School Committee: September 7, 2023

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

0:24 all right so I will call us to order at 701 does anybody have any accommodations I’d like to make two um first the building secretaries for all the hard work they did over the summer getting classless of all the paperwork in order and checking in the thousands of supplies coming every day and the second is the custodians who spent their summer in those hot buildings stripping wax waxing the floors and unbearable heat so I want to thank both those groups to do an excellent job to get in school today oh thank you very much and Allison I just wanted to commend all of our pixels for having wonderful first days I heard so many wonderful things from all of the

1:11 principles my son is at Village it’s our first year there and they get this fantastic planner for those of you that aren’t there yet and he is so excited to use his first planner so he feels kind of like a big kid but it’s it’s really easy for him to understand it’s well laid out and it has all of the wonderful thoughts that they that emanate throughout um village so he’s very very excited about that so I think that’s a wonderful thing that maybe not a lot of people know about until you get there um so kudos for that as well this year this year so I just want to follow and thank the teachers students and families who know the first few days so far a real success for the Stars

2:01 that brings us to public comment if anybody has public comment um and anybody online raise your hand as well and the person if you can just come up to your name and address for the record

2:18 soon soon I’m wondering if you’re going to apologize to Everett well the stakeholders out there that you referred to as lunatics waiting to get on to this only

2:37 so we don’t normally interact with public comment but I have absolutely no problem with um offering you had a very poor choice of words I most certainly was not referring to all stakeholders I was referring to people who had been verbally attacking my children walking down the street um saying things to me in stores in town in front of my kids I think it’s never really good to involve kids and I I used you know used a very poor choice of words um and shouldn’t have done that but I most certainly was not speaking to stakeholders in general I was speaking to people who had been quite frankly harassing my family for more than a month

3:22 well this is before you let him into zoomy so this is this is not a back and forth I think for your comment so are you a father

3:43 thank you thank you [Music]

4:00 Dan Albert if you can just state your name and address for the record please Dan Albert 50 and Lester Road

4:12 and let’s see if we can do that uh so I’m here to comment on the townspell you to live up to its own commitment to give children a safe route to Glover School in 2009 Marblehead voters approved the new Glover school by a vote of 3394 to 2753 and planning for the new school then began Niche engineering created a traffic safety plan and Centered for an outside peer review and then on December 20th 2011 the engineering firm of Faye Spofford and Thorndike presented their review to the Marblehead planning board and at that meeting the Marblehead uh sorry the engineer

4:57 the engineer the engineer recommended quote six foot bike friendly shoulder on February 2nd 2012 the planning board issued a site plan approval decision and land disturbance permit to the town of Marblehead school department so in the simple terms you the school department asks for a new school they said yes but with conditions and the very first traffic mitigation condition listed in their approvals that they gave you was as follows quote re-striped Maple Street between Lafayette Street and Humphrey Street to provide six foot

5:46 zero inches wide bike friendly shoulders shoulders two of them so briefly bike friendly shoulders are not bike lanes and they’re not really about bikes alone they’re simply wider shoulders defined to give greater separation between pedestrians and Motor Vehicles reduced vehicle speed and to encourage active Mobility walking biking rolling to school these are the Marblehead Police Department chief the highway department head the Town Administrator nor the town planner were all aware of these shoulders and that they had not been created until I learned about them in June

6:31 from a public records request I should add I immediately contacted them to let them know it was fine I got no reply in June no reply in July and nothing but obfuscation in August so I appealed to my elected officials including the school committee this school committee the select board and the planning board chairman Bob Schaffner who I think some of you on the school committee know on August 9th chairman Schaffner sent me the following email quote the planning board’s only responsibility in this matter is to make a recommendation of the proper granting Authority which is the select score we have our traffic engineer presented the select course who approved it so it’s

7:20 the DPW who execute the line work I’m afraid there’s not anything else we can do on this matter you will need to check with DPW on the status of this work I told them I already had done as he instructed before contacting him I called him and I said well what else you know I’m just a citizen what else I ask can I do he said well write a letter to the newspaper so I went back to the town’s paid staff now here’s August 10th the highway department head aiming the queue and an email to me quote I have requested the town Engineers to layout markings for line oh dear

8:04 for line painting at the site and he wants that I apologize I requested the town engineer layout markings for line painting I am Gathering the final information he will need to do that I hope to have a schedule from our pavement marking contractor soon so I figured I was doing well I was making progress and then on August 16th a couple of days later I found out that the uh Town engineer was out actually doing the the layouts or the lines for the crosswalks with Maple Street so I said to him are you going to be doing the shoulders too today he replied not today

8:49 tomorrow next week next month I asked him I can’t narrow it down for you he said I will get to it when time allows on the same day Aaron Noonan chairwoman of the select board asked that your teaser the same question and he assured her erroneously it turns out that yeah they would be painting the lines before school opened so select board couldn’t get a proper answer from the Town Administrator the planning board nothing I can do at all and I want to thank the members of this staff I’m sorry the members of this board who also asked that when the lines would be painted August 18th you sent an email to Becky Curran the town plan

9:36 here’s her reply I love it here’s her reply hi Jen the line painters are scheduled to do line painting work in town and will be done a line painting is weather dependent and dependent on schedule that has got to be one of the most Artful occupations I’ve ever read the wine painters are wine painting and the work they’re doing will be done the schedule of their work is scheduled with them

10:04 so when time allows and dependent on schedule time hasn’t apparently allowed and schedules haven’t permitted for over a decade so there’s no reason absent forceful action by this board to believe that they will happen in the next decade or the next so when the hired help doesn’t do its job I’m really not sure what I as a citizen I’m supposed to do other than petition my elected officials and that’s what I’m doing right now I am petitioning you to do something more than ask the town planner more than send emails to Simply get on this case and stay on this case to ensure that the children have a safe route to get the Glover thank you thank you Dan

10:53 um just on that one could have a Safety Committee on that because I think it does include a number of other Town departments and it might just be a good Collective group to address this yeah no it’s a superintendents um Alex I see her again if you can just say your full State your full name and address for the record

11:19 hi my name is Alex chrisack I live at One Tedesco Street in Marblehead Mass

11:31 um um well that was a great set up with more information than I have today and thank you to the gentleman before me I live on the intersection of one to Desco it’s the intersection that everybody crosses to Glover uh we moved in in December and uh we moved in with a three and four-year-old they’re still three and four we love Marblehead and I noticed the same day when the gentleman came out to paint the crosswalks um and I did mention to them the sign that we have in our driveway that says please do not block this driveway because our driveway exited exits into spots one

12:17 one one on the front of one to Desco directly into the intersection which is a very careful exit of the driveway the other is into the street onto Maple Street from the one to desko property so we have a branch if you will like this um and when we moved in it was in December and there was not a lot of traffic and as we looked at the property we were excited about moving to Marblehead and obviously interest rates are high um I won’t bore you with our excitement to move into this town but as the traffic started to pick up in

13:03 the spring and now into the fall as the school year hits I am realizing a very very dangerous scenario that has happened repeatedly and I will tell you about that scenario so on the front exit of our driveway when we load our kids three and four years old into the car we are dealing with people that are coming off of Maple Street turning onto one to Desco and they are turning right and when they turn right they are focused on a six-way intersection and they are not focused on our home they never look right they never look at the well-being of anybody that is coming out of our our

13:50 driveway into the Tedesco Street not the maple if you look at my property yeah yeah when they see they’re clear on the left so I told my wife you have to drive out of our our driveway with your hand on the the horn because you gotta understand that there’s different people some are older just got their license some are senior citizens and they’re scared of the six-way intersection they’re looking at that and they’d never expect us to pull out of the driveway or our kids to walk out of the driveway and we have had several instances where a three and four-year-old one where our four-year-old dropped a ball

14:36 coming out of the car not unsupervised supervised drop the ball and the ball just happened to balance into the street and we had a really traumatizing moment where a person pulling right honked on the horn slammed on the brakes and then yelled at us as my oldest daughter who’s pretty Sharp and smart was just going after her ball and we had a lesson about don’t chase toys into the street um I think that the right hand turn from people coming off of maple onto Tedesco is is a ticking time bomb and I I think it has been scary for our family several times

15:23 um and I think that anything that the the planning committee can do would not only help my family which has a three and four year old girl who are new to Marblehead but also would help the kids that come through that crosswalk so I think it’s a win-win for the community um and I you know that’s the big concern that I have that the Block in the driveway you know can be frustrating but not so much as the the danger on the front end of my driveway coming into one Tedesco now if you did block you’ll repaint the sign I’m going on to Maple or if you had some sort of marks on the street or anything

16:09 that the school committee planning board decided to do or the shoulder that the gentleman mentioned before me I think what you would find is that it would slow traffic down that is turning right on Maple which is what I am concerned about I’m not concerned about other um streets that are going straight or right or left it’s just coming off of maple people are like itching to get to work they know they can turn right and I have seen several times or they’re going fast and they’re not looking I’m pulling out I have to beep it is a unsafe situation for my family

16:59 that is true my wife is commenting people aren’t right it oh there is a pressure element to um hey you can take a right it’s red and so they get up to that front on Maple and Tedesco and and they they occasionally honk because that sometimes that wakes up our kids

17:29 um both the gentleman that spoke as advocates for for our student safety I do want to point out that all of this is out outside of our purview it’s also outside of the purview planning um board as it stands right now um but that does not mean we can’t join you in advocating for this I think the first step is we’ll try to reach out and ask for a traffic study um I know that Chief King has been real very receptive when um private citizens have asked for a traffic study to to be down on their street so I’m sure this is a conversation you can have I think sometimes that increased signage that that goes on when those studies are going on helps to bring awareness and we’re definitely going to have our

18:16 superintendent Michelle Presa Michelle Cresta um put this on the safety committee’s agenda but while we’re waiting for that next meeting there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t reach out tomorrow to Chief King and also follow up with that’s your keys or the Town Administrator and see what the town is doing now not eventually to make sure that all kids other students um whether they’re younger folks that everybody is safe so I do appreciate both of you speaking to that um Kazi Kindle

18:59 there there all right um I do not I see kazakhan but she’s not speaking so I will oh yes

19:14 hi can you hear me yes yes I can hi sorry sorry I’m at work and the light’s weird um so I struggle whether or not to bring this up tonight but I think in the end I’m going to say it earlier this week um I read in a local publication a local local news publication um information up that have been published um that came from the school department that concerned me deeply um I have two children with special needs actually that’s not true my kids aren’t special they’re really not they’re very ordinary my both of my kids

19:59 have ADHD my son has autism but there have been times when I had found it necessary to email the school department and refer to um things that are happening with my kids that I they’re private even though I have to share them with the school I really would rather they not be published um and made it available to the public so when when I read those emails and texts that were put that were published earlier this week and I saw the names of students um personal email addresses

20:45 um the schools that the kids go to it it really struck me that when I send an email to the school I need to have the confidence and the trust that the school if they have to share this will redact the names of my kids the details of their conditions the the details of the things that I’m writing about and um I I feel that there are many other parents in town so when they saw this it struck a chilling to them that what we share to the school when it involves our kids there has to be a way that we

21:31 we feel safe that that will not be made public now I understand that accidents happen multiple Pages hundreds of hundreds of lines that needed to be scribbled out but I’m not sure that that gives me much comfort when it comes to my kids and actually any kids um so I I’m asking the school committee to take whatever it steps it needs to take in the future to make sure that when details and emails are legally you know made up made available by you know the Massachusetts Public Records laws that every every double check triple check more than one person looking at it

22:18 make sure that all per personal information is redacted thank you I’m going to handle next because she was sitting at the table waiting and Cassie started to speak and then we’ll come right back to you

22:40 um Jen Jackson 23 Bowen Street and I’m here in my capacity is co-chair of the Marblehead head special education parent Marblehead special education parent advisory Council and I’d like to read an email that was sent to chair Fox um last Friday um regarding the superintendent the interim superintendent search so it reads to the Marblehead school committee chair the Marblehead special education parent advisory council at CPAC writes to request participation in the school committee’s 2023 search committee for an insurance superintendent of Maryland Public Schools this request is in addition to or to fill the role of the currently available open parent Guardian position on the search committee ideally a CPAC seat on the search committee would not be to the exclusion of a parent Guardian filling the open parent gardening position

23:26 CPAC believes that its participation is critical to ensuring that the school committee and District officials current and future understand the role of and voice of the community with respect to the education and safety of students with disabilities as the search for our new district superintendent begins as you may know CPAC is authorized under national law c71b Section 3 and 603 CMR 28 5.074 as the privilege to advise the school committee on matters that pertain to the education and safety of District students with disabilities and meets regularly with District officials to participate in the Planning Development and evaluation of the school Community special education programs in support of those in diversity packets to receive assistance from the school district

24:12 consistent with cfx role and to the school district assistance the school committee and District officials have been have reliably solicit and see tax participation in previous or committees for various District administration roles including superintendent Insurance superintendent assistance superintendent principles assistant principals the director of student services and special education chairs with cpex participation in the 2020 research committee for insurance superintendent the school committee can help ensure that special education and the related interests of District parents Guardians and other stakeholders are represented was the school committee Begins the important work of selecting the next insurance and potentially permanent superintendent CPAC appreciates that this will create Jefferson seeks new participants for the

24:59 2020 research committee so that ends The fact will aim to offer depending on availability the participation of a member who has not previously participated in a district search Community regardless of who represents CPAC on the search committee that person will be well versed in the strengths challenges and issues regarding special education in the district and will provide valuable insights and contributions to assist us with committee as it works towards selecting in terms effects appreciates your consideration

25:31 from Jacksonville from Jacksonville I think I just sent just hit reply also I’m assuming there’s a few other people that were on it as well sure yeah I didn’t see the response so oh I sent it like right when I got it I responded back but just to surprise um I had said that when we took the um

25:56 the recommendation oh I’m sorry of NASDAQ on how many people to include um but as we had said in our last two meetings and they’re both on YouTube I don’t know if that’s helpful to review those um we talked about how we want to have well a well-rounded body so that voices of our student services department are included as well um and I just noted that while it might not be a CPAC board member a special education lens is definitely being represented and it will get into more information about the makeup of that committee when we get later on okay no problem um so I’ll shoot

26:41 hi my name is Alex shoob I live at 2 Richard Road um so my child is a senior at the high school and she went to the new Glover school for third grade and I just want to briefly Echo Dan Albert I understand that this like you said this might not be the domain of the school committee but we’re looking for your support and help because so far no other Town employees or other elected officials have been able to get this done um I would also like to know that the traffic Studies have already been done and so that definitely would not be necessary at this point um and so just I’d like the school committee to help ensure that the safe safer shoulders are

27:26 installed as soon as possible for the current and future students and that’s it thank you thank you so much I saw people that understand we have no governing authority over that we can keep pressing we can keep making phone calls but we have absolutely no governing authority to force implementation of that so um while we support you and we will continue to um yeah so that brings us next I don’t see any new hands um to cat Piper if you want to come up and join us who is our student representative who replaces

28:10 um so this week has been the first week of classes um back to school started on Tuesday September 7th the seniors welcomed The Freshman around 7 45 a.m and grades 10 through 12 arrived at 11. um they went to grade meetings took class pictures seniors had a piece of lunch um and then we ran through an abbreviated schedule and there’s a strong emphasis on helpful resources a stricter phone policy and other expectations um as many of you know we are in a little bit of a hot spell but teachers and custodial staff have been working very hard to keep the classes cool and the school is excited and ready for the first full week of school next week um The Freshman elections are approaching to date TBD

28:56 um the senior class has chosen House of Blues for the prom location which will be May 29th and graduation will be May 31st the seniors have sat in their cap and gown forms and approve their diploma names there is a club Fair coming up in the next couple of weeks and October 3rd is school pictures um Athletics wise the first football game of the season is tomorrow home at 6 30. the student section will be wearing black for a blackout to show the school spirit um and we are anticipating a good showing again Bishop Fenway uh girls field hockey had their first game two days ago they won and they’ve been holding Spirit days to rally for Spirit and the cross country teams both were successful in their first meet at home yesterday against Salem and they have an

29:42 Invitational on Saturday thank you so much you did a great job thank you you had some big shoes to build so you did thank you very much have a great night um District updates Michelle Christo okay we have a few updates Lots going on these days um last week we had a return return of our staff that came back on Tuesday and Wednesday um convocation we had last Wednesday we had an incredible speaker Dr Judy Carrington she really connected with our staff um she focused on the mental health well-being for all staff as well as students it was just an incredible speaker that um I really think she had an incredible impact on all of us so it was well worth it um so this week we had a successful

30:28 opening the return of our students our grades one through twelve returned on Tuesday and on Thursday just today our preschool and kindergarten students came back it was fabulous to see all of our kids in our classrooms our hallways The Summer’s kind of a rather boring time around here for those of us who work through the summer and it was just so exciting to see them and honestly my perspective was very different this year I’m usually stuck in central admin but I got up to the schools year and it was just an incredible thing to see so I think that’ll be my new tradition once I go back to my old world make sure I get out a little more often um the warm weather precautions obviously you know we are in a very hot spell these days um we realize that temperatures are not

31:14 idea ideal this is not unique to Marblehead I’ve been in conversations with lots of area superintendents the safety of our students and staff is our first priority however there are lots of other factors that we take into consideration when we close school early or we cancel school so for the time being we are moving ahead with our full schedule for tomorrow we do have some additional temperature mitigation efforts we will be providing some additional fans tomorrow in addition to what we already had today we also encourage some of our hotter classrooms to move to cooler areas within the school so if any of our staff do have classrooms such as that we recommend you reach out to your principals and there are certainly alternative locations that we can move

32:00 you through either temporarily or permanently um so we are all on this together we hope we have one more hot day and then but I do want to remind everyone we are only day three into the school year so we have lots of days and lots of weather ahead of us that may not be ideal so we’re going to try our best to make it through the next 24 hours and then hopefully we won’t have much more enjoyable temperatures

32:29 um special education program review this is something the school committee had asked for a little while back we actually added a late memo to the school Community Drive today um probably about an hour before our meeting so this is certainly a topic we can take up and discuss in more detail in a future school committee meeting um Dr Donnelly and I will be meeting with two prospective firms this week to see if this is something that they could provide for us Dr Donnelly did put together some of the specifics that you know she’s thinking of but certainly we want School committees respective on that as well to make sure any review is completely encompassing of what we really need in terms of this District and I’d like to turn it over to Julie for our assistant superintendo

33:17 um so I just want to Echo a lot of the comments that we’ve heard about um just a really positive strong start to the school year um that’s not a coincidence right that’s a lot of time and effort put in just like when a teacher has an amazing lesson it’s because they put the time and effort into it and I just want to start with our leaders uh Michelle’s in the phenomenal teammate and it was great to get in all the schools with Michelle and see our students and our principals have worked so hard to launch the school year uh directors and all the staff at Cincinnati just making sure payroll everything is up and running and as a members have shared just at the school level teachers and all the staff that it takes to support our students so really positive start I want to take back uh take it back to last week we had three days of

34:03 professional learning with our teachers um they were able to engage in trainings that directly connected to their work in the classrooms or in their content area so we had written wisdom training for all candida6 that included speechless Pathologists English learner teachers Yale teachers and it also included Librarians and all staff that we’re going to be supporting tutors as well so that was really great we also did for example Math training with curriculum for the illustrative math so a lot of trainings and a lot of time dedicated to their professional learning and as Michelle said I’ve walked away with a really great deal from that week so and then it’s just a wonderful to see our Learners back and see how happy they

34:48 are and this is my first check to get into um I saw the Little Learners our kindergarten through kids my first chance I mean I from when I brought my own child and I literally had tears in my eyes I love her and proud this morning it’s just beautiful um so while it’s warm there’s just so much enthusiasm and positivity I’m just really grateful do any committee members have questions about anything that superintendents update just one question shell I don’t know if you have the answer board at this point but in terms of the special education review do you have a kind of just a rough timeline for when you want to have that completed I do know um we’re hoping ideally to have it in terms of you know mostly complete before the budget process really kicks off which is

35:36 usually we have our budget submitted to us in December that’s why we’re talking starting this conversation with these firms this week all right thanks well is it possible for someone from the school committee to be part of these discussions

36:00 I would think so um I would probably defer Dr Tomlin but I would expect I mean this was actually at the request of the school yeah yeah and we do want to make sure we capture the needs concerns you know we get the most the best most thankful about us right so this just went into the draft box today so I I um I talked to Michelle and also follows aware that the committee really can look at this and digest this and and come back for some feedback for our next meeting if if there’s additional items you want in the scope like I’ve already started um taking notes because from my perspective we were really looking for a audit to all of our programs I know right now as part of our flight 24 budget we were bringing in

36:47 um some Landmark Consultants to work with our language-based programs if we can get to the committee um prior to our next meeting a scope of what that is um if you can get us a scope of what that is because that may answer some of the questions that we’re looking for in the scope of this um so if we could just get that so that would be great Jen did you have any questions no sorry I was having some Wi-Fi troubles earlier um I um I did have one quick question when we talk about written wisdom some of what I’m hearing in the community and I’m hoping maybe you can speak to this a little bit

37:32 is this idea that our you know with this new curriculum are we giving up some of the individuality in pursuit of equity which we really definitely need equity in that you know whether you have this teacher or this teacher you’re getting the same level of education but seeing this is not necessarily Equity so you know if this teacher has always they’ve done a great project that’s taught a specific Ela thing through Romeo and Juliet you know are they able to still Implement that tried and true and exciting curriculum that that kids you know your Year look forward to as long as everyone is getting the same level of Education that it doesn’t have to be the

38:19 same text and everything for it or not yeah great question so um it starts really with the work we’re doing with our plcs our professional learning community so there’s a tremendous amount of collaboration that’s happening um our instructional coaches are phenomenal a lot of training to all of our new teachers and um we’re already seeing some really strong collaboration within the PLC meetings and one of the goals is alignment right so we we really wanted equity and Alignment our students deserve to have equal experience but that’s not famous right so what we’re going to do for the curriculum specifically for written wisdom we call it skillful implementation so will there be time to do some of those things um we hope so it’s going to be interesting to navigate in the first year we know that it’s going to be the first year we’ll have to work through on

39:05 that but we skillful implementation um there will not be many differences in terms of curriculum though from class to class other than where we have been working with our special education years to ensure that students are getting the appropriate accommodations um to meet their needs but otherwise we are really focused on implementing okay because that’s just one concern I know that iPad is is uh and I heard a lot in the community that um we have such amazing talented Educators that we are still giving them the ability to make those professional decisions into and to teach in the ways that they have research you know they’ve

39:52 done extra work in as long as everyone is getting the same level of access and instruction we don’t want someone getting way more enrichment than another group but I don’t I don’t know if sameness is the same as so I just you know we’re available to do that I do think that’s something we’ve heard really loudly and I started to meet with some teachers as well that had some concerns about that too what’s it going to look like yeah and I think there’s more and more clarity after it’s training and after these PLC teams that they think we have literacy literacy facilitators at each grade level is always supporting so I think we need to lean on our leaders who are stepped up to do this work and and I know this is not a good curriculum you

40:40 you identify you chose like you were you were implementing right now so I I do understand that but I just as long as we can you know keep letting our staff be the amazing staff that they’re capable of being here excellent okay um that brings us to consent action and agenda items I’m going to we all had those scheduled bills in our Dropbox I’m going to ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule bills totaling 663 934 dollars and seven cents someone to move by Allison Taylor executive second everybody

41:27 yes Brian Oda yes Allison Taylor yes ner

41:34 Lobster Sarah Fox yes carries four to zero all right um that brings us to the interim superintendent search discussion

41:54 so as you all know the interim superintendent screening committee will be comprised of two school committee members one administrator who was named Michelle Cresta a Unity staff member and one parent the makeup fit committee was suggested by our Consultants the mea code presidents let me know earlier that Allison Carey tonight who works as a mental health clinician at the high school will be the staff representative this is Allison’s 11th year as an employee in the Marblehead Public Schools in that time she has worked as a para then tutor both inclusion and attached to programs school counselor and now a social worker and mental health clinician Allison stating her letter of interest

42:41 I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of the staff communities at Glover coffin and Bell you know joined at Brown School Village vets in high school in each role I work closely and collaboratively with sports staff Specialists General and special education teachers service providers building Administration and student services Administration to ensure that our students need are identified and appropriately supported I am very pleased to announce that we had a good amount of interest in the parent representation position for the interim superintendent we at 12 parents send in letters of Interest with one removing their letter due to a conflict with dates well we had many parents who would be

43:27 very good additions to the committee there’s only one spot as we all know I am nominating Sarah magazine parent of a student at Village and Glover as parent representative Sarah is in her second year as a PTO president and is a very active supporter of the students of our schools through her multiple volunteer roles Sarah has shown she is able to advocate for the needs of students and staff while understanding and maintaining confidential information a vital ability for anyone in this role due to the regulations this committee will act hundred professionally Sarah’s strategic communications consultant she began her career in Massachusetts state government working in the state legislator and later as a spokesperson for two

44:13 Governors she holds a graduate degree in journalism in an undergraduate degree in public policy from her letter of interest as the district moves forward with this important hire I would hope to lend my expertise in strategic Communications to work to the work of the committee I believe we have heard clearly from our community that it will be critical that our superintendent is an authentic communicator and that is a lens I would bring to the work of the committee through her background professionally personally and through her volunteer work Sarah has advocated for student service specific needs I will ask for a motion to appoint Sarah magazine as the parent representative to the interim superintendent screening committee

44:59 raise that motion so moved by Brian second second by Allison Taylor discussion I guess um it’s probably too late for this now especially because I wasn’t able to attend the last meeting but I just am having a hard time with this process given um the way you’ve done it before in past precedence was to randomly select someone who put their name for because I think every single uh I think every family member and Community member name for to volunteer for this community is more than um you know has the ability and unique perspective to serve on this community and I just feel like doing it in a random approach is just a

45:44 much more fair process um so I guess I’m just having a hard time with that process so maybe if you could just explain how we came to that position so for the past three years not one single parent representative to any board was picked randomly all were going to quite often we never knew the members that’s not the motion on the table where we have a motion um so uh without further does anybody have any further discussion on the motion I will call Purple Allison I’m sorry Megan Joe I’m going to say because I don’t remember okay um Allison Taylor in favor is Jen back on

46:29 um she’s just joining us Sarah Fox in favor and to the motion carries three to zero with one abstention all right that brings us to the Arca discussion sorry sir just going back to that I know that was the parent represent um but we also had public comments specifically requesting aacpac members so I’m going to make a motion we add a CPAC number to this committee um for all the reasons that the co-chairs spoke of so as I noted um student services encompasses multiple things um children with IEPs 504s um children who are marginalized from a multitude of other reasons whether it’s that they are ell um socioeconomic reasons

47:17 socioeconomic reasons socioeconomic reasons um a multitude of reasons and I’m really proud that we’re going to have members on the vast majority of this committee can speak from a specific special education lens um I think actually all but one member has passed the amount of experience in that and as you know the state statute does not say it’s a CPAC board member um it’s a recommendation that you know that we we have someone that can speak with a special education lens and right now 80 of this committee can um you’ve made your motion I’m not sure is that has anybody seconded it again just going back to past precedents the entire time of families committee since we created the CPAP leave on there

48:03 has been on the CPAC number on selection of key administer parent breaks the parent rule from CPAC brings a very unique perspective that a staff member does not so I think I’m not sure very good other parents aren’t bringing that lens okay CPAC basically has the feedback from the special education from a broad perspective so it’s looking at it from a much more broader perspective than an individual parent might be so they’ve had feedback from many different aspects of the community so again yes I’ve made a motion I think the chair the co-chair of the committee spoke to all the reasons why and in addition it’s

48:49 been past questions so I so there’s a motion on the table if anyone there is a second um is there a second okay so the motion dies I do want to speak to this narrative that we are excluding CPAC we have had two meetings we took our recommendation from our consultant of the makeup she recommended who this was she recommended actually three to five members we went with the higher number to try to give the largest amount of representation um and you know we’ve this is this has been very transparent for two meetings I I’ve continued to encourage you when you miss a meeting to take the

49:35 time you can watch it on YouTube so that if you things that you need to be addressed then we’re not addressing them at you know quite frankly in this way um I will move on but to subscribe Sarah judge judge um

49:58 yeah I just had a quick question because I’m sorry I’m really bad Wi-Fi oriented hopefully you can hear me um so it sounds like I missed so you had the vote on the makeup of the maybe with the paragraph is that right for the screening committee yes and so who was voted nominated Sarah magazine and his emotion carried three to zero with one extension um um can I ask to abstain

50:28 okay okay um thanks thank you so I’m moving us along to arpa um this is an item that Allison you had requested last week so I’m gonna kick it off to you yes thank you uh so pretty much everybody knows that I have been a staunch advocate for arpa funds going to the school system um since before uh I was even elected by we made public comment on it and it’s something that I have continued to advocate for throughout my tenure here had numerous conversations with Dr Bucky about regarding my frustrations and not having

51:13 um as much come to the school system as hap has happened in the majority of other cities and towns and municipalities here in the Commonwealth um we have I have what I think is the latest um set of Opera requests here I know this is old I know there was an additional list um that is not public anywhere for me to obtain to see what additional items were requested and what was denied I I know we’re looking to try and get that originally tonight I was going to be reading a memo that we want hopefully wanted to as a whole um as the committee to continue to advocate for these funds going to the

51:59 school committee and the interest of transparency and the interest of being authentic we wanted as a whole hopefully to agree on the memo and bring it to the select board and read that in the public meeting again my goal is to not only advocate for our students our community in our school but also to advocate for this process being more transparent it’s an advisory committee which means it does not have open meeting law they don’t have minutes we don’t know what happens in that meeting unless you’re in that meeting um in addition the select board for the special committee I’m not sure the technical term uh in Marblehead chose to add additional stipulations and additional rules onto what could be and

52:45 could not be used for our particular Arbor funds a lot of other places did not do that um and so in my continuation to Advocate I did hear from Aaron Noonan the chair of the select board and I’m super grateful and appreciative for her offer um to kind of have me privately meet with Thatcher or Aaron to kind of walk through what has been done so far I have been though from the beginning again the goal is to get more of this in a public forum um so while I’m grateful and appreciative for that suggestion I I really am trying to bring this to the public Forefront so I’d like to keep it in this fashion um within her email this afternoon there were some additional pieces of information that were brought forward

53:32 that I was not aware of before one of them being the schools have received 1.07 million dollars of arpathons so I I’m hoping Michelle that you can speak to this because I went back in my data and at the end of April and beginning of May I had two emails um one of which was a spreadsheet I actually had in my email log I had shared with Aaron at her request of everything we had requested and everything we had gotten it to my knowledge the schools have been allocated 652 613 of our money today that’s a 413 000 plus Delta

54:17 the number that’s being put forth that the schools received is 63 higher than I have knowledge of us receiving I think that any of us so unless I’m wondering where that extra 63 came from I can speak to the high level of this okay I can’t speak to specific dollar amounts okay um I had a conversation with Thatcher end of last week we have not I have not had time to dive into the numbers which I might need to get schools open so this coming week I plan on just touching base with Patrick so you do that so um you were correct the figures you have is actually what we have requested that was approved so that’s 650

55:04 000 if they gave us money we didn’t respect so basically um like other times yeah there are additional costs they’re a primary it’s in primarily two areas one is our capital asks at the last home meeting we’re presented to town meeting um at the very last second we realized that the amounts that a town brought forward were incorrect they were not the amounts that we had asked for to the tune of just over two hundred thousand dollars so they made us whole by taking roughly two hundred thousand dollars I found this out literally this week so therefore they’re adding 200 000 saying well it’s a school expense it’s not something we asked for from arva it

55:50 is something that will be spent in the schools part of our Capital project requests okay so it’s it’s really semantics um it wasn’t an alpha request a town meeting we write a dollar amount and we also give a narrative of what this is covering was our Narrative of what was being covered correct yes and did we give them the correct number we did there was a sorting issue typo or clerical error yes

56:24 the full amounts did not so the approvals did the full amounts did not so okay so that that is a significant portion of that second piece yeah can I ask one other question of 200 000 yeah and that 200 000 fits all of their specific additional not even sure what they are criteria I have not been able to get to that level yet I am just starting together

56:56 able to change rules site types yeah that’s elections so that is something we should certainly discuss with Thatcher and um some of the committee members on that offer so that leads over so roughly 200 the other 200 000. um I’m hearing that as you all know we have an adequate Financial software in the town you said inadequate it sounded like you said inadequate Financial software our software dates back to 2008. um it does not meet our needs it does not meet the town’s needs so we have been talking about replacing the software for many years we’ve talked about this I think for the past three budget years that I’ve been here and the town is actually moving forward hoping

57:42 to change our financial software which will impact the town and the schools um I have not actually seen dollar figures or quotes in regards to this financial software but the Delta is the amount that the town is anticipating allocating towards the school’s portion of that Financial software package so it’s yeah it’s a Townline item that they it’s 100 Town paid for right now did you get a say in what Pro system to use they are asking for a proposal from you no from the vendor it is the vendor that actually I’ve been recommending all along so but so this is not a request that is a

58:29 education School request this is a managing and running it’s a town Financial system that they are attributing

58:44 the budget is ours they’re taking 60 of the Town costs that’s what I’m not sure if it’s being allocated based on budget percentage employee percentage I’m not sure what that allocation is like I said So Random discussion so when they need money it’s okay to say the school system is this percentage you need to provide us with this percentage but when we’re looking at something like arpa 6.5 whatever million dollars worth of our bot it’s okay to only give us 10 I just want to make that clear because it’s still mind-boggling to me and I feel like there I know this board does for sure and I feel certain that there must be parents and community members that feel the same

59:31 but you can understand that that disconnect there for me we are trying to advocate for our students advocate for our schools which include the teachers the administrators everybody and

59:47 I don’t really have words and I’m not I’m not really sure where to go with it next and I still want to continue and do them you know at our next meeting we can I think we have a lot of questions that need to be asked from this 100 understand Michelle that there was a lot of bigger things that you had to deal with this week with opening school and you know doing kind of two jobs at once um and I’m beyond grateful for you for that um but I do think that there are some additional questions that we have to have answered and some additional details that we need to do before we can more accurately craft a memo to then bring to the spoken committee hopefully agree on it as a board if not I’m happy to do it as a private citizen anyways um I did before because it’s just not right are we working

1:00:34 together are we not are we are we one or or not and I can’t have it one way and not the other I would suggest that we try to set up a meeting before the next school committee meeting maybe with Allison myself Thatcher um Alicia and just see if we can actually get a better understanding of where we are okay because I I will say when I see numbers being put out that are saying we got 63 more than we got and we find out that those numbers are coming from request that the schools never had but instead the town

1:01:13 so to us but we actually can’t use that money as we see fit the needs of our students that is true I mean that is that’s a significant amount of money that if we had been allocated that 413 plus thousand that we could have moved the needle for students in a really big way I mean it would have changed a lot about our outcome this year so I if if it’s going to be labeled as schools I would like to be able to use it to impact students because I just want to say Obviously having an adequate payroll system is critical to running our school system

1:01:56 that’s not what I’m saying that’s not what I’m suggesting by any means I’m sure someone will try to say that but that’s that’s not the point of this yes that is needed I think the point of this is it’s not money that we requested for specific things directly like you know a librarian um or you know any of these things that are on this list which I know is only half of what I’ve seen before I know there was a second round that Dr Bucky went through um I we never got a specific list or maybe I just didn’t find it but it’s it’s it needs to be one way or the other or we need to find some other path forward to make this work we can’t be

1:02:42 responsible for it when they want to take something and then when we get something we don’t get our portion of it hopefully that’s making sense to people and hopefully it’ll resonate with people and I would encourage you know people to look into it more on their own if they choose I just um I appreciate your continued advocacy for this as well I know you will I know it’s you know one thing more added to this but I’m happy yeah it was just literally a verbal discussion last minute wasn’t even scheduled um so let’s dive into a little bit more bring it back to the community in two weeks and we’ll have a better better idea yes and after so after we have that meeting we can bring those notes back and at that point I will also have the memo crafted probably the memo updated I should say

1:03:27 from the one that I had done um hopefully with more details and we can take a vote on it and um you know yes or no or whatever I will read it privately you know as as a constituent or as uh representative so uh Allison can I just ask a quick question so your goal is still to have some sort of communication come directly from the school committee in a public way to the either the Opera Committee of the select border vote I mean I would love it to be both my understanding is the arpa committee is the Opera committee and that’s an opportunity for additional discussion there are no minutes well I mean we could we could send a communication

1:04:14 talk to them we could yeah yeah and for for me I I’m trying to get more of this out into the public because I just will say it again I feel that this advocacy is important for our students it is a lot of money that could do a tremendous amount of good um and that we needed uh quite frankly so I would like to still move forward with having going to the committee that’s totally fine but I would also like to have a public comment made or be on their agenda as an agenda item to read the memo that we agreed to as a committee or that I read you know as a practice about something do you plan to follow up and take care enough on her property with her that sure to get more

1:05:01 information I think I’d like to do that with Michelle yeah that’s Michelle yeah I think that would because I think there are a lot of other discussions that happen and so I think it’ll be important because you actually will be um the arbor committee right as as the acting interim so uh she will have that kind of information as well and it’ll be helpful for us um but because of this other information or these other numbers that were sent just before five tonight I kind of shift it so I apologize for that shift but I actually haven’t seen the numbers I just had the narrative yes yes okay perfect if it’s not I cannot afford it too um yeah

1:05:53 so that brings us to subcommittee in liaison updates oh nope I skipped school committee yeah um Michelle I’m gonna kick that back to you um yes so in in the drive we have three handbooks for you um one is the Veterans School handbook one is the elementary school handbook which covers Glover Brown and Village and then there’s the third one the high school still has a little bit of formatting issues in there but you do have the draft format I mean the draft copy of it which is pretty much substantive um with just some minor formatting changes so the big changes um there really are no big changes there are just the annual updates the years the extensions and whatnot um there are some legalese updates in

1:06:40 terms of um dress code that we had to incorporate religious hairstyles and whatnot we need to acknowledge um and some changes in school discipline that were legally required so we’ve Incorporated all those changes there is one additional change at the high school in regards to a new program um I don’t know if Michelle wants to State anything about that um

1:07:07 does anybody have a question it has to do with reading I actually yeah it does have to do baby you want to come up I I didn’t have a couple questions and really that those are the changes

1:07:19 um and there is a brief outline of what the changes are for each of the handbooks I’m going to open up to the rest of the committee first so Sarah so Sarah um just I don’t know if you’re going to be calling for a vote um if so I’m going to be abstaining because I didn’t get the material until yesterday like afternoon I didn’t see an elementary one in there so either I missed it or it wasn’t fair um and I just didn’t have enough time to review it particularly the Vets I mean unless I missed something uh Michelle the Vets was just a one page saying there are going to be updates to the discipline process but that there was no follow-up to it

1:08:07 but it might not have gone I know you were had a long day for at home today um no no I looked at it yesterday and I didn’t see it in there so I’ll go back it still just wasn’t enough time for me to review it so I’m gonna have to abstain I saw it today so it might not have been there yesterday I believe I put them in at dinner time last night okay um so I do that makes sense but um any questions before I jump into mine

1:08:43 um well I just have whether you address it tonight or we continue this it really if you needed vote on this tonight if not we can continue it but I really wanted to hear more about how are you going to be enforcing this because one thing we’ve heard is some of the the regulations or the rules around vaping the years past may not have been enforce so tightly um yeah well yeah it talks about yes vaping yeah so the diversion program that we had in place was put together from Gina Hart one of our social workers um and she did it um responding to the increase in vaping over the years she found this new program that we are part of now that’s through Mass General

1:09:29 Hospital that we will be putting in replacing the old diversion program um and it’s um also going to be in conjunction with surveys very similar to yrbs survey that we have to do and get that data really to look at and it can be used to Diversion but it can also be used as a standalone so if a parent calls them to social workers and has concerns about substance use awaken we can also give them access to this as well as a non-discipline thing so that’s specifically educational to that as well what happens with the diversion program is we will cut down what the discipline would be if they complete the diversion program

1:10:15 except if you’re a student athlete right I saw that uh you know we’ve been still so the school discipline would be separate than the MIAA

1:10:26 so that’s completely separate from the school okay um have you seen a decrease since I mean these whole three days in the amount of vaping that we were hearing about at the end of last year and things like that um I’ve seen I think the Vape detector went off twice today that I saw so that was something that the student does this today um and then what happens when it comes up we go to that location and do they know it goes off when it goes off you know no we get it so we get a text message

1:11:10 the other nice thing about the Vape detector is it also has a sound so say there was a fight in the background who also give us a loud noise

1:11:22 okay yeah yes so I decide is the new ice cream just so that everybody knows I mean if they didn’t read the packets is there and it notes it’s a three or four session is there follow-up then either with Miss Hart or you know someone else post the three to four sessions she would be running it off should we meet with them and then if they needed follow-up after you know throughout the school year she’s there as well yeah I’m just thinking you know that sometimes the follow-up uh follow-up support can be more important not more important equally as important as the actual program

1:12:08 um so that if a student is is struggling or feeling things and wanting to they know they have somewhere safe to go to have that discussion and kind of talk it through um and is there or would there be the opportunity to have any type of individuals who have gone through the program and been successful you know having them come back and be you know advocates for the program helpers to you know sometimes can be really helpful whether whatever Journey you’re on having someone that’s been through that Journey that is perhaps more relatable to you and not an authority figure um to be helpful too that would just you know I’m just curious about all of those details but

1:12:54 details but details but um would it be possible for Miss art to come and give us some more details about yeah so you should be happy too I’m sure yes no she’s wonderful absolutely um I think that would maybe that would probably answer some of these questions I don’t mean to keep my other two comments go to everybody’s book so um the sections that talk about conflict resolution I these all all sections need to reflect in reference school committee policy ke because when you read I think it’s it’s um confusing to parents and or students to read one policy that doesn’t align with the district policy on conflict resolution and that one really lays out teacher

1:13:40 principle superintendent school committee and there are definitely other layers that should be and could be gone through but I think it’s really important to reference that policy because we do have it um given you know where we’ve come through on some some things in recent years um that we’re always clear that this is our policy this is the chain of command um and quite often I find myself saying to someone well did you go through blah blah could you please um I think it would be really helpful in bed um and then also this again all the the um handbooks the dress code what is being enforced in what is written are different an animal classroom you’re in

1:14:26 or school you’re in I you know anecdotally here around that some teachers enforce a stricter dress code than what is in here some don’t we we need everyone to understand when approved this is the dress code we don’t as individuals make a different dress a stricter dress code if you would um because I think really what we’ve seen is dress codes as a whole are difficult um they they don’t always get enforced universally on females as the same as males um and I think you know quite frankly I feel like sometimes they can be a third rail um um

1:15:11 um you know privately my own house I have a stricter one I think than most people would find in the handbooks but that’s my choice I I just want us to be cautious and and make sure that legal has reviewed our dress code because as I went through and looked some of it I got you know can we do this can we not and I just want to make sure we don’t have specific people enforcing anything beyond what is right

1:15:47 that last year so many women in the high school so the wording they were okay because the word like what rewarding isn’t allowed on shirts they were okay I think specifically they allowed like they said that I think references out okay all right yeah

1:16:08 [Music] [Music] yeah and I think that’s a that’s a really yeah I believe it will actually provided cheers and is that something that maybe is helpful to bet in these books that it’s Administration that if that enforces these I’ve not heard of other practices so I guess I’d never have to learn okay about what’s happening okay so that was the case Okay so okay um I I also I I think it would be great to hold on I’m just gonna say can you make a motion suggests that we hold up on this vote until uh our next meeting unless you require it now I I do have a couple of other questions in regards to bullying specifically

1:16:53 bullying specifically bullying specifically um Anywhere But at the elementary school uh

1:17:02 uh it was explained to me that bullying the word the term bullying can only be used if it occurs three times and I could have missed it but I didn’t see that in here or maybe it’s changed uh so people have individual items they would like to have addressed I would suggest you let Michelle Andor to do the right person nothing um no so that they can be addressed appropriately for the next meeting um what I will say is Michelle and I have talked about this well we have always done this in September when we come back our practice is going to be that we will review these each spring because it makes it really hard what

1:17:49 happens is students and parents come back and we ask them right away decide on on these handbooks and a lot of times they’re signing off on something that we haven’t approved and then we approve it and we may have tweaked something so it’s really a backwards practice so we’re doing this so that we haven’t approved sample to meet Ernie this year but moving forward we will be approving these in the spring so that everything’s buttoned up and when staff and students and parents see these when they come back to school they’ll know exactly what’s going on and there won’t be this movement here um so that was a great uh suggestion Michelle had made and I completely embrace it I think it’s going to make everything much more cohesive

1:18:34 um and I would have reached out just uh yeah to be fair I just flat out with my job today yes

1:18:45 and at the end of the day like rules are rules that you guys can enforce them um I don’t think legally you need to vote for us right now I don’t believe so okay at some point yeah next so we’ll have that next week we’re gonna we’re gonna get you our questions um and then we’re going to be really releasing into this game tonight ABS this year so we’ll vote on this choices okay um thank you very much thank you

1:19:12 so now is subcommittee and liaison update okay somebody I want to hear you guys so I have been working with Michelle we’re going to set up a safe committee meeting within the next two weeks

1:19:29 it’s just been very hard to get scheduled right now so our safety meetings are public yes they are the other yes no the event will be published no they’re not it’s um they’re super intense it’s a superintendent advisory meeting that you give a high level report on they’re not public because a their superintendent advisory committee and because of everything as you know from sitting on it and your other role everything that’s discussed cannot a lot of it cannot be in the public certainly um I used to leave them very anxious and very happy now anymore um but you give a high level report again so we are we’re trying to schedule

1:20:16 something and that’s by um statute that health and wellness and safety are both superintendent advisory committee um all right so anybody else in that yeah the CPAC will have their first district meeting tomorrow at noon um

1:20:39 um all right so I think Jen did you want to speak to policy um yeah I just we haven’t met since the meeting we had I think back in July um so I get I’ll I’ll get on with Allison and we’ll get one set up before the end of September if you have a number of things we need to cover also gonna get with Julia yep we’re going to meet with Julia first well that will be if we do it together yeah

1:21:09 to talk about you know specific items that we need so I’ll I’ll send it out an email else and to Julian we’ll get that set up

1:21:22 um so facilities and finance um we we’re in the process of sending up two Finance meetings each year um the administrator and chairs are both the select board and the school committee um have get together and at that we just kind of talk high level schedules you know when do we think we’ll see these numbers so that we can start our budget process and things like that um so we’re in the process of scheduling that as well as our first Finance meeting which will be Alice and Michelle Emma and I um and that will we were playing Finance oh no yeah finances Jen Michelle M and I um we’re shooting for the end of that next week

1:22:07 um we were literally playing the schedule thing between Thursday and Friday so we’re we’re going to finalize that hopefully tomorrow and then facilities we were also playing the schedules that will be either the same day at the end of next week or I think we’re looking at possibly Monday as well so um we’ll have at our next meeting more comprehensive um feedback on what happened and report on what happened in those meetings but we’re starting off the year and getting ready to go with all that stuff all right um is there a new business school committee announcements and brief bus

1:22:45 um correspondence um correspondence we have the we had some correspondence about people interested in that is up in the packet online um I do I do think I I think about things I didn’t know if you were going to make a comments uh a number of people have reached out in regards to some of the the missed pieces of reduction and I think it’s just important to note that we are aware that happens it is our it’s not anybody at this table uh responsible for that but it is our goal to always keep that privacy as buttoned up as humanly possible um and we want to apologize for those

1:23:32 people that that didn’t have it or have personal emails um shared and we do want to still encourage I know it’s really hard because you see some stuff put out there and it could make you hesitant to come forward um but as so many parents have said in their emails that you know they’re looking forward to having you know the trust committee that they can come to and we just want you to know that that’s that’s so we are that’s still we care about and what what we really want to do I will say I’ve had an uptick in people calling me because people are there’s been a chilling effect on people feeling like they can bring their concerns about their students to us um that that things will be put out and their students friends will know about them or their students teacher will know

1:24:20 about them or also staff being concerned that you know that they can’t um so

1:24:30 I guess I guess just continue if you want my feel free to call I don’t know what else to say um I am sorry for the for people feeling exposed and feeling like um we’re sorry it happens they can’t they can’t um advocate for their students or advocate for themselves in in a way that is out of the the spotlight but feel free I mean you can always email and ask for our phone numbers all right um without anything else I will join us at 26.