School Committee: January 4, 2024

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

0:00 Um, I’ll call us to order at seven oh one. Um, the first item on the agenda is commendations. Anybody has commendations? Okay. Um, public comment. If there’s anybody who has public comment, if you can just raise your hand in the participant window, or if you’re in person, just come on up. Um, and state your name and address for the record.

0:36 Mary McKay, 46 Pinecliff Drive. I’m gonna make this quick ‘cause I know I get the three minute, but my phone has been blowing up today in early tonight. People have asked me to come in and let’s just do it and say, please do the community, the students, the teachers, everyone a favor, and please step down. Resign. You have made this town into complete chaos for the seven, the last seven months, really. So why don’t you do something morally right and step down. Theresa Michelle, good luck on your endeavors. Thank you, Mary. Anybody else has a comment?

1:23 If you just wanna raise your hand.

1:28 Okay. So that brings us to more people to admit to the, um, superintendent update, and I’ll kick that off to Dr. McGinnis. Thank you. So we have a few announcements this evening, um, that I have shared in the school committee memorandum. First off, um, we have a new folk in our audience here that I’m gonna introduce in just a minute. Um, we’re very pleased to announce that Mr. Dan Richards is now the interim principal at Glover School as of today, um, for the duration of Principal Doran’s leave, which is undefined at this time. Mr. Richards, most of you may know, is presently the assistant principal at Marblehead High School. Um, interim Principal Richards, as he’s now called, comes to us with over 25 years of experience in education sector,

2:16 including being a teacher, department, head, assistant principal, house master, and principal. Um, prior to coming to Marblehead as the assistant principal at the high school, um, I think it was about a decade or so that Dan Richards, um, was a principal, uh, sixth of those years at Belmont High School, and maybe four at Georgetown High School. So he comes with a lot of experience, um, being the principal. Um, today, he, uh, and maybe we’ll share also, uh, we met with the staff at the end of the school day, and he shared how he got, um, hugs. He got, uh, out standing ovation from classes, you know, just a very different experience from what his experience has been at the high school here, um, and that he was so joyous to, um, be in that role.

3:01 Uh, so we are so pleased Dan is right here, for those of you that don’t know him, um, that he, um, you know, when I, when I introduced this concept to him after we had a team that was looking for an interim principal and it, and we weren’t able to, um, to hire someone, um, I talked to Dan and his first thing was like, this sounds like a really good opportunity. Let me talk to Matt. And he did. Um, and Matt sold him on how great a school Glover is. Um, and while he was pained at thinking about transitioning for this period of time, um, from Marblehead High School, uh, he, you know, said, I think that I could lean into this in a really good way to support teachers and students at that school. And so we really appreciate that.

3:48 We are, um, putting out an advertisement or job description right now for an interim, um, assistant principal at Marblehead High School, but for the short period we’re here. Um, and I wanted to thank you for stepping up. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Um, another one, um, because Dan is taking over Matt Fox, uh, we’ll be heading back to the middle school on Monday. Um, so I wanna personally thank both assistant superintendent Julia Ferrera and Matt Fox, the Veterans Middle School principal for their unwavering support of both vets and of Glover School respectively. During about three to four weeks, um, your willingness and expertise and their supportive styles with staff,

4:35 um, was appreciated. And it, it made sure that both schools flourished during this time of change. So thanks to both of you for being great leaders. Um, it certainly takes a village, and particularly in times like these, um, to move through these challenges with dedication and grace. And, uh, Julia and Matt exemplified that. So appreciate that. Another big announcement, um, our assistant superintendent finance right here in operations, um, today, she made, um, a, an, an, um, an announcement earlier today that she has accepted a role as the Director of Finance and operations in Manchester Essex Regional School District after more than four years dedicated to Marblehead Public Schools. And as Michelle stated, she is returning to her roots, um,

5:22 in regional school finance. And I appreciate greatly, uh, what I know of her work, um, in my short time here serving Marblehead Public Schools and most recently as the acting super and who she passed the gavel over to me. So that, that has been such a, a good experience. Um, we will definitely miss her. Um, but I also appreciate that she’s committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition to working, um, including, um, helping me in developing the FY 25 budget to ensure it’s ready for town meeting. Um, and so she will be with us through March 22nd. And so thank you for everything. And I didn’t know, thank you, Michelle. You guys wanted to add anything bittersweet, as you said, bittersweet.

6:08 Yeah. Yes, Sarah. I mean, I, I, I wish you nothing but all the best. I I think it goes, you know, I think everybody who’s, who’s seen us work together, um, knows how much I have enjoyed working with you. What an asset you’ve been to our district. You really exemplify the okay, all hangs on deck. What can I do to help everybody? What part can I do to make this better? Um, there’s been a lot of times we’ve asked you to do something that a lot of people would be, would’ve ran out and been and said no, and you always have said, you know, how can I, how can I be helpful and I’ll, I will eternally be grateful for that, and for grateful for how good our we working relationship has been.

6:55 Um, I wish you all the best. I am really jealous of Manchester Essex, um, but you know, you will be an absolute asset to their community as you have been to ours. So, I am, I am very grateful and I’m confident that although we did not take a vote on that, I think we’re all eternally grateful. Yes. Thank you, Michelle. Best of luck with everything. I’m still here for a while. Yeah, Well, unless you change your cell phone number, you’ve got some of us forever. Forever. That’s okay. Um, so thank you. And if I, um, I, I’m gonna jump back for a second to accommodations. ‘cause I was, I, I, I really, that would’ve been the proper place, but I’m gonna do it here too.

7:41 I just wanna commend our leadership team, because the last few months have been a lot. You know, that’s not a big enough word, I get that. But I’ve really seen a team spirit. I, I have seen at all times our leadership team acting in that way. I just talked about Michelle of, okay, what do you need, Matt? Okay, I’ll go work with, you know, the, at first I could only picture Matt with, you know, the preschoolers and the kindergartners. And from what I hear, like he, they loved it. He loved it. And Julia’s like, okay, I’ll take on a second job too. And that seems to be the theme this year for our administrators, is, can you take a second job? Um, so I’m just so eternally grateful for the,

8:28 the spirit of really doing what they can to help their colleagues and ultimately help our students. So I’m really proud of our leadership team and just wanna take a moment to, to thank everyone that’s been a part of that. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I’m back to you. Sure. Um, just a, I I think most people might know this from a earlier announcement, but there was a water break on the 22nd, the Friday before the holiday break, um, at the, uh, district offices at the Maryelle building. And, um, just to let folks know that we are moving this week, tomorrow will be finalized, and most of us are living at the Brown School. So, um, we ha we’re kind of temporary housing till right before February vacation there. Um, so right now use email

9:15 and by next week we will post on our website, you know, who’s in what office and all of that. But you can certainly use email to reach any of us right now. Um, can I ask a question On that? Yes, may. Yeah. And it may be a you or Steven question, I’m not sure. Um, so when people call central admin, just for the public to know and follow the prompts, will those, maybe not the first couple days, will those, you’ve already got it, don’t you? Yeah. So that will get you to where you need to go. Alright. Thank you. I wasn’t sure of that. Yeah, thanks. Um, the next, uh, announcement is a change in the district student services department. In response to recent inquiries that we have received regarding the Marvel Head Public School Student Services Department, we wanna update the Marvel Head

10:00 Public School community. To let you know that the district, um, Dr. Paula Donnelly and Emily Dean have mutually agreed to end their employment relationship. And as such, the district will begin a search process for the interim director of student Services immediately. Um, our HR manager is setting up the interview process, which will include a school committee member, a parent on our CPA among many other educators and administrators. So that will be forthcoming next week in order to ensure that our students receive their necessary support and services. Both Dr. Donnelly and Ms. Dean have agreed to assist the superintendent in any necessary support during the transition. Additionally, um, I have organized a student services

10:46 committee that will focus on the transition a hundred percent. And principals are working closely with their team chairs to continue the primary, to be the primary contact for the student, the staff, and the parent community inquiries or needs. Um, we appreciate Dr. Donnelly and Ms. Dean’s collective service, and the district wishes them well as they pursue other opportunities in the field of education.

11:11 Um, we hired two new BCBAs, uh, over the winter break as well. And, um,

11:22 Mariana Oh, second. Um, so we welcome two new district-wide board certified BC uh, behavior analysts who will join us, uh, did join us this week. Uh, Catherine Woods is at the Brown School, and Emily Putin is at the Glover School. And our BCBA, Kristin fl, I can’t even speak today, Phelps, sorry. We’ll continue to work district-wide, primarily at Village, um, and at vets, but at other schools from time to time as well. We have a great event coming up. Um, next week, Chris Herron for two events with the students. Um, he will be, uh, an assembly in the field house during the day from 1230 to two 30, and an evening event for parents and community members in the auditorium from six 30 to eight.

12:07 He’s a former NBA Celtics player from Fall River, Massachusetts. And Chris had a successful professional basketball career, um, when he lost it all to the disease of addiction. Chris has now been sober for 15 years and has since shared his journey with others, with the goal of having a positive impact on them. Chris will also speak to, as I said, the entire student body. And all these events happen on January 10th. They’re sponsored by the Marblehead Public Schools, PCOS and the Female Humane Society and the Vader family. And then I just have some notable dates, and the ones that are upcoming are the January 10th, then January 15th is no school for Martin Luther King Day and January 21st, Marblehead Public School’s next school committee meeting.

12:54 And finally last, and then we, we’ll move on. I know it’s a big day of announcements. Um, after considerable reflection, I have decided not to seek the permanent superintendent position in Marblehead Public Schools and in moving forward in a different direction, um, to pursue alternative opportunities. Um, but as I have since November 6th, my start date, I will work diligently and strategically alongside our fine leadership team in the school committee, um, to perform the roles and responsibilities of the interim superintendency in the best interest of our students and our staff. Um, and I’m also prepared to work, um, for and plan with through a successful transition to the next superintendent of schools through June 30th, 2024. And that’s it.

13:40 Thank you so much. And I have, I have complete confidence, um, that you, that you will do exactly that and help that transition and, and bring, you know, forth for the next few months what, you know, that that energy and that commitment we’ve seen. And I’m, I’m grateful for that. So thank you very much. Welcome. Someone else is unmuted. Can you just make, um, I, oh, uh, uh, uh, let me, I’ll work on it. Um, yes, I can do that in a second. Good time. Um, just to, uh, Steven, are you able to make Allison a co-host as well from your side? Somehow people keep getting unmuted and I don’t want it to stop other people from hearing. Um, just bear with me for one second.

14:26 Um, I think I did, uh, that brings us next to our FY budget status update. Yeah. Assistant Superintendent Cresta. So, on Tuesday this week, we held a working budget meeting with principals, Dr. McGinnis, assistant superintendent, Julia Ferrera, um, Emma Lesi from the business office and myself. Um, we discussed a lot of things. We had about a three hour meeting. It was a great session. The first thing we discussed was the initial for any additional staffing requests, given recent events, um, because the budgets were produced a couple weeks ago. So a lot of things have happened in a couple weeks. So we talked about that. Um, we reviewed developing a school story to create a more informed narrative for our budget books, um, for each of our school locations.

15:12 We started to examine our enrollment projections and staffing assignments and how to dive into that, that staffing, um, project that we were ta been talking about. And lastly, we discussed any additional funding sources that might be available to us this year. Mostly it’s one time funding. Um, we have the last of the Esser funds that we need to spend by this coming fall, but we’re looking at one time costs that we might be able to apply to those. Our next budget session will focus on buttoning up those areas that we just, that I just mentioned, as well as working on the process of arriving at a level funded budget per the Toms request. Um, that’s gonna be a very difficult process, but we, we will somehow get there. Um, in addition, I do wanna mention right now we had planned on having the budget books available next Friday, January 12th.

15:58 I think we should probably push those out a few days because now that we had this budget working session, um, principals have been tweaking their budgets. Um, most of them have submitted them, but now it’s an additional analysis and we wanna make sure really that budget book is complete before you get it. So it’ll probably be pushed out for a few more days. Um, okay. But I don’t expect any longer than, you know, another four days or so. And Last year we had to do that too. And that’s, that is no problem whatsoever. I have no concerns about that. ‘cause quite frankly, last year we were, I think months ahead of every single department in town with our budget. Yes. So we’ve got a lot of wiggle room. The state of the town is three weeks from last night. Yes. Um, there may be some more information that comes out of that that may be helpful too. So if we wanna hold off in until

16:43 after that to make sure that there’s no movement one way or another. ‘cause that last year, um,

16:51 I think we may have, you know, possibly Mm-Hmm. Done things a little differently if we had had that, some of that information first. Um, so I’m o I’m okay with that. Okay. Um, as far as dates go, because again, it’s much easier to have it come out the first time where it needs to be, rather than having everyone move pieces around later on. The first iteration is really what we go forward with Yeah. For discussion purposes. So it is the more complex or more, you know, complete that is, its Easy start. Do you feel, um, this, I know we’re calling it different things. This staffing accountability study, I think is mm-Hmm. Is that what we landed on for, for a name? Mm-Hmm. Um, will that be ready at the same time that we have? ‘cause ideally that would be available at the same time as,

17:37 um, the budget workshop Ideally, yes. Right now, I can tell you it would not be completed by the, by the end of next week. Yeah. But if we push back a few weeks, if we Push it out a week or two or three, absolutely. Okay. We’ll have that. So I, I, you know, can only speak for me, but, um, I’d rather see that paired with the budget requests. Mm-Hmm. Um, I’d like to hear from the rest of the committee if, if you would like to push this out a couple weeks so we have both those pieces of information. I would, yeah. Anybody else feel strongly on that? I agree. Okay. Awesome. So if we can do both of those. So that 22nd, 23rd is probably off. Yeah. So we’ll get back to that date. It might, it might kick back to the following week, the 29th, 30th mm-Hmm. But we’ll, um, be in touch on that. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Um, sounds good.

18:23 That brings us to the schedule of bills that was in our packet. And so I’ll ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule of bills totaling $996,685 and 92 cents. So moved by Jen Schaffner, by Allison Taylor. Discussion. All in favor opposed? Motion carries five to zero, um, approval of minutes. We had a, uh, a set of minutes in our packet. Um, we have, um, Allison, who’s been doing our minutes, she’s, she did an incredibly thorough job. I was very impressed with the details she captured. I am going to postpone them simply because, um, the level of detail is oh, is

19:11 so robust that I, I wanna have a chance to talk to her and kind of compare it to where our minutes normally there. I think they’re eight pages. Um, and it’s, and it’s a, it, it’s says what everybody says per line. So I just wanted to kind of look back and reflect what we’ve done our standard minutes to, which is kind of, you can recreate the meeting by reading the minutes, but, um, not work. It’s not verbatim. Verbatim. Yeah. And, and the only reason why is I don’t wanna make her do this for every meeting moving forward. It’s, it’s a tremendous amount of work to take a transcript of every single meeting word for word. So I don’t wanna set that bar for her. It’s really not. Well, it’s also not appropriate. Yeah. It’s, it’s really not. So I’m, I will touch base with her and just ask her if we can make it that, you know,

19:58 that we can recreate the meeting, um, and know what was said and what was talked about. But it, you know, we can boil down from eight pages. So I will postpone that approval to the next one. We skipped over this, um, no, no. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Under district update. Sorry. Dr. McGinnis, I’m gonna go back to you. We skipped over your school calendar. Yeah. 24 25 draft. Yeah. Okay, great. So the leadership team has started conversations around the 24 25 calendar. And as a team, we discussed the two areas that we’re gonna concentrate on, on in the next two weeks before the next school committee meeting. And that is professional development dates and the teacher conference states, because principals have ideas from their staff of some way to make it flow easier. But what we’d love to hear from the school committee tonight

20:43 is this, um, we’d like to gather input about the winter recess break that we have coming up, because, um, Christmas happens to be on a Wednesday this year, which is always the biggest challenge. So the draft that you have in front of you right now is, um, show demonstrates that the first day of school is Tuesday, September 3rd. That’s gonna be in, in any of the choices we make. Um, and there’s going to be two dates for both the parent teacher conferences full day and a PD full day during the school year. Um, so the alternative one, which you’re looking at, would be seven days off during the winter break. And what it would be is Monday the 23rd would be a half day, and then recess would start right after that on through, through January 1st.

21:31 The last day of school with that calendar that’s in front of you would be June 13th. It’s a Friday. The issue with that is when you have a half day on the winter break week on a Monday, the chances of attendance for students, um, is slim. Um, so that’s just a consideration for the school committee. The other alternative would be to have an eight day recess starting the 23rd, the Monday through January 1st, returning January 2nd. The last day of school on that would be Monday the 16th without snow days. So history would tell us we’ll likely have a snow day or two. So either way it’s gonna move from that Friday likely into that next week. Okay. So I’d like to know what your recommendation might be. So

22:17 First I just wanna note ‘cause I, I just had a moment of panic when I looked down and I was like, oh, there’s no recesses for February and April. There are, when you look at the numbers in parentheses at the top, it accounts for a week off in each month. So there are, so I don’t want anybody seeing this Yeah. To think there’s not they’re accounted for. Yep. It’s just that for this purpose, a discussion, Dr. McGinnis was looking for some guidance on that December break. So the other breaks are, are gar are, are allotted for in the star date and end date of the calendar. Um, And that’s all indicated in yellow at the bottom with the sheet. Yeah. So don’t look at the middle, basically. Yeah. Last first Thing it doesn’t Itt and what do you wanna do At the federal holiday? Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s fine. Um, so I’m gonna open it up to the committee

23:02 for your thoughts on which way with that December break with the holidays falling on a Wednesday, which is only happens over every so many years, if we have a preference, which way to go with that. I mean, without question, there should be no school that day. I don’t, it’s just not no one’s. I mean, you can have it be, and then you can have 90% absent rate. And then it’s frustrating for the teachers that, you know, you have all these kids that get to go on their vacation the Friday before, and then your teachers, administrators, whomever, are stuck here. I don’t think that’s fair. Um, your comment is very valid around, we’re probably gonna have a day or two for snow days anyways, which would then put us into the next week anyways in June.

23:49 So, you know, having another half day. I don’t, When when is graduation? Is it the sixth This year? It’s May is like year’s. May, May 29th. No. Oh, it is May 31st. May 31st this year. Mm-Hmm. So it’s usually around that Time. So it may be May 30th next year. Yeah. ‘cause I just, ‘cause I know that’s Friday the 13th, that’s all. As long as it didn’t coincide with graduation. Um, yeah. And it doesn’t, yeah, fine With me. I, I don’t have, I can see the pros and cons of both. You know, the reality is we probably will have a snow day anyway, so we’ll be into that week in the event that we don’t, I hate the idea of coming back that Monday, but we live in the Northeast and it’s highly unlikely we’d get

24:36 through an entire winter without a snow day. That’s much as I would love that to happen. Um, so yeah. Is does it, um, Megan and Brian, do you wanna voice a thought on that? Um, no, I don’t. Okay. Megan? I don’t think a half day on a Monday is ideal no matter where it is. Right. Because you’ll have attendance issues, whether it’s in December or it’s in June. Um, but Theresa, I think your point is, is valid. You know, who knows what’s gonna happen with the weather, but it’s more likely that we’ll get that, that will get pushed out. So, um, yeah, I mean, I’m fine with either, probably makes more sense in The one concern I have looking at what it would push us out to that June is we would then be scheduling the half day

25:23 and the Monday of the 16th, which as everyone said, will probably push out a snow day. If we go in excess of two snow days, then we wind up that last week of school having a couple days a day off of Juneteenth and then a half day, which also, you know, is, is choppy. But, you know, we’re trying to all play Farmer’s Almanac on will we have one? Will we have more than two? Like, so I, I’m, I’m really kinda, but go with either. It doesn’t, I don’t think there’s a great, I would not support having a 20 half day on the 23rd at all, but obviously I can be overruled. Um, simply because we should allow our teachers and our administrators to have that time

26:09 and have their school end when the students end. If it’s, you know, teachers on the other end of it in June, I’m not suggesting you should be in school later than we are, but that’s different. Having a half extra half day that you have to work, then I see as being entirely different than starting a whole vacation week. I just, okay. I feel super strongly about it. All right. So it sounds like we will, am I hearing that? We’ll take that Monday off the 23rd. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Theresa. Cross our fingers for no more than two snow days. But we’re not voting tonight, but we’re coming back. Yeah. Yeah. But that, I mean, I think that really would’ve skewed the calendar one way or another. And now you can go back and do the other pieces. We’ll do it. Thank you. Perfect. Um, so that brings us, sorry, I’m jumping all over today.

26:58 Um, that brings us to school committee communication, discussion items approval, the pan mass marble head club creation. We all received an email from, uh, student Xavier gdo. Um, I think that, I believe, I believe if you want to, um, raise your hand, we can find you and unmute at you.

27:23 Um, Give you one quick second. So just, well, we’ll, up. There we go. Um,

27:33 Uh, ask to unmute. There you go. You should be all set to join us. There we go. Um, so I’m gonna let Xavier talk a little bit about the, the club, the P Mass Marblehead Club, why, um, why this was requested and what the club will be about. So I’m gonna kick it off to you, Xavier.

27:58 Can everyone hear me One sec? We’re just gonna turn up our volume. Okay. Sorry. I, in a not so favorable area, but that’s all right. Oh, no, no, no. I think it’s our tech issue. So you go ahead. We can hear you great now. Okay, perfect. Uh, my name’s Xavier Gido. I’m a, uh, senior at Marblehead High School, and we were looking to start a club at the high school called the Panas, MHD. Um, our, the Panas Challenge is a parity fundraising bike ride that I attempt to raise funds for cancer research at the BNA Farber Institute. And what we want to do is we want to set up the foundation

28:43 to have students and faculty and members of the community who support what we do, support the bike ride and donate and fundraise with us. And we ask that the town towards our funds, because we’re not just gonna be at the high school and we don’t want our funds to just stay there. We wanna reach out to every room. And our goal is to raise enough money for every student interested at Marblehead High School to be able to do the fundraising bike ride and give to this really great, um, charity.

29:24 Okay. Perfect. Um, thank you for, for bringing this to us. Thank you for, um, being philanthropic minded and, and wanting to organize this club and bring others, you know, to support what, you know, personally I believe is a really wonderful, wonderful, um, cause I’m gonna ask Jen Schaffner really quick. She had sent me, um, the policy on club creation. Just if you wanna just, oh, sorry. I’m put it on the spot. Um, so I can, I can go over No, No, no, no, I can. Okay. The only thing I, when I got the, um, email, I just wanted to double check and, um, on our policy, um, which I did, um, I don’t know where, anyway, I’ll go off the top of my head. But basically, I think it’s policy JJA on student organizations. Um, so the way I read the policy is

30:10 school committee doesn’t give the approval for the club that’s up to the high school or the school in this case that the high school, there is a specific paragraph about student organizations at the high school having, um, the requirement to have some connection to the curriculum. I think we probably can surmise that this is something that the, that the school is, is looking, is planning to approve. So it looks like what we’re, I guess what we’re expected to approve is the student activities funds activity account. Yes. Okay. So it’s gonna be a student activity account. Yes. Okay. So I guess the only question I had about that was, um, I know that’s required for fundraising, which makes sense. But that’s normally fundraising for the school or for the class. So this is, this is really a pass through account. ‘cause I mean, there’ll be no fundraising for the school, right?

30:56 I mean, exactly. None of this comes to the school. No, it’ll be an establishment of a sub-account, basically, that we will track the money, we’ll hold the money, and then we will turn it over to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Um, We do this, there’s another philanthropic club at the high school, and I believe cornerstone’s a similar at the middle school that does similar type endeavors. Correct? Yes. Um, okay. So we just, what I appreciated was we were really, really trying hard to track everything back to our policy. And, and so I was appreciative that you looked that up and, and were able to say that yes, this checks all the boxes to meet our policy. So, um, I will ask, I’m gonna ask for a motion to prove the creation of the Marblehead Pan Mass Club

31:43 to open up a chart of accounts To student create to create it to be a student activity, to Just create a student activity account. Yes. So moved. Okay. Moved by Jen chapter, um, seconded by Alison Taylor. Um, discussion. All in favor opposed? Motion carries. Five to zero. Congratulations. Thank you very, very much. Thank You. Xavier. Oh, um, Um, McMann.

32:18 McMann. Okay. I just wanna make sure Xavier’s back to be muted too. Um, okay. So that brings us to superintendent school committee communications. Um, this was an agenda item that had been requested, so I had put that on there. Um, I don’t know if anybody wants to speak to That. Um, If not, I think it was mainly just, um, and I’ve already had this, this conversation with, um, Dr. McGinnis just right. We, we’d had a communications workshop. Um, we are trying to stick to our protocols and such. Um, I think that in the spirit of trying to make Dr.

33:06 McGinnis time more effective and not asking her to be a go-between, between all of us, that it’s really important that we all make a commitment to stick to our operating protocols. Um, if you have something you want on an agenda, if you have something you, a concern for a subcommittee, the operating protocol would be to go to that subcommittee chair or to, and request it or, or to come to me as the chair and request it. Um, when we, when we, um, When We divert from our operating protocols, and quite frankly, ask Dr. McGinnis to kind of be a go-between between us, it, it, you know, brings us away from our path of being effective as a committee. So I would just ask everybody, um, if we can

33:54 continually review those operating protocols and just continue to adhere to them, that would be, um, ideal. Thank you. Sorry About that. So, um, interim superintendent goals, discussion. We had had this, we should start this conversation, um, about a month and a half ago. Dr. McGinnis had shared with us her goals at that point. Um, there was no opposition to any, any of the proposed goals at the time. We just had held off. ‘cause Dr. McGinnis was gonna go back and work with her mentor just on the me what, what the measurability factor should be. ‘cause we weren’t sure how to do that. And we thought that it would be better coming to us, um, from that direction.

34:40 So there was a memo for everyone with the updated pieces. So I will open that to discussion,

34:51 discussion then. So, yeah, No, I, a couple questions. So I thought one of, one of the things we had talked about in our, that communication session we had though, um, Dr. McGinnis was on some of these things, particularly around your evaluations of your, of the administrators Mm-Hmm. Is how we would assess that. Right. So that was still, I think that’s something we remember. ‘cause we, we sort of went around this discussion that we, you know, we are not gonna be looking at these evaluations. That’s not appropriate. But in, I don’t know whether you had a chance to talk to Jane. Was it Jane? Jane about that? Yep. He’s Jane. Yeah. Um, So what, just, What specifically is the question? Sorry. Well, in other words, so if you look at like your, um, under, let’s say goal one, um, one of the things is

35:41 the goals is the fair and effective administrator evaluation, right? Mm-Hmm. So you have these goals that you’re gonna be conducting, visits, observations, Mm-Hmm. And, um, analyzing and completing summative evaluations for your supervisees supervises. Yep. So, so my question, and this came up in our discussion, is how are we going to, how do we see that that’s been completed? ‘cause we are not, you know, privy to those actual documents. Yeah. So, No. Should we be, I would think that I would bring to you when it was time, at the end of the year, uh, the three hour visits, I would have a record of the visits that I brought to you. I would have, you can print out what you complete in our, um, evaluation tool. So you would see, you know, the timelines, et cetera. ‘cause that doesn’t always get done. Um,

36:28 Oh, so it would say, for instance, John Smith completed on such and such a date. Mm-Hmm. Okay. Mm-Hmm. That is a piece we, so I would show, did I do what I said I would do? Yeah. And to me that that’s a part of this. But engaging in the collective bargaining process, while it’s one line there Yeah. Is a pretty comprehensive, um, task as is the budget development. Um, but in the end, the interest of an interim role, I, I wanted to make sure it’s earmarked there. Those are the concentrated areas that I’m focused on among all of the other things here. Mm-Hmm. Um, so I didn’t put all the detail on what the budget would entail, but I, I thought that was kind of self Okay. Okay. It’s good to know. We’ll see that piece because Yep. You know, just looking back, um, in previous evaluations,

37:14 that’s, we’ve evaluated this, but we haven’t seen that piece of data, so, okay. Thank you for letting us know That. Yep. Also, I think that was one of our biggest things from our last discussion on, or our last review process is ensuring that things are measurable Yeah. By us. So I, I really appreciate that. Sure. Are there any other areas of clarification that anybody wants To? The only other thing, and it may not have been appropriate on this particular document, but I’ll say again that the goal that I was looking for is the staff accountability report as part of, of the superintendent’s and business finance manager goal. So that’s, I don’t know if we wanna memorialize that or not, but, Um, we did talk about, we talked about adding that as a goal here.

38:00 And if my recollection is correct, the feedback we had got, and I think from Michelle was that would be a goal she should own. But I don don’t know how we effectively, so I guess we could make it that, you know, that Dr. McGinnis Yeah, Michelle does that. Um, so I don’t know what the, the feeling of the committee, if we wanna add that as a fourth goal. I didn’t hear what you Said. Oh, sorry. Um, it was the staff accountability study that, that study that will show, um, kind of give us the, the feedback we need to address this continual concern we hear of there’s declining enrollment and increased staffing. How does that align? So we had requested this,

38:45 what we’re calling a staff accountability study, which essentially outlines what each staff member in the budget book is doing. Okay. Um, all right. So how would we, how do you wanna write that for goal four? Um, I would just say, um, you know, actually, you know, maybe we even include it under the budget one, right? Like maybe, right. So under benchmarks for goal number, does It one, I’m just curious, does this have to be a goal or, because we’ve talked about it at each meeting that we wanna do it, and I know Assistant Superintendent Krista said that that’s part of what we’re working on. I it can be a goal. I don’t Yeah. But I, I don’t think I will say it, it, it sounds like we’re headed there

39:31 and it sounds like it’s gonna happen. This will be a huge accomplishment town wide to be celebrated widely. ‘cause it’s something that’s been asked for, for as long as I’ve been around by the public and never been produced. So it, I have no reason to believe it’s not gonna be produced. I think it’s such a big

39:52 win in the community’s eyes to be able to memorialize that in its importance in your review. ‘cause it’s, it’s a, it’s a big thing that’s been asked for that. I think it, if I were you, I’d want that, I’d want that feather in my cap memorialized. Whatever you decide, We could add it. If you look under benchmarks for goal number one, benchmark number two says, present the budget to all stakeholders in accordance with the budget calendar. We could add simply to include the, uh, to include, um, de novo, uh, new staff accountability review. Okay. Yes. That’s, that sounds good to include. Perfect. To include Sounds good. Include staff accountability review. Perfect. Thank you. Um, all right. So I’ll ask for a motion to approve Dr.

40:39 McGinnis goals as presented with that one edit Bill moved, Um, moved by Jen Schaffner. Second. Second by Alison Taylor of discussion. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. 5 2 0. Um, Steven, we had given you a slide, if you can put that up now. You want me to unmute?

41:06 Um, no, ‘cause that will pick us up. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the next item is our, um, superintendent search process discussion. This is an item, um, Megan, you had requested back in early November. And at that point we had said we would do it the first meeting in, in January. So here we are. We’re we’re doing it, um, the first meeting in January. And the, so the search process, what we’ve outlined here is what the process is. Um, three of us have been through this. So it’s, it’s just, you know, a review for us, review for us. Um, yeah, we good? Okay. Mm-Hmm. And for community members who, who have been through this or witnessed it, um, it may a review as well.

41:52 So we, um, so we pulled out the documentation from the last time we did this. Last time we used nasdaq. Um, I had reached out to Michelle Cresta as our procurement agent to ask about what the rules on procurement are, because they are very strict at the state level. And if an item is expected to come in between 10 and not, or more than 10,000, but less than $50,000, you don’t have to do a full RFP or, um, but you do have to obtain three quotes. So I asked Michelle to go out and start that process. Um, there really are, there, there are private entities to do this.

42:38 Um, quite frankly, their price may be prohibited to us. The three main games in town that wouldn’t be like a private headhunter firm essentially are, um, NASDAQ, MASC, and the Collins Center, all of which who came to present to us. Um, they all have a similar format of what they do. So I’m just gonna run through what the process is, um, and then we can open it up for discussion. So it starts off by creating a screening committee that is determined entirely by the school committee. A consultant does not work with you on that. Um, then you would run focus groups. These, um, would be, you’d do one with students, one with staff, one with administrators,

43:23 and then one with the parents and community. Um, when we did, did this pri or previously, they had been attended by the two school committee reps. Um, at the time it was Jen and I that ran that search in the search consultant, um, worked as a scribe. What went on in that meeting was the consultant asks the people attending two questions. One was mainly what, um, what are your concerns you’d like addressed? And the other one was, what were you looking for in a leader? And then it really were ran like a word bubble. For instance, someone could say, communication for what I’m looking for in a leader. And then every person that says it afterwards

44:08 puts a tick mark next to it. And you really start to see what is the most important. So what the search consultant does during that is not direct that discussion, but literally just transcribe what is happening. They then take that document and give it to the school committee. This is what all these groups have said. The school committee then meets, um, in a workshop model and does an ideal candidate profile. The search consultant does not attend this. It’s literally just the five members sitting around a table drafting and drafting and drafting, um, what you want your ideal candidate profile to be. Um, we still, you know, have those from from past searches.

44:54 Things obviously would change, but you know, some of that body is the same. It has to do with our demographics in marblehead, the our, our number of schools, things like that. That stuff stays a little bit steady. And then we work as a group to make sure we’re incorporating that really important feedback from those focus groups in the community to create the narrative of what you want the ideal candidate profile to be. Then the search committee would take the ideal candidate profile in the job description. The job description is what it is. It’s a DESI description of what a superintendent by law does. They take that, they put it in their publications, they receive the resumes, and then it goes to a sele, a screening committee.

45:43 By law, you can use a screening committee to review resumes in a private, confidential environment to select two or more candidates. It only works if you can bring two forward. Otherwise, it’s not a screening committee, it’s a selection committee. And it couldn’t have happened in private. So the screening committee brings two or more candidates forward to the full school committee, um, in the screening committee format. What the consultant does is they come in the first night, they do a workshop where they explain open meeting law. And they explain what you can and can’t say from an HR perspective in a meeting or in an interview. You, you know, for example, you can’t ask someone,

46:30 are you married and how many children do you have? Just, you know, no brainer things. But it’s not always no brainer. And so it’s really important to hear that. Um, then you work in a workshop model as a screening committee to come up with the questions you wanna ask the candidate. The consultant does not work on the questions. They, you do that entirely. They do not guide you on it. It is the screening committee decides what those questions are, with the exception of the consultant might say that’s not legal to ask someone. But other than saying that’s not legal, they don’t give feedback on, that’s a good question. That’s a bad question. So then you conduct the interviews, the screening or the consultant books, the interviews for you. They do not attend the interviews. They just book them and then you conduct them.

47:17 They, that’s it. And then, um, after the interviews, you, the consultant comes back everybody. So you interviewed eight people ranks one through eight. The people you interview, the consultant goes around the room and says, who is your one? Who is your two? You give them your numbers. It’s literally a math problem. They put it up in a board and then you say, we wanna take the top two. We wanna take the top three and bring them forward. Then the consultant goes to the choice people and says, do you want to come forward? ‘cause part of this process is it’s confidential. You never know who applies or who’s brought forward until they give the legal okay to make themselves public. Believe it or not, it has now happened multiple times

48:04 where I’ve seen people say, thanks, I’m not gonna go public. And then no one ever knows they applied. No one ever knows they were chosen. So that’s an important process of the screening committee. And then the people who’ve come public are interviewed in a public forum by the school committee in a day in district. A really important part of that day in district is that they meet with all of our key stakeholders. They’ll meet with administrators, teachers, students in the afternoon. They’ll meet with parents and community members at all of those meetings. Those individuals, the parents, the community members, the teachers, they’re asking the questions. It’s essentially they’re interviewing and then we have feedback forms that they fill out

48:50 that come to the school committee. So that’s a really important part of the process. And then the public interview happens at night with the school committee. School committee then moves on to looking at references. Again, the school committee does that. The consultant does not do that. Um, the consultant also is not present for the day in district. So from there, the school committee will decide to do a day in district for the candidate or not. Um, and then deliberate and move on. So all of those. That being said, I know that was a really long description, but it was twofold. I want the community to know all the points of this that we will be doing touch points to make sure we know what the community wants in a candidate. We know what the community thinks about our candidates.

49:37 So community input is really important through this process. The other point is, this process was really surprising to me the first time we did it. And again, the second time in that the consultant, if you haven’t done the process before, really helps guide you through it if you’ve gone through it. ‘cause these consultancies, just to give you an idea, are between 12 and $22,000 when we got quotes in 2019. Not much price wise has gone down since 2019. So I’m gonna guess this hasn’t. Um, what I would say is, at the time we did it in 2019, we did not have an HR director. Our current one had resigned. We have, um, a fabulous HR person right now,

50:23 Kelly Ferdy, who’s with us. I had reached out to ask Kelly, um, some questions about which of these pieces in her role could she do as the consultant did, because the consultant manages the confidentiality piece in the postings, which is something we really, that’s really important and we would need someone to do. And Kelly, um, assured me she has access to all the same publications that the consultants have for posting the ideal candidate profile as well as, um, the resume now, 10 years ago when you were getting maybe 50 applicants and they might be searching for someone and turning the applicant pool is different than it was previously. And if anybody’s paying attention, you kind of, a lot of,

51:09 there’s a lot of commonality of what you see in different districts, maybe. Um, so I would like to, I’m gonna make a recommendation that I wanna open it up to the committee for discussion. I would recommend in the spirit of time that I would like to start, start doing all of these pieces, not skip a single one of them. ‘cause ‘cause so much of them have to do with community feedback. But that we use Kelly in the role of the consultant to help us, um, run the focus group, compile that information, get it to us, um, as well as post it and receive the resumes. Kelly actually is willing to do one extra step that the consultant doesn’t do and would attend the interviews, which is nice because I know during the interviews I had hoped to

51:59 maybe, you know, look to the consultant to, you know, is this something we might wanna ask a pack up question for? And things like that. And they, that wasn’t something they were, that’s part of the package. So I was really happy to hear that Kelly was able to do that. And I believe, um, just did that with the, the town. Right Kelly, to find the HR director for the town. You helped Thatcher with that. So I would like to start the process with Kelly. If when the applicant pool comes in, um, her feedback is, I think we might have been able to cast a, a larger net. Um, we then can still, we, we’ve started the process of getting the bids from the consultants. We at no point would be precluded from hitting pause and bringing the consultants in and, and doing it with them. But what this would allow us to do is get those, um,

52:47 focus groups started right away, um, and then get that idea deal candidate profile out there so that we are really looking at a candidate pool sooner rather than later. So I’m gonna open it up to discussion from the committee on their thoughts on that.

53:07 Lots of thoughts. Um, yeah. Um, so when we talked about this back in November, I think I made it clear that, um, I think time is of the essence for sure. And now we’re two months beyond that. So I absolutely agree that we need to move on this extremely quickly. Um, that said, I do think having a consultant lead it is, and having someone completely unbiased is an important part of this process. Um, and not that I don’t think Kelly can handle it. I’m sure she can. However, she does have a full-time job, um, that we need her to do here and focus on. So I think for that reason, I do support using a consultant,

53:52 um, because they’re unbiased and because, you know, Kelly’s already got a full-time job. Okay. Um, just to the unbiased piece. And I, I completely, uh, agree. I, I also agree. I don’t think that Kelly would bring a bias. The consultant never at any point filters anything out. They literally are just a conduit. They don’t, they don’t filter anything. They don’t give their opinion. They don’t weigh in on what questions. Like there’s no, there is no, um,

54:22 opinion part of the process whatsoever. It, it literally is just a mechanism. So what I liked about this is this will speed this up by anywhere from three to five weeks. But I think also, like just having the, just having that consultant facilitate all those sessions, again, is a different feel than having someone internal facilitate those conversations for the community, for students. Um, I do think that makes a difference. And, you know, I’ve been through this process as well, like you have, and I feel like those consultants added a lot of value to the process both times we’ve done it. Okay. You know, one thing we could do, just I was thinking about, ‘cause I too have been through this. I helped Sarah and I ran this, the permanent search the last time.

55:07 Um, and it was ev very evident to me at the end having worked closely with the consultant that, um, I don’t know, I want to put this properly that, you know, the, the role in, in this world, they’re not recruiters per se. They are really administrators or, you know, clerks in terms of how, of what their role is. Um, they’re not advisors. They, in all three of the organizations that spoke to us, the one that we did speak, who did present to us, who was a pri like a private recruiting firm that does do some municipal work and does do pri corporate work as well, was different. I mean, they were gonna screen the, you know, the, the candidates they were gonna review the first round of candidates and only present come put forward what they think were the right candidates.

55:54 That school committee decided not to go that route. So the other three, um, that are sort of in this world, um, clearly do not take on the role of any kind of advisory or, um, or make recommendations or give any opinion on the candidates at any point. So, you know, I just, I I just also think in terms of, um, cost, um, is another thing to think about. Um, but it might be possible, um, to, to when we put out this, um, uh, whatever we’re calling it, Michelle, RFP or whatever, it’s that we ask for maybe even the possibility of a scaled down version, which also may be a lesser cost to us. I mean, I’m just thinking about the cost as well.

56:42 Um, that, you know, maybe like, maybe they to, to Megan’s point that they could run the focus groups for us, but that some of this we can take on, um, with Kelly. ‘cause I was, you know, Kelly was the first one I thought of, like, I think this is, you know, in her, um, you know, arrows in her quiver. So, um, anyway, you know, I think from its time standpoint and a budget standpoint, it, you know, it can work for us. But I think from a budget perspective, for me, from a budget perspective, I get it certainly from an urgency perspective and wanting to start as soon as possible. I agree with that. Also, my concern is we’re gonna get the same 10 candidates that we’ve gotten,

57:27 we got on the interim search that we have seen in a multitude of other superintendent searches.

57:34 I don’t honestly know what the right answer is. In a perfect world, I would want that recruiter that’s going to go and find us the right candidates. Clearly a very specific type of individual and and person that we’re looking for in this role or that we, we need in this role, not that we’re looking for it. Um, that’s my bigger concern is that we won’t find that without some sort of additional assistance. And that’s nothing against what Kelly can find or I, I don’t think Kelly has a bias. I’m not worried about any of that. I do also though, respect the facts. You have a full-time job. I know. It’s like in the corporate world to be asked to just tack something onto that. Um, and I appreciate you offering to do all that.

58:22 I know it’s, it’s not a small lift. I think if that’s the case, Allison, that we’d have to, I mean, we could put this out, but I don’t think those three organizations, that that’s not what they do, They’ll not look. No, I know, right? So we have, you know, we have to be looking at, and I think that, um, I, I don’t, my fear is those three organizations are not gonna get us anything more than, than Kelly’s going to get us. I don’t, I don’t think, probably. Um, and that’s my fear again, not because Kelly isn’t doing a good job. I just wanna make sure that that’s clear for people taking notes. So one thing, leave it to me to point out the harsh reality, but, um, one thing about that is, and in an ideal world, we could go with a private firm

59:10 that’s gonna search and turn over like this unknown amazing character. But the people those firms look for are looking for a level of compensation we can’t play ball with. Could be. Well, we don’t know that. Well, we Don’t know. We don’t, I think it’s reasonable to, to Think it’s possible. Listen it possible. Superintendent, he have seven snow days. We did have a superintendent in the past that was brought on from a recruiting firm, Dr. Moss. Um, and he was recruited from outta state, and we paid him, you know, a, we would’ve paid whoever we hired. Was that a successful find? I’m just making the point that it, I, I, I don’t, I don’t think we can make any assumptions, okay. About what, from compensation, what that means. We’re not, you know, we’re not private recruiters.

59:57 Um, you know, I just think it, it will, I mean, we can probably, you know, walk into gun, right? I mean, we can probably put this out right. Um, maybe we could do that. Put it out to other, to other firms and see what comes back. Um, but this will take, you know, this will take time. Yeah. Yeah. I have, um, I put feelers out to all three of the firms I heard back through email. I have calls with all of them set up for tomorrow. Okay. That’s the MSE. Yeah. Center and Collins. So the other one is the HYA, what’s the firm down in Connecticut? I mean, there be other, so one question I I, I will tell you, unless they’ve changed their business model, I will not consider HYA and the reason was, they would not give us access

1:00:43 to the applicant list. They decided who they thought would be a good fit, and they only gave us those applicants for the same reason I was against it. Then we, I believe, as a community know what we’re looking for. I, I am, I am not interested in, in not knowing what is coming in. Um, so I, I may be the only one that says no to that, but I, unless they have changed their business model, would not support not seeing all the applicants.

1:01:22 Um, Brian, I’d like to hear from you. If we hire a third party and tell ‘em we wanna see all the applicants, why wouldn’t they give ‘em to us? We Asked during that. It was not their business model, and they do not do that.

1:01:34 But we define the type of candidates we want. Shouldn’t the third, third parties be looking for that type of candidate? It was a sticking point. Yeah. And we can go back and ask them. It was the contract they offered, they would not offer an alternative. ‘cause did You hire We did, Megan, I don’t know if you remember this. We did ask. ‘cause all of us were uncomfortable with the idea of not seeing the applicants and it wa they were not going to budge on it. So how many applicants did they feed us? We didn’t go with them. Yeah, We Didn’t use them. Oh, we did not. No, no. Because because of that, because of that.

1:02:10 See, I feel that at this point in time, having a third party be part of this process would take away some of the errors we found. Um, you know, third parties always help to legitimize your search process because there are no biases in their search process. So I tend to support a third party to tell you The truth. Okay. And we can absolutely, absolutely go that way. I just wanna be abundantly clear. They do not at any point give their opinion, filter or guide in any direction. If that is what you’re looking for. We should look for a private party and just be ready to budget for it. Okay. Which would be, well, we don’t know.

1:02:55 We don’t know. We don’t know. We don’t know. Um, hopefully it will be under the 50. So we don’t have to do the RFP. It’s just that the other organizations are nonprofit. I also dunno if I can support that level of funding.

1:03:07 How would you determine other firms, if there are any out there? Is there any is like a listserv or anything business? You know, Finance means I could throw it on the list there if I, Kelly, actually, would you coming up and join us? Um, so one interesting thing I found when I talked to Kelly is she also was a school committee member and as a school committee member for her, her municipality was on a search committee. So, um, I just thought it was interesting you could speak to both sides of it. Um, from an HR perspective, can you give us any, any thoughts? I mean, you may have know of some search committees or search firms. So when I went through it, when I was sitting in your seats, we used the Collin Center. And I agree with you. Their services aren’t really recruitment,

1:03:55 it’s more facilitation and, um, and just presenting what, what they get. And then you kind of do all the heavy lifting. Um, and by no, I’m, first, I’m not taking offense at all, you know, for the differing of opinions. That’s, um, I, you know, could, I think the thought was that maybe, you know, just to get hit the ground and start before, you know, we have other alternatives. Um, what I could do is, again, like there’s the platforms where you’d post these jobs, the, um, all the different sites, all the different listservs. And I could certainly do that, you know, get the job posting out to all the sites that, um, that these firms, the call-in center

1:04:41 and others would, would use. And then hand the candidates over and just help in any, you know, formation of committees or, or anything. Like just be kind of your support in, in this. Um, by no means taking it over and, ‘cause I hear what you’re saying, Megan, that, you know, it is a little different. Like if, if the HR person for the schools is facilitating, people might feel, uh, maybe prohibited. I don’t know. I, I hope I’ve built good relationships with people that they feel they could speak freely, but, um, but I hear what you’re saying. Um, so, you know, I’ve seen it from both ends. I’ve done a lot of recruitment for, uh, leadership roles, you know,

1:05:27 at different positions. So a lot Coming up too. I would venture to say, I would venture to say that having an hr, our internal HR person helping to guide that would, I would see that as a benefit. Um, but I don’t think I could support funding anything, but someone that’s going to help recruit. Um, I, I don’t see what the value is there. Um, however, I would default to you if you think it’s too much additional work for you, because I certainly wanna be most mindful of that. Uh, well, the past, uh, month plus, I, I’d say that I’ve, I’ve learned, I could certainly expand my, uh, room for, for more work in a much bigger capacity.

1:06:15 So it, you know, I think right now we can all agree the district needs people to step up and do things that really isn’t our job. Or, you know, in the scope of our normal hours. And I am really impressed to see all the leadership, uh, doing just that, you know, and, and also the teachers and uh, team chairs, you know, everyone is, is taking on more, um, because we need to, to get to that better place. And, and I’m more than happy to do that because I, I think the district is, uh, you know, great. Like it’s a, it’s a wonderful school district. The, the schools are great. The teachers are great and I wanna see some success, you know, down, down the road. I wanna contribute to that. Sarah, Dr. mc. Yeah.

1:07:00 I just wanted to add one consideration for the school committee is we’re going to be needing to hire, uh, replacement for, um, assistant superintendent Michelle Cresta. We’re going to have to hire, um, uh, assistant principals, principals, and what else is there? Student services. Student services. Student services. So I’m just a little concerned about the capacity and bandwidth of, um, Kelly. ‘cause we need all of that right now. Okay. Um, that’s also something to keep in mind when we look at the search committees. ‘cause there will be a school committee. All of those hires are school committee hires. So there will be a school committee rep on the searches for the finance director as well

1:07:46 as the student services director or two. Yeah. In the past we’ve done two. So just, I want people to keep in mind, we have three hires that our school committee hires coming up. And, um, so when we talk about capacity, we’ll wanna keep that in mind. Um, who wants to do what? Um, I, one, one thing we may be able to do, and I can make a call about this tomorrow to the other issue, is we don’t actually ha have not been assigned our MASC rep. Dorothy’s officially retired as of December 31st, so I know they were named. We haven’t been introduced or met them. Um, I can, I can find that person. Um, if the main concern is the focus groups

1:08:32 and who runs those, the focus groups were one, one day, um, of the person, like I said, transcribing, we may be able to, um, get MASC to come in and work the focus groups. Um, so that, that may be another thing. Another thought I had, because, you know, when we did this in 2019,

1:08:58 I didn’t know what it even, what, what a word bubble was, to be perfectly honest. I didn’t really learn until covid hit. And we were seeing word bubbles everywhere. But is there an electronic way to do the focus group as well, where people are typing in the, instead of saying it to a facilitator, they’re typing in the words that matter and then that is aggregated back to us in a technology format. So there’s no bias anywhere that that is an option. I look to Steven for that too. There’s gotta be some way that people literally type in product exchange. We don’t own that anymore. Yeah. But that’s what it did. Yeah. But there’s other platforms that do that. Um, so, you know, that that’s one thought too to, through a tech format to run that focus group.

1:09:45 I, to me, getting the information, the feedback from the community is the most important piece of this. So whether we had have Kelly run that for that day, or we do it as a tech sign in and we give all the, the students the, the sign in for the student one and the staff has the sign in for the staff one and so on and so forth. Or whether we ask a consultant to come and maybe just run that piece. But one thing I’m really cognizant of is there’s a lot of searches right now, and there’s only three main search firms that everybody uses. I don’t wanna start playing the date game with where we’re getting on board now, and we are what wanna start our focus groups, you know, say next week.

1:10:31 And they say, well, we’re booked through the second week of February. We can’t do anything. You can’t even post until you have the focus groups. Because until you have the focus groups, you can’t do the, um, ideal candidate profile. So that’s what’s holding me up here is until we can hold the focus groups, we can’t move that. And I don’t want to be releasing an ideal candidate profile in March.

1:10:59 Why can’t, is it the concern that Megan brought up, why we wouldn’t start the focus groups now? Well ‘cause that that seems to be the one thing people are worried about bias with is the focus groups and that people feel comfortable speaking about what they’re looking for. I think one of the things that we talked about in our communications session was coming from a place of good and assuming slash presuming that everybody is coming from a place of good. Um, and I just think that that’s something we have to emulate and that that’s something that we have to encourage the public to use as well. Um, you know, so that they do feel comfortable. Um, and at the end of the day, if, if we’re offering this opportunity for the public to come

1:11:46 and share their, their thoughts and they don’t. Yeah. You know, so I don’t dunno. And just to put it out there too, when we did the focus groups last time, Jen and I as co-chairs of that committee, we were still there. It’s not like people were like, oh, we can speak freely be or couldn’t speak. No one felt, from my perspective, no one seemed to hold back. Um, I don’t think this community holds back. Yeah. I haven’t really gotten the feel that we hold back here either. But to the point where it wasn’t like we weren’t there, we were still there. We just weren’t the person writing on the board. So, um, I, I would like to get this ball rolling, and at the same time,

1:12:30 I don’t don’t see a value in doing it unless they’re going to bring us a full range of resumes of people they’ve sought out. And I don’t think that we are gonna get the timeline and the price point on that. That makes sense with their budget right now. I just don’t, and I also don’t think that the candidate pool is what it was 10 years ago when going with a, a firm like that really made a difference. Um, it’s just, I just don’t, I,

1:13:03 so I would like to start the ball rolling today, whichever direction that’s gonna be. So I’ll, I guess I’ll ask for a motion and then people can, we can just keep moving from there. If that one doesn’t pass, we can go about it a different way. So I’ll ask for a motion to proceed with Kelly acting as our facilitator.

1:13:27 So moved. Moved by Jen Schaffner. Are we gonna do that at the same time that Well, let’s either have a second or is there a second? And then we can open for discussion. If not at the motion just dies.

1:13:43 I don’t. Okay. Does someone have another motion? Then? The motion dies on the table. Wait, I thought we were still, We discuss after the motions moved. So I’d say I, I’ll second it. So, so we can move on. Comment. All right. So seconded by Brian Oda, open for discussion. I am just concerned again that we have so many critical openings that it’s going to be a lot, lot of work. And if you’re comfortable that you can do that, then I’ll take my concerns aside because I believe we need to start this right away. As Megan pointed out, we should have done it months ago. So, Yeah, I, I mean, I am fortunate

1:14:29 that in the business office we have an amazing team that’s been supporting me in, in some areas while my attentions have been diverted elsewhere. Um, you know, as of late, uh, a lot of the postings, I mean, the process would be similar in that, you know, we formulate the job, posting the job description, and then I, I blast it out there, uh, and then monitor what we’re receiving. Uh, you know, I, and then for the committees, it’s, I think for each of them, I, I don’t think I would be involved at the same level for each of the, the searches. Um, so there’s, there’s that. So, Sorry, can I, yeah. Um, I appreciate that Kelly, and I appreciate you offering to step up.

1:15:14 And I think no matter what, you’ll be a key piece to this process. Um, I do think as a committee we should, you know, listen to the guidance of our superintendent. She’s very experienced and knowledgeable. Um, and I think we should use that guidance. And I think the legitimacy is an important part of this process for the community, um, especially at this point. So I, I, I still think we should use a consultant.

1:15:42 Who do you, Megan, do you, are you thinking one of the three? Yeah, and I think, you know, Michelle’s already put the feelers out there. She’s got conversations with them tomorrow. So very quickly we’ll have information in terms of, you know, not an exact amount, but an estimate and their timelines. And so, you know, I mean, we don’t, we’re kind of making a decision without having all the information too. Right. And that will be coming tomorrow. So that will come in. I can put it on the agenda for the 18th. And we can also have a meeting in advance if we, if, you know, if this is something that we wanna move, we don’t have to wait until the 18th to move it. I’m not here on that day, by the way, either. Okay. Um, are you zooming or you won’t be? Nope, I’m not available. Oh, to travel for work. Alright.

1:16:27 Well that’s, that’s important. I think it’s unfortunate to talk, call something illegitimate if we do it ourselves. I don’t think, I didn’t use that word You said. Not legitimate. It’s same thing. Um, and I think that that is unfortunate. I think it would still be legitimate. I definitely would look to you like Megan said, to understand it’s, you know, the level of effort. 100% appreciate you stepping up. And I love what you said about all of our other administrators and leaders doing the same. And our teachers. I I want to hear from you specifically what you think the additional ask and level of effort is here, because that I’m not, I’m not worried about bias.

1:17:13 I feel it would be just as, as legitimate for us to do it. Again, understanding what these firms do. God bless you. Um, so I, I just wanna hear that from, from you. And I, I want you to be honest. Yeah. So I mean, I think the understanding would be, you know, even if I start that this process at any point, you, you could bring in a consultant, you know, if, if it’s just not launching properly or, you know, or we just wanna start it early, you know, I’m not sure what the consultants’ agreements are that, you know, if you already have it posted. Do do they not take the I don’t think so. Um, you know, so it, I I’m honestly,

1:18:00 I I would be open to, to do it, to start it. I, I don’t see it being a huge, um, I mean, it’s a huge search, but I, I don’t see it being debilitating to my, to my role that’s here. And, and I think Sarah, you mentioned MASC, and by the way, Dorothy Presser ISS amazing. I’ve worked with her. Her too. She retired. Retired. I know. Um, so they do offer, they offer support as being part, you know, as your members there. So we could certainly lean on them. And they’re, um, I think a lot of their services are free, you know, if not a minimal cost. Uh, so that could be that secondary support that, you know, when it’s actually boots on the ground doing something, meeting with committees and whatnot. Uh,

1:18:47 I’ve generally found MASC to be the most, um,

1:18:53 flexible and willing, you know, I think it’s by the nature of what their, what their role, you know, their association is, um, just in general to be the most flexible in and responsive to, you know, to our asks. And so I don’t, I don’t get the sense we need to talk to them, obviously, that they are rigid in, I mean, if you do hire them, do a full search. Yes, they have this cost as, but I I, I would be very surprised and shocked if they weren’t willing to stay. Sure. We can come in and, you know, have to do pieces part this part. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s Important, and maybe for small cost or maybe not, but I think it’s important to remember when we did this in 2019, the consultant said to us at that point, you know, five years ago we were seeing 40 to 50 resumes come in. And now we’re seeing if you get 25, it’s great. And I think we got 23.

1:19:38 Um, and now people are seeing not single digits. Like that is the industry standard out there for any district, not just, you know, Marblehead One in our, our news cycle. Um, but so I, I think there needs to be a realistic expectation that districts are not seeing 20 to 25 resumes anymore. They’re seeing eight, nine. So it, it is the, it is the educational environment we exist in right now. Um, so any further discussion, I’ll call for the, yes. Um, I would still be, or does this mean Michelle’s not gonna do any more calls

1:20:24 or do the rrp? Is that what your motion and tell us? It didn’t mention that, it just said No, it would be to start with Kelly and have that if we need to go to that. But we are, we are saying we are starting this process with Kelly, and we will, we will continue to get all those numbers. So if at any point we say, wow, four resumes came in, let’s call the consultants and see if they can get, you know, we’ve already started that process and we’re not a week behind. Yep. But that, we’ll, we can, we can chew gum and walk at the same time, essentially. Yeah. I just wanna make sure that the motion actually says that it, would, it also mean that you put out the RFP to see about paid recruitment, just curiosity of the cost there. Do you have to do an RFP or you can you call companies

1:21:12 If it’s under 50,000, we can just ask for three Quotes. Okay. Okay. Or more. But We need to, we need to get our specifications, like not just recruitment. Like what does that entail? What are we expecting? So you would need a job description? No, you need a scope of service. No, we want the scope of services that they would recruit. They would actively recruit candidates to apply for the job. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. ‘cause the other three, correct me if I’m wrong, the other three are facilitators, right? That’s like, that’s, they’re, that’s what their service, Right? I don’t, I don’t care, to be honest. And you don’t mean just call every current, you know, person with a superintendent’s license in the state, you mean? No, I mean, look for an ideal kin for some, I, I mean,

1:22:00 a recruitment firm that knows people who, I mean, they’re all over the place in any professional role that you have. Where there are people who know, oh, this person’s looking for a job. They, they don’t know it. They’re gainfully employed. Their employer thinks they love them, but they’re still looking like that happens all the time in every realm. And the good firms, and I understand they cost money. I’m not suggesting we have the money, but I would just be curious because I think we need slash want to get this right and it’s a very specific individual that we need for this role, given the state. And so I would just be curious as to what that would be. Is there a way to back search essentially and look, you know, without it taking five days of eight hours a day looking? I’m not suggesting that that No, no,

1:22:45 no stalls moving forward, by the way. Yeah. Is there a way to look at any private headhunting firms that have placed superintendents in Massachusetts recently, and then get those names and approach them? That’s what she Was, she’d have to put it out on Her. Yeah, you can ask. I’m not familiar with any of ‘em, to be honest. I haven’t heard of a private headhunter. Well, HHYA is the one in Connecticut that does do it, but Yeah, Kelly Might have some in her circles too. I’m Not sure. So I certainly, we can certainly ask around. Okay. Um, all right. So the motion is to start moving through the process with Kelly as our facilitator while asking Michelle to, at the same time, um, requests bids.

1:23:26 Yes. Not, not from the people that are just gonna, I want it to be more than just the people that are gonna do the same thing Kelly would do. I, okay. Well, I don’t think it hurts to at least get their prices. Sure. And also maybe have a common, we, I wanna go to their, their Prices and see what their availability would, Would be and their scope. Right. I mean, unless you want, I mean, Sarah can call whatever to talk to MASC to see if they’ve got, or Collins or whatever, any flexibility if we want to scale down, you know, to have you just come in and do the facilitation or the, um, focus group, sorry. Yep. Um, portion. Um, and then maybe, I don’t know, maybe like an a la carte if we wanted, I don’t know what else we would need them for, but at least that, um, that might be, you know, that might be part of it too.

1:24:12 Um, and then, yeah, to maybe put your feelers out, um, there to find out what other firms, if any, are out there, um, that do this.

1:24:23 So, Sarah, yes. I guess I’m not clear then, if we’re gonna continue to reach out to consultants, what specifically are we asking Kelly to do right now in the meantime? Um, we’ll start to look at scheduling. The first step is focus groups that, we’ll, we’ll start to do that process, But if we’re gonna have a consultant, they would be scheduling those. Right. So I’m just wondering if we’re like, overlapping What we’re, we’re not saying we’re, we’re, we’re saying we’re gonna move forward with Kelly as if we’re not going to need the consultant, but be prepared with the documentation. If at some point in the process we feel this isn’t going well, that we can then hit pause and go back to that documentation of bids we already have in hand. But we are starting this as if we are going forward fully with Ke Kelly at the same time creating

1:25:08 a safety net for ourselves. Okay. Just to clarify. Um, so all in favor? Yeah. Opposed? I can’t see hands. Was Brian, what was your hand for? Uh, approve. Okay. So the motion carries four To, Um, one. Um,

1:25:33 Thank you, Kelly. Um, well, I’m not moving. I haven’t moved us on yet to the next agenda. Thank you very much, Kelly. Appreciate It. Um, I will def I will call you to talk about dates. Yep. Um, for, for things like that. Um, ‘cause we also have to book rooms here and reserve things. Um, so that, that talks about when we, the, the three search committees we’re going to need, um, thinking about student services right away. I would, I would really hope Megan, that you could sit on that as the CPAC liaison. Um, sure. And then in the past, we’ve had two members sit on that. Um, I don’t know if anybody I specifically

1:26:21 wants to, wants to sit on that, on student services. Dr. Guys had a comment. Yes. Yeah, I just, I just want clarification. Yeah. Um, because I thought it was under my purview to set up the committee. So we put representatives on the committee, you run the interviews and things like that. And our two representatives are part of the interview teams. And then it comes back to us for the final interview at the end. ‘cause we’re the final hire on that. Okay. ‘cause I’d already started to proceed with, um, you know, membership of CPAC for example. Yeah. No, no, you still can, you can absolutely do all that too. Committee, we assign our member reps. C Megan’s C the school committee rep. Yeah. There’ll be two school committee reps on whatever committee compilation you come up with. Is it, uh, just just point

1:27:07 of clarification ‘cause it’s new here. So there needs to be two or I just wanna presentation. It’s been our practice. Yeah. It’s been our practice that there’s two reps. Um, so whatever, whatever, um, however you’re picking administrators or teachers or parents, you put that all together. You schedule, you run it, and then you would just be the same as you would to your teacher rep or your parent rep. You would let our school committee rep know when the meetings are and they, they attend. Thank you. Um, so Megan, I saw Brian in your hand. Yeah. Okay. That makes, that makes a lot of sense, I think for both of you to be part of that. Yeah. Um, so Brian and Megan, um,

1:27:48 will be the school committee reps for the student services search.

1:27:58 Um, Oh, we’re also gonna, now that I think about it, we’re also gonna have a search later. There may be another search later on. Um, so the other search will be, we have the superintendent search and then we’ll have two on the search for the, um, role that Michelle has filled. Now, I, I didn’t give it a name because previously to Michelle being here, we never had an assistant superintendent of finance and operations. We really created that. It was, um, a business finance manager. We really created the second assistant superintendent role because Michelle was doing the work.

1:28:44 She, um, was doing the operations work and doing it be beautifully. But as a district previously, that role had not been under that. So that, that will be an agenda item coming on the next meeting. Um, but we’re gonna, before we really open up that search, we’re gonna wanna, as a committee decide if we stay in the model we are now with both of those things being under the superintendency, will that make it harder to fill that role? Will it make it easier to fill that role? And is it appropriate for us with our structure? Or will we revert back to where we were where it was a director of finance and business and we had someone do operations. Um, so I think that we’ll put that on the next agenda.

1:29:32 Um, these are conversations that I haven’t even kind of teased out, but I think Michelle’s role does so much. And the last time we searched for it, we didn’t even have that role. That we really need a list from you of everything you do. Because the last time we did the search, it wasn’t all in that role because you do so many things. So I think the first step to that will be if you can get us for your next meeting or for our next meeting, a list of all the things you do, and then we can pull out, I’m sure, um, we can pull out what that previous role was and we can decide as a committee if we’ll go forward with the structure that we implemented, um, halfway through Michelle’s tenure here,

1:30:18 or if we’ll go back to, uh, a another structure. And I only say that it may make a difference in how easily we can fill that role. But then who would do those other pieces? Well, they, they were, we had different people have to hire another person. Yes. But we may, yes. So we have to, and I’m gonna defer to Michelle a lot on this ‘cause she knows the industry and this, we’ll have this discussion on our next agenda, but it may be impossible to find someone to do both of those roles because it’s, it’s not something we had before. We had it because we had someone, Michelle, that was doing them, it it, and we were able, ‘cause we had someone to do it, to combine them. If we’re, we may have to break them apart to fill the roles is, is my point. We may not, I don’t know

1:31:04 that conversation we’ll put on the next agenda. But before we can really look at filling that role, we have to look at what the role fully is. ‘cause we don’t have a job description really that encompasses everything she does. And then decide structure wise what we’re going with. Okay. That makes sense. It used to be, um, Ken Lord and the, and then the, it was technology and operations and then we moved to technology and then business and operations. So we really just have to see what is, what is achievable. And she was not at the assistant superintendent level. Yes. Yes. It was not. Which, you know, brings a different pay scale with it and in different, a lot of different pieces to it. Yeah. No, When I was originally hired, it was a director of finance and this and the acting superintendent at the time

1:31:50 was handling all the operations. Yeah. So Yes. Um, and be, and that was only because it was Bill Right. Doing the operations. Because previously to Bill coming in, we had someone out else. So we really just, I think the first logical step is to really get a scope written down of everything Michelle does. ‘cause we, we, last time we went out looking, we didn’t have that scope. Um, so that will be on the next agenda. But, and Maybe we could have some input Kelly at that too. Just maybe you know her thoughts as well on Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So you guys can about that work together on that and I’ll work on the agenda label for that. Um, so, but that will be another, another two people that will be on that search. Is that something that comes to us or is that something that really Theresa should be leading? Well, it’s, we, we define the role in what we’re filling.

1:32:38 ‘cause it’s our hire for both of those positions. So we have to decide which one we’re gonna hire. By law, both the business and finance director and assistant superintendents are our hire. So we have to decide structurally in our budget and, and what we’re, what we wanna do. Yeah. I guess I would also look to Theresa, just from her experience Absolutely. In terms of honestly, well my, as our Acting, as our interim interim superintendent. Yeah. You know, creating what that team should look like to support the Districts. Yeah, absolutely. I wanna make sure it’s fillable too, because there’s not a lot of unicorns out there. So I, I just wanna make sure we’re being realistic. ‘cause last time when we got Michelle, I wanna say it was like, it was months, like six months. I wanna make sure that we are setting our district up

1:33:23 for success in what we’re asking for. And if it’s, if there are people out there applying that, that have the skillset married together, which they’re very well may be, again, we’ll talk about this at the next agenda, that that’s what we do. But if that doesn’t exist, then we have to go back to the model that we know exists. Um, all right. So I just only go into that to know when we’re, when we’re asking to be part of committees that we know that that role is coming up too, that we’ll need two people for. Um, so for the superintendent search committee, um, we’ll have two school committee reps on that. Um, I would like to hear interest on that.

1:34:10 I mean, I would definitely be interested, but I sat on the interim and I think we agreed if, if we’re on the interim, we won’t be on the permanent. So I certainly wanna offer up the opportunity to Jen, Brian and Megan.

1:34:23 Brian, I think you bring Yeah, some very good. I’d like to be on the superintendent one, John. Um, yeah, I’m happy to do it. I mean, I ran the superintendent search prior. Mm-Hmm. Um, I have my, whether I do it or I don’t do it, I’ve got all my backup. So, um, I think, um, I could hit the ground running, Um, as chair. I would like to be on that committee. Um, so we have four people interested. No, I’m not interested. I think it should be Jen and Brian. Okay. Um, ‘cause we said when we do the interim, we wouldn’t do the permitt. We have that discussion. I actually don’t recall that. But um, so I as chair would like to be on that committee.

1:35:11 We can’t have three. No, we cannot Because guess it’s a quorum. And if it’s a quorum of the school committee, it can’t be a screening committee. It has to just go all in the public. There’s no opportunity to do it with a quorum of the school committee and still do it through a screening committee, which allows private viewing of the applicants. And you will get a different applicant pool. ‘cause not a lot of people wanna come out in the public right away. ‘cause they don’t want their current employer to know that they’re looking. So we will, I don’t recommend at any point doing it without the screening committee. ‘cause we will get a much smaller pool. Yeah, It’s true. Um, Well

1:36:00 do we have to decide tonight? Um, we do not need to decide tonight. We can decide at the next meeting. One thing I will say is, um, I would,

1:36:15 So yeah, I guess we can, we can start, I can start booking dates with Kelly for the, um, focus groups, focus groups and, um, because the next step would be the ideal candidate profile. And until we have the ideal candidate profile and send that out and start getting resumes, we don’t need the screening committee together. So we can absolutely can discuss this at the next meeting. And at that point we should have an idea of who wants to be on the business, um, slash assistant superintendent search committee. Um, so we can, we can decide that at the next meeting. And I’ll just work with Kelly to start setting up and publicize the focus groups. ‘cause the ones we do internally with staff and students, that’s easy enough for us to communicate out about. But the one we do to the community will wanna work with, um,

1:37:02 the press and let them know when it’s happening and push it out on social media so that we really can get, um, attendance, as much attendance as as possible. Also, when we did it last time, the town, um, worked with us to put it on the town website as well. ‘cause some people who don’t have kids in the school check that website and maybe aren’t checking the schools one. So we can kind of use some of the, the tips and tricks that worked last time to solicit some more feedback. Um, all right. So that brings us next to engagement of legal counsel under new business. Last time I had, um, stated how we had found out 24 hours prior, um, that we would be going, we would be looking

1:37:50 for new legal counsel at that point. I had asked Michelle about the procurement process because Mass General law has exemptions on certain things, legal counsel being one of them. Um, given where we are in collective bargaining and needing to jump into that and other elements, um, we again had had to move with some urgency. And I said I would be putting it, I’d reached out to Valerio, had a letter of interest from them, um, and would be putting it on, on this agenda. At that point, a motion was made and seconded to just in the spirit of time retain Valerio. But I wanted to, in the spirit of transparency, re-vote it tonight with an agenda item on engagement of legal counsel in case someone had public comment on it, which obviously we didn’t hear that. Um, so I’ll just ask for a, a motion to

1:38:38 affirm retaining Valerio, Dominello and Hillman as our legal counsel. So moved, moved by Jen Schaffner second. Second by Alison Taylor discussion.

1:38:53 Uh, yeah, I mean, I wasn’t here in the last meeting, so apologies for missing that conversation. I think, again, in the spirit of time, I understand the rationale. However, that said, um, we chose to seek different legal counsel, um, for a number of reasons. And I think at this point we haven’t done the proper due diligence in terms of finding new representation, um, in actually getting additional information and quotes from other firms. Um, and I think also, you know, we’re gonna be paying more for Valerio here than we have been for Stoneman and considering the rate we’ve been using our legal services, that’s a fi you know,

1:39:38 there’s a financial implication to that. So I personally think, you know, we haven’t done our due diligence on, on this at all. And again, I appreciate the time, um, factor, but I think we also owe it to really make sure that we’re making the right decision and not jump into something,

1:39:56 Um, noted. Any other discussion? I do wanna, as far as the the dollar amount goes, um, I this knowing what legal services are, um, this was $25 higher than what we’re paying out. This is still way under market. If anybody were to call an attorney and ask them what their billable hour is, this is still drastically under that. I, I can tell you as someone who sees that stuff. Um, so it, it, I don’t want, you know, there to be a, a rumble in the public or a headline that, you know, we’re going, we’re doubling down. It’s $25 more and it’s, it’s still in the $200 an hour range,

1:40:45 which anybody who’s retained legal services recently knows that that is, I I’ve never heard of anything lower than that. So, um, I’ll ask, uh, so we have a motion and it’s seconded. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. 4 2 1, um, subcommittee in Lee. Liaison updates. Megan, do you have any METCO or Nope. Brian Safety? No. Allison policy Or, or, okay. Um, do you want me to give an update on the Yes. My update probably a little bit quicker. So I’m gonna give a really quick one on facilities. Um, so Sustainable Marblehead had reached out to me.

1:41:31 Um, they had worked, um, with Lisa Wolf, the chair of the light department, as well as, um, someone from,

1:41:43 uh, a local electric bus company. Um, this is a gentleman who, Michelle Todd, myself. I think at the time it was Emily, we’d gone to a, a, um, a seminar. They had a few years back on electric buses to see if it was something that was an option at the time. They, what they asked us is, how do you use your buses? And we, we really use our buses from like 7:00 AM to, you know, sometimes nine, 10 o’clock at night. We do our morning round. We do then go right to, um, field trips, our afternoon round sports. And they said at that time the technology wasn’t there that you would need to, to pause and, and plug in multiple times before you could do a full day like that. The technology’s come a little bit, but not to the point where we could do that whole round.

1:42:29 So it wouldn’t make sense for us financially to buy a bus we couldn’t use to do our whole route. However, um, the, there is a grant that runs out at the end of February right now. And I very grateful that, um, sustainable Marblehead did a lot of the legwork into looking into this, that the state is doing that they will, um, give districts $200,000 to purchase an electric bus. And then in addition, the Marblehead light department has interest in working with us to use the battery on the bus in when we’re not, when it’s not running, when we’re not using it on, on summers or whatever to offset peak usage, which would then offset our, our rate.

1:43:16 ‘cause I guess your rate for the electric department is set d on what you’re measuring during peak usage. So there was a lot of environmental and financial pluses to this. Um, the big piece to this is there’s, there’s no, um, commitment you can apply to the grant. There’s no commitment that you’re, you’re contracting or you’re gonna buy anything. It’s literally you’re applying to the grant. If you get the grant, you, we then can look at, okay, are we, are we gonna buy it now? Um, so there’s no downside to applying to the grant. So, um, I am gonna follow through on the grant application ‘cause it’s due the end of the month and then we’ll hear back in the proceeding months and when we hear back if we are granted it or not, it’s a very high rate of, um, I think it’s 70

1:44:04 or 80% of pe uh, of people applying. We’ll get it. Um, so I’m gonna apply if we get it then we can make the decision, um, if, if we’re ready to move forward with that. But, um, you know, I think this is a great opportunity. Julia also brought this back from Green Marblehead committee today as well. I was really happy to hear they were talking about it at that level as well. So, um, just wanted to give you a little update that that is happening. And best case scenario, we can get an electric bus and maybe have an opportunity to expand our busing programs, which is something we’ve heard a lot about, still is reliant on staffing, but, um, it’s an opportunity to a little or no cost. So I will continue through that grant process

1:44:50 and keep you all up to date when we hear in a couple months what the outcome is. Um, Jen, I’ll ask you to give your update. Sorry, Sarah, just on facilities. Do, um, Michelle, do we have an update on where we are with the high school roof bid? Have we put that out to bid? I was actually supposed to meet with the town tomorrow to go. We’ve been working with the town since, um, the spring to try to go out jointly for a bid for a project manager because our high school roof is such a big project, we need to go out, get a project manager and not just contract for the project itself. Um, we got sidetracked this summer, so we’re actually trying to get right back to it now. Um, but yeah, that’s our plan right now is to try to go out to bid for a project manager and then we’ll start the Projects, the town and we’ll be grouped grouped with the town at the same time. Yes. So the project manager will oversee all

1:45:35 of the projects because there were multiple roof projects at that town meeting warrant. Yeah. Is there any like, kind of estimate on timeline with where we are with that? Not at this time, but hopefully we’ll have a project manager within the next few months. Okay. And then it should be shortly thereafter. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Jen? Um, I just wanted to give a quick update, um, about policy, policy subcommittee. Um, I went to, there was a, um, there, there were some students who had reached out to us, um, via email to I think the entire committee wasn’t Yeah. Mm-Hmm. It wasn’t just the policy sub, it was the entire committee. Um, with, um, wanting to have some input in the, um, in regards to the flag policy that Allison

1:46:22 and I have been drafting. So, um, it turned out there was a session held today by Principal Carlson, um, and assistant superintendent, um, Ferrera, um, at the high school that was open. It was during this magic block, which is, I love the name of that. Um, this opportunity for students to, um, self-select where they’re gonna spend that, that block. Um, so this is Superintendent Ferrera and, uh, Dr. Carlson now, Dr. Carlson, um, ran the meeting. Um, I attended, um, Allison and I can’t attend because then it would be, um, have to be posted as an open meeting. And we didn’t have time do that or, you know, there wasn’t, didn’t have time to do that. Um, uh, Megan reached out to Megan, I,

1:47:07 I know it was last minute, didn’t get a chance to attend. So, um, uh, Sarah ran into her, so Sarah hopped on as well. So the two of us were there. Um, and we had, I thought it was a great opportunity today to hear from students. It was a really, um, too short, but, um, I think quite valuable opportunity to hear from students. And we did agree that we’re gonna have another session on January 12th. So I think Elton, we should talk about, you know, I think, I think one of us should be there, but I also think if, if there are other committee members that wanna attend and, you know, if we go in groups of two, um, I would suggest that. And if you can’t, then I’ll, I do think a policy person should be there. Sure. But I also think have the opportunity for other members if they wanna attend. Um, and maybe we branch out into other

1:47:52 topics with these students. But at this point, this seems to be kind of a, um, important topic to, to a small but, um, passionate group of students. So, um, we do have a second meeting scheduled or second block scheduled, and I think then we’ll kind of go from there. So that’s basically it for the, um, policy subcommittee. I think we will be, um, we probably will be meeting at some point if we have some other things to do. But I think we should get, I think we should get through this couple of these meetings. Yeah. Care for the students. And then, um, we’ll um, meet to go forward with our draft, um, which we need to finalize to bring before the school committee. Um, there, you know, I, I think that’s, I think that’s the right thing to do. Alison and I haven’t been able to deliberate ‘cause we can’t, so we’re here.

1:48:39 Um, I think that’s the right thing to do. We do have an obligation, um, to the administration who has asked for pol for this policy and for to do that for the, for the people in the community who have also asked, um, for a policy. So I’m, you know, I think we just need to balance on the timing right? That we want to have the opportunity for, um, the community and students to, to, to speak and to make it, um, accessible. But we do also have to resolve this. I Think it, um, since it just keeps coming up, I think it would be great just to give a short overview around why we’re doing this. Again, this isn’t the school committee just deciding ad hoc that they, let’s create a new policy.

1:49:25 Um, the school committee policy meeting is the one that determines the policy that’s, um, the law. But from the perspective of why we’re doing this, it’s because we were asked explicitly by the administration and our leaders what our policy is. And we did not have one, so we have to create one. Um, just so we’re We’re yeah, yeah. Crystal clear. Yeah. Just, yeah, I guess for the record, whatever that, um, you know, that it is the role of the school committee as, as the governing body, um, to set policy for the, for the school committee. We did not have, do not have a policy regarding flag signs or banners. Um, and the administration did come to us asking for us to do that. So we do have an obligation. Um, I I think we all agree to, to meet the needs of what our administrators are asking for.

1:50:12 Um, so that’s how we got there. There are some outstanding, um, or there is a, you know, some court cases, supreme court cases that have been in, ruled in this area in the recent past in 21 or 22 that are, that pertain to this specifically. So that’s where our advice from council has been, has been guiding us, um, is how, how do we go forward with this policy. More and more Muni actually more and more towns and cities are doing it based on the Supreme Court, recent Supreme Court case, um, for municipalities that are not taking that on for whatever reason, including Marblehead. What we found in our research is that, that often the school departments are, are coming up against this because it’s, you know, it’s becoming a question in the schools. So,

1:50:58 Um, having sat in on that meeting, I do wanna just commend the students. Um, we started off with, there were seven, it was open to the whole student body. We had seven students that came and then halfway through we had two more that joined us. Um, so I, I commend because they, they do have a choice during magic lock that can go anywhere. Um, there’s a lot of different things that are available to them. So I commend the ones that that chose to come and spend an hour with us and share their thoughts. And I think it’s really important to hear that. So, um, yeah, it Was great. So Jennifer, To those nine kids, I, Sorry, Megan, I think Megan had a question. Can you Share some of the feedback that you heard? Um, um, Is, yeah, is that appropriate?

1:51:45 I, I mean, what do you think? Um, I think one of the takeaways was that you heard them on the meeting time. That’s one thing that you know. Okay. I’m sorry. I just wanted to get some clarification because it wasn’t an open meeting, Megan, just what assistant superintendent for thinks, ‘cause she was there, I don’t wanna be breaching, but I don’t think we claimed any confidentiality necessarily in that meeting. Yeah. So, um, it really, um, Megan, I can’t say sorry. Um, it was really, um, around this a couple of different things. I think the main thing I heard at the beginning and also throughout was a desire on the part of the, these, these particular students to want to be able to set the policy to have the ability to either, either set the policy

1:52:31 or to actually decide what would be approved to hang in the school. Mm-Hmm. So we sort of talked through, um, you know, governance and policy and all of that. Um, and I think we, you know, there were some questions we went, you know, back and forth on that. I also think though that what we kind of came around to was that the students want the ability to be heard about what goes in their school and what doesn’t. And that also led to a, some other discussions around, um, some specifics, you know, some specific symbols that some students wanna see, some students wanna see other things. So it was actually pretty robust conversation.

1:53:17 So I think that what I’d like to maybe see the next time around is how we maybe can formalize that ability for them to, so if it ends up, I don’t know how this is gonna end up. I don’t know what our flyballs we don’t know right, how, what we’re gonna vote, but if for some reason, at some point if we come up with a policy that does ultimately require school committee approval, ‘cause that pro that is what the law says, at least that’s what we know at this point, how we can facilitate the ability for them to be heard in that process. And that’s kind of how we left it. That would be our next conversation. This new SJC case really creates this dynamic of requiring,

1:54:06 Requiring certain elements of the policy. Um, so it, it’s trying to find that equilibrium between adhering to the new case law and still giving student voice. So it’s really, you know, it’s, it’s not, it should not be a quick process, right. Because we have to make sure that we’re doing it right. And, and I was really appreciative to our administrators who set up this time, and for the students that gave up the time, um, that to really give this opportunity and it, and it wasn’t like a one and done, you know, they’ve already set up one for next week and, and what Jen and I said, and I,

1:54:53 and I hope whoever is the next round of committee members to, to listen to them have said is we really do wanna continue to hear from students. And what I said, it’s not just on this topic, I’d like to explore some option to make ourselves more available, to hear from students on any topic. You know, as we go through budget processes, they, they may have certain feelings. We control budget, we control policy. Those are the two things I think that they’re most gonna be interested in out of what falls under us. Um, but I’d like to make ourselves to make a commitment to make ourselves available to hear them as we, as we can. ‘cause I, although they can come and we kept saying, you can come to public comment, you can come to public comment. I, I understand that’s not every teenager’s cup of tea.

1:55:38 Um, so, you know, I, we’ve made a commitment and, and, and I hope that the rest of the committee, you know, can find ways to, to do that too, where we’re making ourselves available to hear from them and not, again, not just on this topic, but as students wanna be heard. So I, I do think that also one of my takeaways, um, Julia, is that we’re going to need the administration to help also with this, right? ‘cause we’re not subject matter experts in how you help teenagers organize and then provide, you know, feedback in a formal way. So I think that’s gonna be key. Administration’s gonna be key to helping, I think Absolutely formulate that. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. All right. So, um,

1:56:26 new business school committee announcements and requests. I’d like to ask a question where the special education audit is, we’ve been asking for that RFP for a long time. When are we gonna act now that we have to replace the director of pupil services? I would like to see that RFP as soon as possible. I mean, you know, we can’t hire people if we can’t say, this is what the situation looks like and these are the things you need to address. So I, we’re not gonna be able to do that anyway at this point. Oh, we, we discussed it two weeks ago at the last school committee meeting and literally the day after our flood occurred. So we have been kind of crazy since then. I, I need to meet with Dr. McGinnis to review those specifications that Dr. Donnelley had put together before we move forward with that.

1:57:14 So that’s the plan. Yes. I would like to see the school committee be able to look at that draft. Oh, Absolutely. Yeah. I just wanted to run it by Theresa before I share it with the committee, because you haven’t even seen it yet. Defense, I don’t think the two people that aren’t here anymore should be the ones determining that’s concerning to me. And I think the fact that they aren’t here anymore leads me to believe that we need this even more. Well, um, and which know you feel the same thing. I just, no one’s saying it’s not. I’m just expressing What do you think is a reasonable timeframe If Dr. McGinness and I can get together next week, you’ll have it next week Or, or by the next Committee, do you think By weeks, in two weeks by the next committee meeting? Mm-Hmm. Um, and then I have no concept, and you may not either, so fair enough.

1:58:00 If you don’t, how long do these, once we go out to bid, we get the bids? Like how long does that process take? It depends on the scope of the, the project. Because when we started talking to the couple firms we had in mind it was like, do we focus on special ed services solely? Does it, you know, does it bleed into your tier one services? And, and there’s a whole huge scope Okay. In terms of what we’re going to be looking for. Okay. So it could run the gamut then really? It Could, absolutely. Okay. And that’s what we really need to focus on. Okay. When you come back with that, um, recommended scope, obviously we’ll have some feedback on that. Do you think at that point it would be reasonable for you to have a very rough estimate of if this is the scope you go

1:58:47 with, this might be the process or still you might not know. I won’t know. That’s unfortunately, it’s not my area of expertise. All right. Totally fair. Totally fair. Um, okay. Any other new business? Excuse me. All right. That, um, correspondence, um, we’ve actually talked about, I think our correspondence that we’ve received, um, and other agenda items throughout, throughout the meeting here. Um, so that brings us to adjournment at nine o’clock Exactly. To vote. Adjournment? No.