School Committee: November 2, 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.

0:02 I am gonna do accommodations first. We could call the wife. Well, yeah, but I’m gonna do accommodations. Kat, I’m gonna do accommodations angle to you. That’s okay. Okay. Oh, why am I not?

0:29 All right. So I will call us to order at seven. Is the hearing, is the audio a little better tonight? Perfect. Thank you. Um, so I’m gonna start with accommodations if anybody has, I have a few I wanna share tonight, but, um, if anybody wa would like to go first. Okay. Um, so I have several tonight, so bear with me in the face of what sometimes can feel like continual negativity, I wanted to focus on some of the many things that we have to be grateful for.

1:01 Oh, I do have a little bit of feedback. Lemme just kill the feedback here if everybody’s sound is off. Okay. Um, I wanted to start by commending Jamie Tuff, nurse Beth Sev and Carla Rose last Friday. Two accidents occurred almost simultaneously in different areas of town. Jamie, Beth and Carla selflessly stopped and gave aid until the EMS could arrive. I am very proud of these women and their readiness to be good Samaritans. We’re very fortunate to have these staff members in our community. Um, I also wanted to commend the Village School new staff and Liz Pruitt on publish, uh, publishing their first newspaper this week. This is a wonderful example of experiential learning and exemplary

1:47 implementation of the MTSS model to give students an opportunity for enrichment during their wind block. So I thought that was great, um, and I wanted to commend all of our staff. Every week we ask you to do, or every year, I’m sorry, we ask you to do more with less and you always deliver. This year has brought an unprecedented invasion and attack from individuals and groups looking to continually excise their pound of flesh. I applaud all of you for your con, continuing to do what you do in the face of adversity and always provide a safe place for all of our students to learn. You are seen, you are heard, and you are appreciated.

2:32 And I’m really excited to offer accommodation to Michelle Cresta. There are not enough words to offer a proper accommodation for the work you have done for the past few months. Tonight’s Michelle’s last meeting as our superintendent. Michelle came into the role of superintendent at a difficult time and immediately started producing positive results that were based on the needs of our staff and students. Every conversation and the start to every process of finding a solution, Michelle, every single time has said what is best for our students? And what at times seems to be a deluge of unforeseen issues and new information. Michelle has conducted herself with Dignity in Grace befitting a leader.

3:20 I’ve heard Dan Bauer say many times at graduation, success is measured by, if you can leave something better than you found it by that standard, I would say your time serving as our superintendent of Marblehead Public Schools is a shining success for all of us are better for the time you have served here, I am eternally grateful that you did not hang up the phone when I called and offered you this position. And I commend you for your exemplary service. That’s something really good for you.

4:02 Thank you. Thank you. Don’t stop answering the phone. Um, I do see Megan and Brian’s hands up. So I see Megan first. I’ll call him Megan.

4:18 Thanks Sarah. And obviously I second, um, those accommodations especially for Michelle. So Michelle, thank you for all you’ve done over the past few months. Um, I’m sure you’ll be happy to get back to your day job. Um, my first accommodation is, um, to the building committee for the Lucrecia and Joseph Brown School, uh, elementary school. They, that school was recently selected as a model school by the MSBA. So we’ve got a letter which I’ll read, which says, congratulations. The Lucrecia and Joseph Brown Elementary School has been approved to become one of the Massachusetts School Building Authorities New Model Schools program. It was, this program was created to effectively adapt and reuse the design of

5:04 successful, recently constructed elementary, middle, and high schools. So obviously this is, um, you know, great news for the, for the district, um, and just the testament to all the hard work that went into that project by the building committee, but also by the community. Um, because the community really came together, uh, to support our students and open that and open that new school. So congratulations all, all round. Also, I wanted to offer accommodations to the many high school students who have reached out to the school committee recently, um, to share their perspectives. It’s not always easy to advocate for yourself and for your community. So I just wanted to offer my appreciation for those students sharing their

5:50 feedback, um, because student voice is always very important to our process. Thank you. Thank You again. Brian.

6:00 Yes. I wanna do a commendation to the Brown School, uh, Mary Maxfield and her staff and teachers and students on their first practice evacuation drill. It’s a very important part of our intruder, um, response. And when you have young children in the pre-K and kindergarten grades, they’re very young and they haven’t had no experience towards this. So you don’t wanna start ‘em off with a full Alice type approach. You have to start it small so that they learn as they go along. And what she did was she had them line up and do a fire drill, which they’ve been doing since the beginning of the school year. And after that, they then went down and walked to their evacuation site. This whole process took about 20 minutes, which is actually pretty good.

6:46 So I want to commend her on the good, safe start to the, um, intruder protocols. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Brian. Um, I’m gonna take items out of order and go to our student representative. First. I have a feeling we’ll have a bit of public comment. Um, so Katt Piper, take this away. The class of 2028 open house will be held on November 8th. It will consist of members from clubs and athletes to answer questions. There will also be a tour of the high school for the incoming eighth grade students. The Triam Honor Society held a Halloween breakfast on Tuesday. The French Honor Society is selling croissants and crepes. This week at lunch for a national French Week, the senior class of 2024 has been selling bagels at breakfast and lunch. And the National Honor Society is resuming its tutoring program at MHS,

7:34 the Annual Rock. The Nights gala is currently taking place at Hooper Mansion tonight, and proceeds will go to concert and theater support, and the end of the quarter is approaching, quickly ending next Thursday, November 9th. All sports teams have moved on to their championship seasons at this point. Football celebrated a win over Danvers last sa last Friday on senior night, their first playoff game will be, um, sorry, I’m blanking on the team, but it’s coming up. The unified basketball team is celebrating its senior night tonight in the gym. And on Sunday, Marblehead Mario O’Connell and Isaac Gross took first place during the NEC CrossCountry Championship. Powder Puff is underway and juniors are selling merch. The senior show hosts were determined last week.

8:21 Congrats to Jake Skoland and Wyatt Foley and Halloween this year had a good showing. Freshmen were Barbie and Ken sophomores were their favorite team. Jersey Juniors wore inflatable costumes and seniors were goth themed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um, I had signup sheets somewhere, um, speaking. Okay, perfect. Julie’s gonna grab those for us. Thank you. Yeah. Good job.

8:51 Just bear with me for one second.

9:01 Thank you very much.

9:05 Um, so I have Jonathan Heller, if you can just state, state your name and address for the record.

9:19 Sure. Uh, Jonathan Hillard, 26 Ralph Road. And I am the MEA Co-president. And I’m here with Sally Shery, 80 Garfield Street, MEA co-president. So, as a union, we stand together to let our community know that the MEA will not tolerate harassment or bullying of any kind, including such behavior directed at our members tonight. Marba public school educators, teachers, coaches, paras, tutors, building substitutes, custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria stand together to let the school committee parents and the community know we are not well. Morale is at an all time low. Educators are contemplating career changes.

10:07 Considering leaving to teach in a different district or exploring the option of an early retirement, we are subjected to hostility expressed in social media posts and articles appearing in the local press. This leads to a toxic environment that impacts our educators and our ability to work. This treatment is not warranted and has led to a troubling lack of trust between our school leadership, our educators, our parents, and the greater community. This erosion of trust affects our work daily. Nonetheless, I am proud that this union is unwavering in its dedication to our students. We need you as elected representatives to work with administrators to stop the abuse of policies that ironically are meant to end harassment.

10:56 We are here to work with you in building a healthy learning environment and we respect your position as elected leaders. And we want to continue to do what we can as professionals responsible for providing marblehead students with the exemplary education they deserve. School committees chair Sarah Fox noted during the October 19th school committee meeting that a small but vocal group in the community is taken advantage of a system that’s supposed to identify and eliminate bullying in our schools. And it’s using it to circumvent the policies and procedures established to resolve conflict from July 1st, 2022 through June 30th, 2023. There have been 28 foyer requests since

11:42 July 1st, 2023. The district has received 45 requests or amended requests. That’s about a 65% increase in just four months over the total number requests for the entire last school year. The total cost of legal fees to related to the four requests since July 1st is estimated at $5,640. The total estimated staff time in dollars related to four requests since July 1st is estimated at $4,000. Not only does this waste significant time and resources for the district, but it causes significant stress to our educators who become the subject of these investigations and see their reputations come under attack. When the number of incidents is relatively small,

12:29 the date the threat they represent is apparent. For example, in response to Ms. Fox’s comments, a member of the press has now made a sweeping request for the district to provide all records of. And I quote, complaints made against anyone in the school community, teachers, administrators, coaches, tutors, pairs, lunch aids, et cetera. Since July, from July 1st, 2023 to October 20th, 2023, Marblehead Public Schools has calculated about 460,000 incoming emails. MPS has not yet determined the total number of outgoing emails since July 1st, 2023. Educators are being undermined in our work with students harassed and denied due process. When confronted with accusations,

13:16 the Marblehead Education Association is calling on the Marblehead School Committee and the Marblehead Public Schools administration to enforce policies outlined in the school and athletic handbooks. The current climate around our schools and athletic programs make it impossible to create the learning environment we want for our students and athletes. As a result, all of this ultimately harms the students. The harm is not related to whether they improve as students and athletes. The harm comes when they lose faith in the values that we are trying to instill in them.

13:51 We speak tonight to defend our rights as educators and the rights of our students to the privacy of our records. We understand that the public has an interest in and a right to transparency, but a sweeping in undefined information request in the hopes of finding some supposed evidence of wrongdoing goes too far. It only exacerbates the challenges we are facing. If we want our students and athletes to demonstrate fair play, then the adults around them must also practice fair play. Educators are not asking for special treatment. We are demanding fair treatment. As articulated in the policies, we all do our best to follow. We call on the community to do their part and to end the cycle of mistrust and suspicion that has brought us to this point. The exceptional educational system we have long taken pride in is at risk and

14:41 it’s incumbent upon all of us to take action. We must come together to protect and enhance the quality of public education in Marblehead and keep each other well. Our children’s future depends on it. Thank you.

15:07 I have been working in Marblehead public schools since 1997. I’ve seen many changes in leadership, school committee, curriculum, staff. I’ve seen three new schools built as well as many overrides pass and fail. But one thing that had always stayed consistent was support from our community. That is, until quite recently, the community was, and I believe still is one that first and foremost cares about education. While I’m sure that all of us still feel strongly about our schools over the past few years, the world around us has been shaken. Politics, a pandemic wars violence has turned our focus from our students to perhaps our personal fears of an inexplicable world. So what has changed with all that is happening.

15:54 Somehow we have forgotten where our priorities lie. The climate in our schools is unsettling to say the least. Over the last few years, the community has lost trust in teachers. Social media has been become a platform to air complaints about schools and teachers. And now we face a FOIA that wants to search all staff emails from the past five months to see if we are hiding anything specifically complaints. Additionally, it is a violation of the relationships we’ve built with the parents of our community who may have emailed us with concerns or complaints. And through dialogue, we reach an agreement in understanding a natural progression of communication. But because their emails may have started in disagreement,

16:40 it too becomes public because of the FOIA request. This FOIA is a waste of time, money, and resources that could be far better spent in the schools. Where is the trust you had when you hired us to educate your children? We built our careers on helping students and parents navigate academically and socially to build independence, self-reliance, confidence, and community. Next week we welcome back Dr. Theresa McGinnis. How ironic that the leader who brought us keow keep each other well, has returned. When that is exactly what we need most. Let us all rise back up as a community to ke to welcome her as we keep each other. Well, let us abandon all our personal vendettas on Facebook, in editorials,

17:29 in rival newspapers, in public comment, et cetera. Let us not make our schools and teachers feel like they’re in a tug of war of proving who’s right and who’s wrong. To the point that we all lose. Let us do our job and teach as teachers. We implore that this community return to the commitment of providing our students with the best education possible. Let us once again, learn how to keep each other. Well,

18:10 Grant, can you share the document? So I’m just gonna put up the document that has drawn so, um, such a powerful public comment because it feels a little bit like inside BA baseball or the people who might not, um, know what the reference is. So I I will put that up. Um, it is in fact a public document. Um, and then we have a couple more people that are, have hands up and or have signed up. I’m gonna go to Mary McCarrison if you would like to come up and speak. And then Chris, I do see your hand up. We’ll go, we’ll get to you right after now. Yeah, if you can come up and just state your name and address.

18:53 Mary McCarrison, 46 Pinecliff Drive in Marblehead. So yesterday I started calling around to the different communities. I did 21 communities to find out if they have a flag policy. I’ve left messages and they were gonna get back. There was some kind of, uh, superintendents meeting throughout the North Shore. So Hadley has a population of 5,270 people. Percentage of white is 89.1. So as Jen said, they have a policy of just flag, um, the American flag. So I have called that got back to me. Swamp Scotland, field Wakefield, north Redding, Redding, Stoneham,

19:40 Wellesley, Beverly, Salem, Lynn and Newton. They have no flag policy. The one that I did speak to was Wellesley, and this sounded pretty cool. They have a big wall where any flag in the world can hang the gay pride, black Lives Matter, autistic, whatever. They have no inclination of be taking down any flags. This is a good way of our students being able to see different flags from all over the world and be able to possibly do some projects, which Wellesley does. So I feel as though, as they were talking about how you wanna get your kids and the parents

20:25 and everybody back in together working together, taking down these flags. And we are one of the most whitest community. And 95.6 in the Raleigh is 97.4. How are we gonna make our children that are black, brown, gay, whatever feel supported when you wanna take down a visual thing that makes them feel as though they’re supported. I, I have nothing but high regards for all the teachers in this community. I was a permanent substitute teacher years ago in Lynn. I know what a difficult job it is. And I’d like to say kudos to the team over in village,

21:12 Mr. Volpe, Ms. Burke and Ms. Deanna. My granddaughter’s been being teased for three years because she’s adopted and her father was killed in a car accident today. One teacher at village overheard a child not being too nice to my granddaughter slash daughter that we adopted. These teachers took it upon themselves to stop teaching and bring all 41 kids together and told them how different families are made up. One of these teachers has adopted herself. So she got up and told her story. My granddaughter got up and told her story, and I give them kudos for doing that because it has been a nightmare the last three years.

21:59 So I applaud all your teachers that are out here because you are all doing a good job. You have to support the students what they want. I’m the oldest pa well my husband is, is the oldest parent in the model head school system with a, today is her 11th birthday. So I’ve gone through many superintendents over the years, teachers, tutors, you name it. And we all have to support all our kids, but taking some down that they visually can see and feel as though they’re wanted in this community, which is basically all white. If this is what they need to be able to feel as though they’re welcome in this

22:45 town, they should be. I will be truthful. I grew up in Lynn, then came in through the back door from Swan Squad and then to Marble Head. And when you see these kids of color by the black, brown, yellow, red, whatever, they need to feel as though they are wanted in this community.

23:09 And yes, our community’s been in turmoil since the summer,

23:16 but you have to be able to trust people. And we did lose the trust over the summer. Transparency, accountability. So this is the time we all come together and we accept all our children. They are precious and we are the ones that are gonna be able to mold them to go out into the world. Now, years ago I walked into a bowling alley for a birthday party in Roxbury, the only white woman now it family, I should say family. And I realized at that point how difficult it is for these kids of color coming into a almost all white community and

24:03 how they have to deal on a daily basis. It’s not easy. We are very fortunate in our family that our village encompasses everything. So please, everybody let those kids have their flags, if that’s what’s gonna make them feel accepted. Thank you. Thank you.

24:32 Chris. Rule if you can just state your name and address for the record. Hi. Thank you, Chris. Rule two 12 West Shore Drive. Uh, I’m just, uh, speaking about safety related to individuals coming into schools and taking things off the walls. Um, I’m wondering now that we know who this individual is, if the school, and I don’t know if this is under the purview of the school committee, but if anybody is attempting to gather additional information related to how this individual was able to, as, as it was stated by, uh, um, uh, acting superintendent, this, uh, unauthorized individual was able to get into the school and take things off the wall. Um, are are students safe in the schools if people can just come in and do this?

25:18 And is this something that the school committee, uh, is responsible for? And if so, are they, are you looking for additional information related to access to our schools and individual’s abilities to take things off the walls because they don’t feel they represent them? Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Um, one thing I I will just say, ‘cause you brought up safety. Um, no one has had access that, that we did not know. They, people are coming to our buildings in the evenings for a multitude of reasons, whether it’s meetings, whether it’s events, whether it’s sporting events. So it’s not like we, we don’t have people breaking in our buildings. I don’t want parents at home thinking people are breaking in our buildings. Um, so I, that’s all I can say. But, um, to your point, that’s would

26:06 Access be revoked for certain individuals then? So this isn’t a give and take. Um, and that’s all operational. Yeah, that’s all operational. So those are discussions that happen through the administration. School committee does not have purview through the ED Reform Act to operations. Thank you. Um, thank you. So I don’t have anybody else on my signup sheet and I see no more hands. Um, they missed the sign in sheet. Oh, okay. So if you can just come up to the desk here. Um, here. Yeah, they can send, sign in and then if you can state your names and address for the record.

27:27 And that mic should pick you all up. So you can just start in and just remember to state your name and address. Perfect State address first.

27:36 Um, my name is Nina Johnson and I live at 10 Spray Avenue. Marblehead.

27:43 Say Your address. Uh, I’m Marin Potter and I live at seven Emerald Ave Marblehead.

27:49 Um, my name is Paige Fletcher. I live at 1 71 Beacon Street Marblehead.

27:58 I am Callie Curtis, and I live at 14 Shetland Road, marble Hood.

28:05 Today we are speaking to you as students of Marblehead High School. Last week we wrote a letter to the school committee expressing how we were disappointed that the policy committee meeting on Friday was happening during school hours. We were disappointed because this issue is directly relevant to us as students, and we feel that students should be more included in the process. More for formally and more fully. Specifically, we wanted to talk to the board outside of school hours to discuss the potential impacts a new policy might have on current students. We care deeply about ensuring students and staff feel welcome and respected, and we are concerned. Removal of existing flags can make many students feel they aren’t valued at Marblehead High School. We believe these decisions should be made at the high school level with student participation in order to make student voices heard.

28:56 As some members of Team Harmony, we care deeply about ensuring students and staff feel welcome and seen. The flags that currently hang in our cafeteria include Pride, Juneteenth and BLM. We would like to express the significance of these flags in order to reflect their importance to students in our community. These flags signify that our school is a safe place where students can feel included, represented, and respected. The removal of these flags would make many students feel that they’re not welcome or valued. At Marblehead High School. We believe that flags not only show students that our high school recognizes our identities, but symbolize that school of, that the school affirms and values aside individuals who have equal voices in our school. In addition, the flags represent active support system for students who may feel unseen and unrepresented. The removal of flags would send a message that our school no longer chooses to

29:43 support or value these students. As you look to create a policy around flags in our school, we urge you to ensure the importance that, that these flags remain. We hope that you will take students’ voices into consideration when making your decision. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

30:04 So,

30:08 So I do wanna just let everybody know that our, um, policy subcommittee meeting is up on the YouTube channel. During that, we had a lot of public comment and, um, Michelle Cresta took the opportunity to explain, there seems to be, um, some misinformation that was put out in the community that this policy was to take things down. The chain of events was we had a situation, the proper thing to do is to go to our policy and say, well, what does the policy say? If we’re hearing from people and they’re saying X, Y, Z, what does the policy say? The policy, just for anybody who’s unclear, is our governing our set of governing rules. So we went to see, and there was no policy. So after conferring with, um,

30:54 our attorney and looking at different statutes, it came to our attention. We were actually remiss in not having this. There was a Supreme Court, um, of the United States case that came through, believe it or not, Boston. Um, very recently what had happened was the Boston com, uh, Boston City Hall had three flagpoles. They were letting people apply to put whatever they wanted up there so people would apply. Every single one was approved. Well, one group who was more, um, extremely aligned was denied the, the Boston City Hall did not want their flag, um, to be, so they took it all the way through the Supreme Court.

31:39 And what the Supreme Court said is, you need a policy. Otherwise you have to say yes to everything, even if it doesn’t represent you. So for instance, if we had someone that came in, or Yeah, if you had someone come in with, you know, an extremely offensive flag. If we don’t have a policy, we have to say yes to everyone. And so this is to get our us in compliance. And what mo the majority of towns in Massachusetts did at this time was they pla passed it at the town level, which then in their policy covered school buildings too. That’s why a lot of these school districts don’t have the policy. Their town has it, and it covers their school buildings. Unfortunately, Marblehead as a town has not taken that path. Um, and we,

32:25 once we discovered we didn’t have this, we can’t just look the other way. That’s got us in the trouble in the past. Um, so this is addressing a hole in our policy. This is not to take things down or to say things are limited. It’s to say there’s a policy. Because without this, the Supreme Court says all means all whether you like it or not, everybody goes up. So what this does is there’s a policy now, and what it is, the Supreme Court says the only way to have some up and not all is to say, um, the ones that are approved through the governing body are the ones that are, okay. So there, there’s a lot of ins and outs to this. No policy was presented last week. They’ve started the process to make sure that we’re in compliance.

33:11 This will be at the later on in the agenda, our chair of the policy subcommittee. But again, before more misinformation went out, I just wanted to direct everybody to go look at that meeting if you want to. There’s a lot of great information. Um, and you know that it, this is not about banning anything. This is about getting us in compliance so that, you know, for instance, if if someone came in and wanted to fly the Nat Nazi flag, all means all without this policy, all means all. So you need a policy to bring some reasonableness. So all isn’t all. Um, so that’s, you know, what we’re doing here. We’re doing our job. So, um,

33:57 I, I see another hand, um, Nikia Bell, if you’d like to speak. Just state your name and address for the record. Um, it’s Nikia Bell. Um, I live at two Green Hayes Street. I’m from, I’m Michael Marblehead. I have a few questions in regards to what you just stated. Wait a second. I, I think that it’s not a given to, you can state your comment and we we’re very happy you’re doing that, but it’s not, we’re not allowed to do question and answer. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. So I’ll just state my, okay. In regards to the situation that’s at hand with this flag. The thing that gets, the thing that bothers me the most is because we’re coming from a different town and we already feel that the majority rules in the town that you’re at. And for a person of that statue to take down a flag,

34:42 when our kids already feel like they’re not welcome in your town, it, it makes us feel like that’s just like a slap in our face. The disrespect that we, that the community has, like, not did anything as far as banning that parent from that school or just walking in and being able to take something down is like, wow, what, what, what do we do next? And for that flag to be put up when the kids did that together as a community, with your community, our community, I feel like we all came together at that one time. And then it was just like, for that person to come in and just be like, yeah, it doesn’t matter. This is how we feel. So it’s like we come in there and we’re trying to make a community and we’re

35:27 trying to build a community, and then you guys are just taking step away from us one by one.

35:33 That’s a problem for when we come in there. So do, how do I know my child is being completely protected when I’m giving you my kid for eight hours in a day?

35:44 That’s all I have to say. Thank you very much for speaking.

35:56 I do not see any other hands. Oh, um, Cindy. Cindy, Oh, Cindy Tower. Lowen. Yeah.

36:09 Cindy, if you just wanna unmute and then state your name and address. I,

36:18 I don’t see her home. Maybe she can’t hear me. Oh, here she is. Sorry. I was trying to put my video on and everything. So, um,

36:29 I guess I, there are a few things that I’d like to say. First, um, I wanna thank, um, Ms be for just sharing everything she just said. Um, because that is one of the things that I asked last week is, you know, how do we expect our Boston, um, families to feel about this? And, um, and you know, Sarah, just in the sense of that this is not a comment or q and a piece, um, I guess there are some times when I believe that it’s okay for, um, something to, as a follow up and other times it’s not. And so in this particular case, I would say that there could have been, um,

37:15 a response back to ms. Be that said, um,

37:22 with the banner, there are two things. A parent was able to go into the building

37:32 and, and take the flag down.

37:36 There is something that is clearly not okay with that. I may or may not agree with certain things, but for me to go into the school and to do something like that is not acceptable. And you may not have a policy, you may not be able to do anything, quote as a school committee, but there should be some follow up, something regarding this, because as Chris mentioned, there is a potential safety issue. It opens the door for safety issue when a parent can go in and do something that has been put up by the students, by faculty, et cetera, and go in and take it down. And if the school committee doesn’t see that there’s something wrong with that

38:24 picture, then we have a problem right there. The other thing is, I, you know, I do think, and I shared this the other day at the, um, meeting, is that there needs to be continued discussion and there needs to be student voices given community, et cetera. And I believe that Jen and Michelle both said that that would indeed happen in terms of the, the policy. My concern is, is that we have a policy put in place, but are we going to be able to make sure that what’s already there remains there instead of being taken down and a process having to go through.

39:11 And perhaps this is like a grandfather piece, okay. Whether or not that can be done, I don’t know. So that’s the piece in terms of the, um, the ban of the flag, the parent, et cetera, the safety. The other thing is in terms of the, um, teachers, I do believe that the last three years has been incredibly challenging here. And, um, I have to commend so many of the educators and administrators who have really tried to make a difference in this town, in this community. And, um, I’m, I feel bad that the educators feel that they’re being attacked

39:58 because I don’t believe that that was, um, what the intention was along the way. But, you know, transparency, things that have happened, divisiveness, a lot of that has taken place within the last year. And so I honestly think that the school committee needs to look at the role there in terms of the part that they’ve taken in that too. That it is not just one piece, it is the school committee, it’s the administrators and it’s the town. And I’m not, I don’t mean the administrators in terms of taking, you know, a divisiveness. I’m just talking about it involves all of us, not just one party. And that’s all I have to say.

40:46 Thank you. Thank you, Cindy.

40:52 Um, we have another hand, tenia, Cy, I apologize if I mispronounced your name. Just state your name and address. Um, it, it, it is, it’s, and Ce I live at five Park Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts. So I, I, I have some concerns about that. Like everyone else. However, I feel like, you know, the person that did come in and rip down a flag, I think that parent should pay for that. Not our children. Like our children are innocent. The parent needs to pay for that. Taking down a flag would not be a good thing. First off, you know, my son being a young black boy,

41:40 going out to a predominantly all white school, you know, it’s easy for someone to say, oh, well you can just take him out. No, I cannot just take my son out of a school where he has made friends whom he likes very much so, and they also like him. Now we’ve dealt with, you know, some kids saying certain things. You know, that may have been very insensitive to my son in regards of his background, his ethnicity, although these are children, we can talk to them about certain things. Now, when an adult in that school committee, I’m sorry, not committee community, the lunch mother is being very rude and disrespectful to my

42:28 son, and she is an adult and she’s making him feel uncomfortable when he mentions it to his teacher or his principal and nothing’s being done. That’s one problem. And then he mentions it to me, which I’m his mom. I speak for him, I call and then I speak. Nothing gets done. Then I speak to the medical director because another incident happened. Nothing gets done. And then when my son comes home and he says to me, mommy, the lady was there again. I felt it in my chest, in my heart. Like something like, I don’t even know it. I was afraid of, I as an adult know what that feeling is. My son should not have to go to that school and feel it, feel that way.

43:16 Now this, the flag is being removed by a whole nother parent.

43:24 My son is not gonna feel safe. He’s not gonna feel welcomed.

43:30 I

43:35 so differently, even as a child, because being brought up in an urban area, you have to be tough. You have to, you all don’t know anything about that. We have to be tough trying to teach my son something different. If something is bothering you, I need you to tell me. Don’t try to take it into your own hands. Don’t try to be upset. You don’t back talk any adult ever. That’s not what we do. Respect adults. However, this woman has been disrespecting my son till no end. And she’s still there. So now he has to come into the school is missing. She’s not okay.

44:21 Parent should be, she should have to pay for that. Whatever you all have to do about it. If they tell you all, oh, let’s take ‘em down, take one down, or take all someone and men needs to stand up and say, no, we’re not doing that. We do have children that come in our school. They don’t know whether or not they’re gay or they’re straight. Some know they’re gay. Someone wants to be transgender. We, they can’t help it. They don’t know Black. He can’t help that

44:53 to go into the school. And old school is catering to one race.

45:02 Hey, you have to stand up and somebody has to do something. Them to go out to that school and feel so uncomfortable and come home one day and say, mommy, you know what? I just don’t want to do it. I can’t. I can’t. I love his teachers. I love his teachers. They’re working so well with my son. What’s going on with this lunch lady?

45:27 So if someone, if one of you all can find it in your heart to stand up and help us, that will be great. Very uncomfortable for me.

45:44 That’s all I have to say.

45:53 Thank you Ms. Cy, for your very heartfelt words. And, um, our superintendent didn’t take notes of what you were saying and I’m sure she will follow up up with that. So I, I thank you for sharing. Thank You.

46:08 Any other hands? All right, so that will conclude public comment.

46:24 So that will bring us to the district up update on financial updates of FY 23 and FY 24.

46:37 To The one other district update that I have is, um, I wanted to thank Chief Dennis King for, um, applying for a safe route to school signs and lines. Grant, we received notification last week that we were awarded the grant in the amount of $8,899. Um, much thanks to the chief on this application in the, in the work with the schools. On this, we will, um, end up being able to get some crosswalk, thermal plastic painting done, some signs and some in street pedestrian signs to increase the safety of our roots to school. Um, and onto the financial reports. We do have two financial reports for you tonight. Um, we’ll be brief on those.

47:22 So FY 23 is finally closed on our end. The school, the town is still working a little bit on their end. Um, but we were able to close out, we had an initial budget of 43,982,000. We spent 46,676,000 before the year ended. 42 million. Yep, sorry. 42,676,000. And we carried over 1.3 million, um, for encumbrances of that. Um, when we got to the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, we knew we had a lot of surplus funds that weren’t spent just due to vacancy in, um, lots of staffing positions. So we made a decision to use some of those funds towards one-time costs.

48:07 Um, so we ended up committing to one-time costs of $615,000, 850, 600, $15,851, um, for various items such as replacing a full of maintenance equipment, outdated paging systems, security camera upgrades, security door swipe access systems, intercom systems, and various furniture replacements. In addition, we were able to prepay out of district tuitions in the amount of 539,000. So I did provide, um, financial report of our year end figures, including all grants and revolving to the school committee. Um, and that is a wrap on FY 23. Thank goodness. Any questions for Michelle?

48:55 Okay. Um, that brings you to 24. So FY 24 is the current fiscal year we’re in. Um, as of the first quarter, we had spent 11.2% of our operating budget. Um, last year. At this time we had spent 10.9. So essentially we are, you know, just on par with that. Um, we were a little bit better in terms of our staffing this year. We still have staffing vacancies, but not quite as significant as last year at this time. Um, I do wanna mention that we still do struggle filling some staffing positions. Um, especially we really need some substitute teachers, some substitute custodians, um, substitute lunch workers, um, all of these hourly rate positions that are really challenging to fill at this

49:40 point. Um, so if there’s anyone out there who’s interested in any of those positions, please reach out to our office and we will certainly get you in that pipeline. Um, we do continue to watch our out of district transportation and tuition costs. Um, that’s always a volatile item within our budget and we never know where it’s really gonna go. We predict our budget almost a year and a half in advance. So far. We seem to be on track with where we budgeted for this current year. One thing I do wanna mention is our circuit breaker revolving fund was brought to the maximum amount that we could carry over last year. So that’s actually an additional cushion that we have in our pocket for this year. That was a goal that we had been striving to reach for about four years, and we did reach that. So hopefully we will be able to continue that. Um,

50:28 that funding mechanism each year, um, in addition to the operating report also included the quarterly report of grants and revolving funds. All of those are included in the school committee packet that’s on the website, if anyone’s interested in seeing those. Um, and are there any questions on that? Um, a question on the custodians, because I, I, mm-Hmm. There’s not a lot of creative solutions to, um, the substitute teachers other than, you know, the magic the, the building principals are already doing to kind of fill those holes. Mm-Hmm. But for the custodians, um,

51:07 is there, you know, a weekly service we could have to kind of come in to kind of catch us up to where we need to be each week? ‘cause I know that the custodians are doing their best, but we’re running really large buildings with hundreds of kids in them off of Yep. Less than a skeleton crew. For the past year and a half, we have used a custodial cleaning service to fill in those gaps. Um, this year we decided not to continue that due to the budget cuts, so we haven’t been doing that. So it’s, it’s really being felt in our schools at this point. Yeah. When you walk through and it’s, this is not a dig. ‘cause I, I see our, the other day I had, oh, go hunt for a leftover costume, and I saw, um, I saw them working really, really hard. It’s, I, you know, I can’t clean after six kids. I don’t know how they’re, these,

51:55 these people are getting it done each night after what they’re, if We’re accruing salary, we cannot use that for We can, the problem is that the positions that we aren’t able to fill are lower paid hourly rates. When you hire a cleaning service, you’re paying four to five times more than the hourly rate. So it limits on how much funding we really have available. Um, so basically a custodian that would normally cost us six to $700 a week, if you contract for them, it’s left late, like three, three to $4,000 a week. So it’s, it’s, it’s a crazy markup. And we can’t offer any incentive because where everyone comes in with the, on the contract, Right. We’re under the contracted union rights. Um, the one thing we did just do is, um,

52:41 open some positions for on-call, substitute custodians. So hopefully we’ll be able to fill some of our vacancies in the evening. Um, primarily because if, if a day custodian’s out, we take one of our night custodians and backfill. But if one of our night custodians out, there’s no one to backfill. So we’re, we’re trying to get some substitute custodians in the evenings to be able to fill that. Is that some, sorry, it went to interrupt. Is there, is that something that’s likely, We just posted it about two weeks ago, so we’re hoping, we’re hoping we can, this Will go on for like 20 Minutes. Get that, but it’s also getting the word out, so, you know, whether we, whether we reach out to Salem State College and have some college students be able to work at night and, and whatnot. It’s just getting the word out to the, to the community and to the available, available workers. So we’re working on that. Thank you. Any other questions?

53:30 All right. So that brings us to the schedule of bills you all had in your packet. Um, I’ll insert a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling $105,084 and 84 cents. So Move Moved by Jen Schaffner Second. Second by Allison Taylor, since we have some remote, we’re gonna do a roll call vote. Um, Brian ota. Megan Taylor.

53:57 Yes. Allison Taylor. Yes. Jen Schaffner in favor. Sarah Fox in favor. Motion carries five to zero. We do not have any minutes to approve this week. Oh, Oh, we do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote that before I looked at that. Sorry, I didn’t the date. Um, We’ve got the, I didn’t think we did. We Do. It was August 11th and I didn’t print the other ones, so I just have August. There was the one that we canceled and I don’t remember the name. Oh, okay. Um, Um, but you wanna Do August? I’ll ask for a motion to approve the minutes from eight 11 as presented. So moved Second by Jen Schaffner. Seconded by Alison Taylor. Roll call. Brian ota. Okay. Megan Taylor? Yes.

54:42 Allison Taylor Approved. Jen Schaffner in favor. Sarah Foxx in favor. And motion carries five to zero. Not la I’m not kidding. It will go on for 20 minutes. Whenever it Do you want me to take over? I’ll pull through. Um, that brings us to, uh, Mr. Giardi, if you’d like to join us, the approval of the basketball overnight field trip. Um, we just, we just, yep. Uh, Mike Giardi, our basketball, uh, varsity Boys, right? Yes. Uh, coach had come to us and asked for approval of a field trip. We have a, you all had a memo regarding it. If anybody has any questions for Mr. Giardi, um, if you wanna just go over the high level particulars. Yeah. Uh, so last year the boys and girls team traveled to Florida This year we’re kind of

55:27 low keying it, as the kids would say, we’re going to Springfield. Uh, we’re planning an overnight trip again, boys and girls. We’ll be traveling on Saturday, um, going out to the Hall of Fame, playing a girl boy Doubleheader on Saturday afternoon, rather than make a commute back to Marblehead, um, because we’re playing the next day as well. In Springfield, we’re hoping to attend a college athletic event, um, either UMass Hockey or one of the smaller schools. Um, like, uh, uh, Williams or Amherst basketball game. Uh, we’d stay at a hotel play the next morning, uh, against, uh, I think it’s Holyoke the next day. And then we would get back on our bus and come back. So, Okay. Awesome. Does anybody have any questions? Does who’s question why anybody would sign up to take this responsibility?

56:16 Um, God bless you. So I’ll ask for a motion to approve the basketball overnight field trip, uh, for the night of, of Saturday, February 10th, returning on Sunday, February 11th. So moved. Moved by Jen Schaffner. Second. Seconded by Allison Taylor. Roll call Brian OTA Approved. Megan Taylor. Yes. Allison Taylor. Approved. Jen Schaffner in favor. Sarah Fox in favor. Motion carries five zero. Have so much fun. Thank you Guys for the chair. Um, so Mike was just recognized as an outstanding educator, um, through Harvard, uh, this past Saturday. So I just wanna say this is the person who takes on trips. Like this is our outstanding educator. So credit to him that he was recognized. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for the nomination too.

57:02 Congratulations. Thank you guys, have good luck. Thank you. The same teacher who helped my daughter while she was in college, home on vacation with her calculus.

57:12 Fun. Um, that, that moves us to the Veterans Middle School basketball hoop donation, Mr. Fox. Yes. We had a very generous offer, um, from the friends of the Marblehead basketball, uh, to purchase two new backboards rims and backboard padding, um, to bring up the quality of equipment in the Veteran’s Main gym. If you’ve been in our gym, you’ve seen those rims just about hanging to about nine and a half feet when they should be about 10. Um, so it’s a very generous officer offer. We, we’ve got some quotes. We’ve got, you know, we’ve got it all rolling. So we, we would love to have your approval. We, it would mean no money on the district’s end. Um, and, uh, Todd has assured us that his crew can, can install them, so. Perfect. Great. Um, any questions? Anyone? So Just a, this is for the school,

57:59 so it’s for school use as well as mar youth youth basketball. They do their games there, Right? Right. I mean, it’s, it’s a very generous offer and it’s, it’s, uh, very greatly appreciated. You, This, this will cover both gyms, right? No, Just one. The, the main gym. Okay. The main Gym. Um, so I’ll ask for a motion to accept the donation from Marblehead Youth Basketball or Friends of Marblehead basketball. Yep. Um, for the donation of basketball hoops to the Veterans School gymnasium. So Moved. Moved by Jen Schaffner. Second. Second by Allison Taylor. Roll call vote. Brian ota. Okay. Megan Taylor? Yes. Allison Taylor approved. Jen Schaffner In favor. Sarah Fox in favor. Motion carries five to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, the next we have is the village Scoreboard,

58:47 donation and naming request. So we received some communication from Marblehead Youth Football. Um, Michelle Cresta had reached out, uh, in the last few days, um, asking if they were gonna come and if someone was gonna speak or answer questions. We have not heard back from anybody. Um, we did have, uh, a letter here with the intent. Um, they’re looking to fundraise to replace the scoreboard over at Hopkins Field. Um, so I would ask her questions, but, uh, I do see Matt Martin’s hand. He is on the board, um, and one of the co-signers of the, the, the letter. So if anybody has any questions, um,

59:34 I would direct you to ask those to Mr. Martin.

59:39 No questions. Okay. Without further ado, then I, I just wanna know, we are gonna take down all the shrubs, right? So we actually, I would assume so. I would assume we can’t get the new one up until we move the shrubs. Do we have any Hey, Hey, I’m, oh, I’m speaking on behalf of Marblehead Youth Football. Jason Glass here. Okay. Oh, hi Jason. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Are you Very good. I, I wrote the letter if you guys have questions. Jason Glass. I’m the Commissioner of Marblehead Youth Football, um, uh, 39 Pine Fifth. We’re seeking your approval for a new scoreboard. Ours is really at the end of life here, uh, about 30 plus years old. Um, so between our, we’ve got, um, a donation,

1:00:27 uh, a fairly significant donation from National Grand Bank, as well as kind of our general fund to health, um, uh, support the cost of the scoreboard. So, um, that’s what we’re looking to do. Thank you very much. That’s very generous of you. Um, Megan, are you saying hi? Or why don’t I ask a question? Uh, I just wanna say thank you for, um, for this offer because obviously that scoreboard has not been working for a very long time. Um, and I think it was Jen that noted the shrubs, so I appreciate the offer very much. Yes, thank you, Bank. Agreed. Um, I would just say it makes me feel old because that’s, I think it might be more than 30 years, guys. Same here. Yeah. So thank years Might for that reminder, do we have, um,

1:01:15 or will there be any mockup of what it will look like

1:01:21 at some point? Jason, do you want me to just kind of talk about what it’ll look like? Yeah, that’d be great. Yeah. Um, so it’s, it’s actually very similar to the exact same scroll board that’s there. Um, there’s, there’s two pillars that are in the ground, you know, uh, steel pillars that are cemented in. So from a standpoint of formations and everything, it’ll be pretty much just modernized with, uh, Bluetooth to a phone, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, we got, you know, kind of got referred to them from, um, Jeff Morrison who does everything down at Getches. So the old days of like having the guy, you know, way up in the stands, you know, punching B-B-B-B-B, it’s just, it’s much nicer. It’s all, you know, uh, digital to your phone, et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, yes, great point.

1:02:10 Um, Todd Bloodgood actually walked the area and, and made, first thing he made a notion of was the bushes are far overgrown. Um, you can’t even get at it, um, without taking those down. So yeah, absolutely those, those need to go away. Although they do provide good cover. ‘cause after every game, uh, we kind of go hide over there behind after every game and talk to the players. So I guess we’ll have to find a new place. So is Park and Rec gonna do that, Matt, or is that gonna be, we’ll figure out who’s doing it. Uh, um, yes, I’m sure. I’m sure. Um, I can talk to Peter Park and Rec is happy to help. Yes, absolutely. And Todd too. We’re probably with Todd, we’ll have to Figure it out. Can we can tag team with Todd and get that done. Okay, perfect. Thank you. So I will ask, with collaboration,

1:02:57 I’ll ask for a motion to approve fundraising efforts for a new scoreboard and like, kind to include same size to be labeled Dr. Hopkins Field in accordance with policy KCD. So moved Second. Um, moved by Jen Sch, seconded by Allison Taylor. I’ll ask for a roll call vote. Brian OTA Both Megan Taylor.

1:03:22 Can you just clarify that motion? A motion to approve fundraising efforts for a new scoreboard in like, kind meaning the same size? We just wanna make sure it’s the same size. So the pillars don’t have to be realigned to include same size and to be labeled Dr. Hopkins Field in accordance with policy KCD.

1:03:42 Okay. And what’s KCD? Can we just, so Everyone, that’s our policy, what We’re talking about here. It’s our policy on public gifts to the schools. Okay. So can you just read it so everyone’s like, aware of what we’re agreeing to? The, um, the superintendent will have authority to accept gifts and offers of equipment for the schools in the name of the committee when the gift is of educational value. In the case of gifts from industry, businesses or special interest groups, no extensive advertising or promotions may be involved in any donation to the school gifts. Gifts that involve changes in school, plants or sites will be subject to school committee approval Gifts will automatically become the property of the school system. Any gift of cash, whether or not intended by the donor for the specific purpose will be accepted by a vote of the school committee handled as a separate account and expended at

1:04:30 the discretion of this committee as provided by law, the committee directs the superintendent to assure that an appropriate expression of thanks is given to all donors. Uh, to that point, can I just ask, ask a quick question? Sure. Um, so in regards to, you know, signage, it’s gonna say, uh, Dr. Uh, stock Stanford Hopkins Field. Um, obviously it would say something along the lines of National Grand Bank under the sign, similar to what’s there now. Um, I don’t know when that rule that you just stated was put in place. Is that something fairly new or is that something That goes, was Way back to beginning of Time. It says at the bottom of it approved 10 18 18, um, when we updated our, so 2018 Yeah. We updated our policies in to be in,

1:05:16 in accordance with the Mass Association of School Committee policies. This is one of the ones they provided to us. Yeah. So 2018, that was in place? 16? Yeah. Uh, it says 16. Mine says 2018. 18, oh, sorry. 18. Yeah. Yeah, 16. Okay. And that When we approved, it’s about, what was that? So that’s all schools? Yeah. Okay. So you basically, what you’re saying is no matter who makes a donation, they can’t put a sign up there. Um, That’s What it says. It says it’s, yeah. No extensive advertising or promotions. So you, um, I believe there’s one out at Piper that says, um, given as a gift from the Marblehead Boosters.

1:06:03 Yeah. I mean, is this gonna, oh, okay. I guess I’m confused. So it’s gonna, I thought it was just the doc. Is it Dr. Hopkins? Right? That’s what it was Gonna say. Yeah. I mean, the Sign Hopkins. The sign, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um,

1:06:21 uh, I guess, I guess I’m just, uh, just slightly, I mean, I’m not confused. Um,

1:06:31 so it, would it have, it would have to come through boosters? No, no, no, no. Like, um, it would, it sounds like from your letter here, that the, um, Marblehead Youth Football will make the donation to the school department, and then the school department will go through the proper bid process and everything that they do, and then use the funding allocated, um, for this purpose, for the Agreed upon school. But the way all of our donations, um, including like the ones we just approved, the donation is made to the school department. Then the school department goes through the legal procurement process and procures it, the themselves. Yep. So, um, I guess I’m just

1:07:19 Okay. Okay. I mean, I, I, I, I, I see, I see what’s going on, so that’s great. So, so sir, just to clarify that this doesn’t need to go through the bid. You’re not saying this is gonna go through the bid process, are you? It’s under $10,000, right? The donation and Yes, it’s under $10,000. Yeah. No bid process. It Doesn’t have to go through the bid process then? No. Okay. So there’s no bid process. Like they’re making a donation of a, if I’m, I just wanna make sure I understand that. The donation is the scoreboard. I, Michelle, that’s that. They’ll, they’re, they’ll physically donate the scoreboard. They don’t donate the money to you, and then you Purchase. It can go either way. Okay. Can go Either. We’ve had ‘em both ways. Our basketball hoops are being paid for directly By Yes. Like the basketball hoop are coming to us. All Right. Yes. So if you can work that out with Michelle, um,

1:08:08 or next week it’ll be Dr. Teresa McGinnis, or Emma, someone from our finance department. If you guys or facilities you guys work the operational piece. Mm-Hmm. Through them. That would probably be the most appropriate thing. I mean, I think the only question would be, not getting into weeds here is for warranties and stuff like that. Does it have to be a po from the school department? That, I mean, but I would think it would be an completely agreed upon what’s being, yeah. What’s being ordered. I see Mafia’s hand. She may be able to lend some information to this. Oh, Mafi. Um, Mafi, do you wanna jump in on this? Can you hear me? Yes. Mm-Hmm. Sorry, I’ve been talking between my computer and my phone. So I just wanted to speak on behalf of National, well, not on behalf of National Brand Bank, ‘cause I don’t work there, but I, I,

1:08:55 they do so much for our schools in addition to other things. And I know that when years ago when I got approval to do the banners on the field, advertising was a big thing. And so the banners that are on Piper Field have no websites, no contact phone number. It’s just a logo. So I hope that when you get through this whole process, you find a way to allow them to have their name on that scoreboard, because I don’t know that it would be going up if not for them.

1:09:26 That’s my 2 cents. Well, yeah. Okay. I guess I’m confused all. So we have a Policy, I do have to say, but this is the First, can I just, can I just give you A wait, Matt, one second, please. Background. Wait, one second. This is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to cut in. Matt, I’m sorry. Cut. Matt, I’m gonna pause you, Matt, hold on one second. There. This is the first I’ve heard of this. ‘cause we only have a letter that doesn’t mention this at all. So this is the first I’ve heard any of this. ‘cause it’s not reflective in the letter. Correct? Correct. So, and I had mentioned this to Michelle in an, in an email, just to be completely transparent. So I’ve been on a volunteer basis with Marble League youth football since 2006. No dog in the fight. I have daughters. And for the last seven to eight years, I’ve listened to grandparents say to me, why don’t we have a scoreboard?

1:10:13 This is ridiculous. Why don’t we have a scoreboard? This is embarrassing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So over the last two or three years, it’s apparently my fault because I, I get in contact with someone, and then next thing you know, it’s August, next thing you know, it’s Thanksgiving time just goes. And so finally this year, you know, getting back and forth with blood good, this is finally getting put forth. And to muff, he’s point. Exactly. I I don’t think this scoreboard would be going up if it weren’t for National Grand Bank making a donation to Marly do football. So my, I guess my point is, just to be completely blunt, and yes, it’s not in the letter, but we, I was very, um, Michelle had asked me in an email and I said, yes, to be completely transparent, this is what we’re looking to do. Yes.

1:11:01 So, well, okay, is this only going up if, because that, that makes it an advertisement. That’s what my issue with this is. Now you’re asking us to completely go against our policy, which has no advertisement. If you’re telling me it’s only going up, if it has National Grant’s name on it. Well, I, I mean, I can’t speak for National Grand Bank, but it would, I mean, it would only make sense. But if I can chime in again, I don’t think it is an advertisement. If there is no website, no phone number, it’s just a name. Okay. So let’s, can we, let’s cut off the, you know, Public. So Yeah, we’re, we’re gonna, I’m gonna, we’re, I’m gonna put a pin in the back and forth for a second. Yeah. Um, I Think we probably need to, and I’m

1:11:47 Actually talk About this offline. Yeah. I, I actually feel like at this point we, we have a motion. It was moved.

1:11:54 I think I want to hear more, um, from the super. I, I don’t know. I’m, yeah, no, I think I don’t really, I was voting on what came before me, this letter, and I don’t feel like I have all the Information. Yeah, I mean, we do have an A policy, so I don’t know if, you know, maybe we need to take this offline and table it to the next meeting or something. I mean, is this ready to go? The letters seem like you guys are doing fundraising now, or is it already That’s why I get, maybe I’m unclear. ‘cause it looked like you were, because beginning a process, Mr. Glass, he’s fine. Matt, We’re the, the, at this point, we’re just kinda waiting for the company to provide the score. There was, there was a 12 week waiting period. So we’ve kind of placed the order. We’re just, now we’re waiting for approval, I guess.

1:12:39 Okay. I mean, the, the policy does say no extensive advertising. So really, what, what is the, So we’ve ordered this, you guys have ordered this and paid for this, Uh, ask, I ask, we’ve put a place hold in order with Met, uh, met Tech, it’s called. So it’s, there’s a 10 to 12 week waiting period. Well, is there any, okay. I don’t know. I don’t know if we can do this tonight. We might need to. I think we need to get some clarification on that. Yeah. And maybe get, maybe get a visual of it. I mean, if you’ve ordered it there, probably there should be a picture. Like what? Okay. So I guess, I guess to fall back to, there’s no, there will be no extensive advertising. It’s just gonna be a name. Well, I mean, that’s what we need to discuss, right? Because I mean,

1:13:28 there’s no definition of it, what extensive advertising. But I, like, if I’m looking at the old board, you know, the name of the, well, in this case is Savings Bank and Dr. Sanford Hopkins. I mean, the fonts are the same. It’s, you know, it’s all the same. It’s not a smaller amount. Mm-Hmm. Being the advertising and that larger being the memorial name. So, So do we just need to get clarification maybe on what extensive Or what it’s gonna, well, it’s extensive is whatever we define it as. Um, do We need, do we have a mockup of what it will look like? Matt or Jason? Uh, we can get you, we can get you one. Yeah. That might be helpful. Yeah, Sure. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t think there’d be any advertising on the actual scoreboard. It would be very similar to, uh, The one that’s there now. The wooden side above the scoreboard. Exactly.

1:14:16 Well, I Mean’s partly Marblehead Savings Bank. But I mean, I don’t want to, I’m not gonna argue this, but I mean, it is pretty, I mean, it’s prominent, it’s as prominent in this, in the old one as the name of the Memoria. So I mean, if, you know, I don’t know. So I guess maybe it would be helpful to see what it’s gonna look like a mockup. Okay. Or a Yeah, like a graphic or something. Sure. We Can get you a mockup. Thank you. Okay. If that’s, if that’s what you want. No problem. Yeah. All right. Great. Thank you. We’ll put, um, I, I had a motion movement seconded. So if we’re gonna table, can I have a motion to table the motion until we get the mockup and then revisit it? Our next meeting move by Allison Taylor second, making it second by, um, Jen Schaffner all, or I’m sorry, Brian OTA

1:15:02 Second. A approve. Yeah. Megan Taylor. Sorry, I didn’t hear all that. That’s, We’re tabling the motion. Motion, yeah. To table the motion. Yeah, I agree. Um, Allison Taylor, agree. Jen Schaffner Agree In favor? Sarah Fox in favor? Motion carries five to zero. Um, that brings us, oh, I, Ms. Dixon, just to Clarify, are we tabling it just to the next meeting? Yes. Yeah. Well, to Whenever we can see it up when we get the mockup. Yeah. Um, thank you Matt and Jason. So Ms. Dixon, thank I see I do see your hand up. The public comment period has passed, but I do, um, encourage you to send an email to the school committee at school committee@marbleheadschools.org or, um, come to our next meeting.

1:15:52 Um, I guess that would be football vape. That brings us to vaping prevention and response.

1:16:13 I’m,

1:16:19 Oh goodness.

1:16:23 I guess just to frame narrative, just sort of, I, I’ll throw it out there. Um, you know, on the, on the, uh, agenda, you know, I was just wondering, um, what some of the general questions are, you know, sort of, because it just, it says vaping and responses, you know, so vaping prevention and responses. So that’ll frame some of our questions. ‘cause I think, you know, Gina was here last year going over the YRBS data and included some of this information before. So we just wanna sort of make sure we understand, um, and answer any of the questions or concerns that are out there. So In regards to the agenda item, and then if anybody else wants to ask you to target it, I’m in full transparency. Michelle gave me that bullet and I just copied it. Okay. So, um, there’s that. Jen, did you have Well, I, I don’t know. I mean, I, I don’t know if this was a request or, I mean,

1:17:10 I, all I know is I hear from people in town by email, by phone, on social media for years Mm-Hmm. That students are unwilling to go into use their, the restroom because of the extensive vaping I hear primarily at the high school, or have been contacted by parents. So I just would like all I want, and this, I asked this a couple meetings ago, like, what are, what are we doing to make sure that students feel that they can use the restroom during the school day without having to be faced with? So I guess it’s more the responses. Yeah. Yeah. So I can tell you things that we have in place, and then Gina can sort of expand on the education pieces too. So we do have vape detectors in the gang bathroom.

1:17:56 So any of the bathrooms that are more than a single stall have vape detectors in it. So when vape is detected, it sends us a text message and an email, um, so that we know second floor boys, a wing and admin goes there and sees what’s going on. Um, we, um, we are constantly in and outta the bathrooms, um, as much as we can be in between classes, during classes, sort of during lunch, going floor to floor, in and out. Um, and then when we do catch somebody vaping, we do have a diversion program. So the goal is to educate and to teach them why

1:18:41 not to do it, or our hope is to educate them early enough so they don’t start it, because we would prefer for them not to be addicted to it and have to do it in school. Mm-Hmm. So that’s, we have a lot of, um, Gina would go over all that stuff with you, but those are the things we have in place. Um, I mean, do you Think it’s a problem? So I could, I can tell you I have not heard from one person this year about it. Okay. Uh, do I see the detectors going off? Yes. But not all the time. Um, And when they go off, are you always able to get there? And I get there if I can get by the person get there, or the other, um, assistant principals will go. Right. Are we always able to identify who the person, I mean, sometimes it’s using hairspray too.

1:19:27 So I can tell you last year when my office was literally across the hall from the bathrooms, it would take me less than three seconds to look up and see who was out there and go in. So there are certain things that will set it off, like hairspray or perfume. Um, but vape will also set it off too. Yep. Now, I don’t know if there’s any way to tell, or, but do you have a sense if it’s more nicotine product products or if it’s marijuana products, what, what it is that they’re vaping? Uh, it’s both. Okay. And at this point, Wouldn’t you say? Mm-Hmm. Yeah. At this point, and I, I, correct. I mean, I’m sorry if I don’t know the handbook, which I should, but Mm-Hmm. So you’re saying there’s no discipline around this discipline?

1:20:14 There is discipline, but part of that discipline is this diversion program. Okay. And then it, there’s not like a one size fits all. So our goal is to get them to stop the behavior. Yep. So I’ll turn it over to Gina. I just wanna talk a little bit about, I it’s definitely Due respect. So going back to the, so I understand that I totally get that. But if you have a repeat per offender, I mean, at some point We use a progressive discipline approach. Mm-Hmm. So if you, if you take a look at our, if you take our handbooks, I mean, I, I know we’ve had discussions with our handbooks. Yep. You know, for the middle school, it’s a level three, you know, possessing or using Mm-Hmm. Um, tobacco or any other smoking materials in our schools, a level three offense. So when you take a look at the consequences for a level three, you’ll see a wide range, but at the same time,

1:21:01 by saying level three out of three levels, you know, we’re talking, it’s, it’s a serious offense Level’s. The three’s the highest. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So there’s a three level system and, and, um, you know, obviously it’s a progressive discipline approach. It, it doesn’t mean, you know, there, there’s not a one, you know, one approach to everything, but there’s a consistent approach to everything. And part of it is education. You know, we’re still working with students at ages 18 and below, that they need to be educated on the, the dangers of, of everything they put in their bodies. Mm-Hmm. You know, if it’s not something that should be in their bodies, whether it’s vaping or anything else, you know, they, that’s part of our health programs. I look towards my nationally awarded, uh, health teacher here. Um, or if it’s part of our student support services here in Gina’s position, um,

1:21:47 it it, it’s a, it’s a dual approach. ‘cause if we, if all we do is punish Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. I, I just was unclear. It seemed like there was, it was, there was, you know, But you see the first thing that comes out of her mouth, and I don’t wanna speak for you, I’m so sorry, is the diversion program. Because really, yeah. There’s obviously gonna be consequences. But really what we’re invested in is getting it to, is educating the student. We’re not gonna be able to change a behavior if our first go-to is. That’s it. You’re suspended, don’t go home and Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Take away. I mean, we need to change that, suggesting that. No, we’re not suggesting That. Yeah. And, you know, to speak to how, if this is a community issue, you know, someone I spoke to about this, um, earlier mead, I thought the most spot on comment I’ve heard in a long time when they said, um,

1:22:35 we’re, we’re not handing out vape pens in our welcome bags. These kids are coming to us already with an issue. And that issue is happening outside of our walls. It’s not starting inside of our walls. So this really needs to be, um, a family partnership, a community partnership to try, you know, to, to get these kids to not be like, I don’t think anybody’s only vaping at school. I would think, I dunno. No. And, and that’s what Gina can speak to from some of the data that we have, is when they’re doing it in school, it’s because they’ve already become to the point where they’re addicted and they have to, or they’re having some, you know, some issues. Yeah. So, so I, I love your point, Sarah. I think our data shows about 34% of our students lifetime uses have tried

1:23:25 nicotine products, which could be a nicotine vape, a cigar dip, um, about 20%, uh, marijuana products. Um, I think when we talking about the safety of the bathrooms, that’s super important. We definitely don’t want kids feeling unsafe. We need to be looking at that. However, we’re, that’s a result of a different problem. There are a lot of kids that are vaping a lot of, and it’s not just in Marblehead. If you look at state data, we’re pretty comparable to state data. So what we’re looking at is students when they’re already addicted, what, what, what we see when people are addicted to any substance. But in particular, teenagers with nicotine, if they’re addicted already, they’re after an hour or a couple hours go by, they’re starting to have withdrawal symptoms like lack of concentration, irritability, headaches, nausea, anxiety. And so if they are in school, we, yes,

1:24:11 in order to reengage in their curriculum and focus, they would need to go and use nicotine. And so what we’re looking at is we need to, we need to do a lot in schools. And I’m gonna talk about what we’re doing because it’s very important that once we know the issue’s happening that we’re educating and supporting, however, it’s, it really is, once they’re addicted, they’re not just doing it in school. We need to, you know, engage families in the communities to work with the schools on what are we doing, like at home and in the communities too, to try to prevent the issue. We really need to shift the focus on how do we prevent this? ‘cause once kids are addicted, we’re kind of too late. And so, you know, how do we kind of work together to, to shift the focus to prevention? But to everybody’s point, you know, a lot of the research and now what Desi’s talking about with, um, suspensions and discipline is that, you know, discipline only isn’t effective in long-term behavior change.

1:24:58 So we’ve had a diversion program actually for a while, four or five years. It wasn’t evidence-based. It was modeled off something some other schools were doing. But it’s, it’s been every kid that got offered it took it, which has been good. We really wanted to do something more comprehensive. And so we’ve, this year, it’s a pilot year for the MGHI decide program. Um, I’m gonna, I’m just going to read from some of the language that they use. So, um, the diversion program, any student with a sub, with a substance use infraction will be referred to receive psychoeducation in order to reduce recidivism and provide support. It’s a tier two intervention intended for adolescents who have begun to show early signs of problematic substance use. So it’s not a treatment, um, model to say it’s a tier two intervention is also really great. ‘cause we don’t have to just use it for, uh, substance use infractions.

1:25:46 We can use it if we’re worried about a kid or a parent reaches out, how do I get them more support on vaping or, um, and then we can refer students to it as a tier two intervention, not just for infractions. It’s also drug agnostic. We’re using it mostly for nicotine, um, infractions or marijuana infractions is what we see. Um, but let’s say a student has that and that’s what they got caught for, but they have an issue or a budding issue for another, another substance use. This program covers that as well, which is really great. So it’s hosted on a, hosted on a learning management system, which utilizes videos, guided discussions, and on urine assignments. The module content is teen brain development, neurobiology and addiction industry tactics, risk and protective factors, drug effects, motives and triggers for use,

1:26:32 realistic and unhealthy alternatives to substance use, communication strategies, mindfulness and meditation. Core values and goal setting, I decide promotes education empowerment instead of punishment as an equitable response to adolescent substance use. Providing youth with science-based information and critical skills. The program challenges young people to make decisions that align with their core values and future goals to support their own, um, personal wellbeing. The curriculum development was guided by ongoing feedback from students and key school and community stakeholders. The principles of the program are adolescents are the expert in their own experience, empowerment, strength building and factual information change behavior more than punishment, long lasting behavior changes. Most achievable when those are goals are aligned with an individual’s core values.

1:27:18 And cultivating positive relationships with trusted adults is a protective factor against substance use. And its comorbidities. So it’s three to four sessions, depending on how long it takes. What we’re trying to do is having students do it during their school day. As long as it, excuse me, as long as it’s fits. We can do it after school, but it is actually work for the student. So even though we’re not disciplining them, it is something that they have to really engage and take the time to do. And so there is a little bit of a consequence. You have to take some of your free time, um, or afterschool time, um, to do it. Is this a voluntary program? And they say no. If yes, and if they do say no, then, then we would progress to the next discipline phase. So it, it could, could be suspension, it could be Saturday. It depends on if it’s, and

1:28:05 Their parents are aware no matter What. And their parents are notified. Yes. And we try to, you know, parents, we, we send the information to the parents so they can look at it. Um, and then we do follow up. ‘cause usually parents are kind of like, what do I do at home? Which is why we’re trying to, you know, work with parents on that too. Is it self-guided or is there a, a, a teacher or someone overseeing it? Yep. So you have to get trained in it in order to implement it. Um, it’s like a pretty lengthy training. I’m sort right now I’m the only person that’s certified to do it, but as, ‘cause it’s the first year. Um, so I’ll be the person overseeing it and hopefully as we go, we can get more of our, it’s, it, it’s, you don’t have to be a clinical person to run it. It, it’s best suited for somebody in, in a clinical role. So our mental health staff. Um, but yeah, you do have to go through a training to be able to do it.

1:28:50 But does the student do it alone or are you Oh, no. With the student? No, it’s like, it’s guided by the facilitator. Okay. So there’s a Yeah. And you could do it in a group if you get a lot of infractions at once, you could do it in a group. My preference is to do it individualized, because, you know, there are guidelines around confide confidentiality and those things. But I would prefer to do it like Pictures breakfast, breakfast club. Well, no, there was no, No, we’re not. Yeah. I would say too, there’s a couple other things we have put in place this year that I should have mentioned earlier. So we do have electronic call passes, smart pass, um, this year. And we do have the ability, so if we know that there are kids that are always trying to go at the same time, we can limit them and not, it won’t approve a pass if somebody else is already out. So if it’s the goal is a meetup to go vape in the bathroom and we know about it,

1:29:40 we can, um, restrict the passes. And the other thing, um, with the cell phones, um, they’re collected at class. They are not brought out into the hall. Yeah. Um, during class time so that they’re not texting each other from class to go meet up too. So that is, I’m seeing less, um, movement in the halls during class time. And I’m seeing less kids in the bathroom also during class time. And, And I guess, and I should do this if I hear from parents or that I’m gonna send them to you. That’s right. You know, please, please do, please do. Yeah. That and that if, you know, like, if you’re not hearing from parents, you’re not hearing from parents and going to do this on social media is not gonna necessarily solve the, the problem in the building with your particular student or child Or whatever. Right. Is there any post

1:30:27 MGH um, program, look at this stuff to see, you know, four weeks out, four months out, a year out, what is the success rate? Who is still, you know, free from these products? So this is actually part of an MGH grant. We’re doing a few different things with MGH and grant work. Um, and they’re actually collecting data on the effectiveness as we go. So part of what, as my, you know, me as the facilitator is sharing some information back, parents can, can, it’s, it’s up to parents and students. If they, if they wanna follow up with MGH, they can collect some data from them. So that’s something that we can offer as well. But, um, it’s, it’s part of a really, um, comprehensive grant to, to show that it’s effective. And then widen. This is also something that about a hundred, a hundred other schools in this, in this state are doing the MGHI decides, uh,

1:31:12 survey, which is like our youth risk behavior survey. And that’s also attached the to this. So like, I don’t wanna speak. I, I think, uh, swamps good is also using this model as well. So other schools are using it, which is great. Okay. When we have more information about like the effectiveness over time, we’ll share it. How often do you analyze the data about whether this is effective or not for this? Or, or do you just wait for them to bring you back data For this program? Yeah. Yeah. So our partnership with them will be us sharing the data with them. And then they, I I, I imagine at the end of a period of time or annually, they, they’ll share the data back with us. So it’s like a partnership. So They’ll share the data globally from their Yeah. But I wanna know how it’s working. Oh, Sure. For architects. I can, we can find out about it. I’m, I’m not sure. Okay. We can find out like what I Think that’s important, right? Yeah. Because if it’s not, if it’s not working,

1:31:58 if it’s not effective, then totally we might need to pivot Else or they might Something else. It’s also, we’re also talking about a very low incident report. So I think we also have to take this with a grain of salt that if to report out on data on such a small number, we’re starting to identify students. And so I think we should take that and understand that that’s what we’re working with. You know, if we take a look at last year’s discipline records and things like that, that if we’re gonna share out data about success and it, and it, and it becomes small percentages, we’re, we’re, we’re almost talking about individual students. And so I think, well, I would Think you do it internally. Like, in other words, it’s not something You’re gonna share well, internally. But you said you want us to share out data That was said. Well, I wanna hear it successful. It’s not, I, like, I don’t need to. Sure. I think that that’s my only caveat is just we have to be careful with data when

1:32:45 we’re talking to low one Spend. No, I, No, but I mean, are you tracking, you know, in other words, if you put, if a student, there must be recidivism or whatever, repeat, like, in other words, you put a student through diversion after I guess one strike, I don’t know how this works. Yep. When they get caught and they go, we offer That to The first, and then you would know whether they repeat again in school. You’re not gonna know what They Well, I actually am less, not that I’m not concerned about the re if they’re repeating in school, I would hope that part of this program is after, you know, Sarah Fox is registered in the program, you have touch points later on to say, you know, are you still, and, and, and if it’s anonymous, all the better. You get a more honest answer from these kids. Mm-Hmm. Um, if there’s a way to survey them, are you still using these products? Because if this isn’t working,

1:33:32 this isn’t just about shutting it down in our bathrooms. Yeah. We owe it to our students to find a program that does work. Mm-Hmm. Yes. And this may be it, but I wanna know if this program is really diverting them from this use or not. Yeah, absolutely. There is like a post, um, follow up mod like module and like, there’s, there’s also itself, they take data at the beginning and at the end. Like there’s a survey at the beginning, a survey at the end, and then there’s some follow up. So, um, whatever we can look at or even add to, if we can look at what the, what’s in the model and say we wanna follow up more. I mean, we can really do whatever we want with it. So Yeah. We definitely wanna make sure that It’s effective. Yeah. Because I wanna, at the end of the day, we want our students to be healthier. Yeah. And knowing if, if this is working,

1:34:19 then maybe we find a way to make it a tier one support. You know what I mean? Like, I’m just, I’m just saying what’s working. Let’s really, really use, and if it’s not working, then let’s find something that does. ‘cause at the end of the day, we just want our students to be healthy. Yeah. We can collect some data and report back. Yeah. So can I ask, so you have, you have nicotine use and you have marijuana use. So nicotine use is, you know, bad. But if someone’s using marijuana in school, then they’re intoxicated. So what happened? Do they go back to class? Like, you know, like what? No, no, no. That was just because to me it just seems like no, the parents are called immediately. Okay. And yeah. And then there’s discipline. Yeah. And diversion’s offered, but Yeah, there, because I mean, it’s probably in conjunction with something else. Okay. Yeah. Great. Okay. I don’t want to, you know, I’m not, obviously not,

1:35:07 I’m not professional and I don’t want to try to compare or contrast, but Yeah. You know, there’s all different types of stuff going on. Yes. And that’s just vaping, that’s just not let alone obviously anything else. Right. Which we’re not Talking about. Does anybody else have any, um, Thanks for that though. It’s helpful. Yeah. And when we get more, still Doubt we We’ll, and think It’s, we’ll let you know how it’s going. Yeah. And I think, I think it’s important, and I think it’s important to refer parents back to the school if that’s, you know, what they’re experiencing or thinking or whatever. It’s Mm-Hmm. It’s gotta Happen. I mean, right now we think we’re doing a pretty good job policing, but if they’re seeing something that we don’t know About, it’s Very, it’s helpful. Right. It’s very interesting to hear that the cell phone policy has, it’s working another, you know, we, we,

1:35:54 we obviously knew that there were some targeted good effects coming out of this, but this is another byproduct that’s beneficial to our students’ health that is coming out this. Yes. So that’s really good to hear how that’s kind of his tentacles out. How I would presume that there are so many tentacles to that One. Yeah. I’ve heard from parents and actually from some staff that the cell, it’s an entirely new world with the cell phones. Yeah. It’s, they’re happy. Like the staff is really happy with it. Unsolicited, you said kids are actually looking at each other and speaking to one another instead Of Doing this interacting. Yeah. Do they have their phones still at lunchtime? I know, I just, They have ‘em in the halls in between class and at lunch. Okay. Yeah, Because there are some school districts right in the Commonwealth that are doing bands. I’ve been sort of reading full, you know, full bands. So it sounds like we’ve seem to be managing.

1:36:40 Yeah. It seems to be going Well with become policy. That’s great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you all. Okay. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks. Thanks guys. Gals, Two of you’re still stuck with us.

1:36:53 That brings us to our school improvement plans. Now I have to be in the middle now. I’ll sort of split the middle. How about that? Are you guys venting together or separately? Separately. I don’t know. You say That separately. Move. Should we move? So I think you’re on first. First. It’s not the same plan. Matt, You’re gonna go first. Just my papers. I had you first, Right? I was gonna say, yeah. Matt’s on the first, but no. So I just wanted to kick this off and explain that. Um, the district’s plan for success is our plan that drives the work that we do. The way in which we achieve our goals is outlined in the plan for success is to ensure that our school-based teams are working in alignment with the plan for success goals. The school improvement plans is created by our school leaders, lists each goal school’s goals as it connects to the focus

1:37:40 Areas of our District improvement outlined in the plan for success. Tonight we’ll be hearing from Veterans Middle School, Matt Fox and Marblehead High School, Michelle Carlson with their improvement plans for their schools. And I’m first, you’re first. I’m first. All right. So I’ll just sort of give the timeline. I think my timeline fits everybody else’s in the district. This started really, so I guess you can say it starts last spring. When we take it, when we finish one plan, we start thinking about the next. It continued to our leadership retreat this summer where we started brainstorming with leadership with common, uh, goals and areas and things like that. It continued into the start of the year when our staff returned and we started talking about our, our, uh, school improvement plans. Uh, once we all formed our sacs, we brought them back to our school councils or,

1:38:26 or si our school Adjust School, what do we call it? I call ‘em school Councils Advisory School. School Advisory councils. Um, and, uh, we’ve actually gone through some, some final revisions with, um, the district administration and brought ‘em back to our faculty and our SACS again. Mm-Hmm. So it’s been a process, um, a good process with some good, good discussions. Uh, so I have two right off the bat. The first one ties with teaching and learning. The strand of teaching and learning MVMS departments will implement professional learning communities to facilitate multiple vertical alignment meetings with Village and MHS, align state standards, teaching practices and assessments. And under that, if we can scroll down a little, do, do I do it here? Oh, there we go. So, um, what this is, and I’ll just sort of generally talk about it, uh, we are creating, the district has created, uh,

1:39:12 four actually different times throughout the year where we’re doing vertical alignment meetings. We’ve already had one, we’re having another one next week, um, with Village and MHS helps us align our curriculum, helps us align our assessment pro process and practices. For example, uh, we’ve heard of Witten Wisdom. Um, we haven’t, you know, as a, as a seven eight building, we weren’t involved in that process. We hadn’t invested in that process. So, uh, I was actually with the English department, uh, on the 25th when we went down to Village. And we got a sample lesson of like a unit of five day lesson on what Witten Wisdom is like. And just from that first, uh, sort of example, you know, I saw some great things at my 10,000 foot level of a, you know, principal thinking of students coming into our building of, um, you know,

1:39:59 as we call habits of mind. So what that lesson we saw was how to analyze text. And so if, if this is, and this is a common, it’s a four step process that’s woven throughout wit and wisdom. So what that means is in a few years is these students go through this, they’re gonna come with a habit of mind of being able to analyze text in the same way. And so our teachers should be able to, should be ready to echo those same practices. And so it’s, it’s something along the lines of saving us time. Because once we know that our students that have come from village have that habit of mind of how to analyze a text or how to approach a text in at least a replicatable way, it just saves us time. It allows us to go into a higher level of discussion in a higher level of examination. So that, that came from a 15 minute share out of the, the village staff there,

1:40:45 the English department. So these, these meetings are great. Uh, like I said, we had the first one on the 25th on the half day, and our English and math teachers went down to village along with our multi-team teachers. So that included our PE and health that were with Julia, our unified arts went down there. Um, and then this time around, it’s gonna be science and social studies heading down. And then also now the high schools available next week. So we’ll also be sending groups up to the high school, the high school too. So that’s our first goal. Do you want me to pause at the end of each goal to sort of take any questions? I think that would be better if people, if people have questions, um, you two just kind of poke me in. Brian and Megan put your hand up so then I know whether to have Matt

1:41:32 continue or, or not. Does anybody have questions on question? I don’t have a question. I just think that’s a great continuity of learning. I love that. Time together is very important. Love it. Our second goal, oh, Brian Does have a question. Oh, Brian. Yeah, Matt. So these get togethers with the other schools, they’re always on the half days. Is that what that is? No, they’re actually the first one was on the half day. And then from now on, they’ll be within that three o’clock to four o’clock PD time on Wednesdays. Because if we always did half days, we would lose a lot of the high school. ‘cause they’re half days aren’t, aren’t committed to that. Okay. Thank you. Yep.

1:42:13 So the second goal, um, I think it was sort of out of order here. It printed twice the second goal. Um,

1:42:26 why did that happen that way? This is, uh, The PLCs. Yeah. The second Improvement strategies are Different. Well, if you scroll down, if you could scroll down our second goal, it, um, yeah, it, it duplicated it in the, in the PDF document in The goal. But the, In the goal, that was weird. All right, let’s go back up and I’ll explain the goal. So the goal, yeah, it got duplicated in the, in the PDF for some strange thing. Um, so the second goal, um, is actually continuing to work. We did work last year. Um, it was, yeah, it’s an odd thing. It’s okay. Just scroll. It’s All in our version too, by the way. Yeah, that’s strange. ‘cause it wasn’t in mine, so it’s okay. I’ll explain it. Uh, the second goal, if you scroll down and take a look at the action steps, um, the second goal is to work on some, to continue some work. We started last year,

1:43:15 um, when we took a look at, uh, what our advisory program is like at vets. And so we started looking at some larger issues of, of how we work with our advisory program and how we, um, increase student engagement and student involvement in our school using the advisory program. And so part of that is this year, um, the goal, we’ve already started this. Uh, we’ve got two active committees going. One, creating a monthly social emotional learning curriculum that we can tie to things that are going on in our school, but also use within our advisory. And then the second part will be creating an engagement type of a calendar where we look for those fun activities, those competitions, those advisory activities that students really enjoy and look back on, such as our spirit day. Like that was the, that was initially when we started this a couple years ago, the first thing we did is looked at our spirit day at the end of the year, um,

1:44:03 a a sort of a big, uh, competition at the end of the year that we instilled and students really liked. So now we’re looking at, uh, creating a replicatable two year approach to that, to that approach. And then, then we have, so our goal is to create, um, you know, more student learning, a more student engagement and more student involvement in our school. And so that’s that goal. And I apologize that it was repeated on that. I apologize for that. Um, uh, Brian’s hand. Yes, Brian? Brian. I didn’t have my hand. You do? Oh. Oh, he is gotta take it down. All right. Um, you can take it down. Okay. Um, if you wanna go into your next goal. Yeah. The next goal is tied to both teaching and learning and professional culture. Uh, we are, we are, uh, taking the next step of a goal that we had last year.

1:44:50 So I’ll start with talking about last year’s goal real quick. Um, what we did last year is we conducted 12 teacher-led workshops of tier one practices. So these are practices part of the MTSS approach that, uh, these are strategies that teachers use to increase access to, to all of our students in our general classrooms. Um, out of that, we had a survey of our, of our teachers, you know, how valuable was this this year. It was extremely valuable to our teachers and they really enjoyed and learned a lot from each other last year. So this year we’re taking the next step and instead of having these workshops, we’re having teachers go in, observe, do peer observations, and then use those observations to, to better their tier one strategies. So our first step is gonna be creating a, a reflective document that stu that teachers will go into without teacher, take some notes on what they’re observing, go back to their, their,

1:45:37 their own classrooms, try to put that tier one into practice, and then reflect on what worked, what didn’t, what they can grow on and things like that. Um, so that, uh, is sort of like the next logical steps. ‘cause teachers are looking to, to have a chance to have these discussions and have these, um, tier one practices actually installed in their classrooms. Um, Brian, I see your hand up again. Yes. So the observations that peer makes going into a classroom, are those shared with the administration or are those just between the teachers? No, I, I’m going to ask. And that’s the sort of process, like you can see the start date is November on this. We’re gonna start working on a document with the lead teacher shortly on, uh, how we collect data out of this because it’s, while the data will be qualitative, there also will be a quantitative when we talk about just pure numbers. Um,

1:46:26 but the qualitative input from teachers as they watch each other learn from each other and then apply it in their classrooms is gonna be a huge thing for us. Um, now as far as who they’re observing, mm-Hmm. Are they, is this self-directed or are you as an administrator identifying whether it’s through scores, whether it’s somehow, I would assume through student outcomes, um, who we want them to be Observing and that’s and yes and no. So I’ll say yes and no because we’ve always encouraged, um, teachers that are new to us, if we identify that they need, if they have an area of growth or something like that, I will find, go out and find them. Someone to that’s similar in personality, similar in management. So they can go in, feel and see how things are successful in that classroom. With veteran teachers, which is the vast majority of my staff, um,

1:47:13 I’m really encouraging them to go outside their team or outside their co-planner because they see their team nearly every day, or maybe not. And then they, they definitely see their co-planner. ‘cause at vets, they co-plan in lockstep. You know, we can, we go from one team to the next in social studies and math and we see the same lessons happening every day. So we we’re really encouraging ‘em, and I’m asking ‘em to go outside of that co-planning. And so it’s, I’m not assigning, I’m sort of saying the restrictions of like, don’t just go and see somebody you already know, because then that’s the, you’re not gonna really pick up a lot of that. Do you, after the first year of this, I don’t know if this is something you’ll con continue, I would assume if it’s successful, you will. Um, do you foresee po possibly using the review, the annual review as an opportunity to kind of direct some staff where as

1:47:58 there’s there evaluator, you may see some areas you want some Growth? Well, as this process rolls out, ‘cause we’re, we’re developing this as, as we go through this this year, um, I’m trying to figure out how we can have sort of some sort of signup where teachers feel that they do something very well that they’d like to share with other people. ‘cause we had like 17 teachers across those 12 workshops last year, who did something very well. Were proud of what they were doing, and were recognized by me or Julia or their peers as, oh, this person does this really well. So they stepped up and taught it. So we wanna provide somehow through this process, and again, we’re working on this, um, you know, the ability for a teacher to say, Hey, I think I’m great at boom, whoever wants to see it come in on these days. You know, sort of like a, almost like a, a a signup approach where it’s like,

1:48:47 I’m gonna be working on these things this day. So it’s gonna be a process as we get through this. I really think November, December into January is gonna be structure development time. And we’re really looking at sort of that February, March, April sort of bang out these observations.

1:49:02 I can’t wait to see how this one turns out. I, I’m excited. We’ll see how it goes and we’ll, we’ll go from there. And then our last one, uh, our last goal is related to um, diversity equity inclusion. Uh, last year our, uh, outstanding DEI committee, uh, finished up the year with a student belonging survey. And so we have all this data from students. And so that’s our next step is we’re gonna take all that data, pull it apart, analyze it, see how the students feel about our school, how they feel about their peers, treating them, how they feel about the adults working with them and sort of working out the next steps, working. We improve things. And this is a goal that’s gonna wind through if you see most of our other goals. ‘cause you know, we talked about increasing involvement and engagement through our advisory program. This is gonna help us wind through that. You know, we’re talking about how teachers work with students in their classroom.

1:49:50 That’s part of tier one instruction. So really this is a goal. While it is separate, really winds through the rest of our plan. Alright, any questions? Let’s see you, Michelle. Thank you.

1:50:10 It’s to you. I’m waiting for it to change. Oh. And I like how you make it nice and big for my eyes

1:50:17 to put these on.

1:50:26 Awesome.

1:50:37 Thanks. Thank you, Frank. Okay. So, um, you’ll see some of, um, similarities with mine and Matt’s. So, um, my first one is MHS. We’ll update scope and sequence for each course. Update curriculum and fully aligned completed scope and sequence with the Vets Middle school. Um, I, I think I put more action steps than I probably need to on here, but It’s okay. Um, we started this already because what we did was we are, um, linking in our teacher evaluation and administrator evaluation in with all of these goals as well. So, um, during the first three days of pd, we, we presented this out to the faculty and we also wrote some goals to share with

1:51:23 them if they wanted to adopt those goals as their own for their evaluations. Um, so those first two improvement strategies are complete. That was done in October where all that information was shared out. Um, the rest of it is sort of throughout the year now. So, um, we’ve given collaboration time, um, and time to monitor the progress that we’re making during our PLC times and our school improvement plan. Um, times for meeting, which is after schools on Wednesdays. And, um, we’ll probably take some time with some of the, um, departments too during our, um, upcoming day in December. Um, So the next is to conduct data analysis meetings, which has already happened.

1:52:11 So when MCAS results were released, um, English and math and Science started doing their item analysis in their PLC department times to look at the questions and how the students did on those things and make some decisions about if they need to change where things are taught throughout the year or if they needed to add additional things or if there was a skill that um, the students were a little weak on, where do they teach that skill in there. And that will continue throughout the year. Um, and, um, March will be when we take the next MCA, so hopefully that’ll make a difference. Um, and then, um, again, throughout the year, um, in these meetings they will be collaborating. They’ll be developing some project-based assessments and some common assessments

1:53:00 and creating rubrics for those things as well. Um, and as a result, exemplars will come out of that which will be shared with all the faculty so that there are things that they can share, um, for this. Any questions? Um, no. One question, and this is probably something I should have asked, um, Matt as well. It’ll be something I kind of address with everybody as we go through this Sure. In our quest that we, we obviously need vertical and horizontal alignment. We under, I think we all understand the importance of that, um, and the importance of all students having the same level of an experience. Mm-Hmm. Um, what I also wanna make sure is that we have such amazing educators that we’re not, um,

1:53:46 in the spirit of equity Mm-Hmm. Confusing equity and sameness Mm-Hmm. That we’re still allowing our educators to do the special lessons they do. And, you know, tonic jumps into my mind some of the stuff she does, um, that, that those special things that each teacher, you know, really has perfected, um, as their signature, if you wanna say Mm-Hmm. That they’re still able to do and, and kids are still learning things, having the same access to curriculum, but that there is

1:54:18 so uniqueness. Yep. Okay. Can I, can I speak to that real quick? ‘cause you, you brought up, I mean I, I, I think Yes, and I think I, I agree with you that there’s a uniqueness to to, you know, if we were both social studies teachers, you know, both teaching X, y, or Z class the same. There is some uniqueness because we’re different folks. Um, but I think if we’re talking lesson planning, curriculum assessment, you know, we want everybody to have that same experience. So even though, yeah, you bring up, you brought up Tony Callahans, Tony Callahan and Derek Jones of my two seventh grade science teachers. Um, they’re both, they’re both great personalities. A little bit different, but at the same time they co-plan every day. So even though it might seem unique to Tawny, it’s, it’s actually not, it’s, it’s something that both her and Derek are planning with together because we,

1:55:06 we, especially in our school, we don’t want teams to be seen as different, you know, we don’t want the experience that students have on a black team versus a red team to be different. Inherently there’s differences. ‘cause we don’t clone people, you know, from going to one team to the next. So inherently there’s some difference. But I, as a, as an administrator, I wanna be able to see the same lessons, the same concepts, the same assessments being done for all my students that are having the same classes. And so if it’s a great lesson and it’s a unique thing to Tawny, she should be working with Derek to work on him being able to do that too. Mm-Hmm. And so that’s that piece of that, when we talk about these tier one strategies working together, that’s what we’re working towards. It’s not sameness, it’s not, it’s not,

1:55:54 you know, losing creativity. It’s sharing creativity, it’s sharing expertise, and it’s making sure that all the students have that same experience. So I, I see where you’re coming at. I, I, and we don’t try to quelch creativity. Yeah. It’s just, let’s share that creativity with everybody. So all of our students get those experiences together. How do you account? So it’s one thing that to have them, they co-plan for lessons and, and assessments, but every teacher grades differently, especially on the more qualitative ones. So they actually grade together in my building. They do co grading a lot of the times. Uh, they’ll sit down and they’ll talk about data in their PLC meetings. And, you know, I did this, I did this. And they’ll literally pass around the, the, the items that they’re grading. Um, we used to have, when, uh, we did other,

1:56:43 some, some, some of the large assignments that have evolved into other things, we had multiple teachers grading the same paper. Um, so we do, you know, I, I really hope that as students are going through, they’re experiencing even the same grading. Because what we’re doing with grading is taking a look at what we’re assessing, which is what are we teaching? And, and it’s all sort of, if we don’t know what we’re gonna grade or how we grade it, then we’re what are we teaching? And We’re not, are we using any AI or anything for grading? Well, No, but I, I was talking, Michelle and I had a, Michelle and I had an outstanding meeting a couple weeks ago where she told me about the social studies project that they’re gonna use. And I’m gonna leave that to her to talk. But I got all excited about it. Uh, ‘cause as principles, we meet once a month too, just sort of chat about some things. And she had, she has some great stuff with social studies and ai. So that,

1:57:29 that’s kind of cool. I’ll let her speak about it, but it’s not part of the plan. So maybe later. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you a little bit about what’s going on. ‘cause AI is so new right now. Julia was actually down, and we went to a, a one of these meetings where the teachers were all in, there was like five of them together talking about what they’re using, how they’re using it. Um, and what they are doing is they’re just starting to roll it out now, and it’s giving feedback, um, to the students and giving them a chance to correct what they’ve done. But they are letting the AI grade it, but they are also grading it to compare to C because this is so new right now to make sure that it’s in line with their expectations for grading as well. So what came to my mind when she told me about it, was like a virtual virtual writer’s workshop. Mm-Hmm. With ai.

1:58:18 So it’s like, try this. Have you, have you tried this part or have you thought about adding some of this into it? It’s not feeding, it’s not, but it’s prompting, which is at the middle school especially what, what we do when we teach students to write. We’ve Been using a version of this with turnitin.com for many Years to just add, We get to try new things. So this is definitely a topic. I’m just, I I would like to bring on a future very soon. Com Mm-Hmm. I would like to hear more about this as a committee. Mm-Hmm. I don’t wanna get us too far off track, because I, I, It’s a fun topic to talk About. It is fun. Fun. I’m getting a lot. Well, no, but it’s also good opportunity because students often don’t, in the more, you know, um, language, you know, whether it’s social studies, English, that teachers don’t have time to review drafts. Right. I mean,

1:59:05 it’s just the reality. Nec you know, they, that’s what my students experience. You know, that you don’t necessarily have the ability to, it can be a tool. Exactly. So It sounds like we’re using technology to get feedback on students writing for years now. This is a new thing that’s being tried out. And we’re, so there’s no need to have this. Um, like this is just a new thing that we’re trying, but we’ve been doing turn it in. We’ve been using computer programs for many years to support teachers With better approach. And it’s not an instead of approach. You know, if we, if as we go into this, it’s not an Addition, I will, um, just, I will work offline to put this on an agenda. Sure. I’m thinking probably the first one in December. So if you wanna work with your team and let them know, we’ll wanna hear more about this and you can coordinate that. I think this would be a good presentation topic for us for another meeting.

1:59:50 But I do wanna, it’s nine o’clock. I’m sure we’ll wanna keep us as much on track as we can here. So am I good to go on? Yeah, you’re Good To go. Okay. So this actually is a nice segue to the next goal. So, um, MHS will provide professional learning opportunities to support educator development includes best practices. So in this, um, there are things that we, um, had to roll out earlier this year, like the smart pass and teach the teachers how to use it. And so we did that back in August. And in the high school, all the classrooms have the smart panels in them now, which we did roll out some training on that, but we haven’t rolled it out completely. So that will be happening in December as well. On that PD day, we’re gonna have, um,

2:00:37 breakouts with groups of teachers throughout the day that we’ll be meeting with a trainer to learn all about how they use it and maybe learn some things they don’t know about it. Um, and this month I’m creating a survey to send out to faculty to see what they, our needs are for their pd. ‘cause I don’t wanna assume what they are. They’ll tell me what they need, and then I’ll work to get some of that in. Um, we do have some teachers that will be going out to conferences throughout the year. They’ll come back and present back to the entire staff so we can get some bang for our buck there, where they go out and learn. And then they, they teach us what they’ve learned. Um, and then we will have teachers also visiting their colleagues in classes to look at what’s being implemented and learn from their colleagues there. Um,

2:01:25 and I think that’s, So for that survey, you’ll be communicating that those results with Julia. So Julia, you can, um, implement, take that information and put it in as your budget drivers. Absolutely. All right. So, yep. We, we all work Very closely together. And it’s been, because I, I think the survey like that is great. Mm-Hmm. It tells us, you know, we’re spending money on things teachers want and need. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Yep. So that’ll, that’ll be, that’s gonna be exciting this year too for, um, and then the last, A school goal is a school-based committee. This is a continuation from last year, um, of teachers, administrators, social workers, and school counselors will convene to develop resources and exemplars for staff to incorporate culturally responsive practices into classroom instruction. Um,

2:02:12 so we do have ADEI, um, P-F-S-P-L-C that meets monthly. They are creating a survey to send out to students in Magic Block. Um, and then they will re review all that data and share it out with us once that’s done. And that will be happening by January. Um, they are also going to be identifying classrooms that are doing some really good culture responsive classroom work. And we’ll invite teachers to come and, um, see what their colleagues are doing. And as far as students go, there’s been a couple things that we have put in for this year so far. So we had to do the world of difference training for, um, the students in what was called Team Harmony,

2:02:57 but now called a World of Difference. So the ADL training for that is in process right now. And I believe next week is their second, um, the 14th. So two weeks. Let me here. Before you know it, we also brought in, um, some women in leadership training to some of the female athletes, the be very beginning of the school year. Um, and she’s going to come back and do another training of athletes. And we are also looking at bringing, um, someone in for the boys as well. Um, and the kids that did attend that said it was, it was great. So we’ll expand that to not just athletes for the second time as well, and get some other kids involved with that. Um,

2:03:40 okay. Down a little bit. Um, I said them all the classrooms. And then, um, at the end of the year in May, there will be another, um, survey that will go out to staff where staff is surveyed. And we’ll take a look at that to see, you know, how is it working? What, what else do we need to do here? So, Yeah. Um, I am this year. Uh, one thing I’d like to do that’s a little different, um, is I’d like to have you guys come back for, you know, not as comprehensive of an overview, but maybe around February mm-Hmm. All the different principles to give us a status update. Sure. So I think it’s really helpful for the committee to hear how these are being operationalized and what the results are. ‘cause then we can give feedback that might help, um, with next steps. I think, you know, in the BA in the past,

2:04:27 the committee has approved these and kind of then just moved on and not asked or thought about them till a year later. And I, I think a lot of i, having been on an SAC, a lot of work goes into these. So, um, I think it would be good to, to see that work in action. Um, one thing that I always think about when I was on your SAC, you at that time, were going to pilot a program where the students were leading, um, the conference with the parents. They had a portfolio that they would present, and then Yeah, we covid hit and it got people Yeah. We were, that was, uh, the year of Covid. Yeah. Uh, so we, uh, we sort of got blown up that year. Uh, we were gonna, we had two teachers that wanted to pilot student led conferences. Um, so it’s, it’s, as you know,

2:05:13 it’s been a tumultuous few years Yeah. In education. So I’m sure we’ll come back to that at some point. Um, especially with change, it was a wonderful idea, especially with changes in like parent-teacher conference times, calendar wise, things like that. Um, but it, it is something that’s, that’s in the back of the mind that that, that we wanna come back to. And like I said, I had two teachers in the same team that were willing to, that have had experience with it in other school districts like I have. Um, and then, uh, but yeah. We’ll, We’ll, we probably, I really hope you look at that again, because I think, um, from hearing the way you pre, at first it was like, uh, but then No, they, they can be very Powerful once presented it, it really, it, um, you know, just high level, it really gave students ownership and pride in their work. And when they were had more buy-in, it seemed like they could achieve

2:05:59 More. We, we were gonna do a short trial the fourth quarter of 2019. 2019. I know. I remember. I was really excited to see it happen and then, and It just, uh, March 13th happened. So, But just something to think about. Yeah. It still stuck with me all these years later. Even through all this chaos. It’s, Yeah. We, you know, I, we rolled, I don’t wanna say we, but you know, it was part of a group that helped, uh, roll it out, roll out in Georgetown years and years and years ago. So that was many years ago. Um, and it’s, it’s a very powerful, um, process if done correctly. Yeah. Um, hopefully we’ll see that soon. Thanks. Anybody have any questions? Thank, um, so I’ll ask for motion to approve the Veterans Middle School in Marblehead High School School Improvement Plans as presented. So moved.

2:06:45 Moved by Jen Schaffner. Second. Seconded by Allison Taylor. Roll call vote. Brian ota. Uh, Megan Taylor. Yes. Allison Taylor. Jen Schaffner in favor, Sarah Fox approved. And motion carries five zero. Thank you for your time. Thank, thank you both. Thank you. Thanks for sticking it out. Thanks. You Take, I can, I don’t have to, I can stay. It’s late. I, I just want, I’m gonna give the policy update. I just wanna have an opportunity to talk about how we can get student input. I’ll, are you sure? Yeah. Okay. Lemme go first. And then All subcommittee and liaison updates. I will kick it. All right. So I’ll, I’ll do, um, I’ll do the policy, um, subcommittee update. Uh, Allison and I are the policy subcommittee. Um, we did meet, uh, last week.

2:07:32 Um, we did talk about student electronic usage. We did get that. Mm-Hmm. Or we have actually some question we’re following up on that. Yes. Um, so that will be coming back. That’s I nj, I-N-J-D-B or I think it was. Um, so we’ll be coming back to the committee after we get some questions answered on student. Um, it’s basically student email usage. Um, the main, um, issue that we talked about was, um, this idea of a flag policy. I don’t like calling it that. I think we’re gonna find a better name for it. But, um, I do think there’s a lot of misinformation. I think you kind of cleared that up a little bit. Um, so, you know, the genesis of this was, there’s been some, some challenges around, um, the policy of flags and banners and signage in

2:08:18 the high school. I don’t know if it’s been in the other schools. I think it’s primarily been in the high school. And so what is a natural thing to do is to say, okay, well, what’s our policy? And, um, you know, Sarah said, we, you know, we, we didn’t have a policy around this. We do actually have a flag policy, which is that we have a flag, American flag US flag in every classroom, or we’re supposed to, and it, which is a state law, and that the, um, students do the pledge of alle or are led in the Pledge of Allegiance every day, which is also a state law. I found out in my research. Um, and that was the extent of it. So in light of all this, we came together, I did some research. Allison and I did, um, you know, separately and came together. There are districts in the Commonwealth that are starting to do this. Framingham has like a three page policy, which is interesting.

2:09:05 I don’t think that necessarily is right for us. But they have a pretty, um, detailed policy. And I also reached out to a couple school committees, um, in the Commonwealth. I’ve been playing telephone tag, so I can report back Allison if, if I’m able to reach some of these, um, committee members who have made changes. But, so we’re in the process of doing that. I anticipate that we will have a meeting next week, you know, hopefully schedules, um, allowing for that to review what our attorney has, um, recommended in terms of our draft. And we may or may not at that time have a policy to come forward with the school committee. In the meantime, we’ve had a number of students primarily from the high school. It’s not always clear, but most of them, i I, or if not all of ‘em from the high school, um, you know, feeling,

2:09:50 interestingly enough, not necessarily stating what they want for a flag policy, but that they want, well, most of ‘em actually want it to be the decision of the students. Mm-Hmm. And the student, um, student council. Student council I’m hearing, or student government, student council. So I, I think that just, you know, again, for the record, I think we said this the other day, I mean, um, in regards to policy, you know, state law requires that the school committee actually sets policy for our schools. And I think we all probably understand that. But that being said, I think that, um, you know, the students rightfully want and need and deserve a voice, you know, so it’s easy enough for us to say, just come to our meeting and, you know, and speak. And we could actually do that depending on how we schedule it. Um,

2:10:37 maybe we can schedule it around school council, um, student council meeting, or maybe we can just work and find a way that we can hear from them in a way that they feel like they’re heard. You know, and that we can also talk about what, you know, what we are faced with. Because I think there needs to be some education on that too, you know, in terms of what, you know, what our role is. And, you know, we’re talking about all the schools in the town, not just the high school and, and all that sort of stuff. I also think it’s important to note a lot of them. And I, I think it’s amazing how much feedback we got from the students. Mm-Hmm. Wonderful to see. I we do have to have one though. I think that is the one other piece that I,

2:11:25 I, however it happened, I think maybe it’s a little bit misconstrued. It wasn’t us just saying, we, Hey, let’s have a flag policy. We were asked about it, we were asked what our policy was because of some things that had occurred and we didn’t have one. And when that happens, it’s really our job to create one. Um, so I think that that is just another thing I wanna make sure is good point, clear as well, the kind of the why, the true why behind this. Um, And we also have Dr, um, McGinnis starting next week too. Mm-Hmm. So obviously we need to, you know, bring her in and have her thoughts on this. So I think, as I had said before, and I’ve said, and, and it’s been quoted in the past that, um, this isn’t going happen. You know, I mean, this is going to probably take a little bit more time than a policy normally would as we start, you know, trying to, um,

2:12:13 formulate something that works for all of us, for our administrators, for our teachers, for our students, for our community, and that everybody feels they’ve had an opportunity to be heard, but that what we’re doing is fair and safe and right for all of our students and members of our community to feel comfortable and safe and, um, comfortable and safe in their valued, in their learning, in valued in their learning environment. So anyway, that’s all I wanna say that maybe we can work on what the best way is so that they do feel like they incorporate that. Yeah. They’ve, you know, I don’t anticipate them wanting to come to every policy meeting, like around certain mundane things, but this seemed to have been something important. So I think it’s, it’s worthwhile. No, it’s, it’s incumbent on us to

2:12:59 Make This happen From the full committee perspective for when this comes to us. Finally, I would like to see some data, um, like through a survey or something from, from students to speak. Um, I’m very impressed with the students we’ve heard from so, so far. It takes a lot of courage sometimes to come into what is seen as an adult venue and, and to have your voice. Um, not every student is comfortable asserting their voice or, um, feeling, you know, comfortable in this venue. So I would like to give all students an opportunity to be heard and, and maybe we can figure out a way to do that, whether it’s a survey or something like that. Yeah. And also It’s like an open response survey or Something. I think we need to also feel that we’re able to reach our, our families and students who are not in Marblehead, that are in Boston, that,

2:13:46 that, you know, they also have an opportunity to, um, to engage and to share their thoughts. So we’ll just, that’s all we’ll work. Maybe we’ll work through Dr. McGinnis and you to do Thank you. Thank you for sticking. That’s, I just wanted to make sure that you heard that. So, thanks. So that was the update on the policy. So we’ll be, we’ll be, it’ll be oh a a bit of time before we’re back to the committee, because I think the plan would be, Alison, correct me if I’m wrong, that we would formulate what the subcommittee believes is the best draft. And that would come to the school committee. I think we can consider it a reading, whatever we wanna do, but I’m, I’m gonna assume this committee’s gonna, full committee’s, gonna wanna have some mm-Hmm. Also absolutely discussion and input and it could then change. Thank you. Um, so finance, um,

2:14:34 Michelle kind of already touched on a lot of this. Um, just to kind of go another layer deeper on, what we were able to do in our subcommittee was really dive into the data that Michelle provided to the whole committee. We talked, uh, a little bit, we looked at some trends of some areas where last year when we know that we’re closed, we’ve closed out FY 23, where the historical overage has been, it’s no surprise. Um, one of the biggest overages is outta district transportation. It’s transportation as a whole is such a volatile market right now. Um, and the outta district transportation is, is very volatile. Um, and so we, the important part here is we are looking at those trends. We’re really, um, looking at the data to,

2:15:23 to inform areas we need to really focus on as we move forward. Um, so that’s where we are. And Dr. McGinnis was able to join us at that meeting, which was great. Yeah, it was great. Um, so that right from the get go, even though she wasn’t, you know, hadn’t had our start date yet, um, she’ll be able to hit the ground running and have full understanding of where we are with the budget. ‘cause she’ll be jumping in kind of right at kickoff time. Um, Megan, any, do you have any feedback from, I know there was the METCO day at Gillette. I’m not sure if you were able to get down there. I know I saw you over at, um, village. All of our kids had something on that same day. Um, if you were able to get down to that afterwards and have any feedback to bring,

2:16:08 I I think that’s probably a discussion for a future, um, a future meeting where we can really dig into it in more detail and have, um, Keisha and caia present as well. Okay. Um, were you able to get to that?

2:16:24 I could not go. Oh, okay. Um, alright. Anything from CPAC Or,

2:16:31 Okay. Um, all right. That brings us, that’s it. Oh, I’m sorry, Brian. Safety, Safety superintendent. Safety advisory meeting we met last Friday. Everybody’s working very hard to get the ALICE protocols in place. I think it’s an important thing given all the events in the last month or two. So, um, that’s happening and everyone else is working on all the drills, fire alarms and all of that. And I, I’m very happy with the way that committee’s going. Thank you so much for sharing that information. Brian. Um, I do not have any new school committee announcements or requests. Don’t know if anybody else does. I have a, oh, go ahead. No, go ahead Brian. Go ahead. In the past, the school committee had rotated some of the meetings to the schools and I

2:17:19 would like us to consider doing that again. You know, um, when we went, when they came to Glover, they gave us I think 10 minutes to do presentations. The students were able to present and it was really exciting for the kids and the teachers to be able to have the school committee meeting in our building. I would suggest we start looking at doing that again somewhere during, later in the year when we have more time. Oh, that’s wonderful. And, um, you may be able to answer this, was Dr. McGinnis may have had some experience in this when she was here. I don’t know if that was happening then, but she’ll be able to help us facilitate that with our building principles.

2:17:58 Great. Megan? Yeah, two things I’d like to get, um, on, I guess for the next agenda for this committee to discuss is, with Dr. McGinnis coming on board, making sure that we’ve got some priorities set for her. It’s what we did when we had, um, bill McCall in. We set priorities that we really wanted the interim superintendent to focus on. So we could keep that, um, we could keep that role very focused. Um, so I just would like us to think about if that’s something we wanna do for Dr. McGinnis again as focusing specifically on what the priorities are for that interim role. Um, just to That, the other thing I’d like to, I just wanna answer that, um, that’s definitely something we’re gonna do. It was part of her contract that we all just approved last week, that we would meet and work with MASC to talk, to develop, um,

2:18:46 goals for her and go through that process. So that was actually a paragraph in her, um, in her contract that we just approved. So that’s definitely gonna happen when she we on when she onboards. Okay. Great. And then the other piece is just determining if we are going to do a permanent superintendent search or not just thinking about the timeline. Um, you know, making sure that we give ourselves enough time if we do decide to do it, um, to, to do that in, you know, with, with fidelity. So I think we should really talk about that in our next meeting and decide what our approach is gonna be. Okay. That item I probably will push into one of our December meetings just because our next agenda is getting fuller and, um,

2:19:32 that, that’s a conversation I don’t wanna feel rushed with. I think that putting that off for one more meeting is appropriate so that we can, we can have a more time on the agenda to have a more robust discussion. So I’ll, I’ll put that on a future agenda. It won’t be the exact next one. I think just in terms of timeline, just thinking about it realistically, and I know we started a little bit early the last time we did a permanent surge, but we started that process in like September. So that by October we had kind of the profile that we were the candidate profile. November, we had the team together in December, we were doing interviews. So I just think we’re like already kind of a little bit behind the eight ball if it is something we wanna do. So I would highly suggest that we talk about it in our next meeting. So,

2:20:20 Um, I’ve talked to the consultants and I, um, we talked about this during the meeting when the consultants were, um, came and presented to us. We had, this was a topic that came up, uh, timeline and when it should happen. And they had talked about, um, as long as we start that process in January, then we’ll be, we’ll be right on where we should. And that’s according to them and they’re the subject matter experts. So, um, it’s definitely something we’re, we’re talking about is, is on our horizon and has been all along. Um, so we, that that was also covered. Um, are there any others announcements or? No. All right then. So I will adjourn us at 9 21.

2:21:06 Thank you.