we were going into executive session prior to, which we don’t do, we don’t have to do, we can call an executive decision, but I guess that wasn’t part of formal complaint, right? A vote to return journey into executive session for strategy discussions on the superintendent’s contracts and the executive session itself.

1:46:31 So it says the filing of this agenda was the first indication voters received that the board reconsidered the superintendent’s contract, which is allowable, is what my point is. So can I just add something? I think the other piece too though, is that when we were in our open meeting, we talked about having executive session under point, point number one. And then without any additional conversation from the committee, it changed to point number two. Well, we, so again, like the committee never decides what point, it’s, it’s always advised by counsel Colby had been on way on vacation. Her associate had said, I think this would be one Colby came back, said, okay, what are we, what are the thoughts here? And then said, Nope, it’s actually two.

1:47:18 Understood. But in terms of being transparent to the public, we said in a public meeting, we were meeting under number one. And then it changed with no additional information, no additional public meeting to reason number two. So again, that’s what we put forward to the public. So just for people who were kind of speaking in, so the provision one is to discuss complaints against a employee. And it, after conferring with our counsel, our counsel advised us to meet in under provision two, which was contract negotiations. So I at this point am going to call for a vote. You need to,

1:48:08 okay. Um, all in favor now in favor means there is no violation. Just to clarify, can you just read the motion again? Yes. Um, to enable our counsel to draft a response to the open meeting law complaints submitted by Ms. Swindlehurst with determination, no open meeting law violation occurred as discussed.

1:48:34 All in favor opposed sustain motion carries three to one to one. Um, now the next piece of this for there was a full open meeting law complaint form submitted to the clerk and emailed to the committee by Ree Staller, um, per our counsel. Um, the complaint does not say what the alleged violation is. I just see her request for a public apology or a violation, but nothing regarding what the violation is. So I just, out of an abundance of caution thinking because my tech skills aren’t great,

1:49:21 maybe I said it wrong and I resent it. And the legal counsel came back and confirmed a second time, no actual violation was identified. A public apology was just requested. So there’s always an opportunity to resubmit and to give a violation, but we can’t make a determination for our counsel without an actual violation. There were events that were outlined as events, but no clarification on what the, the violation is. So in here it’s, sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding, but it says the Marblehead school committee has violated the open meeting law by final, by failing to take a final vote in open session. But that’s what it says in the discuss violation.

1:50:10 I said Colby had that twice. I, ‘cause the first time I read it I said, okay, are you sure? Here it is again. And she came back and said, I am confirming. So, you know, happy to resubmit it to her. Um, you know, maybe Ms. Dahlberg wants to give some, flesh out a little more detail and we can resubmit it. I, I don’t know. Um, also she doesn’t agree. She can submit it to the Secretary of State as well. Um, so that’s where we are right now. Next item. Um, so there’s no action. No there’s no action. Um, interim superintendent discussion. So

1:50:54 it would be, it is my recommendation as chair that we recommend recommend Michelle Cresta to be acting superintendent through, um, sorry, October 31st of 24. Um, during which time the committee will revisit this in September, in a few weeks to convene what the next step like to convene a search process. Sorry, you said 24? That’s 23. I’m like, I didn’t agree that I had 20 because I had 23 written and I was like, oh, I wrote that wrong and just literally wrote over it with the before. So I’ll say that again. My recommendation is that Michelle be acting superintendent through the end of

1:51:41 October, October 31st. Um, we are legally required, as I’ve explained multiple times, to have an acting superintendent at all times. Um, can you explain that to me multiple times

1:51:55 that, um,

1:52:00 so that would be my recommendation. Um, during this period, I would, I’m gonna ask Jen to reach out to Carolyn Befor who had been, um, who was one of the leads at, uh, NASDAQ, who helped us with the past superintendent search and just get some information from her. Um, ask her what, what, um, if, if the whole committee can be part of the search committee, if we can only have a certain number of members part of the search committee just to bring back some data so that we know who, uh, how much involvement there can be. Because I do think, ideally that the whole committee be part of the process. Um, and so I just think, you know, we can normally, I would say we can reach out to a s c or M A S C rep is retiring,

1:52:46 she’s on vacation, then she’s back part-time. So I think we can get an answer much more quickly through, um, Carolyn Backport through nasdaq, who we all worked with on the last search. And, and she, you know, she’s very professional and organized. Um, no, I, I’ll, I’ll get right there. Um, so that would be my recommendation that we just get that information back on if we all can be involved. And then in a couple weeks at the beginning of September, we really flesh out what that search process is going to be. And, um, started so that, you know, we have Michelle through the end of October and then we’ll add an, so while I guess I’m not clear why we wouldn’t just reject, I’m not clear why we wouldn’t use M A S C even though Dorothy might be on

1:53:33 vacation. That’s great. We’ve spoken with Glen Kucher and we’re get an update on that in a little bit. Um, so we, they sound like they’re really sa to be able to, so is there a cost for No, we’re just calling for her information. We’re not hiring her. We’re just calling and asking for her, her to forward us the information on what is legally required by this. We’re not, we’re not retaining their services. We, we, if we decide to go with the search agency, we’ll do what we did last time where we bring in presentations from whoever m at sc, the Collins Group, nasdaq. Um, this is just literally to ‘cause the goal, my goal would be to have the whole committee part of that search process. ‘cause I think that is part of really important piece of, of moving forward in a collective mat manner and having all voices heard.

1:54:23 I just wanna gather some information and if we’re allowed to do that, and you’re, feel free to pick up the phone and call Glen as well. So what’s the expectation in terms of timelines? October 31st that we would be able to have an, have good standing on who our interim superintendent will be. So from now until October for 31st is when we’re doing a search process. Well, we have to, we have to find out how many searches are out in the area right now. Um, ‘cause that affects the speed in which this all occurs. Um, last year was a really big year for interims. So this cycle, everything falls in a cycle is actually a really big year for, um, full-time superintendent searches. There was many, many, many districts last year that had a full-time superintendent. Um, search.

1:55:11 I remember I went to see, uh, one of the symposiums I went to the, at the M A S C conference this year. They talked about the change of superintendent positions and how, and a study that was done, I think four, uh, 10 or 12 years ago, the average length of a sitting superintendent, the average tenure was 14 and a half years when conducted last year, the average tenure tenure of a sitting superintendent was two and a half. So, um, because of that, there’s a lot going on out there. So I think one of the factors with the speed in which we can produce results is how many searches are being run right now. So that’s why I say I would recommend someone can make a different motion through October 31st and putting this on our first agenda in

1:55:59 September, which is in three weeks. Um, so that we can then have a full agenda item around this, get some feedback from the community perhaps on what they’re hoping to see in the process, and have some actual data about what current timelines are like, um, what the, the bandwidth is for the various agencies to put in to submit letters of interest in this, in this process. Um, that being said, I will note I’ve already been, um, contacted by multiple individuals who are interested and I would like to be able to tell them, you may submit your letter of interest and resume, but I don’t even know the proper format for that. So that’s another question we I need to ask Colby and,

1:56:47 ‘cause I know when we do in Nsec, I know when we did the first search resumes when they come in are confidential the first round and they’re not public. Um, essentially, you know, if there’s a person who, you know, is superintendent somewhere else, or assistant superintendent or whatever, somewhere else, that they can put their foot the resumes out without worrying that their contracts will be canceled. It’s, it’s to protect the applicant. So I just want to know the rules on that. So then we’re acting in accordance to the rules and making sure that we’re disclosing what we can, when we can and we’re following the process. So that’s why I would, I will ask for a motion to appoint Michelle Cresta as acting superintendent through 10 31 23 3,

1:57:36 enable and enable the chair to negotiate compensation with Ms. Preston during this time. So moved again.

1:57:50 Yep. So who does Michelle’s job the meantime?

1:57:55 Michelle is going to be doing that. She is blessed with, um, an absolute amazing assistant. Um, Emma, who in this time period I believe Michelle has talked to, and she’s willing to take on extra duties during this time period as well. And as long as we are, we don’t really hit full swing with the budget until after 10 31. So that’s another reason why I went with that.

1:58:22 I mean, the bottom line is we need to identify someone who is our current employee to do this in the, in, in the, as an acting right now, I have been incredibly impressed with Michelle’s professionalism, um, skills and quite honestly her ability to create a calm in a, in an excitable situation, um, in the last few weeks. And just the narrow focus on, okay, what do the kids need? What do the students need? So I think she’s been doing a great job and she’s been doing that well, doing her own job. Um, actually have no problem. You know, I, I have complete faith in Michelle. The bottom line is Michelle loves her current job. She has a lot of joy in it.

1:59:08 She really, she really likes the numbers and the, and in all of it, as she’s explained to me and, um, doesn’t want to do this job long term. She knows she’s capable and can study the s**t and is willing to, and I, and I’ve heard feedback, you know, a lot of people have confidence in her and I think that’s great, but I also would never ask Michelle to do anything long-term and leave the job she absolutely loves and to a role that she may be able to do, but isn’t what she enjoys. So that’s another reason why I’m, I’m asking to limit this right now until 10 31. And you know what, we may wind up backing here at some point in October saying, okay, we’re really close in this process, but we need to extend this for another three weeks or whatever. And that’s fine. That’s about we take, but I, and I don’t wanna say,

1:59:55 lemme just say something without giving since we haven’t voted yet. But, um, I also wanna reiterate what Sarah is saying, that Michelle has really stepped up, um, as a professional, ate professional. I know her to be and have worked with her, um, and how much, how thankful and appreciative I am for what she has stepped forward and is, is willing to do. And I 100% support her in this role through October 31st, if that’s the will of the committee. And I strongly encourage other, all the other committee members to also support her in this role.

2:00:30 I think Michelle’s proven herself since, I think Michelle’s proven herself since day one here in Marblehead. So, uh, you know, she’s more than capable, I believe, of doing this job. And it sounds like her day job as well, which I think is a lot to ask for some of somebody. Um, I just feel like as a committee we are being reactive and we don’t have a solid plan in place to make sure that we have an experienced and permanent superintendent in place. And I think that’s like the most disappointing piece of this for me. Can Michelle do it? A hundred percent. So we’re, I’d actually argue very exceptionally strongly in opposition to that. This is the complete antithesis of reactive. This is saying we have a legal requirement to fill, which we are doing,

2:01:18 and we’re going to use that time to be thoughtful in our process of who is our interim so that we can get feedback from the community and work as a committee to identify that interim. The reactive thing to do would be to immediately pick an interim. Right now. I think that would be a, a, a really poor choice that does not negate our legal obligation to put someone in this role.

2:01:49 If you have someone else you’d like to nominate, I that would not be considered reactive, I’m happy to hear it. I think that this is actually a really thoughtful approach to giving everybody the opportunity

2:02:04 to take a breath, get the schools open, start right in September on this process. That’s, that, that is the complete antithesis react

2:02:17 further discussion. All, all. Um, so again, to appoint Michelle Cresta, acting, acting superintendent through 10 31 23 and enable the chair to negotiate compensation with Ms. Cresta. All in favor Opposed? Motion carries five to zero. So that moves us to, um, space on second. Your gives you compensation. Yes. Okay. Um, submit subcommittee and liaison updates. Now I think we, so I know we had several comments on policy. I, I’m assuming from the comments that people might not have seen the policy that we are approving up online.

2:03:02 I know people heard and read about the policy subcommittee recess is not part of this policy that we’re approving today at all. Changes to recess, um, changes to recess. Um, the wellness policy, a D F and the life-threatening allergy policy J L C D D are required by the state of Massachusetts to be in place with this verbiage for us to get state funding for the lunch program. If we do not put this in before the beginning of the school year. It’s my understanding, please correct me if I’m wrong, Michelle, we are not eligible for the funding. Michelle, I’m not sure if it’s the funding, but definitely we’ll have a black mark on us. Definitely. Yeah, no, so I actually, I put another memo in your boxes this morning, so I apologize for lateness.

2:03:51 Literally doing two jobs takes an awful lot of time, let me tell you. Um, so during, during this past year, Dr. Bucky actually reformed the wellness committee and we reestablished, um, that committee, which was great. And we started working on revising the wellness policy as was required by the state. We found that our, our policy was completely updated. It did not hit the marks that were required by the state. And so we basically spent the year drafting a new policy in, in conjunction with the, um, office of School Nutrition that is run by desi. Um, they were super helpful and this is actually the policy that they recommended we adopt. Um, we did tweak it a little bit, not too much though. Um, unfortunately we just found out a couple weeks ago that we needed to have this

2:04:39 policy adopted and in place by the start of the school year in order to get our school lunch application approved by the state. Um, I was not aware of this time requirement. I don’t think Dr. Bucky was aware of his time requirement. The food service director came to me, so that’s why all of a sudden we’re rushing to try to get this policy passed and waive those three readings. We did discuss that at last week’s, um, policy subcommittee, which was the first time anyone had ever heard of it. I, myself have been on the wellness committee for the past year, so I was aware of the actual new policy, but I wasn’t aware of the time constraint that we had. Um, so I did put together a brief memo of some of the highlights of the changes. I’m not gonna read them all. Basically, it just constitutes what the wellness committee needs to do, how many times we need to meet. Um, the fact that you need to set goals,

2:05:27 you need to report to the school committee once a year as well as the superintendent in terms of those goals. Um, it’s all really good things. Um, it does expand a lot of definitions. It says we will offer school lunch daily. We already do that, but it’s putting it in fighting basically. Um, the policy does actually have a one point where it addresses elementary school recess, that it will be no less than 15 minutes per day. Um, or it doesn’t mandate, but it suggests, um, we did have a discussion about that. Given this new information or discussion that has brought up, I recommend just due to the timing requirements, we adopt this policy with the recommendations that the state has put forward. And then we can certainly continue the discussion of the recess, um, issue.

2:06:14 Certainly it’s not going to happen in the next three weeks or we’re not going to make that change in the next three weeks because we do have a schedule set for September already. But it’s not saying that we cannot have this conversation and look to how we implement, um, some of, some of the well means items that we wanna talk about. Um, the second policy is the life-threatening allergy policy. It’s really a brand new policy. It just acknowledges that there are life-threatening allergies in our schools. Some of our students have these. Um, it brings required education and training to our school employees and it just recommends that we have a plan on file in working with the parents about the student’s life learning allergies. Um, so I do respectfully request and recommend that school committee waive these three readings on both of these policies and adopt ‘em so we can, um,

2:07:00 meet our timeframe and if any changes are needed in the future, certainly we can take it up. We go through the reread, you know, policy process we normally do, but I’d just love to get these through. So the, so just so e everyone knows on the committee there, so the life-threatening allergy policy, which we don’t have correct at all, is referenced in the updated wellness policy. So in order for us to adopt the policy that references another policy, we have to have that policy. So that’s why we’re trying to adopt both of them simultaneously. Correct. Um, in regards to, and I’ll just give a quick comment around the recess. Um, we did discuss this at our policy subcommittee meeting, uh, last week or yeah, last week. Um, and I had done actually, um, fairly extensive research into other, um, school districts and there’s really a,

2:07:49 a real wide swath of differences in terms of what, uh, recess is required in different school districts or, or in minutes of physical activity. Um, everyone that I found did lie within right lie, lie within the, um, the wellness policy. That’s where that goes. Um, so that, hence that’s why we were discussing it. So that is something. Um, and when we did bring it up, I know, um, Julia was on the call, our assistant superintendent. Um, and our plan is to, um, you know, have her back and we’ll begin, um, more detailed discussions around that with staff, with administration, and certainly we’ve heard from parents, but as it stands right now, if we adopt this policy today, this updated wellness policy,

2:08:36 the recess that’s in there, we are currently meeting. So we will, it’s within our schedule right now. Um, and just for a point of clarification, the request to waive three readings, which is part of our policy handbook, we didn’t make that up, um, was requested by you, Michelle, correct? Yes. So, I mean, just

2:09:01 probably not needing to say, I’m gonna say it anyway. Some of the accusations that have been flung at us that we created, that we, we were overruling the administration by asking to have waive the three readings. Like, oh, I understand people are upset, I understand what we did as upsetting to people, but I also understand some of the accusations that have been thrown at us today, or simply not true at all. So I needed, I just needed to put that clarify. No one on this committee came up with the idea to wa these three meetings. We are listening to our professional and her request to leave them in order to meet the state required. So I will ask, can I just ask one question? Sorry. Uh,

2:09:48 for with our, you know, desired changes to the recess, uh, policy, which I feel very strongly about, this won’t inhibit us or conflict in any way. Right. Okay. Not at all. Okay. You can amend the policy. Yeah, just wanna make sure, amend I mean really, but this policy states that we shall have 15 minutes day of recess at minimum. So we can certainly have more regards with this policy with an amendment if we wanna change, amend that policy. Right. Okay. I’ll ask for a motion to waive the three reading requirement for adoption and to approve the wellness policy policy, a d F as presented.

2:10:29 Schaffner, seconded by Brian Oda. Um, we’ll take discussion. Um, I am happy to approve it so that Michelle can do her job. I think this goes back to our group governance and making sure that we as a committee really adhere to our practices to make sure that we provide the adequate amount of time to review policies because that’s one of our main jobs. In this case in particular, I would like this policy back on the agenda for one of our first meetings because I don’t think that we can actually operationalize some of the points that are in here. So for example, Marblehead Public Schools will provide a pleasant dining environment for students and staff. That is a relative statement.

2:11:17 It is not possible to like operationalize and measure that. And it’s the same thing. Is that State link? Lemme just clarify. Is that the language that was put forth by the state? They gave us a draft policy they recommended, but But that was part of it. That was part of it. Okay. We can certainly, I think we need to review discussion. Like I don’t know how Michelle and her team will actually operationalize this policy. The other piece around Endeavor to enable all students to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to make healthy food choices for a lifetime. Again, it’s a great goal, but how do we operationalize those? We, we teach health loans. I know, but I’m not saying we don’t. But actually operationalizing those to meet that specific requirement I think is

2:12:04 very challenging. So I’m happy to vote it, but I think we need to come back to this policy and at least have the policy subcommittee present to us so we can understand it a little bit better and talk through some, well I think it actually would probably be the wellness committee to do that. That’s what I said. You said we’ll be bringing up the, um, we’ll be reactivating the wellness Wellness committee this September as well. And for what it’s worth, there are a number of policies where in our policy I that we don’t have operationally defined or it can be sufficiently vague. Um, so we had a policy that we, that we follow all M I A A rules and it became abundantly clear that as per the m i a website that we identified last October,

2:12:50 we only had six coaches that had M I A A certification. And we have many, many dozen more than that. Understood. But we’re talking about this policy in particular and I asking if this policy be back on the agenda in the beginning of the school year. I mean, the other option, Megan, we should, the other option is if we don’t approve it today, we just have to have, we can do, we can do three meetings before school starts. What what I’m saying is I’m happy to pass it now, but I’d like to have it back on the agenda early on so that we can really go through it and make sure that it’s something that we can actually adhere to. Okay. So I’ll ask that the policy committee go through it again at your committee level before bringing you back to us. It’s the wellness committee, not the policy C. Okay. So that the wellness committee convene, have a discussion. Once you’ve had your meeting, had your discussion, let me know.

2:13:37 I’ll put it on an agenda and we’ll bring it back. Okay. So motion’s been moved and seconded. All in favor? All opposed. Motion carries five to zero. I’ll ask for a motion to waive the three reading requirement for adoption into approve life-threatening algae policy. J L C D D as presented. So moved. Second motion vision chapter. Seconded by Alison Taylor. Taylor All in or discussion.

2:14:11 All in favor Opposed? Motion carries five to zero. Um, school committee summer retreat discussion. I wanted to talk about the curriculum. Oh, yes, yes. I’m sorry. I met with Julia Ferraro to kind of map out a little bit of what the curriculum subcommittee can do and we had more questions than answers. So I canvased 14 different schools, um, districts to see if they had curriculum subcommittees being summarized. Only able to get 11 people to respond of that number. Only three of ‘em have some sort of a, most of ‘em said they don’t do it because it conflicts with superintendents. So I’d like to spend a little more time getting more information from the

2:14:59 districts and we’ll come back at the first school committee meeting and then present my information and vote on whether we want to continue the subcommittee or, and So just to flush it out a little bit, um, this is a committee that came to our OR suggestion for our subcommittee that came to us um, about 10 months ago or so, um, via Sarah Gold At that point she had been working with um, the school committee in Beverly who has such a committee. Um, and By the way, they don’t have it on the Website. You don’t? Okay. I I caught One of the things is we’re we’re lucky in that Julia Ferrara’s mentor is the, correct me if I’m wrong, the assistant superintendent. Uh, okay. Lisa, the assistant super anticipation, uh,

2:15:47 the assistant superintendent of Beverly. So I think between you talking to their chair, um, also working with Julia and getting some information from their, how they’re operationalizing it. I’d love to hear from you and from Julia kind of whether this is a good fit for us or not. I’m not married to it, it’s just it came to us last year at that point the committee said we’re not ready to do this. We need more information. So I’d love to hear more information than we can decide if it’s something we wanna do. Okay. Who else is on the, except is it you and

2:16:19 you and Alison? Yeah. So you guys can meet to decide if or to do some research on this I guess. Yeah. Um, alright, so that brings us to school committee summer retreat discussion. Brian had requested that we do some type of team building or something of that matter I think goes without saying that we benefit us all. Um, and then Jen recently reached out to Glen and I don’t know how much of that, that discussion you wanna Yeah. Share. Spoke to Glen Kucher at M A O C and actually our field rep Dorothy really is, was fairly unclear but is she’s on vacation and then she’s gonna be part-time and I’m not sure, um, how closely or what the availability will be there.

2:17:06 So we need to sort of suss that out with him. But, um, I did reach out in my conversation with him and say we would be in looking for some help at our summer retreat. Might be early fall retreat. Um, and just around, you know, team building might not be the right word, but, um, you know, working to build bonds, um, within, within the committee between us and how we are gonna wanna work together. And um, you know, just some exercises around collaboration, communication, listening. Um, and he felt, um, confident that he, uh, that they, the M A S C can help with that and it would likely be him that would do it. Um, so, um, I, he asked me to get some dates ‘cause I thought we were gonna try to get this

2:17:53 done in the next couple weeks. So depending on what our schedule is, he just said, you know, get me dates, you know, as quickly as you can if it’s coming up. ‘cause he’s obviously getting his account just getting filled out. Um, so I’m happy to pursue that with him and even get a, you know, some kind of a written proposal that we can take a look at. Okay. Um, can everybody please email Jen their dates between now and September 1st? Um, if, if it’s easier for you to say the date, if you only have two days that you aren’t available, email her that if you only have two days, you are whatever the shortest list is. Just be clear whether this is that I’m available or I’m not available list. Um, and are we, do you want, have you been doing it day times or evenings or, um, talk daytime? Do you put a mix? I,

2:18:38 I personally would prefer an evening meeting. Um, but that being said, I can be flexible within some parameters. How long do you think about? I think the reason why we normally do it during the day in the summer is because day. Yeah. This type of thing from him I would assume would be probably in the hour and a half to two and a half hour range worth talking about that retreat. I would think it’d be lost. I’m also going to have speak I at some point, whether it happens at this point or at a different point, it’s imperative that she come back and, and really do a refresher on open meeting law executive session, what can and cannot be said. Um,

2:19:26 maybe even a little bit about contract negotiations going. I think everyone really, that would be helpful. I think one of the other things we talked about was laying out, like making sure that our school committee goals are set up, our goals, the superintendent are prepared and that we have, you know, kind of like what that process is gonna look like. Now. I realize that’s gonna change now because of the situation we’re in, but we should make sure that we kind of know what we’re working with. Mm-hmm.

2:19:59 Um, then we have the M I SS C M I S S conference. I had asked Lisa to resend everyone the dates on that. Um, as well as I believe there’s a way to look through at the different offerings and different days. I know last year, um, you don’t have to commit to the full conference. You can go if you only have one day and there’s some really meaningful things that day you can do that. So an email from her she was supposed to sent, she hasn’t done anything. It’s in the Dropbox. Okay. Um, but I can send it. Okay. I’m sorry. Is it, um, is it’s in November. Is everybody interested in going or we just wanna see it first week? Well, I, I know personally before I, I say I’m gonna go or not go, I mean, I am gonna go this year, but, um, I, I always like to see what’s being offered,

2:20:48 what I feel is good professional development for me and what day if that day works for my schedule. So, I mean, people don’t have to give an answer now if you know you have one right now, that’s great, but feel free to take some time to look over the offerings and, um, we can reach out to Lisa said if you want to, if it’s, so I definitely wanna attend it because the second day is the new school committee members train. Okay. So I don’t have to go out to call. Okay. Um, Glen usually will do common and we can set up one year shared for Allison and I, I, we reached out and ips, which had just elected a few people and he came in as long as I can get two or three people. Okay. So we can, we can try facilitate that.

2:21:36 All right. Um, that brings us new business we’ll committee announcement to requests. Anything anybody’s requesting for future agenda. Um, um, I would like to that policy. Um, yep. And that will come back to two well in one, wait, what did, what did you say that policy, but we had decided after it goes to wellness it come back. I didn’t hear what else? I didn’t hear what you said. I didn’t say it yet. It was, oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said. She, she said that she wants to see well, that, that policy come back. We had decided if we go to wellness and when wellness was ready to present to us, it would come back. Um, all right. I want, I do want to say something. Okay. I just hadn’t said it yet. Um,

2:22:23 and I apologize for the, my intent. Um,

2:22:29 I’m a broken record about this and I’ll continue to be a broken record about this because I think it’s astonishing that $1.2 million was given to the rail trail when four from the ARP funds and the school district has gotten half a million. Now I wanna be clear ‘cause I don’t wanna get hate mail about the rail trail. I love the rail trail. My son loves going on the rail trail on his bike with his friends. I grew up here going on the rail trail. I understand the importance of not discounting that, but to know that we as a school district who are 70,

2:23:14 75% of the town’s budget received a mere $500,000. I think maybe it’s 600,000 altogether, Sean. I be just under six. Um, give or take. And that just blanketly giving $1.2 million to the rail trail. I’m not, I’m just mind blown and I don’t even know what I really wanna say about it. Just that I feel like we need to revisit that. We need to revisit. And I don’t, I don’t know how, and I don’t know what the process should be. Those meetings should be open. There should be minutes. We should be allowed to attend. There should be conversation. It shouldn’t, I, this has kind of tipped me over the edge from that being a secret group that just gets to meet and decide and rank things themselves and

2:24:01 I don’t know. So that elect for decision to operate that way, that’s not under our purview. So Dr. Bucky was on that committee, right? Yes. Michelle As So will Michelle be now? Yes, yes. She will. You know, to put that into perspective just for folks that are here and 71 people we still have online, um, it’s, I thought it was actually 1.4 maybe I read that. Oh, it’s 1.4, which is, I honestly was so inex close to, yeah, close to 25% of the entire budget. About six, almost 6.16, six point something. Right. So Loeb sit like 6.1. So that’s about 25% of that budget. Uh, so there are probably also other departments that, um, similarly to, to us. I mean,

2:24:46 we do have an option to send a communication to the select board from the school committee. We wanted to send a formal correspondence.

2:24:54 I think that I, I mean if that’s our only option then I, I Well, we could go before them. I, I think we so well, yeah, and I’m happy to do that as well. Well could ask my own agenda. I think what she said, I have my own thoughts on the why that this is done, but I don’t wanna do what Facebook has done to us and speculate. So I’m not gonna do that to somebody else. But I just, I think it’s something that kind of slid in and happened. I don’t even think that a lot of people know about it. I don’t even think that people understand the amounts of money or the why or how they operate. And it just seems so below the belt and not above board and not in the interest. If you wanna talk about transparency and authenticity and all of that and

2:25:41 accountability, then I think we should really strive to do that across the board. And we’re not in this. And I understand there are rules around arva that were governed before. I also understand that if you select people in Marblehead decided to make those rules even stricter, um, or minimize the, the possibilities even more. And I think that’s truly unfortunate. And then to be able to operate behind door close doors without any accountability, just it, it seems incredibly wrong. So if it’s going in front of ‘em, if it’s, you know, reviewing our list and again saying, you know, what, out of our needs may fit with the ARPA funds based on the rules were provided by the government versus the rules that were provided by certain people in the

2:26:29 town of Carolina. I think the other thing to keep in mind, having just been, you know, watching this from the audience is there are certainly rules around it, right? This is federal money, certainly are, there are, there are rules around it. But one of the other things that, that the, in this case, our select board and subcommittee, or it’s, it wasn’t a subcommittee, I think it’s a town administrative committee, was tasked with, was, um, prioritizing goals and then determining the funding for those goals. And I think that’s another thing that could be, you know, looked at is, um, you know, where did the, did the schools, because that’s who we’re here to advocate for, right? The school district. The school department have, where did our, those goals fall in line with what, um, what our needs were, particularly in regards to the covid, um,

2:27:16 ramifications and learning loss. I also understand that we are running out of time to be able to operationalize that money before we as a town start getting dinged for not having distributed it yet. And that feels like it’s taking play here as well. And I just, I, I really think we need to address it. One, one quick question I have is, um, also in most, in most towns just in f y I, whatever the percentage is of the total town budget that your school I identifies, that’s how much the AR funds. So if you take 70, that’s the vast majority of, that’s how the vast majority of municipalities worked. That, I mean, we’ve gotten $500,000 at six point million. I do, I do agree.

2:28:02 The research has showed that the vast majority of municipalities have dispensed the funds according to those, right. Those lines, which is logical. Um, but it wasn’t the choice here. So, um, that being said, the, the select board has held tight to the, the guidelines they put forth that are more strict than the treasury department. One of those is infrastructure. Um, Michelle, we, I, I, I noticed you, you know, we even yet another private group, which thank God we have ‘em all in town, that’s looking, um, to raise money to replace the turf. Um, ‘cause in Marblehead you pay for tons of public stuff for public education with

2:28:49 private money. Um, I would think the turf is infrastructure, is it not? Correct. I, at one point we had asked, um, the administration to, to include that in their ar o request. Do you know if it was and where that stands? I believe it did go to the last ARPA meeting or two AR meetings ago. Um, I believe it was denied. I’m not positive okay’s Right. At the time. Okay. Michelle, can you ask, could you follow up and find out when the next meeting is and you know, make sure you attend? Absolutely. I have not been involved in that up to this point. Yeah, sure, sure. I’m just curious what the next meeting is and how we, you know, what actually we want take as a result of that. All right. So I will now ask for a motion and vote to meet

2:29:37 an executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30 a section 21 A, the following purpose. Seven, in order to review, approve, and consider for release the executive session minutes from the following school committee, agreed meetings which were held under purpose to, to discuss strategy and preparation for and to conduct contract negotiations with the superintendent. The dates being 7 21, 23, and 7 31 23

2:30:10 and moved second. Allison Taylor, second. All in favor? Um, four to zero week one abstention. But Brian will be leaving. Um, before everyone leaves, just so I don’t get dinged for this one, just listen to what I have say. Um,

2:30:31 the school committee will be entering executive session pursuant to master general law chapter 30 a, section 21 A and the purpose seven in order to review

2:30:41 committee meeting which were held in a purpose. Two, to discuss strategy and preparation for and to conduct contract negotiations with the superintendent on date 7 21 23 and 7 31 23 with the intent not to return to open session.