School Committee: February 26, 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 And I am calling us to order. Um, we were meeting tonight to talk about, um, the format and the frameworks for a forum that will be held this Thursday. Um, joining us are several members of the League, women Vote Voters. I believe they’re gonna make a state brief statement, um, at the beginning outlining what they were looking for. We also have, um, our council on here. She’s here to kind of let a, give us some guidelines in what we can and can’t answer. And, um, you know, what topics would be impermissible? Um, so if the league would like Mimi, was that you?

0:46 That was, that was gonna say something. Okay. If you’d like to go ahead. All right. Thank you very much, Sarah. Um, I, I just wanted to go over what we can offer from the league to the school committee. I should say that we did check with the State Association of School Committees, and we’re assured that the league can legally run the forum. The way it works is that the school committee posts the meeting, calls it to order, and then formally turns it over to the league to conduct the forum. And when done, the league will hand the meeting back to the school committee to close it. But back to what we can offer, what we do best is public education forums, such as Candidates Night and Warrant Night,

1:33 and the ones we’ve been doing on various parts of town government governance this past year. So this is our vision of a forum that gives the school committee a voice for the public to hear your understanding of the issues you face. For example, what you have learned from the challenges you’re facing with hiring and fiscal responsibility, your decision process, and how to move forward. And at this time, given the public outcry for more transparency from the school committee, we think we can be a helpful part of your response for the following reasons. We provide a, a framework for the community to ask both written and oral questions.

2:22 We insist on a respectful way of asking questions, no personal attacks, and respecting what is off limits, such as anything about the letting go of the former superintendent. We don’t allow rants. We ask for questions in writing so that the moderator can combine duplicates and get to the point. We set time limits on questions from the floor. Also, to help people get to the point of what they are asking. The school committee, you will decide how questions will be answered and by whom. We would hope that all of the school committee members will participate. And some questions may ask for a response from each one.

3:09 We’ll provide cards and pens for people to, in attendance to write their questions if it’s in person. And we’ll encourage writing in the chat for people who are viewing on Zoom. So the written questions will be dealt with first. If there’s time, we can open questions from the floor of those in attendance to go to the mic with a time limit. We are thinking about 30 seconds is enough to ask a question. We can offer a moderator who is not from Marblehead and is trained in moderating and has experience with the format of League forums. It’s our considerate opinion that rushing this through at this time is not the way to go for several reasons.

3:54 Many people have been away during this past vacation week, especially those with schoolchildren, so would not be up to date on this event happening. Secondly, scheduled the same night, the Farewell Party honoring Becky Kern cutting, which most of the active town in, in attendance, the gravity of the situation. Given the numbers of people who have already signed on to the letter, we believe bears careful consideration. We have an excellent out-of-town moderator who is available after the March 5th elections, but not before. She is a co-president of the state league and a lawyer. If we can postpone to a later date, it would give time

4:42 to solicit questions from the public in writing, and would give the school committee a better chance to prepare for this event, perhaps the March 28th School board meeting, or another time in March. So thank you for your consideration of our suggestions and what we can offer to you.

5:04 Okay. Thank you, Sarah.

5:13 Sarah, you muted. Sarah, you’re muted. Muted

5:18 That game. Never gets old. Um, so I, I’ll open it up to the committee for any thoughts or questions.

5:32 Um, okay. I guess I thought I didn’t realize, I thought we were solid on that date for Thursday. So, okay. This is the first I’ve heard of an alternative date. I will say, um, we start our bargaining and between the bargaining and the budget meetings, our schedules are completely filled out. Um, so that was one of the reasons we wanted to have this. We’re we’re gonna be entering bargaining. We have budget, we also will have superintendent search. Um, but I will defer to the committee.

6:11 Um, I don’t, I don’t, uh

6:17 Hmm. Okay. If I can just ask Liz, too, um,

6:25 there are several areas which we cannot discuss, which are things we’ve been asked on. Can you just review the areas we cannot discuss? Well, certainly things that are not within your purview. So, um, hiring of lower level positions such as principals or teachers, um, paraprofessionals, custodians, hiring, separating discipline. None of that can be discussed, um, by the school committee. I think you’re, you should focus on, and I think the League of Women voters, I’ve familiar with them for years, have done a wonderful job of educating the public about government and what your role is. So your role is to hire the superintendent, the school business administrator, and the head of their special ed.

7:11 The other positions, um, in your school district, I hired by your superintendent. Um, you are responsible for the school budget. It’s the most important thing you do because that’s, you put your money where the priorities are. And, um, that is something that’s critical. So that’s certainly an important part of, um, what you are expected to do. I think looking at sort of what’s on the agenda. And I think what Mimi, I’m sorry I don’t know your last name. It only comes up as Mimi, but what Mimi presented is, um, is really about you, your moving forward on hiring. You know, your plan to how to hire and fill these positions that are vacant is certainly something that you can talk about. And you can certainly talk about your budget.

7:56 Um, anything else doesn’t really come into it, right? I mean, it’s policies. If there are policies that are being reviewed, you could certainly mention those, but there’s not a lot of other areas that fall under a fall under the school committee that the public would be, have a particular interest in. And I could be wrong. If there’s something else you can, you know, raise it, and I’m happy to opine on it. But those are the things that school committee members are most responsible for, and they’re probably the most important decisions you make, who you hire to be your educational leaders and how you spend your money.

8:36 Um, Also as far as, um, oh, Jen, go ahead. I’m sorry. Oh, No, I, I was just looking at the calendar. So, yeah, so it looks like we would have a March 7th and a March 21st meeting. So Mimi, you were suggesting the 28th as, because it’s an off, it’s our, it’s a fourth Thursday, March 28th. Yes. It is just a, you know, an extra Thursday. But Are you able to share with us who the moderator is, or you just have, you’ll have some, or will we know who that is or, Yes. Um, her name please, Elizabeth. I do wanna just point out, I don’t know if this affects anybody other than myself, but, um, that Thursday is holy Thursday.

9:22 Oh, oh, okay. Uh, yeah, I should have known that. Um, it’s probably okay. I wouldn’t be available that day. Um, I also don’t, I think that waiting a month is, Um, what we should do Through that. How about Thursday? Um, one question I have, um, as faring out who can and can’t speak, or who can and can’t ask a question or what questions can and can’t be answered, um, I don’t know if we’re allowed to do that as a public body now, at your meetings, you’re allowed to do it, and when you hold a forum, you can do it public meeting. But as a public body, we can’t say no, you, that you can’t.

10:07 If it’s a question that’s not allowable for us to answer by law, but us just not liking it, we can’t, we can’t shut people down. Well, correct, Liz. So you’re asking about public comment, which is a different thing. I think what they’re saying is they are going to do a forum for the public to ask questions, and you are basically attending the League of Women Voters Forum. It’s not a school committee meeting. We’re posting it as a meeting, because there could be, for example, if three of you decided to answer a question differently, there could be some deliberation going on. Um, it, it, it is their meeting the League of Women Voters meeting. It might be it adjacent to your meeting, but it would be their meeting. You’d open your meeting just in case I,

10:52 but you know, you’re sort of on the line here because on the public comment, and that certainly the case law has made it very clear, that point of view is not something we can, um, shut a speaker down about. But it, again, I think they’re going to see the questions. We’re not shutting anybody down. They’re going to organize the questions in a may, a manner that presumably would be, you’d put all the questions about budget together, and then the questions about hiring, because otherwise you’re gonna be going back and forth, and that won’t be very productive for the audience. I Just wanted to make sure we couldn’t get that case that came out a couple years ago. That case is very important. And we, and in, in your meetings. So it’s, my understanding is the League of Women Voters is holding a forum

11:39 and the school committee will be attending that forum. Well, that wasn’t necessarily my understanding, but we can Okay. I, I understood that. Yeah, No, I mean, I’m new to this here. I just came on tonight. No, it just, this came up at our school committee meeting, uh, last week, right? Yeah. Last week. Mm-Hmm. No, two weeks ago, right? Mm-Hmm. Losing track of my weeks. Um, and the league had offered to do this, so we hadn’t really hash a lot of details. I had sort of, sort of thought if it was a posted, I am probably erroneously thinking if it’s a posted school committee meeting, it, it, it, it adheres to the rules of a school committee meeting. So maybe actually having it as a league forum that we’re attending gives us, I don’t know, some

12:26 latitude maybe to be, I don’t love giving, this is, you know, there are, this is a recorded meeting and it’s not gonna be attorney-client privilege, but I think if you wanted to be extra careful, then what you would do is not have a quorum at the league’s meeting. You’d send your two spokespeople persons and they would answer the questions so long as you had fewer than a quorum that would take care of it.

12:49 I don’t know that there’s much deliberation. You’re basically answering questions. Right. I would note that. When is your budget hearing What that for? Well, we actually haven’t solidified that, right, Sarah, but, um, you’re muted, Sarah. It is sometime at the end of March. The budget hearing is earmarked for the 21st. Oh, yeah, it is, you’re right. My count it. Yeah, That might, I don’t know whether that it helps the audience to hear before the budget meeting to have the form or after the budget meeting. But after the budget meeting, there’s a vote on the budget. We don’t usually vote that same night though, if it Liz.

13:35 Okay. All right. We voted at a right, Sarah? We voted at a, um, well, we’ve Done it both ways in the last few years. It hasn’t been a tremendous amount of feedback at the budget hearing. We’ve, we’ve voted it the night of, depending on when FinCon lines up. Oh, okay. But you might wanna take that into consideration as you plan whatever date you wanted to meet with the League of Women Voters.

14:03 Um, Brian and Al, we haven’t heard from you guys. Yes. I had a question. The women voters, uh, forums I’ve attended, usually the question is asked each one of the individual candidates on Right. Or running for office. Were you planning on just doing the same thing? Each one of the school committee members there would get the same question and answers it or

14:27 No? No. Which Will cause a problem. Um, our, our whole in interest in this was in response to the letter that was signed by many, many people, over 750 people in town asking for more transparency from the school committee. Um, and so we, we were offering to, to therefore have this public forum where you could answer questions. You could, uh, give yourselves, you know, a, a, a time to speak to the town in terms of how you do your, um, work and what issues there are that the town is concerned with that you could respond to.

15:16 Um, so it, you know, the offering was in order to help the town and the school committee not have such a fraught time, as seems to be happening at the moment.

15:32 So I don’t, some questions would be, would need to be answered by particular people and others. I suppose it depends on what questions people come up with. Okay. I’m gonna go to Al next. He had started to speak. Yeah, I have a, a logistics question. I just wanna make sure I understand this. So, is, is this Thursday still a possibility? I know you’re recommending in March, and I understand there’s reasons for that, but is there any way it could still happen this Thursday if we decided to go with that date? So, yeah, I mean, we can post our meeting, we can, we can do whatever. That was more for League of Women Voters. Oh, okay. If they could still participate and run the forum, Um, we, we could possibly come up with another moderator,

16:18 the one that we thought would be really good and helpful, and no, not from town, so not part of all this. Um, we’d have to be in March after the elections, but, uh, we could possibly come up with someone else,

16:35 Or, or we could just do it feel Like it’s just so, we feel like it’s just so rushed for the, the public because they haven’t really, uh, known about it. And, you know, it was when we initially offered this, the 29th, it was almost a month ago when it seemed like there was time to prepare instead of just three days. It was At our last meeting. It was at our last meeting, Which was a Week ago. A week and a half ago. Yeah. I I also think that if it, I mean, I, I’m not sure which way it is. Do we need to give the public time or does the public already have a, a bolus of, of questions? I know, you know, some people on the league also signed that letter. So I think, um, from, from that perspective,

17:22 we need to be careful if they’re asking a particular person appointed question and all five of us are there, that certainly could be deliberation, um, potentially. And we wouldn’t want to, um, get into that. But I think also a number of the topics that are in the letter, um, including the separation, we, we didn’t let him go just to, to clarify that we separated from, uh, Dr. Bucky and I, I believe he has been clear on that in his, his two interviews, um, as of late. So I think there are things we can’t talk about in particular, that, which I, I know is a, as I noted in our last meeting, a huge, you know, kind of frustration because we can’t

18:07 legally provide additional information. Um, but they still want it. And I understand I’ve been on that side of it as well before being on this side. It’s, uh, no fun on either side when those things happen. So I think we need to kind of pick which way we wanna go with this. Either the, the, there’s a ton of people with a ton of questions already, or do we need to let them plan? I, I, I like both options. I like the ability to have just, just open and honest conversation. Um, I think that is more transparent than, you know, planned specific questions. Um, and, and maybe we, we consider doing both. I’m not against having more than one option, even if we do it just as a school committee meeting, Sarah, which again, has o other rules.

18:54 I understand. I’m gonna make a suggestion, um, that, ‘cause we did say at our last meeting in a public, our last public meeting that we were gonna be having this, we stated the state, if we now cancel it, I, I do think that that feels disingenuous. Um, but we had, we had been saying we wanted to have public forums. And actually before this letter came out, we were in the planning stages of doing one. They, they were gonna be topic specific. One was gonna be on budget, one was gonna be on special education. We talked about this. So I, I don’t, I think we’re being very shortsighted by worrying about whether we should have this, this day or this day. Because this, this isn’t just one opportunity. This can be, didn’t really should be multiple opportunities.

19:41 Um, and I think the entire committee has embraced that idea the whole time I’ve, you know, been working with you guys. So I, I, I, we can put to bed the idea that it has to be one or the other. Um, I think we really should hold this Thursday, but also be open. We can book one in a month as well that we can cover, um, additional questions. Um, what I might suggest possibly for this Thursday is a conversation with the committee. Okay. Because I think that’s really what’s been missing in our, our community. Things have started to feel very, um, ugly for lack of a better term. Um, and I don’t think that helps the situation or helps anybody. And I think if we can have a conversation where people can come up to the mic and ask a question

20:29 and have it answered and have an actual conversation with the committee, um, that’s what I would recommend. We do this Thursday and then work with the league on picking a date. Um, I would request that if we can look at a different date than, than that, um, Thursday, I would would, even if it’s the day before on that Wednesday in, in March the 27th, but we can work offline to, to work on that date. Okay. But that we can, we have this meeting on Thursday as a conversation with the committee, the, a public forum, like any other public forum that we’ve had in the past and we have had. So I, I wanna make sure that people, well, they might not have been involved or paying attention at the time. Us having a public forum is actually not a unique or foreign idea.

21:14 And it’s absolutely something that we’ve been doing. So, um, I, I would, I would, um, put to Mimi, I’m just gonna hold off on you for one second because this is a committee meeting. So I just wanna make sure that I’m, I’m going to the committee members, I’m gonna put this out for discussion to the committee. If we wanna have this meeting on Thursday and then have the formalized meeting with the league where they can prep, um, later in March.

21:44 I think we should still have it. Yeah, I do too. I do also, yeah, I’m fine with that. As long as we, the reason I’m just hesitating a little bit is I’m still, you know, still understanding the dynamics of this committee, right? So as I’m just thinking through how it would go, you know, say someone comes to the mic and says, I want each of your opinions on whether we should hire or do an interim search for the superintendent, or a full-time search as a committee. How do we wanna process that? Do we want to have the committee’s answer to that? Or do we want to have what Al Williams thinks, what Jennifer thinks, what Sarah thinks, et cetera? So I, I just think that’s a really, that understanding how this might work would help me understand, you know,

22:30 maybe how to go forward. I’m still trying to understand the framework. ‘cause I do, I agree with, I wanna be very transparent. I like the idea of doing this, you know, not just once, um, I think as quickly as possible. But I, I wanna make sure that we have the time that we’re not, you know, again, are we, are we, are we trying, how are we trying to communicate? And I wanna make sure people understand what’s within our purview and not so that we don’t have a lot of questions that we’re always saying, well, we can’t answer that, right? Because that, I think that that becomes a frustrating exercise versus an open communication exercise. So those are just the kind of things I’m a little concerned about. Um, So I think before We make a decision Answer that we would start by giving a little statement about these are the items that are off the, are off the table. We do not talk about personnel at all, period.

23:16 We do not talk about student privacy at all. That’s it. Um, our purview is policy, budget, and the overseeing the superintendent as well as hiring student services and the business manager. Those topics are on the table in a respectful way, you know, and, and in the past, my experience has been summer will come up. They may ask a general question, in which case we’ll open it up. I would say, you know, is there, who would like to take this? Maybe multiple people wanna speak to it. Maybe just one wants to speak to it. Um, sometimes they ask a specific question that they want everyone’s ideas on or a specific question. It really is, the forums are, are really, are led by the public it, as far as what answer they’re looking

24:03 for from who, I don’t know if that really answers your question. It does. Liz had her hand up. Sarah, I think Liz might have wanted to weigh in here. Liz, go ahead. I wanted to note that. So you need to be careful in your agenda because if this is public comment, we generally don’t have school committee members responded. You receive it, they say it, they might say all sorts of things. Um, that’s what we’re, and they might say it in ways that would the, the league would not find respectful or, um, and certainly wouldn’t tolerate is one of, in part of their forums. But in the school committee meeting, that’s a different story. So if you’re gonna, this is not public comment. If this is conversation with the school committee about, you need to list what it’s about

24:49 because that’s a different thing. And you have your public comment on your meeting is something separate. You need to be incredibly careful about this because otherwise you will violate that very clear, uh, court decision that says basically viewpoint cannot be, um, we can’t, we cannot, um, stop someone from speaking because of their viewpoint. So you might, and I don’t, you’re saying public comment section in your meeting and then have another part with just conversation about X. And then maybe another month you’ll have conversation about Y. But I think that you need to be very clear that the conversation needs to be within some kind of boundaries. Otherwise, it’s, it’s going to be, um, less organized

25:35 and a little bit more chaotic than you probably would want.

25:42 Could, could we, I mean, could we start with the four sections? Sarah? Could we have, um, the agenda topics be the four or Liz also be the four sections of the letter? Uh, some of which we still may not be able to, to talk about or to provide the detail that, that they want. And, and people can, you know, have their outcry and, and dislike us as much as they want for that. But whether it was, you know, me, you or my dog sitting in the seat, we still are not legally allowed to speak on it. Um, would that be somewhere to start from a discussion topic? Go ahead, Liz. Um, I think that where you have a budget hearing planned, this shouldn’t be a conversation about the budget. ‘cause you already have that planned on the schedule

26:28 and it’s an opportunity for the public to tell you what they think about budget. If it, I think one of the most pressing things you have is finding a interim or a permanent superintendent, right? So maybe, you know, you can focus on finding your next school leaders. And that’s the conversation. It’s almost like a hearing on that. Let us hear what you have to say about that. And I think that might be like, I think you have to focus this ‘cause you’re not gonna have a moderator. And I think it’s going to become difficult to manage the, and I think it, you need to manage expectations before it starts too. And I think people, we disappointed if they don’t know what the conversation has to be around, and if it can be, and it doesn’t address the issue they wanted because they didn’t know,

27:14 then there’s gonna be disappointment again. So if you could do it in a way that controls sort of the, the topics, I think that might be a way to start and see if you can manage that. I know that the other meeting will have a moderator, but this sounds like it will not. Right.

27:38 Any thoughts on the committee? I have some concerns though. A lot of the, um, dissatisfaction with the school committee has been on topics we can’t discuss. You know, we, they ask, they keep bringing up certain topics and we can’t discuss them. But I think in this forum, it would not be a bad idea to get that question asked again. And for us to say, I’m sorry, we can’t answer this because it’s a personnel issue or it’s something outside our purview. Because I think a lot of people think we’re hiding behind things. And I dunno how many times we can say it. We can’t talk about this, but it needs to be done in a public forum so that we get the public to understand. We’re not hiding anything. We just can’t legally ob we cannot legally discuss them

28:26 because of restrictions. But until we get that out in the public as often as we can, we’ll keep getting blame for not discussing termination or things going on with the school committee members, et cetera, et cetera. I, I personally favor having all the questions asked. And then we can clearly say, I’m sorry, we can’t answer that. Or Yes, we can answer that. I mean, that, that’s part of this communication lag. People just think we’re hiding stuff and we’re not, we just can’t talk about a lot of things that they keep asking us about. That’s my cut. I, I would agree with that, but I would add, I would clarify that we have shared that in our public meetings countless times. Um, then unfortunately we can’t. And you know, we’ve shared as much of our executive session minutes as we possibly can, um,

29:13 from that perspective and which has never been done before. So, um, uh, but I’m all for saying it again. Um, I, I would agree, Brian.

29:26 Okay. So what is the consensus? Are we having a meeting on Thursday?

29:33 Liz? Do you, do you see a way that we could do this? I, um, I certainly understand not wanting it to, um, get, get frenetic out of control, chaotic or anything like that. And I don’t think that’s what any of us want. I don’t think that’s what the public wants either.

29:54 Is there, are there any other measures outside of what you said about putting, you know, having specific, um, discussion points, which could include, you know, things that we can’t talk about so that we can then share. We’re not legally allowed to speak about that, knowing that that’s not gonna solve the issue necessarily, but at least we’ve said it again in a public forum. Are there other measures we could put into place, Liz, to ensure, um, that, that

30:22 this is of most benefit to the community? ‘cause I think that that’s our goal. Well, obviously at the beginning you can, you, you can talk about how long each speaker has to speak Mm-Hmm. Um, the similar kinds of limitations that you put on the public comment section. Um, but this time you’re talking about responding as opposed to public comment where you’re just receiving it. I would say that if you’re going to have a conversation, if the public’s having a conversation with your school committee, you also wanna keep your superintendent out of this. Because otherwise they just turn to her and say, well, you can’t answer it. But she should be able to answer it. She can’t answer it either. So, um, it might be a good idea that it just be the school committee that evening for that part of it. Um, I think that, you know, you can request respectful conduct,

31:08 but you can’t insist on it. Um, and you certainly cannot shut somebody down who is using language that you don’t like. Mm-Hmm. Because it is going to be the school committee’s meeting, right? Well, you can call it a conversation, but it’s basically public comment where you respond. So under the case law, you’re now going to, since you don’t have a moderator vetting the questions, and it’s not the League of Women Voters, um, forum, and it is your school committee meeting, then it’s public comment. You can ask, you know, to keep it within these three topics. Or you can simply say, okay, we’ve now set aside this much time and you have this much, each speaker has x number of minutes, 30 seconds, a minute to raise their questions.

31:54 We will respond on these topics, these other topics. If you raise them, you know, you they we’re not shutting them down, they might say it, we’ll just keep next speaker. We won’t respond to those. And you could do that. But I think that people will find that sometimes a little bit insulting. But you answered her question, you didn’t answer my questions. And it’s hard because one of the things, and I think the league is offering, is to educate the public on what, what they can get an answer from you about. Right. And that’s important because then they know, um, it’s not just Marblehead school committees saying, no, I won’t answer. All school committees wouldn’t answer some certain kinds of questions.

32:40 Okay. Any, anybody else? So when you a asked your question, Sarah, you said meeting Thursday, is that with the League of Women Voters and a potential different moderator? If they or, or just they of us doing it? Um, if they can attend, but it sounds like they can’t find a moderator for this Thursday. And I will say I’m not comfortable with having, um, any of the members of the league from Marblehead moderate, simply because so many of the members of the league signed the letter. Therefore, I think that that voids any, I any concept of possible, um,

33:19 Neutrality. Neutrality. Thank you.

33:26 I mean, I think, I mean, so Liz, you’re telling, I mean you’re telling us there’s some inherent, perhaps risk might be too much of a word challenge, um, in doing this, but I, I don’t know. I think, I think it’s worth it. You know, we said we were gonna do it. Um, I, I think that we, I think we can handle it. Um, you know, I, and again, we’re, you know, public con, we we’re used to the public comment. We just, um, you know, there may be some, some difficult public comments to hear. Um, but if there’s a question in there, then we can answer the question if it’s within our purview to do that. So, I mean, I think we, I think we would be able to handle it. It’s really no different than what we sit through every week.

34:12 I mean, we have some members that come and berate us every week. Um, so it is what it is. But if there’s a question we Can, if there’s a question, if it, then, then it’s definitely productive to be able to answer it. Yep. And, and I think people, you know, I always go back to people really wanna be heard, um, even if we’re not able to answer them or able to provide the detail that I fully understand they want. Um, but we can’t, uh, we need to give them the opportunity to s to request that and, and say their questions, you know, speak their mind, speak their piece as well, just like they do every week in public comment. But,

34:59 But we don’t have to limit it to, well, three minutes is a long time, but, you know, it doesn’t have to be maybe quite as formulaic. But I, I suppose we do wanna put some sort of time limit on it, but, you know, we’re not trying to get it condensed into 15 minutes ‘cause we’re trying to move on to a business meeting. Yes. Right. The reality that we work under the business meeting, I do think what the, uh, what Mimi had said about 30 seconds, ‘cause this, remember, this isn’t a comment, it should be a question. So we sh people don’t need three minutes to ask a question. Um, ‘cause they can make public comment. This is a unique opportunity to have a two-way conversation. So I think limiting it to, you know, 30 or or 60 seconds is reasonable because three minutes, I I, a three minute question,

35:46 I don’t even wouldn’t even know where to start answering. That’s, Well, someone might wanna put something in context. I mean, we talk about it as a conversation. I mean, it means, you know, I mean, someone may wanna put something into context and then have a question. I just, we, I don’t think we need to be quite as, So then maybe we say a minute. I mean, three minutes I think does three minutes does seem excessively long for a question. Even with context, maybe 30 seconds is too short. So maybe we say, you know, try and keep it to a minute to provide the, i I think providing some sort of framework, um, as Mimi noted is very important. Yeah, I think one minute is reasonable.

36:24 All right. Um, okay. So is the entire committee comfortable with that? Mm-Hmm. High school Thursday, 7:00 PM hybrid. Yep. Comfortable might be strong, but it’s, I think it’s the be, I mean, I’m still concerned about us doing this ourselves. I mean, what I liked about League of Women Voters is it’s kind of their business to do this in a way that helps to alleviate some of the concerns we we’re talking about. But I am concerned about waiting a, a month. Um, so again, that’s, I just, you know, I I do think we need, need to do something quicker than that. Um, and, and hopefully we’ll be able to moderate it and, you know, not get into, you know, get ourselves in any trouble, um, and hopefully be able to communicate meaningly meaningfully with the community.

37:11 Okay. All right. So, um, Mimi, I will be, uh, if you could send me the dates that you’re proposing that work for your moderator at the end of March, um, I will share those with the committee and then get back and we’ll finalize that. Okay. All right. Any date. Um, and so that brings us, so I think that’s our, we’re all set, Liz and welcome to say if you want, but I think we’re all good with Goodnight. Thank You, Liz. Thanks Liz. Have a good night. Goodnight you. That brings us to, um, we, I think have people at a hard stop at seven, so I just wanna be respectful of that, but we have 20 more minutes to talk about. Um, we’d all gotten a little writeup from Glen Kucher, uh,

37:56 the president of MASC on his recommendation of possibly going for an interim search instead of a permanent search right now. He felt the number of positions to fill, um, in the, and other factors, um, would benefit us. So I just wanna hear from the committee and see if that’s the direction we would like to take or people’s thoughts.

38:24 I, yeah, I, I thought I’m just gonna go. I thought we had already, um, kind of talked and, and agreed on this, but I, um, given the work that has to be done in the district, I think having some sort of transitional, uh, superintendent who is, you know, willing to dive in and, and do the hard work and make the hard decisions that we know we, we have on our plate, um, I think is a great idea. So I I fully support that still. Okay. Is everybody in agreement with that? Yeah, I am to, I am in agreement. I, first of all, I have tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Kucher and I think he, um, has, um, our district and every school district in the commonwealth, uh, best interest at heart. Um, and it would be, uh, it would be hard to,

39:13 to, you know, disagree with his recommendation. Um, and I think also one of the things that was, that stood out to me in his, um, I think it was in the latter, it might have been in that training session we had, is the, not the cal, I guess the calendar, the cycle, the season, whatever it is of, of hiring superintendents and permanent superintendents. You know, we had fully intended to go forward with a permanent search. We were on the tail end of the season. And then, um, you know, a number of things came up including, um, our current interim, um, you know, not wanting to go forward at Center Center. So I think there are a lot of extraneous issues that, that affected, um, our ability to, you know, act within

39:59 that cal within that season. So that was also something that stood out to me in his recommendation, um, uh, and that he, you know, and, and they’re willing to come forward. There’s no cost to us, which is always helpful. Um, and they have had a lot of expertise in this area.

40:19 It would be good to have them on board helping, I shouldn’t say no cost. It’s part of our membership, which does have a cost. Yes. Um, so one of the next, the next question we have to decide is wanna Do, well, do you wanna hear from Brian and Al on this, or, Oh, I heard so a head shaking, so I assumed. Okay. Okay. Okay. I agree. For all the reasons Glen put in his note, it makes sense to do in interim. So I support that. I agree.

40:50 Um, and so the other, and the next question is, one of the, one of the recommendations or ideas was we could do it with a screening committee or we could do it as a full school committee. Um, the benefit of doing it as a full full, the, there’s a benefit and a negative on both using a screening committee. The resumes the first round are private. The public never gets to see who applied until the, they’re brought forward to the next round. Um, that when you’re looking for a permanent superintendent search, often can, can make a difference if people will apply or not apply. Um, a sitting superintendent somewhere else may not wanna put out a resume, um, and let people know that he’s already looking. So they wanna stay private until they know they made it to the final round.

41:35 That situation doesn’t really exist right now. It’s late enough in the season. Anybody that’s sitting superintendent has been looking, they’ve announced, um, we’re mostly, I would think, gonna be looking at people who have already either announced that they’re looking already or someone maybe that’s retired. Um, so I’m not sure that that level of privacy or not privacy would make a difference for our applicant pool. Um, I will say hearing about the trans, the, the request for transparency in the community, um, I’ve been thinking would the community like to see what the applicant pool is, would they like to be able to see everything that comes in? Um, which if we did it as a full committee, that would mean

42:25 all the resumes and letters of interest are public so everyone would see what the applicant pool is. Um, so I’m gonna open that up to the committee to hear your thoughts on that.

42:41 I feel like I always prefer someone else.

42:46 Go ahead, Allison. Go. No, you. If you could, if you just help me understand, um, the community would be involved in later stages regardless of that decision, Sarah, is that true? Yeah. So, um, what we would do is have, once we pick, you know, people that we’re gonna interview the interviews would be in public, what we’ve done, um, in the past, if we, we as have solicited community feedback, um, and given we can do a Google form, we can do, we’ve done handwritten ones. If people are in person, they can do that. And then we give some time between those public interviews for us to be able to review some of that public feedback that came in. Um, there’s been other searches where we’ve also opened it,

43:33 um, to the community to ask questions. Those were more of a full scale search. But in that, in, in that situation, you know, at like three in the afternoon, the staff would have their own meeting with the candidate where they’d ask questions. And then at like 5:00 PM the general public had their own questions. And then the school committee did the formal interviews at seven. I don’t know if we would choose to do it that way. We did that when we hired our last permanent superintendent. Um, or if we would just ask the questions and have an interview and then solicit feedback from the interviews from the public. Okay. Yeah, I just wanna make sure there, there was community involvement extensively after this, so I’d hate to, maybe it happens, right? But it sounds like there’s a possibility that someone might,

44:19 might not apply if it was public due to their current situation, whatever that might be. And I’d hate to limit our, our candidate pool. Um, so I guess I, I would say I, I’d rather than not, not have it be all public in the beginning.

44:38 I agree with, I don’t have quantifiable data to say whether that’s a valid concern or not. So without that, that’s, that’s, that’s the reasoning. I think al in my experience, typically in a regular seasonal search, that does become an issue. Um, because, you know, normally you would, whether you’re doing a permanent, really a permanent search, but maybe an interim search, um, you would start usually in the fall, um, solicit applications and you begin, um, kind of your culling of the applicant list in around the holiday period. And then final candidates come forward for interview public interviews in, in January, February. There are, you know, often people who are sitting in existing positions that are applying for these positions.

45:23 And they do have a degree of, um, confidentiality when you do a selection committee. Um, and that if they’re not selected as a final candidate, then they, there’s no risk, right? They haven’t, they haven’t sort of, um, disclosed themselves to their existing school district. It is probably unlikely that we would be getting somebody like that. But it’s not, I guess it’s not impossible, um, at this late, at this time for this position, it is very likely, depending on what we choose as a committee for criteria, we may decide, and I don’t know ‘cause we haven’t deliberated this, but we might decide, um, that we will only consider candidates who have had superintendent experience. Um, and given the timing on this, it

46:13 probably wouldn’t be a sitting superintendent. They would’ve probably already gone through this or they would’ve been public in their search. I did run this by, um, Glen to ask him what he would recommend. Um, and he said pretty much what Jen said is yes, it could happen. He thinks it’s not gonna limit anything. He doesn’t think that’s the pool we’re we’re drawing from. He also didn’t think that in, in, and it, in these superintendent searches right now, they’re not seeing large numbers. They’re seeing, you know, maybe five, maybe seven if that. He thought, um, given the timing of ours, we may only see, you know, the number we would bring forward

46:58 to the full committee anyway. Um, ‘cause if there’s a screening committee, they have to bring forward a minimum of two. They like you to offer to bring three forward. Because if one drops out, which has happened to us in the past, then you, you would, the whole search would be vol void. ‘cause you can’t, a screening committee cannot bring less than two forward. Um, so just given where we are in the reality of things, uh, I mean, the other thing that’s Sarah, I just wanna add in there too, that we need to think about is that when we have a selection committee with confidentiality, they go that, that committee selects who becomes the final candidates. They, they, well, they select two will become initial

47:44 candidates and they’ll interview them in private, in comp, in private, and then, um, put forward final candidates. If we are open in this, and we’re doing this as a full committee, you know, we will be discussing that first round in public. So we may very well be saying, you know, such and such a candidate, you know, we don’t wanna interview. I mean, I just, I don’t know. Like, it, I don’t know, could be a little

48:12 clunky, but that’s just, that’s the reality of it. As an open committee,

48:19 I, I feel the steering, uh, screening committee is a better idea, even though we may or may not have screened people out. Yeah. I’m people who are still working in positions who apply for that do not want the name plastered all over the place if they’re not gonna be considered as a finalist. So I think you’re right. I think it would better if we do a screen, if we did a screening committee and then the screening committee submits two names to the full committee. That way we keep everyone’s, we can ask those kind of questions, have those kind of discussions without embarrassing the candidates in front of a full school committee meeting with everybody in the public watching. I think that would limit us even more.

49:04 I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s everybody in the public, it’s articles or editorials written as well. It just, it, you know, it trickle It does, it does trickle down as, as much as I

49:20 like the idea of being able to be more transparent about it, um, which I think would, is what the full committee would provide.

49:29 Uh, I don’t know. I I go back and forth on, on on that. Yeah. I just looking from Perspective, that’s All. I waffled on this a lot. And what I really came back to is we’re hearing the screams for transparency.

49:48 And I think the benefit of that outweighs the possibility of, I I, I really don’t think the the people that we’re going to, I, I really don’t think the applicant’s pool is going to change, um, with this. I really don’t. Um, and also it really, if someone’s willing to come out in the public right away, it really shows that they’re committed to, to being in marblehead is another thing. Um, but I, I think for me, it comes down to we’re hearing screams for transparency. And I think, you know, we, we couldn’t do a full search in public. We really couldn’t. There just, there’s too many intricacies to it, but, um, I think we could offer this to the public, but I, I’m trying to do a straw poll as we go through,

50:35 and I gotta tell you guys, I don’t think I have one right now.

50:42 Yeah. I’m on the fence. Me too.

50:49 Is that, sorry, it’s my child yelling at,

50:56 If we did it as an open committee, Sorry. Well, how would the, I get, how would the public, so normally when we do a screening committee, or I should call it a screen Yeah. Screening committee. We have, you know, we have an administrator, we have a teacher or some, or a number of them, um, parents. We have parent or community members, um, who, whatever is that basically Right, who would Be the parent Rep Yeah, yeah. Would be on the screening committee. And they have, and that’s, you know, to, to determine who’s interviewed and then who is brought forth or put forth as final candidates. So if we do this open, then, you know, I guess we would, that, you know, we would be the one deciding that there wouldn’t be, um, individual constituents doing that.

51:44 And then the final candidates would, they’d have to be some sort of public way for the public to interview them or meet them. And I guess what you described at the beginning, Sarah, right? Yeah. Yeah. And for me, it really comes down to, I don’t think, like, I think that the people, the screening committee are gonna bring in an interview. They’re gonna be, no matter how those interviews go, it’s gonna be an automatic carryover because they have to bring forward a minimum of two. And just knowing what, you know, our pa I, I, I just think that you’re, it’s an extra step that’s gonna delay the process more and it’s not gonna actually refine anything. Like I, I don’t think that the screening committee’s gonna have five people to interview then to present three.

52:32 I think that if we have two to three people to interview outta the whole applicant pool, then we’ll be in good shape.

52:48 All right. Is this something we have to vote on today? I mean, I know we’ve already agreed on the transitional part of it. I am not suggesting that we wanna push things off. Don’t misunderstand me. Um, Glen had asked, I let him know tomorrow. ‘cause it will affect the posting. Oh, The other thing is the application materials. We go up on our website the way, right now, when we have a public interview, we put up the resumes with the redacted, you know, personal info like telephone and email address and stuff, mail, those would go up, you know, ahead of time. People would see, like the public would see everything.

53:32 And Sarah, you said Glen did recommend the screening committee approach, or You’re Muted, Sarah? Oh, he did not make a specific recommendation, but he said, given the concerns, he heard out of this letter that the doing it as a full committee may offer a sense of transparency to the public that they’re looking for. He really did not feel it was going to change our situation. He didn’t, knowing the field that’s out there with the other searches he’s running, he didn’t think we were, were gonna see, you know, more than if we, if we see four people, he thought that was gonna be a pretty big number.

54:14 I, I don’t think that’s the side of it that I’m worried about. I’m worried about, uh, the, the candidates that do come forward and

54:25 just the after piece. Uh, I think it’s the same way. You know, I, I know it’s always uncomfortable talking about our selections in public, but it’s the same way we do everything. We focus on, you know, everybody’s Positive. That’s nots what I mean. Yeah, no, that’s not what I meant. Um, I meant, you know, once something is out in public, articles can be written letters to the editor, editorials can be written that, that piece of it not, I, I, I fully, I’m fully confident that the, this committee would be, um, respectful and, and absolutely. Um, sorry. Oh, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see what, sorry if that was not clear the first time. Um, yeah, no, I, I’m not worried that any of us, uh, would, would not do what we’re supposed to do. I just wanna make sure that, you know, it’s, I

55:11 Think it happens pretty quickly. If I recall from the past, like we would get the resumes, we would sit and have a meeting, say like on a Monday we would off, we would call, we would decide who we’re gonna interview. We would interview on like Wednesday and Thursday.

55:30 So Yep. Where you’re worried about, I think what you’re saying if I’m Well, but then if we need to have, you know, if it’s, you know, gonna be meet the teachers, meet the parents, those types of things can take longer.

55:45 Well that would, that would be in public, the public fees no matter what.

55:51 Yes. But someone would have to get to that. I don’t know. I just, I’m, I’m just trying to be respectful of the, the candidates. I don’t know. I’m, I’m honest. I, I fully like the idea of transparency. I just don’t want, um, I don’t know. I really don’t. I am 50 50.

56:16 Brian, Al do you guys have

56:20 Thoughts? Oh, I mean, I, I truly believe, um, screening committee is the way to go. So for all the reasons that we’ve already heard in this discussion.

56:33 All right, So let’s, Allison, I’m like you, I’m kinda, I, you know, uh, is this something like, so if we, wait, so we have a, a couple of meetings this week. Is this something we could do? Well, I guess Wednesday’s full, full budget, right? Full on budget. Yeah. Wednesday’s full. And I posted that agenda Thursday is this other piece. We could wait till next Thursday. Um, I just hate to keep kicking it down. Can we do it this Thursday and just add, you know, have public comment, have that one vote, and then go right into the forum. I mean, because this Thursday isn’t gonna have anything else about the forum, right? Um, yeah, I can, I can do it that we open with this and then we go to the forum, then we open the forum or the hearing. Okay. I can put it on this Thursday. Um,

57:18 That’s just a suggestion is ev if everybody’s okay with that. I think it’s a good idea. We’re only talking a couple days. I think it, you know. Yeah. Some of us who are on the fence have a couple days to think more about it. Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. Um, all right. So we’ll do that. I’ll put that on, we’ll open with that on Thursday. So like the first, you know, 10 minutes of the meeting will be that. And then we’ll go into the, the question and answer in the forum. Um, I, I’m not gonna put separate public comment on Thursday because the entire meeting pretty much is gonna be so, so I’ll just open with the superintendent search. Um, and I will post that tomorrow. That’s, so I think everybody, well look at that 7:00 PM first time ever. We like. Thanks everybody. So I’m gonna adjourn us at 7:00 PM.