School Committee: February 29, 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 It’s gonna start off our agenda with one quick, quick piece of business. Um, we talked about Monday, uh, the interim superintendent search process. And the two options were to do it with a screening committee, which means the whole first round and all the applicants are done in private. The public never gets to see who, who was applied. There’s some pluses and minuses to that, or do it as a full committee, which would mean the entire process is public and everyone’s application right from the get go is public, which again, has some pluses and minuses. So the committee had asked for, um, the two Ds to think about it before we made our decision. Um, would, I’m gonna open it up for a discussion by the committee to see kind of where everybody is. I don’t know if we just wanna go in order al at the end, or,

0:46 Um, sure. I, yeah, as you said, uh, sorry. I think there’s pros and cons to both. Um, I think I am leaning towards the full committee. Um, I, I think there may be a little, it might be a little more expeditious. Um, and to, to be selfish, I’d like to be involved. So that, that’s kind of where I’m leaning. Okay. And I, and I’d like the whole committee to be involved too, versus I I believe with the screen there’s a subset right. Of us. Yes. So that’s, that’s what I’m leaning. Okay. Um, Allison,

1:18 I am still square in the middle. I love the idea of the whole committee being able to be involved. I love the idea of the transparency of that. I also know the, the pitfalls of that means every single conversation we have has to be, um, in front of the candidate, whether we choose or not choose. And we have to talk about that in front of them, and that feels a little uncomfortable for them. Um, but I, I do think airing on the side of transparency is important. Um, so I kind of am in the middle still. Okay. To be fair, Jen. Um, for once, yeah. I’m kind of conflicted too. Um, I guess the idea is we, if we do it as a full committee,

2:03 all screening, all interviews, everything would be in public, including deliberations. Yes. Everything. Okay. And then the idea is we would do a first round of interviews in theory, and then we would, same thing. We would be bringing forward, Well, we wouldn’t be bringing forward. We would be Deciding, we were just deciding outta those. We would decide, you know, if we wanna interview five or six or two or it, it really is dependent on how many we get. Um, current searches are getting about a handful, if that, if you’re lucky. Um, so, so it really just depends on that piece. Um, and then we would decide all those would be in the public. Wonderful. Public would be asked to give their feedback and all those interviews, they could watch them. We’d solicit feedback through Google forms

2:49 and actual written forms in person too. Um, and those would be available. Yeah. I’m, I’m inclined to go with the full committee. Okay. Brian, I’ll go with the Full committee. Okay. So are we good? Yeah. All right. So we’ll vote with the full, full committee. We don’t need to vote, right? We can just, no. Um, Frank, I keep admitting people, but can you, as you see them too, I just wanna make sure we’re letting everybody in. We’re, I’m really excited. We have 156 people. So far, so nice. Um, a lot of people have come out. Welcome all. Thank you for everybody that took the time to show up in person. Thank you for everybody who took the time to show up online. Thank you for the league for working with us. I was, I talked to Mimi again today. Think at least two times. We went back and forth. We have finalized the date of March 27th.

3:36 They’re, um, they will be providing, I believe she is, I’m looking to Kathy to correct me. I believe the woman that will be moderating is the vice president of the state league. Yes. Is that correct? Um, and has experience in this. So she’ll be joining us. She’s available on that night, um, which is really exciting. So we’ll be, uh, I will be working with Mimi as well as this, this individual to find out what setup they want and, and all that and make sure everything’s in place for that. Um, so thank you. And also, just to reiterate what we said on Monday night as well, although it is leap year, this is not gonna happen every one, every four years in that we’ve had forums in the past. We haven’t always had a great turnout. Um, we have a couple hearings every year, which are,

4:22 are a give and take in a conversation with the public. Um, I think our committee has, has, has said, um, this year as well as in past years, the members that have been on at different times that we really would like to continue to have more public forums. Last year I think we had two on budget. Um, we will continue to have these, this is on a specific topic here. Um, but you know, we’ll probably be ha the budget hearing will be coming up. That’s a give and take with the, the conversation with the public. There will be other opportunities and we’ll do our best to get that out to everybody in a timely manner. Um, but just to reassure you, this is, um, something we will continue to have. So what we’re asking just for ground rules is that, um, everybody limit your question to 60 seconds if you can.

5:09 Um, if you have a specific member of the committee you’d like to answer it, just let us know who that is. If you would like it to be answered by multiple members or the committee as a whole, let us know that as well. And we can facilitate that. There are certain topics we cannot answer. Um, we’ve been pretty honest about that. All the way. We will not discuss personnel issues. We will not discuss any student issues. Um, that, that’s all privileged in information. And quite frankly, both of those things are out of our purview. And quite often we don’t have all that information. Um, I think that is every thing. One minute. One minute. Yeah. I said the, um, oh, sorry. To limit it to one minute. Um, and also remember we have public comment every week.

5:55 Public comment is not a two-way conversation. So if what you have to say is just a comment, I would just, not that those aren’t important, I would ask just for time limits. ‘cause we will be stopping at eight 30 just to let the people who want an answer from us. ‘cause this is a unique opportunity to, to get those answers. And then if there’s time to also make your comment, if not, we have another meeting next Thursday. You can email us, um, as well. So when you come up, just, um, come up to the, the seat right here that’s so the people on Zoom can hear what you have to say. And if you just state your name and address for the record. Can I just mention one thing first? Yeah, I had one question. Um, also, I just wanna say, I think you can reach out to us directly. I think a number of people have since our last meeting, um,

6:41 when we gave our phone numbers out. So that’s been lovely. I would also, um, just wanna answer something that came in through email directed to me in our last meeting. I said a, a number of different things, but it was asked specifically in this question if I was blaming someone else for the chaos, I guess some other influencers. I’m not sure who, my comment wasn’t meant to impugn anybody. Um, nor did I, did I say that? So I, I just wanna make sure that that’s clear and I wanted to make sure that was responded to in public rather than just a one-off. Um, so my comment about these particular five people, um, not being responsible for the chaos did not impugn anyone else. Um, I think sometimes when chaos happens, it’s just because a number of things happened. It’s not necessarily someone’s fault.

7:26 Um, things happen. Thanks. Can I say, sorry, I’m the official timekeeper, so I’ll give you a ten second warning when your one minute is up. I’ll just try to get your attention. You need the Red sign, the yellow sign. Um, whoever would like to come on up. And if anybody on Zoom wants to speak, just raise your hand and I will go back and forth between in person and, um, on Zoom as well. Raise your hand. Like that’s per,

7:59 My name’s Mary 46 Pine Cliff Drive model head. Okay. So I’ve been at the meetings the last two nights at the budget meetings, and I hear the town needs money. The schools need money. We have one vacant school, the other one will be vacant when the Abbott, so I’ve actually contacted a contract, a friend of mine, he doesn’t live around here, but he said minimum of the information I gave him, each piece of property minimum would be a million dollars that could be sold for. So you, in this whole town, I think it’s time for you in the town to play nice in the sandbox and work out so that we can get some money. And also too, it could be used for low income assisted, um,

8:50 assistant facilities or something. But you can’t expect the town’s taxes going up and up and up. And I’ve said this before, 10 seconds. So, you know, people are really upset. A lot of people don’t wanna speak because they’re afraid. And obviously I’m not afraid to speak up. Are you gonna answer the question? Um, Ms. McPherson could couldn’t. There wasn’t there was a statement, there wasn’t an actual question. Okay. So here’s the question. Will you sit down with the town and explain, uh, first explain to us tonight why you didn’t as previous school committee had promised to turn over the cloth in school to be sold. So can you answer the reason why you’re not gonna sell it,

9:38 why you won’t play nice with the town and try to work out a deal so we can get more money in for the schools and keep our teachers? Is that enough of a question for you to answer’s? Great. And do you want us each to answer it individually? Do you need to? Yeah. No. Okay. Why don’t we do that? Each one of you. All right. So who would like to address it first? I’ll say it. If we turn the property over for sale, the school department will not get a penny of that money. It goes directly to the town, and the town will allocate it as they wish. That’s one of the reasons why we haven’t done it yet. People seem to think we’ll get the money for the schools, but we don’t. No, I said play nice in the playground. This is and work out a deal, But it’s not a convers understand, understand. But a lot of people seem to think if we go gave the town

10:23 coffin, we get the money back as a school. But we don’t. I just wanna make that clear. Okay. Why does the town get the money? It’s just the way the rules work. So the, so the, The deeds and the, the properties and the deed of the school. So I’ll go ahead and answer this. Yeah. Um, so the way this works, um, so in answer to your question, which I didn’t get your name, but hopefully you’ll come up and join us in a minute. Um, so actually deeds are not in the name of the school. The deeds are in the name of the town. The town owns the properties. And the way this works in towns in the Commonwealth is when there are buildings that are at under the use of a different, um, uh, division of the town, other than what’s under the select board. We are responsible for these buildings. We use these buildings. We help get these buildings built when the time comes

11:09 that the school committee decides that there’s a property that is surplus, that is no longer needed. Now that can be a building, like we have some buildings. It can also be empty land, which we have had that in the past too. The process to, um, uh, sort of get that out of the hands of the school committee when it’s decided that the school district no longer needs it, nor will they anticipate needing use of that in the future. Is that at town meeting the school committee would first vote and there would be a major, a majority of the school committee members would vote to, um, to turn that property over to the, the control of the select board. And then once that happens, town meeting has to affirm that in town meeting. And at that point it is under the purview or, or the responsibility of the select board. And they would decide, again, through town meeting,

11:56 maybe the same town meeting, maybe at future town meeting, what they would like to do with their property, dispose of, dispose of it, sell it, keep it for something else. Um, but it would, it is the, it is the process is through town meeting and then would be in the hands of the select board. In the past when properties have been sold, the proceeds have not come to the school, to the school budget. It goes into the town general fund and becomes part of the overall appropriation at the next town meeting to the various departments in town. And typically, because it’s not, uh, we only allocate really reoccurring funds to reoccurring costs since that’s a one time expense. Once that enters the general fund, the common practice has been to reallocate that.

12:42 Now the town does that for capital items. So, you know, if the, I was gonna say the transfer station, I’m not jumping on that third rail right now. Sorry. Um, I, if, um, we needed new gas tanks up at Tower Way, that’s a capital expense. So you would use a one time reoc, one time sale sale from a capital area to, to fit that. That has been the practice. How we’ve, we’ve used that in town. By we, I mean the town as a whole. ‘cause we are one whole town. Um, anybody el I I definitely wanna continue to Answer this. Can I, I have, so I just wanna go back to Ms. McCarson’s question about whether it’s a Coffman school or the Evert school. So one of them, I’ve, um, lived here most of my life.

13:30 I think I’ve been in almost every school building as a student. Um, not the newer buildings. The older buildings. And you know, we have disposed, the town has of schools of the past, right? Story school, road school for example. And with any property that we’ve had here in town, and we’re a small town, right? We’re four square miles. Once the property is disposed of and you do get one time, you could get a one time cash infusion that’s gone, right? So we’re never getting that back, right? So we have to think, wait, wait. I believe that, I have to think as a school committee member strategically for the, not even the long term, but the near, near midterm to long term, you know, is there any possibility that we are going to need this? Now a lot of people say no, Ms.

14:16 McCarrison shaking her head no. Um, but we don’t know that, right? We see projections that we saw last night at the budget, um, hearing or budget meeting by nasdaq, which is a independent, um, association that is projecting another a hundred students, um, in the next 10 years, eight to 10 years here in Marble. Now that doesn’t sound like a lot, but we don’t know what that’s going to mean for us, for our facilities needs. We also are looking at a pending zoning change here in town. I’m sure everybody’s familiar with this. The MBTA, uh, overlay district, which we will be asked to vote on at town meeting this year, um, if approved will, uh, allow from a zoning perspective up to another 900 units to be built in Marblehead. Now does that mean 900 units will be built immediately?

15:03 No, but it will be the possibility of that. So as a school committee, I feel we have an obligation to sort of understand what the mid and long term ramifications are of all of these types of things and make a determination, do we think we’re gonna need this because we won’t get it back? And that’s how I feel and that’s how I voted. And I, we voted that earlier this year. Um, I’m just, we’re gonna continue answering one question then we’ll keep going with more. Allison, I I would just add that I understand the frustration with that. I understand that, um, it’s frustrating to hear that we wouldn’t just, you sell it for a million and we get a million, you sell it for a million and we even get half a million. Um, so I just, I just wanna make sure that that’s clear. But there’s nothing that we can do about that.

15:48 That is, again, that’s the law. Yeah, I putting your, I don’t have anything to add. It just, I think most people know I’m, I’m pretty new, so I may say that a bunch of times tonight. So I just, I’ll preface that now, Should you don’t. So, you know, Jen had one of the last meetings. It was, um, Mary, I’m gonna ask that we answer one question at a time. I’m, everyone else is gone. I’m gonna answer and then we’ll open it up to the next question. Um, so, you know, much of my reasons are the same. The zoning, this, this could be a very big change. NASDAQ projections that were presented last night show, what I have been saying for years as it comes down, you know, the trajectory of birth rates have changed. COVID changed a lot of what we see.

16:33 People aren’t just living in a city to save their quality of life for an hour commute. People are telecommuting to work. They’re learning that they can live in beautiful environments like ours and still, you know, work from home. They’re moving from the south end, from the Charlestown area. They’re buying our beautiful homes here, which is great for us, but they’re bringing their kids here, which is also great for us. We need to educate these kids. So I think that it was very important to me to not be Pennywise pound foolish, to give up land before we know the outcome of a very important zoning decision that will greatly impact our schools to wait and make an educated decision based on

17:19 setting our schools up for success. So that is why we made that decision. I also wanna note selling a school and getting a half a million dollars is not funding our schools a half a million in dollar infusion. One year isn’t saving our staff. That’s, that’s not the fix we need here. We need a comprehensive look at the financial disaster our town is in. So a half a million dollars, whether we play nice and smile and shake hands with each other is not going to fix what our students and what our staff need and who’s gonna pay for the demolition of a million dollars to each. So I think we’re going

18:05 On to the next question. Did everybody answer? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Mm-Hmm. Was there someone else that had a question? And then once we go through Ms. Mcgon, if you’d like to come back to this, did anyone else have another? If, if you just wanna just you, if you, if you talk loud enough and this picks up and everybody can hear you. If you don’t wanna come up, you can. Whatever you’re comfortable with.

18:29 My name’s Rick Pitas. I’m a resident of town. I have no children in the Marblehead School. Just to be clear, which is related to my second question. My first question is a follow up to the last discussion. And, um, I’ve worked for 40 years for the Department of Housing Urban Development, and I’ve seen a lot of projects, particularly for family styled housing being done, underground leases, not sale, but a ground lease. And that generates an annual income stream. Has that been explored or is that not allowed under the current regulations regarding the disposition of, uh, I’ve never even heard this term before. Yeah, yeah. Pardon Me. I’ve never even heard about a ground lease before.

19:15 I apologize. I’m not educating On that. Well, instead of selling the property right, you ground lease it and there’s some distinct advantages if the title for the property stays in the school department and you ground lease it to a developer, developer does not have to pay any real estate taxes because the school department doesn’t pay real estate taxes. It’s a very distinct advantage to a developer also to make it app appealing to a developer. You do what’s deferred payments. In other words, you say, I’ll lend, I’ll ground lease this property to you for a payment of whatever. Okay. Uh, and it doesn’t have, you can structure it for affordable housing.

20:01 A lot of pro developers towns structure it on, I’ll give you the examples. The Brick bottom co-op in Boston, which you can look it up and how it was structured. Um, it can be structured so payments don’t begin until the housing is accu occupied and there’s an income stream to the developer. So that’s a, a very strong advantage for a developer to want to do a ground lease. And there’s a lot of, you keep answering my question and there’s a lot of, uh, there’s, there’s the national co-op bank to provide technical assistance to you guys to help structure it, market it and all that other stuff is, so I guess my question now is, is there anyone that I can talk to in school committee

20:49 or in the town government regarding this, uh, opportunity? Yeah. Can I take this? Yeah. So, um, I’m gonna answer that question. Um, in full, in full disclosure. Um, I am a member of the Marblehead School Committee. I’m also a, a commissioner on the Marblehead Housing Authority here in Marblehead. And, um, so we are owners of, um, of low income property, um, senior housing, disabled housing and family housing. Um, we do have a project over on Broon Road in Marblehead that has gone in which road? Broon Road, uh, Broon Road is, uh, street right next to the community center. It’s actually right ne Yeah, the next street over. Next street over from here. Yeah. So we’ve put out the Family Housing Project. Correct. So we’ve put out an RFP, um, to, uh, to have a developer come in and redevelop that with us, right?

21:36 So I’m not by any means versed as you are, but I’m starting to, you know, sort of dip my toe and understand that. So the housing authority is deeded the property. So they have the, they have the ability to, to be able to do that. And we are looking forward to it. We’re hoping the RFPs are due back March 15th. So, you know, hopefully we’ve got at least one developer who wants to work with us in answer to the school department. Um, the way the laws work in the Commonwealth is that the deeds of the, these buildings are not in the name of the school department. They’re in the name of the town. And if we determine that we have no longer use for a building or a property that’s under our purview or under our control, um, and we by vote determine that, again, it goes back through approval of town meeting to the, to the select board, and they would be the ones

22:23 that would have the authority to move forward with something like this. Um, so it would be nothing to do with we are, we aren’t in the housing business and not allowed to be. Who do I talk to? Thatcher Keer Thatcher Keer Town administrator. The town town administrator. Okay. The town. I can actually give you his Okay. Now email 6 3 1 0 0 0 0. Yeah, I have a second question. Okay. As I stated in the beginning, I don’t have children in the Marblehead schools. I have done some research and I have found out that only 25 Perce, this is based on census and so forth, only 25% of the households in Marblehead have children under 18. In the Marblehead schools, 25%.

23:09 That means 75% of the households in Marblehead don’t have children in the Marblehead schools. Now, if you’re going to seek an override, what is the school committee going to do to attract votes from those 75% of the families that don’t have children in the Marblehead schools? And that includes a lot of families that have children at Hillel, at Tower, at shore, wherever. Okay. Do you have any plans? Is anyone working on it? On how, what benefits are you going to be able to tell those?

23:54 75 me, 75% of, uh, the residents of the town. By the way, I’m elderly. I’m on a fixed income. I can’t afford increased taxes. I don’t know whether I will vote for it or not vote for it until I hear what your arguments are, uh, times. Are you working on that? Do you have a committee Working? Okay, we’re gonna answer that now. So who, thank You. Your Time is up. I’m happy to answer that. Why don’t you let other people go for if, does someone else wanna go first?

24:27 Um, I, I would say we haven’t said we’re doing an override. We haven’t mentioned anything about an override this year. I think it was if, pardon me? We haven’t mentioned anything about needing or wanting or planning to do an override this year. Right. You have a reserve a spot for on the town That that’s standard. Okay. That’s, yeah, that’s And you need money. I can’t believe you won’t ask for one. I’m sorry, sir. Maybe you won’t. Okay, we’re gonna question. We’re gonna ask that everybody in the audience except for be respectful. I think that would, that’s everybody can ask for everybody. Everybody. We have not asked for one. There is a place on the warrant because there always is. That’s the standard practice, right? When we’re in this position, no, You have to ask for it. If all due respect, thank you. Maybe we will. But I don’t think that we have discussed that. No, you have to ask to reserve a spot. It’s not automatic.

25:13 Correct. And we do it every, So you have asked for, Which does not. So, okay. I’m, so the school committee as a practice is wild. As, as a practice, the school committee for, since at least 2019 every year has put a placeholder on, they haven’t used it every year, but they’ve placed a placeholder every year, which I think is what Ms. Taylor was saying. Correct? And I think your question is, if you’re going to bring one forward, you’re not asking us are we bringing one forward, but you’re asking us if we were to, what would our argument be? So I’m going to answer that. I’m not Yeah. Is that what you’re asking? That’s, that’s not what you said. I’m Really asking what, who’s giving some thought to what the, If you the Answer, if you do need money, and

25:59 I’ve given a lot of thought, If you do need money and you aren’t gonna, and you ask for an override, who the heck is giving any thought to what the benefits are, particularly to the elderly? By the way, the population of Marble Head is now more than 50%. So This is, I’m gonna answer. So this is an important question. We’ve had multiple overrides over the last year, several years that have benefited the school. There’s some debt, debt exclusion ones. I’m really proud to have worked in that there’s been some general override ones and unfortunately did not pass. Um, I worked very hardly on those, or very hard on those as well. And so the answer for all of those, one of the questions we always get asked is the one you’ve asked. And we’ve, we have a great question answer, and it’s been the same answer all along, and it will always be the same answer.

26:45 Just because you don’t have students that don’t go to our schools, doesn’t mean the, the, the value of our schools don’t affect you or your home values. Now there’s a moral obligation to provide good access to public education. And I, I think that we as a community should all embrace that. If that’s not enough. If we all wanna get down to brass tacks, there is a point. And when the rubber meets the road, when a fixer upper on a major street with tons of traffic that needs a new kitchen and a new bathroom can get a million dollars and that rubber has hit the road, and that’s when your schools aren’t funded and people move.

27:31 People don’t want to spend $1.3 million on a two bedroom, one bath that needs a lot of work and have to pay $20,000 to send their child to kindergarten as well. So whether you have a school, whether you have a child in the schools or not, it affects your home value. Maybe you’re not gonna sell your home this year, you might wanna borrow on it, you might wanna refinance. You’re going to need to have the, our homes are our biggest investments and our schools are the, are a great way to, to, to solidify your investment. So there’s the moral obligation, I think we all have. We wanna provide good access to public education, but you also wanna make sure that your biggest investment is safe.

28:17 So I, that’s always been the argument and I’ll continue to make that argument. Mm-Hmm. Thank you. Thank You. Wait, did I was gonna, Anybody else want? Well, I was gonna act, actually I was gonna make Yeah, You can anyway. Yeah. Um, uh, Mr what’s his name? Mr. Pi disrespect as well. Okay. I I think at the same time it’s important to say we haven’t voted on whether we are actually gonna put forth an Override. Yeah, I think so. That’s clear. I think the point here too is that there is a process we go through from the, from a budgeting standpoint. And last night actually was the first night we had a budget presentation by our administration that it was three and a half hours long and went through every department, every building, um, and the superintendent and her leadership team presented to us what, um, we’ve been asked by the town

29:05 and by the finance commission, finance commission to do, which is to provide a two budgets. One is a budget to provide the same services to our students that we provided this year. And another budget was to provide, was to, um, use the same amount of money, um, in our, uh, budget next year that we have this year, which is what we’re calling a reduced services budget. So if we use the same budget amount next year, we will have to reduce services, which means 0.3 million by $2.3 million, which means, um, staff and other types of, of cuts to the school department. So we just started that process last night and it’s a very busy time of year, March and April as we work through this budget process and lead our way into town meeting. And this is when we would be making that decision as

29:51 to whether we would go forward with an override and ask the town at town meeting to approve an overriding, I Guess he does. I think it’s also important to note, um, I’m sure you all didn’t watch the three and a half hour meeting last night, but there Oh, Lee did. Yes, for sure. And Mary, um, yes, Sally was there too. Um, but not you all. Um, and I don’t blame you, but I would encourage you to take a look at the materials that are online. Uh, there’s some really great presentations. It won’t take three and a half hours of your time to get through it. Um, there was some really great discussions. So if you have the time, definitely watch, I think you will find a, a more detailed budget than you have ever seen, probably ever, uh, from our, our school department. I, I would say in spades, we have it over any other department, um, certainly in the town.

30:37 Absolutely. And it’s something that we should be really, really proud of this administration for putting together for us. There’s a few more pieces that they’re still working on putting together for us, uh, as heart wrenching as it is to see any cuts, whether that’s supplies or a para or a teacher, uh, the effort and energy and just heart that was poured into those. They deserve everything for that, for going through that. Because these are people and these are administrators who are really in touch and grounded with their, the, the people in their school. Um, the process, again, it’s heart wrenching, but the data is out there for you to absorb and look at and it’s available online, which is also fantastic. It’s a lot the binders I think about this thick. Um, but I would encourage, I just wanna put in a plug for that and encourage anyone to go and look at that

31:23 because I’m sure there are a lot of questions specifically around that as well. And of course, um, we’ll answer those as they come. I think too, I also wanna add that to the question about the override, that it’s really ultimately up to the community to decide if they want an override. And one way to do that is through our budget hearing. So at this point, we’re scheduled for March 21st, that could change, but right now it’s March 21st for our, our budget hearing. And that’s when we present our draft budget to the community in a, in a hearing form, like here in this room. And then it gives the opportunity for the community to come forward and ask questions and give feedback. So there could be an overwhelming amount of people in our community who could come on March 21st and demand that we ask for additional funding from the town

32:11 through one method is through a proposition two and a half override. We would be compelled, you know, to to to, to respond to that. Um, so it, in answer to your, I was sort of flipping it back and answer your question. This is a process, um, where we decide what it is that we wanna do in terms of our budget and how we wanna present a budget at town meeting for our schools. So it’s iterative and we’ll, you know, we’ll move through our hearing and get to town meeting and that will also probably be the determination. Yeah. And just, just quickly to address the question, you know, you ask any school committee, is it wise to invest in schools? They’re all going to say yes. Right? And it’s not the most part nonpartisan opinion you’ll get. However, you know, this is an area where there’s been a lot

32:58 of research that you can look up. You know, there’s the, the National Bureau of Economic Research says there’s a very strong correlation between, you know, investment in schools and property values that we, so I just wanna say just don’t, you don’t have to believe because we say it, but there’s actually a lot of research supporting what we’ve said here. So I just wanna put that out there. I’m happy to see a young face. How are you? Welcome. Hello. Um, thank you for Coming. Happy to be here. My name is Charlotte Horton. I live in Old Town, um, and I’m a senior in high school this year. I moved here last year and this is a very big change from Texas where, um, I lived for the past seven years. Um, and I have a lot of questions. Um, sure. I think a couple major ones are, I met with you in January

33:45 at the meeting, um, and we had a lot of questions that you were unable to answer, like about, I talked about the flag policy, just to give you an overview. Yeah. Okay. Um, um, can, like student vehicles were for, um, were up for question about if you can have flags on student vehicles because in the policy you currently have, it says that on vehicles are there needs to be approval for flags. And you said, oh, I think we just mean, um, like buses. But in the policy it’s very vague and it does not give a lot of information for us students, um, who are trying to just like, uh, be students here. Mm-Hmm. Um, I also have a question about the Marblehead High School, the Marblehead, um, magician, uh, flag, which was also not, um, which was also not in the flag policy.

34:32 Um, as well as, um, I have questions. Are there gonna be 10, 10 seconds? Oh, sorry. How’s 10 seconds? Yeah, 10 seconds. Are there gonna be any student voices in these flag conversations? Because we are the people here every day. And even though you guys may be parents or you may be, um, like reading the stuff, you’re not in the school and you’re not, um, you’re not like living every day seeing these flags. Um, and you don’t understand the support that people of color get, um, when they see the flags, even if it is a small amount. Um, yeah, I Think thank you Cheryl. Given that she looks like, I think there might be one other student here if you have other questions. I just think we should give her another minute and a half. ‘cause if, if there is a student that has, you know, come here to speak to us, I think we should listen. So do you have other questions? Do

35:18 you want us to answer that one? Do you want us to, Jen, you can keep hours. I Then gimme a call. I can too. And I would love to speak to you when I love your hat For a civics assignment for my, um, final project side concussion during actual finals, I had to, uh, pick a topic that really interested me and I wrote a proposal for a flag policy. Um, and I would love to give it to you guys if you would love to read it. Um, just trying to give students more of a voice because you guys aren’t here. You, you aren’t understanding the, the trials and tribulations of going through the school, being microaggressed and being harassed in the hallways. Um, and for sure flags may not seem like a big thing, but it is a piece of identity. Um, and it really shows people like

36:03 that they are not, they don’t need to shrink themselves when they come here. Um, and even if it is, um, even if people say, oh, it’s performative, it’s just a flag, you know, it does have meaning. Um, and it does make people feel like this is a community versus this is just a place where, um, this is just a place where you have to learn. ‘cause if you drop out, you don’t have a chance like to get that high paying job anymore. Um, so yeah. Can You email us so we all have it? I’ll, Oh, I have like Four copies. I’ll tell Yeah. Charlotte know there were five of you. Charlotte. Is this different than the one that was already It’s different. I read this Well. Okay. Thank you very much. Did you share this With Ms. Carlson, Dr. Carlson or, um, No, I can, it’s a, it was just for a civic project. Do you also mind emailing it to Yeah, it’s um,

36:48 school committee@marbleheadschool.org. Okay. But if you just start typing it, it auto fills in your school email address. Thank you. Thank You very much. Um, Jen did, you said you wanted to take this one? I’ll or Allison? Either one. Go ahead. Um, you Were at the meeting where she was I was not At that meeting, So I Don’t wanna Yes, I was so I’m a Allison. We can’t, we Can’t both be there just Right. Allison and I are members of the school committee policy subcommittee. So the school committee has lots of work that we do and we ought to do a lot of our work in the form of subcommittees. Um, so Allison and I are responsible for the policy subcommittee. So what we do is we, um, look at policies that exist that might need to be updated or changed, as well as look at potentially new policies that need to be established by the school committee. All policies that the Marblehead public school system,

37:34 like any school system in the state of Massachusetts or Commonwealth of Massachusetts, um, are the purview and responsibility of the school committee. So the school committees determines and sets policy by vote, right? So we either change policies, cancel policies, or adopt new policies in the form of a vote. So, um, Allison and I were tasked with a re because of a request from Dr. Carlson, who’s our marbled high school principal to come up with a draft, a draft flag policy. Um, and that is our job to do. Once we do that, which we haven’t done, we haven’t finalized a draft, we then would bring that to the full school committee for school committee deliberation, discussion and ultimately approval.

38:20 So there has been a lot of talk about this, uh, certainly in Marblehead, but also across the country based on a recent Supreme Court case that took place in 2021, which is the Shirtle case. Um, and it’s not the only case determined, but it’s, it’s the latest, um, case. And it actually, uh, started in Boston and it was the Boston City Council that was, um, part of this case. And the long and the short of it was the Supreme Court determined that any municipality or government controlled property like a school or a town hall or a city hall, um, can control what is displayed on flagpoles or in any other kind of way. And if they don’t, then they can’t restrict it.

39:06 So in other words, if they’re gonna allow, um, flags or banners or anything else to be displayed on government property, they can’t restrict anyone. Everyone has to be allowed to have an opportunity to, to display their flag if, or banner if they want to be able to control that, then they have to have a policy. And there’s some work workarounds around that. So we started to do this. We had a lot of, um, uh, discussion, particularly with some, with high some high school students. And we had a couple of listening sessions and we have had a couple of conversations with the principal and our assistant superintendent, Julia Ferrera. And we have provided, um, sort of a summary of these discussions as well as an existing proposal that some of the high school students provide or proposals

39:53 provided us and have given that to our attorney. I’m actually waiting to hear back from our attorney and I will also put this in there as well. Um, a little bit of a wrinkle in this, um, situation is last night at the select board meeting, which was, I didn’t realize it ‘cause I wasn’t looking at the agenda for the select board meeting. The select board if Marblehead last night voted a flag policy for the town. And, um, it, they discussed it, um, it was actually a pretty quick item, um, at their meeting last night and they didn’t have an actual written policy that they voted on, but they discussed it in sort of theory and the policy for the town said that any flags, um, would be, would be actual government speech.

40:40 So it would be the responsibility of the select board and they tasked or they delegated that responsibility to the town administrator. So people that are requesting anything from the town for display would go through the town administrator. So that put a little bit of wrinkle in all this. So we need to, I i, I don’t know what that means for the schools and that’s what we need to, we need to determine as well. So that’s the latest wrinkle in it. So, And just as A clarification, probably not the answer you Yeah, we had our, we were at the four hour budget meeting last night during the select board meeting, so we couldn’t Yeah. Go and be a part of it or ask any additional questions. Yeah. Because it at the same time, unfortunately, one, one thing I wanna add to that is it was a stated at the select board meeting, the reason the town was adopting a flag policy was

41:26 because of this Supreme Court case and town council reached out to the town administrators and said, you have to have a flag policy because of this case. And it has to have certain elements, which we’ve been saying for months, is what we were guided on. And for some reason people thought we were lying and some people went as far as to say our lawyer had the wrong interpretation of the law. So I, I, I was, although I, I wish we had known the town was doing this, so we could have, um, you know, had shared some of the feedback we had from students and things like that with everyone. Um, it was actually reassuring to hear their legal counsel came to them and said the exact same thing we knew months ago from our legal counsel. So that was helpful. Um, but I think,

42:14 You know, Nelson, you might jump in here. I think that, you know, we, we have, you know, sort of, we all have to follow the same law, right? We’re all under the Supreme Court and we have to follow the law, but we do have a constituency, um, of students who are, you know, who have some concerns about this and also, um, uh, wanna have the ability to, I think to have a voice but to obviously do it within, within the law. Uh, so that’s why I, I feel strongly that we need to have a, you know, pretty thorough, you know, review by our attorney and then come back and we need to figure out how we’re gonna involve the students as well as we develop this. But I think some of it’s gonna be, yeah. I see. Um, so I see a hand online from Sophia Wiener. Oh, Sophia.

42:59 Hi. Okay. Can we turn her up? Wait one second. I wanna make sure that everybody can hear. Yeah, it’s hard to hear you. Hold on. Okay. Oh, oh, that’s better guys. Hi, Sophia Makeup. Hi. Um, alright, um, I’m Sophia Weiner and I live on 36 Mulford Street. Um, I just wanted to say thank you for meeting with us and you know, like taking the time to address this problem. Um, I have, okay, I’ll just say it. Um, so I have been hearing a lot of language where we’re saying like, oh, we have to do this. And I’m just wondering, or I’m kind of saying too that, um, I don’t think the Supreme Court case said like exactly

43:45 what the policy had to be. So hypothetically, let’s say the town doesn’t like override what the school is doing, hypothetically, um, the school could make whatever fly policy they wanted. And I’m just asking to confirm if that’s true, to see if they could make a flag policy that differently from the one that’s proposed right now, more focuses around inclusion and keeping the flags up that symbolize inclusion like Charlotte was saying. And then also, um, I was wondering if the school committee is taking any steps towards promoting a more inclusive environment in all of Marblehead public schools. I’m not sure what that would be, but I was just interested, um, to see if that was something that you were considering

44:30 or taking time to focus on. Thank you. So I think just to clarify, we do have to make one, we will check to see, you know, compared to the town, there is a line, I believe in what the town proposed that says this excludes any Marblehead public school policy. We are checking again with our council to see what that means and if that’s allowable because technically everything is a town building. So, um, but we did, the reason we had to create one is because we were asked what our policy was and we didn’t have one. And when we don’t have a policy and we are asked by an administrator what the policy is, we’re required to then create one. Um, so I just wanna clarify that. But we, that’s, I think you bring up a great point, um, about checking with the town and we’ll for sure do that

45:17 and let you know what we find from an inclusion perspective. I’m sure you don’t want to watch a three and a half hour budget meeting last night, but there was a lot of talk about the diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is being done in the schools today, um, in our, in our budget meeting. And I think it’s something that we wanna expand upon and compound upon as we move forward because they discussed a lot of the great things. Um, I understand that A DEI coordinator was requested in previous budgets not approved. Um, but there still is a lot of work going on in each of those schools and I think that’s something that we all recognized from the conversations last night and it’s certainly something that we want to compound upon. And I think if you do have ideas, certainly being students, uh, either of you and I commend you both for sitting here

46:04 through this tonight and, and voicing your opinions, I applaud that greatly. Um, I would ask you that you reach out, you know, whenever you have ideas or thoughts. I, I think we are very welcome to that because again, as, as you said Ms. Martin, it’s, you’re there every day, uh, and you understand what it feels like to be there, what it looks like to be there and all of that. So the ideas, um, that you have to whatever extent possible, um, we can, we can certainly talk about, um, and also bring to your specific schools. I’m sure that your administration at the schools that you attend would definitely be interested in hearing those as well. ‘cause remember, as much as we love that operationally, it’s not our purview. So it can be a little dicey sometimes to have those discussions.

46:50 We always want to have the discussions and never deter that. But it’s not our purview to determine what operationally happens at Village or at Brown or at vets, um, or the high school or Glover, or it doesn’t matter where you are. Um, so that distinction is really important and I think sometimes, um, gets a little bit lost. Um, and sofa Sophia to answer about the inclusion at every school. Um, I’m gonna, I’m kind of gonna peek over it, Jonathan, ‘cause I may say be saying this wrong. I know at each school there’s a working group, I can’t remember the exact name of it, but that focus, it’s made up of various administrators and various staff members, but it focuses on the DEI work in that school. And what is it called? He doesn’t know either. I feel better. It’s part, it’s

47:35 Part of the plan. Oh, is it dcap? What Was d No, no, the DCAP is something else. But there is a working group. So a plan for Success at every school. There’s a, that there’s a working group that addresses this. So there is work being done at every school and if there’s certain areas, um, I know a lot of times that my kids have gone and asked, you know, they, they’ve said, I have an idea. And sometimes their ideas are great and sometimes they’re not. But they’ve never had an educator or one of our administrators say like, Nope, I’m not gonna listen to, like, so they’ll always, I’ve always had positive experiences as a parent, um, even long before I was in the school committee. So before we write an editorial that my kids get special treatment, like that’s not it. Um, that, that, um,

48:22 I’m sure administrators will put you in touch with that group somehow so that that can help build on it as well too. Can I Thank you. Um, I just think especially that’s great to hear that there’s so much work towards inclusion that’s going on in those schools, and I just think that the committee should keep that in mind to further inclusion when they’re creating the flag policy. So thank you. Thank you for listening to me. Okay, thank You. I did wanna also mention Brooke, uh, Charlotte, your point at the beginning was about the, um, vehicles. And your point is going the, the draft policy that we had out there that our attorney is, our new attorney is now reviewing, um, did have a line in there about vehicles, about having displays of banners or flags on vehicles. And the intention by the previous attorney

49:09 who wrote the policy was for that to be school vehicles, school buses, school vans, anything that the school owns. So I think to your point, it was vague, right? So it made it seem like if you drive your car onto camp, you know, onto campus probably like, we are gonna tell you what you can or can’t put on your car or as a bumper sticker, that’s not the case. Um, so we just need to check, make that wording is more clear, is clearer, more clear, um, that it is school owned vehicles And property did, uh, you never answered the marblehead uh, magician flag Question, right? So same thing, we would need to have that built into the policy. Um, and we would, you know, hopefully have input from the school. What are, what are, what do we need to have built in there unless it, you know, is yeah, I mean we would either write that in or there would be a process for

49:55 what flags would be displayed, which would include, I, and I had, I think we had said this at the listening session, I think that we had around, um, you know, the US flag, the state flag, the town flag, the teams flag, and the banners from all our championships. Like all of those things need to be, um, those are all school or town or state specific or country specific would obviously be, um, allowed to be displayed. It’s a great call out though. Thank you. No, we have Somebody here that’s been trying To get up. I see now NY Oh, I’m sorry. Sorry Carrie. I do see your hand and we’ll, we’ll, we have one person in person here and then we’ll come to you. Okay. Um, all right. So I, is it okay if I just ask two questions? Yeah, just your name because I just, I’m sorry.

50:41 RA dubois and I am on Green Street Marblehead. Um, I just thought I would just quickly address the flag issue. I think there’s a question I have. Sure. Um, I’ve looked into this a lot and it appears to be that there is one fundamental distinction, which is, um, whose voice

51:06 is speaking through these flags, right? Like whose viewpoint is it? So when you put up whatever flag it is, is that the district talking? Are, are you supporting Black Lives Matter, the pride flag or whatever, or is that the student’s voice? And how do we determine that? And I think at the end of the day, each school is going to have to figure out like what avenue is going to be there for the kids to have their voice, but it also has to be communicated to the parents, um, and to the administrators and to the kids that that may not be the district voice. And so how do you do that? Right? So it’s like, and so I just was wanting you guys to consider that. I don’t know if you have to answer that right now,

51:52 but, um, you know, if you’re in the lunchroom, is that considered time your voice or not? Okay. So, okay. One other quick question. Do you, I don’t know who it was, it was maybe you Sarah, that last night at the budget meeting, um, you noticed that there was, um, the graph for the out of district, district placements. Mm-Hmm. Right? That graph only went back to 2019 and somebody had said, oh, there’s a spike at 2020 and that must be covid. Um, no, it hit, it went down, down. Well, no, it went up. Well I have it right here, but it went, it went up from 2 20 19 to 2020 and then it went down. But then it sort of, it’s edging up,

52:39 still going back up, right? So it’s going back forth. So I would like to see, and I don’t know if this is open to the public or what but I really would like to see the data going back to 2010. Um, I have, and my oldest was in and out of district placement starting in, I wanna say 20 20, 20 19. Actually, it started, you have to apply for that a year advance, like, so by 2020 that spike could have been covid. It was likely. So what I believe is that this is the 2020 cell phone cohort that is since then, like those kids that were in seventh grade, sixth grade, who got their cell phones, um, started Instagram and stuff. Those kids have all ended up in hospitals by 2019 and 2020.

53:28 So I would, am wondering if you guys can go back to the data, take a look at that. I can send you a lot of information on other, on, you know, this has pretty much been proven that this is one of the biggest things that’s, um, uh, mental health issue and it’s tanking the district. I don’t, and I’m also curious if you guys are able to share with the public the, this is hard, like the demographic of the out of district placements. I know that’s really difficult, but I think that people might think that it’s like up the kids, kids in wheelchairs, but I know who was there when we were there and I know how much it costs and it’s social emotional.

54:14 And so in that vein, you’re going to have to do different things to solve the problem. And I’m, so my biggest question is, will you take cell phones out of schools, like literally twenty, twenty four, get the cell phones out of schools, because this is all related, the flags. The DEI, you know, that was one of the questions I had was have you actually read the materials that your district has been trained on the rides program, all the stuff that Bucky did. Have you actually read it? Have you read Turner’s book? Have you read these things? ‘cause I’ve read them all. Yeah. And they’re scary. Okay. So I, I don’t know if you can, that’s a mixed bag with mental health. Thank you. That kind of thing. Thank you.

54:59 Um, absolutely can get you the data back to 2019 or 2010, 2009. I’m sorry, 2010. Um, it’s not gonna be like a 24 hour turnaround. Um, I want you to look at it, but I’ll send you what I have. Okay. Thank you. But we can ask, we can ask for that data. Um, was there anything, any else, anybody else wanted to just, and then there I see a hand for carry power.

55:29 Oh, maybe not. Okay. We’ll go with one here and then we’ll go back. Hi, Nicole. Or I’m sorry. We ready? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Nicole Cohen, I, sorry, I don’t actually have an actual question. I just wanted to come and give my support to the school committee. I appreciate your, um, presenting this forum, something that I would not have expected from the previous school committee. Um, I understand that you guys are, uh, are under a lot of pressure and I appreciate, um, Uh, what you guys are doing, how you are composing yourself, conducting yourselves. I know it’s not easy. You do have the town support you, you know,

56:16 and I also do feel confident with your budget. Um, I think a lot of people, the overrides did not pass before because people did not like the way that the information and their requests were done, the budget. That was great. Um, I feel confident that if, um, you do ask for something, the town will deliver it to you because we trust you. And that’s been shown and how the town has voted. So, um, thank you again for how you are conducting yourselves and holding these meetings. And thank you. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Carrie, power, I see your hand again. If you are able to unmute and share your question. Yes. Thank you. I, I am now. Thank you very much. Um, so my question is regarding the, um, components

57:03 of the budget or the upcoming budget, uh, in regards to the special education component. And really my, my question is for each of the school committee members in regards to what their understanding of the special ed processes, including, you know, the FPE and IDEA laws, um, and how those laws impact what is needed and required in the school, um, to maintain all of the things that, um, the students need for success. And I’m curious what the experience of each of the committee members is in regards to understanding

57:48 the special education, um, process and the, and the unique, um,

57:56 costs associated, uh, as the upcoming budget is being, uh, composed with the pending, um, cuts or potential cuts. Okay. Um, who would like to start? I think she’s asked us all to come. And if we’re able to, do you wanna start? I mean, I’m happy to start. So I, uh, do not, um, I’ve been honest about that. I don’t, um, have a child, um, in the special ed department. Um, I know that that is not my area of expertise. Uh, nor have I ever said it was, nor do I think it has to be to sit on this committee, uh, and to be valuable. I think that having a wide range of strengths is,

58:41 is far more important. So I would never claim to be the one to explain to you or anybody else what the rules are. I know there are other people on this committee that do that very well. Um, and also certainly far more educated people in, um, in our administration and teachers who can do that. Um, the role of the school committee is not to be an expert in special education, um, rules or requirements. I certainly am aware, um, of, of IEPs and what is required there. Um, and that we are by law, legally supposed to provide each of those students with what is written and agreed upon in their IEP. I also know that we don’t always do that. Um, that’s an operational piece that would not be our purview. Um, but I certainly have heard from a number of people that,

59:28 you know, certain things do happen or do not happen. Um, I think some of that is a, a result of budgeting constraints. Um, I think that our teachers do a remarkable job with what they have and should be commended for that. Um, but I would never claim to be the expert, um, on that. I’m not sure from a budget perspective. Um, are you looking for allocation? How much is allocated to special education

59:55 Specifically? No, I think really what my, you know, my, and I agree, um, that to be a school committee member, it is not a requirement, certainly. But I do think that it’s an important, um, component given the percentage of the budget that is allocated to special education. Yeah. And out of district placements. And with the recent, um, upheaval in the special education department and what we’ve seen, uh, do, I firmly believe that this did not happen overnight or in a vacuum with, um, one or two or three or four people. Mm-Hmm. Um, that this was a, a situation, you know, that

1:00:42 that built over a very long period of time. And I think that, um, you said it well when you said that, you know, the teachers do the best that they can with what they have. And I agree and I applaud every single teacher in the Marblehead School district for the work that they do, and how hard they do all the work, um, with what they have, which is unfortunately so limited and sounds like it will be more limited. And when it comes to special education because of the law, it is a very unique process. Mm-Hmm. And I, I, with the percentage of the budget that is allocated to this area, it is a concern

1:01:32 for me, um, how it gets, um, Distributed, presented, utilized, re presented. Sure. So I think, And that’s, you know, that’s my, that’s my question. Yeah. And, and I think, um, in regards, I think you’re correct. Things don’t happen overnight like that. Um, like as we saw, um, I will say from a school committee perspective again, and I’m, I’m not, um, I’m not resting on the whole purview concept, but it’s important because it, it does play into it operationally. The people that sit at this table do not know about the, the occurrences that happen in, in each building on a daily basis, unless they are somehow brought to our attention or escalated to our attention.

1:02:19 It was gut wrenching to watch our educators share those stories in our public meeting. It was gut wrenching in the executive session after. And I think once it got brought to our attention, hopefully you feel that we, um, you know, gave it the diligence that it needed. I really hope, desperately hope that our teachers felt that it did. I, I expressed my support for the teachers before any of the vote of no confidence or executive session even happened. Um, and I remain standing with our teachers always. I think that, and I appreciate you noting that it’s not something that happened overnight. I just really hope that people understand, as soon as we did understand there was a situation, we did something about it. And we tried to do as much as we can from our purview.

1:03:08 Um, I think one of the other things that we asked for that we have not gotten a response on or updated information on is the special education audit. Um, part, just kind of a piece of this was, um, and everything that’s happened this past six months, we asked to have, um, an RFP sent out to have an outside, um, un unrelated interest, do an audit of our special education department, processes, policies, all of that so that, um, we can ensure that we’re doing as much as we can and that we can figure out, you know, what additional things can we then bring to the table or, you know, suggest. Um, and obviously it, it does all boil down to budget as well. And unfortunately, I think Brian wanted to speak as well. Thank You, Carrie. Having just not finished, left the field of education

1:03:54 as a principal and a special education teacher, I can guarantee you all of the teachers in the buildings, both general education and special education, know the process very well on how to get a student, uh, tested and then perhaps have an IEP written for ‘em. So our concern really is based on what happened at the top end of this, from the Director of Pupil services, the Assistant director of Pupil services, and what happened, and I know the Union ex expressed a lot of satisfaction with what happened, which is that Allison had just mentioned we’re having a survey done to understand how deep it went and the areas that we have to correct to make sure it runs Optim as optimally as possible. So I wanted to rest, I wanted to let you rest assured that this, the buildings know exactly how

1:04:43 to administer IEP law and they take care of it very well. Thank you. As far as the budget, I just wanna, I wanna be very cautious as we talk about special education and the cost and, and the percentage they are of our budget. Um, when you talk about vape, um, for people who I, I, I often, I mess up the actual words of the acronym, but the intent is free, appropriate, um, equal access to public education. Um, so I think what’s, what’s really important is there’s this legal obligation for funding, but we have a, we have a moral obligation too. Students learn different ways. Students have different needs. We need to meet the students where they’re at. Um, and when the budgets get tight,

1:05:31 I know that there gets tension. And we often hear general education and special education. These are all of our students, and it’s really important that we are meeting everybody’s needs. Um, and I know there’s only one pot of money, but we, we really have to be careful about making that division as we talk about our students. And I don’t think that was your intent at all, Ms. Power. Um, but I wanna make sure that everyone is aware that, that we, we really need to make sure all of our students are being educated in the way that makes the curriculum accessible to them.

1:06:10 So, a agreed. And I, I recognize that my time is up, but I, I feel so strongly on this point that I’m gonna just take one minute to clarify here. Um, not only do I agree that all students, um, deserve that, and that it is not a, a funding issue, but to speak to something that was mentioned at the school committee meeting several weeks ago in regards to outplacement and, um, students in an outplacement, or teachers in an outplacement. And the 14%, uh, increase that, that, that funding went to out of place, out, out of district placements. And not to marblehead schools or not to Marblehead teachers. And my argument would be that those teachers are

1:06:56 as much Marblehead teachers as the Marblehead teachers are because they are educating our most needy students in a, in a setting, um, outside of Marblehead, but still very much a Marblehead teacher. And so, uh, not only do I agree, Ms. Fox, but, um, I would take it a step further to say that all students, uh, should be included in our district in every way, including at sporting events. And, um, you know, just because they’re outta district, they’re not, they’re not, not part of our district. So, thank you. Thank you, Ms. Power. Um, I see Kathy Hempel has a hand up as well. I, Kyle, uh, first of all, I’d just like to say that

1:07:46 I totally respect y’all for volunteering to be on the school committee. ‘cause it is a volunteer obligation. Right? But when I read an article in the current about, uh, Cummins made about the League of Women Voters, I was, I was really, really upset. I’m a member of the league. And so, question one is, is this true what you said, Sarah? I will say that I am not comfortable with any members of the League of Women Voters moderating, given that so many signed the letter Fox referring to a letter signed by more than 780 people giving the school committee failing grades, demanding more transparency.

1:08:35 I, So question one is, did you say that? Question two is, you know, I worked for many years in, uh, jobs of, you know, responsibility. And when I was asked to evaluate people that worked for me, I also had to self evaluate. So question two is, how do each of the members of the school committee evaluate their own performance? And I exclude from that, the newest member. ‘cause not there. So I would ask each member self-evaluate right now, AB A through F right now,

1:09:17 I, I don’t remember what A through F was in that. If you wanna grades No, I’m just saying if you went to school, I thought You in each element.

1:09:27 Um, we haven’t done A through F in so long. It’s great. Yeah. Right. Um, does anybody, is anybody ready? Ready, Everyone? So question One is, did One, you say that question two is, okay, may I ask each member of the school committee except the newest member to self evaluate?

1:09:49 Um, so yes, I said that I would like a member from the state league to be the moderator because it was important that someone that was part of the story not be the one moderating it. Yes, I absolutely said that. And, um, for neutrality purposes, that it’s not about the league being a non-partisan group. It’s not about whether you are a Republican or a Democrat BI part, where, you know, in, in a state election and national election, being non-partisan and being a non-partisan group really is important in that fact. The, the being nonpartisan is whether you feel we’re doing a good job or a bad job. So to have someone who has weighed in an opinion, whether it was a plus

1:10:36 or f would not be nonpartisan in that. So I think it was really important to have someone from the state level of the league come in and to fulfill that role so that they can be the ones without any feeling personally about the person asking the question. The person answering the question can truly be nonpartisan.

1:10:58 Just so I understand, as I understand it, the proposal was that they did have someone from the state they did propose. Yeah. Yeah. And we doing that and we agreed with that the whole time. And I, I encourage you to reach out to the steering committee ‘cause I’ve been working with them and they can, they were at that meeting, they can flesh that out. And that’s what was the point, was we wanted them. And that’s why for this Thursday, they couldn’t get that person. So we wanted to wait until they could get that person, which is 3 23. That was, that, that was the context of that comment was I wasn’t comfortable having someone that wasn’t outside of our situation and therefore couldn’t lack that neutrality because it’s your schools, it’s your children’s schools, it’s your grandchildren’s schools, so on and so forth.

1:11:43 So you can’t be neutral. You either think we’re doing a great job or you think we’re doing a poor job, but someone from that state division. So taken out of context, it reads a very different way. But I encourage you to reach out to your colleagues on the league and they can fill you in. ‘cause I think at this, from, at this juncture, you’re not gonna believe what I’m telling you. So I really encourage you to reach out to, um, Mimi or Kathy’s here. She’s been on the email change and she, I think you were on Monday night too. Um, and, and, and get that feedback from them because I think anything short of that, in the hour long meeting, You disagree with their assessment. What is your, what is your assessment of your performance? All of you assess yourself performance? I’m not gonna,

1:12:30 Actually, I actually will answer. I, um, going through the different line items. I think we’ve been incredibly transparent. I think that we’ve given a line item budget when no other department in this town has why they haven’t been called on that I’ll never understand. We’re the only department. We were held up by fin com last year. And again, during our process this year as being the most transparent department, as far as our budget goes, we’ve answered all questions we can within the confines of the law. I understand many people wanted a lot more information on personnel decisions and on student situations. We, it is not appropriate or legal for us to answer those. And I understand there’s frustration around that, but I think we have been very transparent about that. Um, what were the other areas, uh, Mr. Oda and this

1:13:19 With all due, with all due respect, that wasn’t a question asked. Honestly, all of you. I applaud your volun stepping up and volunteering to do this. This is not a job that I would step up to do. But my question was a to f how do you self assess? I’m going through, through the evaluation process that I hope all of you went through in the areas we’re here for budget policy. We are going through, we we’re here for budget policy, supervision of the superintendent, and, um, and negotiating with the union. So union, I feel we’ve had a very good working relationship. We’ve been, they’re shaking their heads yes at

1:14:05 me, extremely. Am I supposed to give that one away? No pressure. Um, that we’ve been extremely respectful. We, they brought to us, um, some very serious concerns. We heard them in a very respectful way. We were very supportive of them throughout the process. Um, I am looking forward to going into negotiations. I know everyone keeps talking about what’s happening around the state. Um, and you know, it’s really unfortunate that not every town has the relationship we have. I respect all of our teachers, all of our union members. I feel they respect me and all of us, quite frankly. And so as far as that, that’s arm number four of our job. I think we’re doing actually much better than on the other

1:14:51 school committee in the state is doing right now. As far as interpersonal relationships with our union, um, the superintendent, we have been working very hard to try to bring a superintendent to our district on a full-time basis. Um, since severing with Dr. Bucky, that has been a path that has been harder than we anticipated. I’m not gonna give us an a in that we, we have a path to go down. We are seeing this through. We have brought, we listened to what people said. We’ve worked with Glen Kucher, we’re bringing on MASC to help us through that process. And actually tonight we just made a decision to do that 100% in the public view so the public can also see the resumes we’re getting,

1:15:38 which I think is also a good step towards transparency and that third leg of our job. So we’ve got budget negotiations, superintendent, superintendent right here, and policy. So policy, we have worked very, very hard this year to get us back on track to adhering to policies for a wa long time. Where we really went astray as a school committee was one off here, one off there. It’s okay not to follow the policy this time because this time it’s not that big of a deal. And, and we were all part, you know, I I’ve been on this committee for six, five years. I have to be honest, you know, one seems harmless here. One seems harmless here until it’s not harmless until you’re so far away from following your policies that it’s not good.

1:16:25 So we have worked very hard this year to say what’s the policy? Let’s go back to the policy book. The policy says this, did the policy come from the MAIC? The vast majority of our policies come from the MISC and adhere to policy, what we were graded on. A lot of it, quite honestly, not our purview. Those are the four things we are elected to do. Those four things. I think we have some work on the superintendent position. I think we’ve done money as best as we can on budget. You know, I, I hope to God you are asking the townside where they are on budget as well, Ms. Temple, because thanks. And as I said, honestly, I respect all of you

1:17:11 for stepping up and volunteering to be on this awful committee. But you did answer my question. You didn’t say A to F, so I would like to ask the other members except the newest A to F. Yes. You know, just say A, B, C, D, E, F. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking. I will volunteer my answer. I say we’re doing a B and that’s because we’ve been accused of, um, not doing the budget. Well, we just saw it yesterday, so I don’t know how I could get a poor grade on that. Um, we brought in an excellent interim superintendent with the plans that if it worked out, that we would make that permanent. Unfortunately, after being here, so many catastrophic things happened at the same time,

1:17:58 she has decided not to, uh, continue beyond June. Um, so we, we actually started that process late. I admit that because we had hoped that Dr. McGinnis would stay, but now that it’s clear she’s not, we started the process and we’re gonna do as much as we can following the guideline guidance from MASC. So I think for that, we’re c you know, because I amm a c because we delayed, uh, starting the, uh, permanent search until it was almost, until it was too late. Um, what else?

1:18:33 Sorry. Thank you. I’ll, I’ll go next. I’m gonna say, Kathy, that I would say a B minus, um, to a lot of, to a lot of, uh, Brian’s points, um, and to Sarah. So I’m not gonna belabor it. Um, we not wait. I was elected in June with Brian. Um, we went through, um, some changes this summer. Um, we have, and I talked about this quite a bit over the summer, last spring and last summer. Um, a lot of work to do, um, in this district. Dr. McGinnis has talked about structures and programs that need to be, um, the foundations need to be built and then the scaffolding needs to be built upon upon those. For many of our structures in our programs, we have gone

1:19:19 through a difficult time, um, without a doubt. And we are in wealth in the process of rebuilding. And I am confident that we are going to find, uh, we already have found qualified people to step in and, um, we will find permanent folks to do that as well, um, to help build this school district, um, budget’s part of it. And we have to get through that this year. And we will. I am so proud of the colleagues that I have worked with this year on the school committee and am welcome and al to, to join in here. Um, we, I know without a doubt, every single person at this table is committed

1:20:05 to the students and the staff and the administration and the town to build and create the best school district we can for our students in Marblehead. We have some more. Thank you. Appreciate I I saw it. Um, I would grade us a b as well. I’m gonna go through one by each the section. Be nice. No, Brian said a b, He said the SAB minus. Oh, okay. I read the same as, uh, of Brian at night. Um, I, I’m just gonna go through one by each. I’m, I’m unclear how we could fail at budget leadership. Like Brian said, um, we were just given the budget last night. Actually, we, we got ours I think Tuesday. Um, it was available to us. I think it was Tuesday. Um, I got mine on a Wednesday morning. Uh, I’m not sure how that’s a fail.

1:20:51 Um, I certainly understand if, if you mean from an override perspective, um, we could probably do more. And I think we got some great, um, comments tonight about, you know, things to think about or lenses to look through. Um, should we in the future decide to do any type of override? Uh, I think from the select board and coffin school and that whole portion of the discussion, um, from the, the, I’m just reading the, the F letter as everyone seems to be calling it. Um, that’s not something I think we failed at at all. I never promised the select board anything. Um, I don’t, I’m not in a position to keep other people’s promises. Um, so that’s, that’s my comment there. Uh, I think on setting policy, I’m not sure exactly why that’s a fail.

1:21:36 I understand folks are not happy or there were folks that did not approve, or like the flag policy that we suggested. Hopefully we’ve explained in a more permanent fashion here why we had to do that policy. Um, it’s not a policy yet, so there’s nothing to fail on. It’s just a suggestion. It’s a draft and clearly it’s a working draft. We have had a lot of sessions with different people. Jen and I are the subcommittee. We can’t both be on all of those additional sessions just as an FYI. Um, so I’m not sure how that’s a fail, um, for hiring the next superintendent. Um, we, we didn’t end, I think Dr. Bucky was clear in his two interviews, uh, since then that he chose to leave. Um, and we separated

1:22:23 and we tried to devise a plan to move forward. As Brian noted also, we certainly were hopeful of a more permanent lane there when that doesn’t happen. We came together, Sarah worked with MASC, we had a meeting with Glen, a training session with Glen, where they suggested that transitional, um, superintendent, which is something we brought to you at the last meeting. We’ve agreed to do that. We’ve agreed to do it openly. God bless you in an open meeting from the start. So you’ll get to see every bit of that process. Um, and so that, you know, also touches to, uh, transparency. So I think that’s, that’s important. Um, I’m not sure what the, I don’t think that we’ve had unbecoming behavior. I think, um, someone noted earlier that we conduct ourselves well, are we perfect? No, nobody is. I don’t think anyone in this room is,

1:23:08 I don’t think anyone expects that, or hopefully you don’t. Um, but I would like more details on where someone thinks we are, are bullying. I could, I could point out where someone chose to select a vulnerable piece of information that I shared at our last school committee meeting and decided to blast that, um, on a social media post. I, I think that’s the, the very definition of bullying. Um, so I, I don’t think that we do that. I don’t think that we, you know, call out any, anyone like that. So I, I’m merely proud of us because sometimes it’s hard, um, to sit here week after week. Um, and, you know, we do the best we can. At the end of the day, we are human and we are people, and I try to remember that and I try to conduct myself that way and respond in kind.

1:23:57 Um, when my son deals with anybody at his school that someone didn’t like, he was wearing Wrangler jeans, and I guess those just aren’t cool anymore. And I wasn’t aware. Um, and they went, oh, you’re wearing Wrangler jeans. Um, and so I worked with him to kind of come up with, with a way to deal with that internally, because every child needs to learn how to do that. And, um, his response is now always, does it make you feel better? Um, so that’s kind of something I always have to think of in my head. If it’s making someone else feel better, then, you know, um, I’m okay. I probably don’t have as thick of skin as you need to sit behind here. So, you know, buckle up buttercup. But, um, I, you know, you are getting there. Um, I hope that folks understand any decision

1:24:42 that we can make in public, we make in public, um, there are things that we can’t do. I understand the anger around that. I’ve said this a hundred times, I’m gonna say it again. That does not mean we’re failing because you don’t like the decision. That doesn’t mean we’re failing because we can’t tell you more about it from a legal perspective. I’m not discounting the frustration associated with that. So if the f is for frustration, I’m with you there. Um, it certainly is frustration frustrating to have to sit here and be called every name in the book. Um, whether it’s in the paper, whether it’s on social media, um, or to our face in a meeting to be called every single name in the book, because you’re not legally allowed to say the pieces of information that people wanna hear. Um, that’s not a fun place to be either. So I, I guess it would give us a solid BI

1:25:28 think there are always ways we can improve. I think we had planned on having a forum. Um, it was already on our agenda when the league approached us. I think we agreed on a date that night. Um, Ms. Harrison, you, Ms. Mimi worked with you, Hollister. Yeah. Ms. Uh, Hollister worked with you agreed on the 19th that we were gonna do that. Our planning session came along. Unfortunately, the moderator that they wanted was not available for tonight. So we decided, and again, this is all on record in the meeting. You can watch it. It’s only an hour long. I think it’s about halfway through, um, where we decided to have both. And the final comment of that to Chair Fox, to, um, Ms. Holster was we would move forward with our own forum tonight. Um, and I think it’s been, you know, mostly respectful

1:26:14 and I just wanna say thank you to everybody for that, because I know it’s hard for everybody to deal with that. But I would also suggest to that, um, you watch that to see that we agreed we would do it tonight on our own. And that Ms. Hollister was going to get back to Chair Fox to determine whether the 27th would work for the moderator she had in mind. We did confirm today, I believe that that moderator, um, yes. Yeah. Did work, right. So, which is great. And we look forward to that just as much as we look forward to tonight, um, to answering more questions. So that’s my thought. You wanna give yourself a grade, Al? Yeah, I like, actually, I just, I wanna, thanks Ka uh, thank Kathy for allowing me to take an incomplete. Uh, but I do wanna state, I am trying to, you know, really focus with a sense of urgency on really coming fully up to speed.

1:26:59 And I do wanna just give some kudos to, you know, my fellow team members because they’ve been very helpful in, in helping me with that process. So thank you. So ne next time that question’s asked, I’ll, I will be able to answer. Oh no, you don’t have to. Yeah. Honestly, I just wanna say, okay, thank you all again for being on the school committee. It’s not easy and you’re stepping up and you’re volunteering and you’re doing it, but you’re rating yourself a b and the town thinks you’re an F so something is wrong. So just I would ask that you a little bit more self-reflection and, and maybe think about how could be. Thanks, thank for listening to me. Thanks Kathy. Um, we have two people here that are gonna speak.

1:27:48 Okay. Uh, do You them on video’s? Sorry. Uh, Jonathan Heller. Sally Shery, Um, there, they’re, yeah. Marblehead Educators, Marblehead Education Association Co-Presidents. And we just had one question for the school committee. Uh, so is the school committee going to pass and advocate the town to fund to fully funded needs-based budget that focuses on kids not cuts? Or will the school committee just accept the cuts as a foregone conclusion without giving the community an opportunity to vote for the budget Marblehead students need? You’re asking us to vote our budget here and now that’s a lay up to Kathy Hempel. Um, so I think the, you have

1:28:36 to understand this is not a vote in a of, of the school committee. Yeah. So, but if you’re asking us all to speak indi as Individuals Yeah. Just in terms of your opinion, I mean, this is an opportunity. Yeah. We know the town is, has given a number or told, given you a directive. Yeah. Um, as a committee, you do have the right to go back to the town and say, this is what we need for our students and our schools to make sure that we provide the very best education possible. So, and in the past, we’ve just taken it as a foregone conclusion. This is the town said we have to do and we take it. So I guess our question is, you know, as a school committee, are you willing, are you willing to take the vote or willing, willing to put yourself out there and go back to the town and advocate on behalf of our students to say enough

1:29:23 with the cuts we need to fully fund the budget that our students and educators deserve. So I, Okay, go ahead, Jen. Um, so in answer to your question, Jonathan, my answer is yes. Um, last night was, you know, it was a long night. It was, it was a tough, tough discussion. We have two budgets presented to us, a level services budget and a level reduced services budget and a level services budget. And that’s just round one, right? So, um, you know, there has been a pattern, you know, over many years where we’ve, you know, we work with the town and the town makes suggestions based on projections as to what the town thinks is reasonable on the finance side, um, for us to go forward. Um, and we do have a pretty significant delta this year. There’s no question about it. The town does too.

1:30:10 So let’s not, you know, we all, so are, you know, in this together. Um, I think that there are a lot of unanswered questions I have about the townside and I’m trying, I am going to try to go forward and get some answers as a member of the subcommittee as well as a member of the school committee to get some more answers to understand, um, that at least in the first round, whatever belt tightening we need to do that it’s equitable about tightening. And then we’re in a position as we get through this and we get to our budget hearing, where we then can say, you know, if we’ve done everything we can to say, okay, we need to make sure that this is equitable. And if it’s not, um, then there’s other things that we can talk about and then hear from the community in terms of additional funding and additional revenue, revenue sources IE

1:30:56 through an override or otherwise. Um, and remember, you know, and the school committee knows this, um, that we are the only board in town other than, um, the select board who can go to the floor of town meeting with our own request, right? Um, now that’s arguably not best practice, um, uh, to have this, you know, play it’s best for us to try to work collaboratively with the townside. And we are, um, and I just will leave it that I think we want this to be, um, equitable between all departments in the town in terms of how we’re, we’re funding with the revenues we have, and then come forward to the community and explain what would be needed, um, for us to fully fund what our administration and faculty

1:31:43 and staff are telling us is needed for all of our students.

1:31:49 We had the first budget review yesterday, right? And we asked for a lot more information about exactly how these cuts are coming about, that they’re, the department’s proposing. And we’re asking like, class sizes, how many people we’re asking all the data we need to make a decision. If it’s like, we’re gonna be cutting teachers to make classrooms 25, I don’t know what we’re gonna do at that point. I mean, we’re leaving our options open, but the town’s made it very clear that there is no money Now. I don’t know how true that is. And for us to look at an override is another difficult question because we haven’t done very well with the last two. Um, so I don’t want to put us out again to try it if it’s not gonna pass. So we’re gonna have to figure out exactly what we need so

1:32:36 that we can tell the public this is what your school system will look like with this current budget that we’re looking at. And it’s up to the people to come to us and say, we need you to go for an override. We’ll help you get the override. We can’t do it as a school committee. We don’t have the power to go out and knock on doors and tell people, you know, you gotta vote for this now. We really can’t. And so if, if it comes down to the fact that this is really going to devastate the school system based on what we’re seeing, then by all means we’ll discuss an override. But we haven’t gotten to that point yet, Jonathan. We’re getting there, but we haven’t gotten there yet. We have to have more information about the depth of these cuts. We saw the numbers, you know, just general numbers last night, but we need to see how it goes to every school,

1:33:22 every classroom, every grade. I mean, I think we have just over 400 total educators. 4 25, something like that. Between 30 positions lost last year and potentially another 30 this year. 60 positions is significant. That’s mm-Hmm. I, I can’t do the math in my head. It’s been a long day. But you math, it has to be 20% of our budget of the, of our staffing. That’s significant. And it’s impacting our students. And I think, you know, we need our school committee to go out there and advocate on our behalf. And I, we believe that you do. And that we can tell you that our educators, us as an MEA us as educators, we are willing to stand up there and fight for our students as well. We just need to make sure that as a school committee, you know, the town may be telling us one thing. There are a lot of unanswered questions out there.

1:34:09 Article 19. I’d love more information about Article 19 on the Town Warrant that talks about, I believe it’s $7.1 million to reduce the tax rate that was put up by the town finance director. Um, I’d love more information about that and, and why that’s up there. Um, that’s the, as well, That’s the, um, article for the appropriation of free cash. Yeah. So that’s every year. That’s every year. That’s an article. That’s the mechanism you release the free cash to, to reduce the levy. If we, if we don’t say that, then we have to cut seven more, 7.1 million more. Like that’s, that’s an, that’s an, that’s a regular mechanism of town meeting. You get the free cash because it’s not a revenue stream. Even though Marblehead uses it as a revenue stream,

1:34:55 the Department of Revenue does not recognize free cash as a revenue stream. So it’s not allocated through the budget allocation. It has to be allocated through a separate article. Don’t mess with that article ‘cause we can’t cut 7.1 million more that’s allocating the free cash certified to bounce. Do you wanna go first? No, I would, I mean, you’re new, so I guess that’s not fair. Um, I would say that, uh, a hundred percent I’m willing to fight for our students and our teachers and what they need. There’s nothing that’s more important. And I wouldn’t be sitting in this seat and I wouldn’t take the nastiness and the soul crushing commentary, um, if I didn’t. I have been very, um, vocal about ARPA

1:35:43 and trying to get as much as we possibly can from the town for arpa. Every one of my things failed. Um, but that, but I tried. Um, so hopefully, and, and I’m not, I’m saying that from the perspective. I’m not just saying yes, I will, hopefully I’ve proven that I will to you. Uh, I fully respect that there are people sitting in the audience. There are people listening and there are people that sign that letter that just don’t like me. Um, they don’t like that I’m sitting in this seat. That is okay. I have no problem with that. Um, and I respect that you don’t have to like everybody, but we are doing every single possible thing that we can do to be transparent. Provide a budget that is unlike any other, and worlds apart from anything, any other town, any other department in this town is held to. There’s no one protesting the flag policy

1:36:31 that they just agreed upon last night. And probably 90% of the town didn’t even know it happened. It was a 15 second discussion. But when we have the same exact discussion, it, the, the hatred is, is insane. And, and I just wanna get past that because we’re here and we really want to move past all that. So that really has nothing to do with your question. I just fit it in there ‘cause it was my time. But I do really want you to know that yes, I will fight that. I’ve hopefully proven and I will and we’ll Continue to. That’s what we want to hear that. We’ll the and we know. Thank we. We’ve heard you say it. We’ve heard you say it means we, Can I say it again? We say, look, I every year like Yes. Yes. I think, I mean, we can only take no for so long. Our children depend on it.

1:37:17 And, and you talked about investing Our kids can only take no for so long. Right? It’s not about the adults. And that’s the conversation I really want everyone on every topic to, to transition. It’s not about the adults here. It’s right. It’s not about the adults there, it’s not about the adults, it’s about our students. This is not a kid problem. This is an adult problem. We need to go out there and advocate for our students and give them the best education possible. Our students deserve it. We talked about investment. It is the best investment we can make in our children, In our future. Yeah. And and I also think just one more thing to add Go ahead. Go ahead. I’m sorry. Because I’ll forget it’s too much going on out there. Um, there are, Jen alluded to it. I have a number of unanswered very detailed questions

1:38:02 that we will, I will be requesting, I’m not on the, um, finance subcommittee this year, but that I will be requesting get answered by the town in, in, in around the money that they’re giving us. Mm-Hmm. Other money that I think should be given to us and, and those types of things. ‘cause I do think we need to either we’re, you know, they wanna work with us and they want Michelle to do the presentation with them and we’re friends or, and, and we’re 60% of their budget all the time, but only not when the money’s going out. Only when it’s coming in. And I, um, so I will be asking those questions too, because that could have some bigger impacts on our abilities from a budget perspective as well. And we Are, Sarah said it already, we are one town. Mm-Hmm. Yep. It’s time to function as one town, not two separate entities Here. We have over 700 people who are expressing an interest in our schools right now.

1:38:50 Mm-Hmm. And we need to harness them to say, let’s get it done. Let’s get that all of us working together, 700 plus people, we need you and we need you to fund these schools. Yeah. And it starts with all of us, not just those people at the table, not just us, the teachers, the students. We need those people and we need our, their support. And that’s what we need right now. Yep. I’ll just give you one an the last three people that have talked to me in Crosby’s Stop and Shop have said the same thing. I moved to this town just recently because how the wonderful school system you have. And I’m going, don’t read the newspapers, but, but you know, that’s exactly what they said to me, all three of them over the last month. And so I don’t know, you know, how to address that.

1:39:37 But we certainly don’t want that to be a fact of life. You know, that the school system is not, We should ride this like a wave that these people are coming out right now for the interests in the schools and we hope they continue to show their interests in the schools and support us. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. What Do you wanna do? We have, We have a couple more people online. We got, I think we gotta keep going. Yeah. So, so I’m trying to remember the order. I think the order was Megan, Joel, Tara, and then Joelle. And it was me, Megan, and Tara started. So we’re gonna go from Megan. Hi. All right. Hello, Megan Sweeney, uh, 23 Beacon Street. Thanks so much for this evening. Um, it’s almost past my bedtime, so sorry. Thank you, Cindy.

1:40:22 I’m old. Um, first of all, um, the, I have to say just to say this ‘cause it’s driving me crazy. The double standard, um, between the school committee and the select board and other boards who manage, um, a significant amount of our tax dollars is excruciating to watch unfold. So I just need all of you to hear that, um, and know that there are many people who, who see the double standard. So given that, okay. Finances to me are the biggest part of the puzzle and probably one of the biggest frustrations. And it, if I’m understanding, and please correct me if I’m wrong, my understanding is the, the piece of the pie that the schools get stems from a decision

1:41:10 by the select board. Is that correct? Good. That’s what I thought. Um, so in that, um, state of the town, the select board did include public education as part of their responsibility. However, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen that they take that responsibility seriously. And, and I mean that with as much respect as I possibly can because for years, the, uh, the annual report has said that we need to identify new revenue streams. And yet every year we show up to town meeting and we’re short, we’re short, we’re short. And here we are this year close to if not four and a half million dollars short. So I guess my question therein is how can we work together

1:41:58 to help the select board understand that educating our students and supporting our teachers who are loving and caring for our students, how can we fund, fund what needs to be funded? How can we to, to the, the union’s question, how can we make sure that we have a budget at some point in the near future before everything falls apart a fully funded school system?

1:42:24 I’m not sure if that’s clear, but that’s my question. Um, does anybody wanna speak to that? You wanna go first? So vote You drew the short straws. Dar sorry. No vote. I mean, but I’m, I know you vote. Um, ask the questions of, of what I continue, I continue to say what we fund is what we value. And if we keep saying the schools cut 33 positions and the town didn’t cut anything, didn’t cut any added two positions, then that, that shows what our town values. Um, I I, I am very happy

1:43:12 that there is a groundswell of people that are interested. Do I wish that the full body of them had voted and voted to support this override? Yeah. Maybe the half that didn’t vote in last year’s election will this year. And maybe that’s what will carry us over the threshold and maybe we’ll fund our schools. Finally, we just need, we need people to understand that

1:43:35 the schools can’t keep cutting. And I know to a certain extent it’s an economy of scale that you can’t ask a department of three people to cut. You know, a pers cutting a person for them is cutting a third of their workforce. I do understand the idea of economy scale. I know that there’s gotta be gives and takes, but it can’t, it can’t all, it can’t be on the continually be on the back of our kids. We three, three cuts last year, last night we heard another huge list of cuts. Um, I know on Tuesday night, the town talked about their cuts. I think they added up so far to about a million. Not Actually not Even a million. Um, so I 10 50, there’s more con conversations that need to be had. Um, yeah. Okay. And,

1:44:21 and just, I, I encourage people to just have those conversations, asked these questions and fund what you value. Yeah. Just fund what you value. I mean, Megan, thank you for, for your question. And, um, I mean, I’ve been on, was on this committee back in 2016 through 2020. Um, and we had a very difficult time in 2019 that was really, well actually not the left, but the actual spike in our out of district placements happened in 2019, which is really the genesis of a lot of the structural deficit that we have today in our school budget. And, um, I advocated back then, and as difficult as this has been so far this year, it was just as difficult back then.

1:45:07 Um, and what we were, we were attacked and we were called all different things and what have you trying to advocate, Brian probably remembers trying to advocate for, um, a million dollars we needed. And we didn’t, you know, we didn’t get it. Um, and we had cuts, we had cuts back then, and we’re here five years later making cuts. Um, so budgets to Sarah’s point are moral documents. Um, and they reflect what a community feels is the priority and is important. And I think the, for me, the important thing is with this word transparency, we keep talking about, but we need to have this on all parts of our government so that we see every line item, every penny where it’s going in

1:45:52 with, you know, in, in open, in perfect light so everybody can see what we’re budgeting for and what things are actually costing. And then we can make decisions and then we can decide what our alternative revenue sources are. But you know, to Allison’s point and Sarah’s point, I am committed, as I said earlier, to work with the town on equitable belt tightening. That’s gonna be my new thing. Equitable belt Tightening. Okay. I like that. Anybody else? I like that too. So for, so do you feel like, sorry, just a quick one. So as a follow up to that, do you feel like it, it sounds like the schools are gonna have a bigger, I don’t know, bigger cut if you will, than the town side, but is that, you know, we’re still talking about DEI, you know, e is the,

1:46:38 the equity part of it. Like what part of that is equitable? I think we still have, And I don’t mean to put you on the spot, It’s not right. That’s the, that’s the short answer. But I think that we still have a lot of, like we alluded to before, we still have a lot of questions, um, that we have to bring back to the town. Um, perfect. So, you know, um, and thank you. We, I, I know most of us are probably all of us, but I can’t speak for them, are committed to doing that. I think we should probably do you Yeah. Wrap up and I just, we were gonna stop at eight 30. I’m trying to get through to everybody. We do have a, yeah, sorry. I’m done. That’s okay. No, no. We have a rock hard stop at, at nine. Um, so the next was Tara. Tara, Tara,

1:47:23 she’s got a Time Life Books headset on. Sorry, can you hear me? I love your Time Life books headset. Tara. Thank you. Can I help you? Um, so I just wanna say, um, Tara Sge 32 Rowland Street. Um, I’m getting a little frustrated with some of the negativity. Um, that’s my biggest qualm here. But I just wanna say, you know, I feel that the school committee here has inherited a

1:47:56 multiple generations worth of school committee issues, right? We can’t just blame the school committee for everything that’s going on today. They’re just trying to fix everything, right? They’re, everyone’s doing their best to fix everything. And I appreciate that 100%. I really feel like everyone’s doing the best that they can do and giving them an f like that’s ridiculous. That’s crazy to me. Um, the whole manner of this letter and the skew code that went out, the whole thing that the, the QR code, that’s crazy. I just, I don’t get that, that, it just seems like some bizarre warfare I don’t understand. But, um, I am 100% behind this school committee

1:48:45 and I just wanna thank everyone for putting in the time and the effort, especially with everything that’s been going on. I mean, this is just, it’s so important. And I actually am a parent. I have kids in the schools. I’m not somebody who does not have kids in the schools. So I really, I appreciate what you do. Thank you, Tara. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. Joelle een, Joe Guys, Joelle EEN 43 Cedar Street. Um, I just wanna say you guys have Delta, a hand of chaos, right? To Tara’s point. You guys are doing cleanup on top of that. There’s coming, there’s going, there’s a whole bunch of movement. I commend you guys for your transparency.

1:49:33 I do not know where that letter came from or why the things are said on that, but I do wanna address, um, Ms. Heel’s point when she said that the town gave you an F as someone who administrates a fairly large, uh, Facebook group of over 9,000 people. The town did not give you an F. The people that signed that letter gave you an F. And I think that you addressed many of those questions tonight. I really do. This was great tonight. You guys were so transparent and really honest in your answers, and I just wanted to say that this is the first time in decades

1:50:19 that I have full trust in a school committee. So thank you. Thanks, Joel. Thank you. Have a good night. Um, G-J-T-H-I. Greg. My name’s Greg Tido. I, That’s my neighbor. I dunno where that came from. But anyway, look, I, I wanna compliment and support the school committee. I really feel that they have a very difficult, uh, situation to deal with. I agree with the last two speakers about the legacy issues that you have had to address. Uh, I’ve been a resident of the town for over 60 years. Uh, three children and four grandchildren have gone

1:51:06 through the school committee, uh, Marblehead schools, and they’ve done very well for that. A lot of the, you know, I’m, I’m very disappointed about a lot of the personal attacks and whatever on the school committee and, and the individual members. I think it’s outlaw. I’d also like to point out the voters have spoken twice in 2022. They, they, they voted down overwhelmingly a, um, an override that was the work product of the previous, uh, majority of the school committee and the, and the previous superintendent.

1:51:53 They then elected Sarah Fox and Allison with over 3000 votes a piece. And then in this last vote, the last, they, they turned down an an override. And while it was more than just the school committee, I think the school committee part of it was, was, was a factor. And then they voted in Jen and Brian and they did not vote in a previous member of the school committee. So while a lot of people didn’t like what you’ve done and, and, and, uh, wrote a letter with over 700 people not liking what you did, I’ve gotta say

1:52:40 that the voters have sp spoken and it’s now time for the voters to let you folks do your best. And then if they don’t like it, there’s other

1:52:55 elections coming up and they can vote you out. But in the meantime, I think the schoolchildren

1:53:04 deserve the best that you can do and I think you can do it. So I fully support that. Thank you very much for what you’ve Done. Thank you, Mr. All right. That is our last person. And, um, I just wanna thank everybody for spending your evening with us, asking your questions, um, and giving us an opportunity to have a conversation with you. I thank the school committee members for giving up your third night this week. I’ve seen you more than my own family, I think. And I will March 27th. Um, we will be doing this again on March 27th with a moderator from the league. Um, and I will adjourn us at 8 54 night. Thanks everyone.