School Committee: March 21, 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.

0:02 So, alright, so while we try to still get the camera working so that everybody at home, um, still has the equal access here, we are gonna get started. ‘cause we’re, we’re pushing on seven 20 right now and we have a pretty full agenda and we wanna make sure that everybody that wants to speak has an opportunity. So they’re gonna continue to work on the camera. I’m seeing a thumbs up, so I think hopefully that means it’s working. Um, and we’ll, we’ll get going. I’m gonna open up with our, um, student representative Kat Piper to give us a quick update. Call the order, Sarah. Oh, we are, we’re already in order. Yeah, we, we called to order before our executive session. So we’re, we’ve been in open since six 15. Go Ahead. That’s, that’s on. Okay.

0:50 Last week, high schoolers selected courses for their schedules. Next year students have been meeting with school counselors to discuss course recommendations and other scheduling questions. The High School Drama Club presented a, the student written play called, it’s about Pirates and nothing else. At Drama Fest semifinals On March 8th, they put on a great show and took home a multitude of individual award winners. The Spanish five honors class raised over $700 through a dodgeball tournament for Feeding America, a nonprofit organization that supports communities through kitchens and shelters. Marble Head’s Got Talent is hosting their finals at the Beverly Cabot Theater. Next Monday, March 27th at 7:00 PM Please come support the 10 finalists who include a wide array of musicians and performers from the high school school. Reed Deca students have qualified

1:36 for the International conference in late April. Four students placed in the top 10 at the state conference on March 6th. The National Art Honor Society is hosting an art night on April 5th at 7:00 PM There will be a collection of arts and crafts projects failed and bake goods in the high school cafeteria. There are a few performing arts concerts coming up, starting with the All Bands concert This Tuesday. The concert will feature the bands from Village through high school. The sophomore class of 2026 held their annual semi-formal last Friday, March 15th at the tougher manner in Beverly. Also, sophomores will take the English Language Arts MCATs next Tuesday and Wednesday. The junior class officers recently traveled to their prom venue to scout out facing in detail. The senior class held a Pie Day fundraiser last Friday,

2:21 and students had the opportunity to apply class officer in the face with a whipped cream pie. All funds went to the senior class Senior Mave McElroy qualified for the gymnastics National Championship in Fort Myers, Florida, which will be held in mid-May Track Star Laha Williams was crowned NEC Athlete of the Year for her undefeated efforts in the 300 meter race. And as the whole town knows, the boys hockey team won the Division three championship against Naset on St. Patty’s Day at the TD Garden.

2:53 There was an incredible amount of school spirit in the stands and it was a definite mark to end all.

3:00 Thank you so much Kat.

3:07 I just wanna take a moment to thank Michelle Cresta today is her official last day. This is her last event with us here in the Marblehead Public Schools. Um, for her time that she has spent here, she’s done a tremendous amount of work, um, to give us very clear salary lines, our budget presentations, our budget books, um, have come a very long way since Michelle has joined us. And I think the work she’s done from us for us is very exemplary. So I just wanna thank Michelle, um, Creta for her time. I

3:46 So to explain how the hearing goes. I know some people have reached out or either wasn’t public comment. A hearing by nature is it’s a, uh, for the school committee, a public budget hearing happens once a year by state statute. And what it is, is it’s an opportunity for the public and for the community to engage with the school committee regarding the budget. Um, versus public comment. It’s just a one-way conversation. The, it’s for the public to make a statement. Um, the budget hearing really allows everyone to add, you can make statements, you can ask questions and clarifications, and we’re here as a school committee and a leadership team to really answer those budget related questions. Um, so we will, versus a signup sheet, it runs a little bit more like town meeting

4:32 where once we open that portion, don’t jump up yet, you’ll go to the microphones and we’ll go through, um, each individual person’s questions or thoughts and make sure we address everything. We’re gonna start off, um, Dr. McGinnis is going to do her budget presentation of the proposed budget options for the FY 25, uh, school budget. And that will give you all lot of information to then give us feedback and questions on. So I’ll kick this off to Dr. McGinnis. Thank you Chairperson Fox. Hello,

5:10 can you hear me?

5:14 Hello? No. Well thank you Chair Verson Fox. Appreciate that and good evening to all of you. It’s nice to see everybody in the audience. Uh, thank you for your time and listening tonight. So constructing this budget was really a team effort, um, in these challenging times, and I want you to know staff members and the school committee members and the folks at home and in the audience that, um, you have a incredibly caring and collaborative team of leaders here at Marblehead Public Schools. Um, assistant superintendent, Michelle Cresta worked closely with me along with the assistant director of finance and operations, um, Emma in setting the financial stage as thought partners throughout the process.

6:00 And I thank them, um, for your insight and partnership in all of this. Uh, then our fine principals worked with our district administrators and directors and many days and many hours, um, trying to make thoughtful on, in iterative, iterative, excuse me, budget modifications coming through data, thinking outside the box, um, and finally constructing the best preliminary reduced services budget that they could. Given that this is a big deficit that we’re working from, and I’m not gonna say it wasn’t painful, um, because it was and it still is. Um, before we begin presenting, um, these few slides, I want to say that, um, there’s three important points, um, to consider and that I shared on February 28th

6:47 to contextualize our budget process this year and the subsequent recommendations that we’ve made. So two things can be true at the same time. Well, I believe we would all agree that educators teaching, supporting, encouraging, inspiring students builds a very close knit community within a school that results in increased student achievement and overall student wellbeing. I would also add that the quality of our children’s education in Marblehead depends on how much we value our teachers, and at the same time, we must be fiscally responsible to create that connected school community within the budget that the town provided us this year. Hard task to do.

7:33 Marblehead Public school leaders recognize that at this time in history, the taxpayers of Marblehead do not have an appetite for an override having twice failed in as many years. There’s an opportunity though to explore going forward how we deal with those revenue challenges. But for this school year, this, excuse me, fiscal year 25, I respect what was asked of us. And tonight we are presenting our preliminary budget reflecting significant cuts. Furthermore, faced with a budget deficit nearing 2.3 million, it chips away at those connected school communities that surround our children and adolescents as we continue to reduce positions and resources within each school and across the district.

8:21 So as the principals and leaders, other directors, as we looked at this $2.3 million number, we asked ourselves, how do we preserve the connected school community responsible for this student achievement and for student wellbeing? The preliminary budget we’re about to share now will show what we were able to do in a reduced services situation. Second, it’s a fact. Data illustrates that there’s been declining enrollment over the last decade in Marblehead and across the Greater Commonwealth. However, there is not a one-to-one correlation between losing X number of students and reducing X number of teachers or staff members. And since the pandemic subsided,

9:07 which was about the FY 2 22 budget season, our district enrollment enrollment has slightly increased and is continuing. Also, the post pandemic reality is that students’ mental and emotional health has faltered and schools have increased staffing to support them as in social workers adjustment counselors, et cetera. And while staffing did not decrease at the same rate of our enrollment over these last several years, we are very proud to say that we are striving every day to meet the increasing needs of the students in front of us. Yet it is important to consider these overall enrollment decreases and principles did examine enrollment closely and staffing at each school.

9:53 The district has adopted a tiered decision making methodology to use to make reductions to the general fund in the most thoughtful manner we could. This methodology is predicated on the district’s practice of efficiency with budgeting, reallocating where necessary to ensure alignment between what is needed for a high quality education and the deployment of resources. And third, or lastly, our new interim director of Student services. Patricia Bell started officially in the district last month. She, alongside team chairs and other special educators, have begun looking at the delivery grids to support our students and to assist principals in determining staffing levels and needs.

10:38 Tonight we’ll share a few slides from the staffing accountability report that was requested by the school committee that we do. So at this time, I would like to Steven, ready to go. Great. Um, up here with me, as you can see, we have folks who are gonna contribute to, to this slideshow and we will start with, there we go. We’ll skip that one. Okay. Um, every budget has, um, directives that come from the school committee and overarching goals. And so one of them is around justifying the needs, our budget based on student enrollment and curricular needs. Um, the ask was that building principals and directors identify essential services because the budget was reduced. The ask was to have the staffing accountability report

11:27 to provide more in-depth review of the staffing by school, which is an addendum that is in the school committee memorandum as part of this evening’s, um, packet. And also to sustain the appropriate staffing levels and programs to support students’ social, emotional and behavioral health. As our students continue to grapple with the effects of the pandemic. Um, we examined revenue streams other than the operating budget, including our grant opportunities and user fees that we’ll talk about this evening. And finally, we continue the budget development and discussions with our town officials fin com and the selected boards priorities number one, across everything is meeting the needs of all students, advancing in classes

12:13 and places where we need to scaffold. And the way that we do it in Marblehead is the multi-tiered system of supports for all students. And it’s not just academic, um, but it is behavioral, social and emotional. Um, our number one priority was to make sure that all CH students are challenged in their rigorous environment, um, while also supporting that scaffolding or just right learning in safe and welcoming school buildings following the plan for success for many years. Right now you have two more years to go cultivating belonging and social emotional wellness in inclusive classrooms using data consistent in aligned curriculum, culturally responsive teaching. So every student has a, a place

12:59 and a sense of belonging in every classroom. And finally, meeting the legal mandates that are requisite for our special education programming budget drivers. Um, number one is the unknown variable. We have our contract negotiations as everyone knows this year. Oh as always the enrollment, the children in front of us and their needs. Staffing operations, um, special education out of district. I’ll talk a minute about out district tuition and the transportation costs and then fluctuations in our outside revenue sources, mostly through grants. Um, and then we had a reduced appropriation from the town. So that certainly is a big budget driver

13:44 and oops, excuse me, enrollment projections. As you can see, there’s a very slight but continuous trajectory of increase in enrollment over the next five or six years in Marblehead. And that enrollment increases at the elementary and middle school levels, which bodes well for the trajectory up and through high school at the elementary level. Um, data that these slides, again are on the website, um, that will show you we’re working as an elementary team with these slides so that every month before school begins we increase if we have new students move into the district, we’re making sure we’re watching it in case we have to change staffing and increase staffing and so forth.

14:27 Um, budget driver, uh, most folks have seen this before. This is the unit a, um, increase at as staff move up the steps and heard the collective bargaining agreements staff move vertically through the steps upon the conclusion of a year of service. And as this chart, um, demonstrates the top step or step 11, um, at the bottom is, uh, the biggest leap, um, and how it looks in Marblehead is this. Alright, this is all of our staff and as you can see, the vast majority of you have, um, a master’s degree in the middle there. And the vast majority of you are on the 11th step. So that contributes to one of our drivers in this budget.

15:14 The staffing about accountability report. I’m going to invite, um, Ms. Patty Bell to talk a little bit about her work with the special ed team.

15:25 Hello everyone. Um, I’m happy to share with you while what was a lot of work to try to come up with data that reflects at least as close as possible, the needs that our students that develop IEP needs and 5 0 4 accommodations and the kind of staffing that we would like to see support tiered interventions starting with classroom, whole classroom and um, second tier and of course third tier interventions for students that need them. We started that process by looking at each elementary school, middle and um, secondary school to determine how many hours of staffing are available to reach students in all of those tiers.

16:11 And you see that in the chart above. Um, then we did dug into IEPs. This IEP report shows current staff, um, IEP hours of service demanded by active I EEPs. Um, this data changes week by week as you know, as more children may come to a new plan or others have reduced services. So it’s a very fluid thing, but based on the, um, data that we had, we could have calculate the number of student facing times and consulting time that were demanded by current IEPs that is circled on the far right column.

16:57 So to do the best estimate of how we meet those needs that are mandated by IEPs, we calculated FTEs of staff, uh, that are available to work with students with those needs. And how those hours compare by week is the final column. On this final slide, you can see that in general we are well staffed to provide all the IEP needs that are generated by diving into active IEPs. However, I warn you to think that that’s enough, um, of a picture because we have a wide variety of service delivery models,

17:43 especially in the language based instruction of grouping, which is why there’s no number there because some of these deliveries are in one-to-one reading tutorials. Some of them might be in small group instruction, some of them may be push in classroom and co-taught models. So to condense that into a single number is pretty, um, difficult to do. Your addendum to this report can give you more information about how we, um, imagine this might come together into a report like the slide you see now. Um, so if you’re interested in more detail, there’s plenty in there. Um,

18:31 thank you. Um, next up is out of district tuition as it is a driver as well. And the projected tuitions for five are 4.4 million. It’s a total increase of 18.5% over this present year that we’re in. Um, which accounts for 18.3% of the operational budget, it’s offset by the circuit breaker. Um, this year we have 42 students and out of district placement and next year we’re anticipating 46 students and out of district placement.

19:07 So level services, um, we were tasked with bringing a, um, budget to make sure it met the two point million dollars reduction. But in order to do that, you have to look at what are level services in order to cut from it. So level services would be a 5.77 increase, or two and a half million dollars. Um, represents all of the service we have now going forward and including the increased steps in cola out of district tuition and transportation utility increases it, et cetera.

19:42 So as I mentioned earlier on, um, in order to take 2.3 million, a huge amount and try to start cutting things or making reductions into a budget, you need a framework in order to do that. So I found this and we adopted this framework in what principles did is in directors is there’s four tiers to this first tier to fourth. And we color coded them on our Excel docs. And we started at first, first tier, second tier, and third tier as far away as we could from the instructional core, which is adults personnel in front of students. Um, we fast found that when 80% of your budget is

20:28 pays for staffing, it’s a quick ride to get down to that when you have to cut so high. But at every time that we met, we would look at our color coding and say, is there room to take some more out of the first tier, which is administrative and operational or second tier extracurricular or tier third tier curriculum purchases, et cetera. Um, before we take human beings away from students. So that was the methodology that we used over and over again. And then we came up with the reduced services budget from that. So it represents a 1.6800000000000002% as opposed to the 5.77% that was a reduced services budget. The town finance department worked diligently to project the increased revenues for FY 25

21:15 and they allocated 50%, so half of it of those revenues to the school district, which was equivalent to the $755,000. When we add that to what the budget is this year, FY 24, that’s where we came up with the 1.6800000000000002% increase. This is a very sad slide of the FY 25 reduced services. And what does that look like? Um, this one shows the number or the salary or the, um, finances that we saved from these reductions. And on the next page, this one shows the what. So for example, consolidation of a therapeutic program to the Brown school from

22:02 where presently it’s in both schools, Glover and Brown. It means reduction in staffing of 36 positions, which totals 28 FTEs. And of those positions as the list show here, it’s four classroom teachers, it’s four special educators, it’s two adjustment counselors, one EL teacher, two reading teachers, one B, CBA five, general education support staff, a vehicle two facility staff, the assistant director of student services, the assistant principal at the vet school. Um, five clerical or administrative positions, four lunch paras

22:47 and three special education paras or tutors. It also includes the transfer of partial funding for athletics and extracurriculars to the participants who participate in athletics and extracurriculars. The elimination of teacher leaders across the elementary level. Significant decrease in both professional development and instructional supplies.

23:11 The tracking sheet, which takes the information on the prior slide and, and um, lumps it into these buckets of personnel professional, et cetera. These are just the same numbers. The top number being the 47 million for level services and the bottom number being the 45 for reduced services.

23:32 And the same information but by cost centers in this slide is showing it over the last four years. So FY 22 and 23 give us a historical perspective of where the budget was and how the spending was. The FY 24 is the present budget year and then projected preliminary budget suggestions for level services versus reduced services.

24:00 This gives it by function, so the buckets are salaries and wages, supplies, contracted services, et cetera. It’s another way of looking at it and the columns on the right side with the circles around them. We’re just doing a comparison there to show you both in numerical number and in percents, um, what the difference is between a level services and a reduced services on the right side now, but at the bottom of this it says budget transfers from the town and it’s very little right there. It says, um, that’s when the budget funding for the school department Medicare payroll tax was moved from the town to the school budget, but it’s a net zero because it was already part of a budget. So this is strictly an accounting change, um, for reporting

24:48 and it’s not new funding to the town or to the school district, but we noted it there at the bottom. Um, the FY 25 preliminary reduced services budget as summarized above includes proposed budget reductions identified by our school and district leadership and tonight they’re being reviewed by the school committee for feedback and input and also by all of you who are here as well.

25:14 The offsets for the budget revolving funds, um, are listed in this chart below. So for example, user fees, circuit breaker, special education, food services, et cetera. But those are very specific. They can’t be used for other things other than what it they, um, are, are given to. So for example, food services can only be used in the food services arena, but they are, um, a source of an offset to our budget. Sound financial practice, um, encourages that we carry forward annually reserves for one year, um, revenue and advises against budgeting it for expenditures beyond the carry forward reserve amount in the upcoming year. So in the budget that is online, again, the big long one,

26:01 you will see, um, that practice carrying forward so that we don’t find ourselves in a situation next year where we are short. Um, I think that’s it for that. Another example is the grants that we have that most of you are familiar with. Again, these are very specific, you can’t supplant, um, what we have here. Um, and the all of the titles, I know that you work with the assistant superintendent on a lot of these and also with special education. Um, and that again is just showing from FY 22, the historical perspective up till right now where we’re at and including in the gray area. Um, for folks who had had asked for this, um, the one-time funds for the covid relief that we no longer have these grants,

26:47 but it’s important in our accounting to show where that was capital improvements. Um, we tiered it and prioritized it in the, at the top where the circle is. Those areas we are able to include in this budget, which is very good, which is structural repair of the d winging at the vet school, replacing the LG HVAC units at the Glover school, the fire panel at Village, and then the paging sent, um, system at the high school. There’s a long list there though that doesn’t get supported with this budget and I’m gonna turn it over right now to our acting or interim, um, director of Finance and operations, Mary Dely, who’s gonna talk us through the next three slides about user fees

27:32 and specifically the athletic user fees.

27:36 Thank you Dr. McGinnis. Uh, as I understand it, the, uh, about 50% of coach stipends are currently paid for by user fees and under the reduced services budget proposal, uh, the goal was to shift a hundred percent of those coaching stipends as well as uh, student activity extracurricular stipends as well to shift those two participants. The slide here shows what the current, um, amount of those, uh, user fees are. Uh, and uh, we did make some adjustments. There was a presentation at your last school committee, uh, meeting about the, uh, user fee proposal. And I think, um, at the time some folks were a little bit caught off guard by by how high some of the numbers were that were being proposed.

28:23 So we went back in and we looked at what our assumptions were in terms of participation because our model is very sensitive to what you are you downstairs then the reduction in participation would be as a result of higher fees. Can you just come here for a sec? I’m just trying to, something that was being carried initially. Option one was 35% reduction. Um, we have moderated that reduction to 15% and instead of 35%, again, it is an assumption. Um, so it does come, you know, with certain risks if it doesn’t come to pass. Um, but if you use that assumption of 15% reduction, uh, you lose fewer participants and that fee could be reduced to nine 90 instead of the 1300 and change that was initially uh, proposed.

29:11 Um, four 40 would be the fee for middle school athletics and two 90 would be the per student fee. There would be a family cap and that family cap would be $1,800, which essentially represents, um, two students, uh, participating. So once you would hit that cap on that second student,

29:32 the, uh, second the revised option two is, uh, proposing to actually charge a fee, um, based on participation each season. So rather than one fee for the whole year, uh, you would charge a certain fee for the first season, a slightly, uh, lower fee for the second season and an even lower fee for the third season. Again, we looked at the, uh, assumptions around participation to try to adjust those fees as close as possible to what’s currently being paid. Um, as we understand more than 50% of our students currently pay, uh, play only one sport. So, um, you know, our recommendation liens towards doing this per season, uh,

30:21 user fee in that case the first season would cost five 40, um, as opposed to the current fee of 4 95. So it would be less than a 10% increase for those one season participants. On the second season it would be four 90. On the third season it would be four 40 and there would be a family cap of $2,060, which essentially represents two students participating in two sports.

30:56 So normally you start with the mission and vision and the core values when you do a budget, and I did on February 28th, but I decided to change that and put it at the end because I think it’s something that, you know, we’re all thinking about. Um, and so to reiterate what I highlighted in yellow here, the vision of the Marblehead public schools that you all decided on a few years ago when you made this strategic plan was to be a model school district exemplary in its student engagement and academic excellence in which all students and staff reach their highest potential in partnership with our community. Well, as a reminder,

31:41 a school district exemplary in its student engagement and academic excellence in which these students reach their highest potential in partnership with our community is our goal for all of this. So these present second or third graders in the FY 25 budget, they only get one one year to be in second grade or one year to be in third grade. Um, and they don’t get do overs. So just food for thought as we move forward with this budget process. Thank you. Thank you very much for everybody that worked on that. And, um, thank you for presenting. So we will now at check the time at seven 50.

32:26 I will open our budget hearing. I will ask people who want to speak to go up to the microphone, um, and, and state your name and address for the record. Um, make your statement if you have a question, if you have a specific person up here that you’re looking to answer that, um, just let us know and we’ll move through that. And then also address people online as well.

33:04 Let’s just make sure the mic is on.

33:07 Yep.

33:12 Jonathan Letterman,

33:16 Can we turn that mic? Can we turn the mic on the floor up a little bit? Huh? Hello? That, that’s better. Okay. Jonathan Letterman, eight Ida Road. As many of you know, I served 12 years on this school committee. I live in the Glover District and I’m a Marblehead High school graduate myself. And last year, the fifth of my seven children graduated from Marblehead High School. Yet despite this fact, I, despite the fact that I lived four blocks from the high school, my wife and I chose to put our kids, our two youngest children on a bus more than an hour each way to go to private high school. I never in a million years thought I would send my children to private school, but this situation in our schools has deteriorated into a total disaster.

34:02 I wanna say very clearly that this isn’t because of the teaching staff. In most cases, they’re dedicated professionals doing a very challenging job, but they’re trying to work in circumstances that are virtually impossible already in getting harder to manage every day. Since I don’t have unlimited time and neither do you, I wanna focus on the two most significant issues. The first is discipline. It appears that the, that many administrators in the school district have totally abdicated any responsibility for addressing rampant bad behavior in our classrooms at every level from kindergarten through the high school, there’s vaping, bowel language, total disrespect for adults, extreme lack of control, refusal to adhere to any basic standards of reasonable classroom behavior.

34:49 It isn’t all of our students actually just a handful causing most of the extreme problems, but even the small number, if they never experienced any consequences for their behavior, can ruin the experience for every single other student and teacher in the district. Staff long for the day when they can retire and find a job elsewhere. Well-behaved students are prevented from learning entire school buildings endure lockdowns. When one out of control student runs for the halls, teachers are given no tools, no options, no resources to retake control of their classrooms. Students are rarely, if ever suspended or expelled. There are never any real consequences at all. Students are just asked very nicely not to do it anymore, which has not worked to the history of humanity. And from everything I’ve been reading on

35:36 Facebook and it, it isn’t working. Now the ultimate pick in the teeth for parents and teachers alike was the outrageous suspension of four heroic glover educators

35:59 who put themselves in harm’s way to contain a dangerous student and prevent other students and teachers from being heard

36:11 they should have received medals rather than suspensions.

36:24 The fact that pretty much the entire teaching community of Marblehead has come out publicly in support of these teachers, should have sent an incredibly strong message to the administration by finding shocking. Just totally shocking that this has been ignored. So the second issue I wanna talk about, this is the budget hearing. So I wanna talk about the budget. You know, we’ve all heard a lot, a lot about drastic staffing cuts that you’ve put on the screen and that if there isn’t an override this year, you know there’s gonna be chaos. So what one of the things that I think the school committee and the administration as a responsibility to do is benchmark ourselves against other districts, similar districts, demographically, economically, and in size. And one of the things that’s interesting is when you actually look at what we’re, what we’re doing, we’re,

37:09 we’re about maybe a little high, okay, in our elementary school charade, but when you get to Marblehead High School, we are far, far higher than most of the comparable communities. But the worst part is we’re spending more per student and paying our teachers less. So what that says is we’re basically dealing with a problem by putting more and more people rather than focusing on teaching our kids many of the other communities that we compare ourselves to have much better academic outcomes and are educating their high school students with fewer staff members percentage wise than we are. We also spend far more than districts that are, are, I mean, every level. I just, anyway, what this all adds up to is that the school system behaviorally is in disarray.

37:56 We’re putting extra teaching staff in every classroom in order to deal with discipline problems.

38:05 Our teachers have salaries that are lower than our, than comparable communities, but we’re, but we’re spending more overall. This isn’t right. And I think it’s time for the school committee to, to straighten this out. Our teachers deserve to be paid a competitive wage and be respected when they’re in the classroom, and they shouldn’t have to deal with these kind of discipline problems on a regular basis.

38:32 Now. Now the last point I wanna make is that the school committee I know as well as all of you on the committee, that operational control over these, over many of the issues I’ve talked about is not in your purview. However, you can implement policies around discipline and you can make sure that our staffing levels are appropriate and very, very importantly in this contract negotiating season, you can make sure that our salaries are competitive with the districts where we wanna, in order to recruit and retain the most talented stat. This is all doable, but it has to be made a priority. And the only way we’re ever gonna do that is to look at how the best performings districts do it and learn from them. And we’re not doing that. We need to start now so that these talented staff can get paid what they deserve

39:19 and our kids can learn. Thank you.

39:30 I’m Big Cap. I live at 30 Beverly Avenue. I am here tonight to stand in solidarity in partnership with our Marblehead public school teachers and staff. There are many more important voices here speaking out tonight behind me. So I will be brief. I’m a parent of two Marblehead public school students and one up and coming in the fall. I have one at Village and one at Brown. I wanna speak tonight to try and humanize this experience as much as I can. As conversations trend towards budget, part-time, full-time position cuts, these people, our teachers and staff are reduced to line items on a spreadsheet which dilutes the human element of it all. So I would like to highlight a very few special people,

40:17 my kids’ teachers, so dear Carol Spillane, Amy Duffy, Diane Babbitt, Judy O. Flynn, Beth Johnson, Gianna Blanchard, Warren McMahon, Caitlin Welsh, Laura Clark, Dana Trudeau, thank you. You’ve taught my kids to read, to write, to do math and science. You have nurtured their social emotional learning champion their strengths and those who have, and to those teachers who have identified any areas that needed special attention, you know who you are and I thank you for supporting them in every aspect of their education. I am. And continue to be eternally grateful. You not only arm them with the tools they will need to go out and be successful in the world, but you show up

41:03 and advocate for them every single day. Hearing your testimonies over the last couple of months about your working conditions in our schools is heartbreaking. How can our schools thrive when our teachers and support staff are so clearly just surviving? And to think of the grave possibility that next year you could be armed with less than what you have now keeps me up at night. So as you show up for my, for our kids every single day, I will do the same for you and ask that the committees, all of our town committees work together to fully fund our school budget.

41:48 We cannot have a strong Marblehead community if our schools are in crisis. So now I would like for everyone to hear the voices that this will affect the most. Our kids.

42:04 Dear Mrs. Shelby, thank you for being you, for being our teacher. You were always happy and never in a bad mood. You introduced me to a lot of new books and I love re I love learning Greek mythology With you. You always made learning fun no matter what subject. In fourth grade, we are doing a project for Women’s History Month where we choose any woman who inspires us and I chose you. You made third grade a member, a memorable year. You made my, you made A difference in my life.

42:47 Dear Ms. Steely, thank you for being my teacher. I loved coming into school in the morning and watching you dance while your music played. You were always fun and energetic and made sure class was never boring. You made a difference in my life.

43:07 Dear Ms. Colleen, thank you for being my teacher. You created a safe space for me so I could feel confident learning you made a difference in my life.

43:21 Dear Mr. Shaman, thank you for being my teacher. I like how you make English fun while giving everyone what they need. You’re passionate about teaching and you make learning a positive experience. You made a difference in my life.

43:37 Dear Mr. Shoul, thank you for being my teacher. You make learning fun and I look forward to your class every day. You made a difference in my life.

43:50 Dear Mrs. Shery, thank you for being my teacher. Thank you for teaching me hard math, like fractions in algebra, you made a difference in my life.

44:05 Dear Ms. Mars, thank you for being my teacher. My name is Nico, I’m in second grade at other school. I love my teacher Ms. Marks because she makes learning easy and fun. Thank you Ms. Marks, you’ve made a difference in my life.

44:23 Here here, Ms. S and thank you for being my teacher. You have made learning fun every day. This year you have made a big difference in my life.

44:35 Dear Ms. Bergon, um, you’ve made math and social studies very fun. You made a big difference in my life.

44:52 Thank you Dear Ms. Gloria. Thank you for being my teacher

44:59 and helping me learn eng grow. My favorite memory in class was Halloween party. Thank you for making a difference in my life. Sadie.

45:15 Dear Dr. Judkins, thank you for being our teacher. You always found a way of making learning fun and never hesitated. To help a student in need,

45:30 You bring energy to each lesson taught even if the lesson we’re doing is boring, you still find a way to engage the class.

45:41 You make a class fun and exciting. You always make sure everyone understands the topic.

45:50 Hi, Um, Hannah Brennan Ocean Meadow Lane. I would like to start with a big thank you to the students who bravely spoke to you today.

46:06 I am here tonight to stand in solidarity and partnership with our Marblehead public school educators. Marblehead schools have been working on a shoestring budget for far too long. Teachers have been told to make it work year after year, buying their own supplies, filling their classroom libraries from Facebook marketplace and searching for free creative ways to make their lessons memorable. Their incredible efforts and personal sacrifices are completely unsustainable. If we do not fully fund our school budget, we need the Town Finance Committee to make it work. We need the Board of health to make it work to make sure our student mental health crisis does not get worse. We need the school committee to make it work. I’m so grateful for all the teachers Marble my kids have had in Marblehead Public schools who have provided them with positive personal and educational experiences.

46:51 The town boards and committees with their members need to appreciate the impact that further cuts to school funding will have on our teachers, our children, and marble head’s. Future, we must find a way to fully fund our school budget. We need to make it work.

47:09 Just gonna pause you one second, then I’ll come read. I do wanna just commend all the students that spoke. I think as adults we all know how hard that can be and it’s really impressive and that speaks to, you know what, what these kids are learning and being taught in school and they should, they should be really proud of themselves. But can you, you send me their name for the minutes, but please do not send me their addresses. I obviously reasons I’m not gonna include their addresses in the minutes, so thanks. Go ahead. Hi, my name is Shelly Burns and I have been an English language education teacher at Village School for the last seven years.

47:46 My name is Meg Burns and I’m the school psychologist at the Brown School and I’ve worked in Marblehead for six Years. My name is Christie Haas. Um, I live at five Waldron Street in Marblehead and I have been an English language teacher at Brown School for the last nine years. And I also have had students that have attended all of the Marblehead public schools.

48:09 We are here tonight because of the proposed budget cuts. If we do not have a level funded budget for the 20 24 20 25 school year, this budget results in essential staff being let go employees who support our students to ensure they get the best education possible. One proposed cut will be an English language education teacher, one who has taught for 13 years is and is an asset to our school community and our students. This is a result of a slightly lower English learner enrollment and the state’s lack of laws around service times for EL students. The state recommends that our high need EL students receive 90 to 135 minutes of EL instruction for five days a week. And our more fluent students should receive 45 minutes of EL instruction for five days a week.

48:55 We are not meeting this recommendation right now as a district. While we cannot change the state laws around ELs overnight, we can make sure we provide the services. Some of our most vulnerable students need to make progress as recommended by the state. Our EL staff not only provide specific directed English language services, but we also provide tier two instruction, including but not limited to the just words phonics program. The Orton-Gillingham reading approach, math language groups and social emotional learning groups, EL students i-Ready and MCAS data holds from the last three years for grades K through three prove that the instruction provided by trained English language education staff that goes beyond the 45 minutes

49:41 of legally required instruction has dramatically increased scores, improved students’ reading and math performance levels, and close the gap of missed learning that many of our ELs face. This beneficial instruction will no longer be available if the budget is reduced. We will only be able to complete the minimum services as required, required by the state, which as a reminder is 45 minutes five days a week, even though the state recommends that students receive more. This impact will affect our students throughout the rest of their schooling and may eventually determine their high school and post high school progress and performance. Not only that, but it will impact all students because the responsibility of making sure these interventions happen will fall to the classroom teachers

50:27 who are already stretched to capacity. The loss of an EL teacher will directly impact students to teacher ratios during class times, such as the wind block, making it difficult to provide all students with what they need. Marblehead is not a community that skates by while only meeting state minimums accepting mediocre test scores or providing only the minimally required services. The community of Marblehead takes pride in making our district quote a model school district exemplary in its student engagement and academic excellence where all students meet their highest potential with the support of outstanding instructional leadership and in partnership with the community end quote as stated in our district’s vision statement, the reduced funding budget will make Marblehead a community that just skates by it will make Marblehead a community

51:15 that has a just average school system. We are not just average, we expect our students to be more than just average. We expect our teachers to be more than just average. We must and can do better. Our administrators have worked hard to find cuts outside of student facing positions, but their hands are tied. They are not to blame here. We must work as a community to ensure our schools have a level funded budget for next year for the benefit of all our students, but especially so our most vulnerable students do not feel the impact of losing essential staff. And so the Marblehead School District can be the exemplary school system. We all strive to make it. It is time to demand that the health, safety and education of our students are the town’s top priority school committee. I ask that you pass the budget that addresses the needs in Marblehead Public Schools.

52:01 Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

52:12 Thank you. My name is Megan Bruit. I live at 11 Curtis Street. I’m an educator at Brown School. This is my 21st year teaching in Marblehead. I’ve always felt lucky to be able to work in the same community where I live and raise my family. I have taught third grade the entire time and I’ve always loved this age. Although the job has always been challenging, it was always enjoyable and rewarding and I never considered doing something else. Over the past three years, the job has changed. I still love seeing my students every day and my colleagues are absolutely amazing, but it’s no longer challenging just because we are trying to teach different style learners. But now it is also challenging and almost impossible because we don’t have the resources

52:57 and support that we need to teach these children. This year I have 21 students. They have different styles of learning some needing me to challenge them more and others needing me to slow down and show them a different way to do it. It is impossible to do this all by myself. The hours with our math and reading tutors who we have always depended on are being taken away from us. Little by little, we are getting less and less support for my learners who are on IEPs, they are often put in groups based on the scheduling and how many special educators we have available. That should not be how we determine these children’s services. These learners who need extra support should not have to suffer and not get what they need because we don’t have the staff to support them.

53:43 In smaller groups, our adjustment counselors who are supposed to be available to guide and support all of the children are being spread so thinly that they are rarely available to the majority of the students. They are being called to help support the children who are having behavior issues because we don’t have enough staff to respond. It wasn’t always like this,

54:11 It wasn’t Always like this. You can see it on everyone’s faces at work. Morale is down, we’re tired of not getting what we need. We’re asking to have the funding we need to do our jobs effectively and safely. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

54:38 Um, my name is Catherine Ola. I live at 27 West Street. I am accompanied by Joy Purdon, my neighbor, friend and fellow retiree. I have lived at 27 West Street since 1968 for one year. I taught at Everest School, followed by 29 years at Bell School until 1998. And I’ve substituted at all the elementary schools until two years ago. I speak in support of the Marble Head. Education association’s call for the reinstatement of their colleagues and,

55:29 and a fully funded school budget.

55:38 I believe as they do that, budgets are moral documents. While serving as president of the MEA in the 1970s and eighties, I witnessed our teachers rally support and lobby state legislators to pass two landmark bills. Chapter 7 66 for special education and chapter 6 22, providing equal opportunity to the girls and young women in our school’s programming and funding. This tradition of equality for each child in every way began with

56:26 and continues with our teachers and their support staff in every round of collective bargaining and that budget heating meetings. Over all these years, we have heard the town doesn’t have the money in response to calls for fair contracts and full funding. There is no extravagance here. Full funding supports the child advocate, teachers and support staff who work daily to educate, inspire, protect, and keep our children safe, reinstate their colleagues, work with their representatives

57:13 to find the facts and reach a just and fair decision. The children, the parents, and the teachers of this town deserve the very best for them. Find the money.

57:47 Rick Petski 28 Bro Drive, um,

57:54 from the turnout here and your efforts on your budget, and I tip a hat to all your people who have participated in that process. Um, you need to be commended. But from what you say and looking at the turnout here, it seems pretty clear to me that there will be an override request. And I’d like to represent to you some of the interests of those people who do not have children in the moral head schools, uh, that you need to address. And that includes the people in this room, uh, and the audience and to gets the support of, uh,

58:41 those who do not have children in the Marblehead School. Uh, I like to just bring some facts to everyone’s attention that, um, you may, you glanced on slightly, but you didn’t concentrate it on. And that’s the population trend in the in Marblehead and the fact that only about 25 is based on census data. 25% of the households in Marblehead have children in the Marblehead public schools. 25%. That means if you go for an override, you’re gonna have to get the voters in the other 75%

59:30 of the households to vote for you, which obviously from your presentation tonight, you’ll need the funds. But let’s do a little bit of a reality check. Um,

59:52 from the statistics in the Marvel Head Housing Productions plan, they pointed out that between 2010 and 2017 households led by somebody over 55% in age increased by 21% households led by someone between 25 and 44. These are the households that you only have chills children that you send to your school, decreas by 63% households over led by someone over 55 are now more than 50% of the population of Marvel Head. These are the votes you’re gonna have to get

1:00:37 and sell your program too. Uh, and it thing that amazes me is I never in the last couple of years, by the way, I’ve lived in town 35 years and I did have a child in the Marblehead School District. I no longer of course have a child in the district, uh, attending schools in the district. But during that time, uh, going back statistically, I went from 2015 to currently, uh, you’ve lost 20% of your student population. 20% why? And I compared, I looked at statistics on the mass and the state, uh, school’s, uh, website, uh,

1:01:25 and that decrease, remember I’m going from 2015, this is pre Covid, and I asked the school administration what they thought the reason was for this decrease. And they kept saying it was the Covid virus. But when I compared it to swamp, Scott Linfield, some of the other districts, they lost like 5% of their student population from 2015 to now. So something’s going on. You have to look at it, you have to address it, and you have to convince the other, the voters who do not have children in the school, that you’re doing something that will benefit them. And that means improving the schools as much as you can.

1:02:15 And I agree with the first speaker here that you’re not keeping pace even with comparable school districts, they’re spending less per student now maybe they’re spending less per student because, uh, they didn’t have the population decline or a student enrollment decline that Marvel had has experienced. But you need to think about, you did a great presentation tonight, but when it comes time to sleep, seeking other support from that 75% of the households that don’t have children in the schools, you need to show them how you compare

1:03:03 to other school districts on school spending per student achievements per student, uh, other factors that are critical to getting their support. It’s not enough to say that we should be concerned about the schools because they affect our housing value. Our housing values do get affected by what the schools are perceived. But I have to say 35 years ago when I moved here, I, one of the reasons I moved here was, and I didn’t even have children at the time, was school system and Marblehead was rated one of the top 10 in the state. Now we’re like 40, 50. Depends on who you look at.

1:03:49 Uh, you really have to start looking at how you’re going to, uh, explain to people that are going to be asked to support your schools financially by raising their taxes. Uh, and what are we gonna get for it and how does that compare? How do your expenditures compare with other comparable school districts? Right now, I looked up quite several and you’re way on a student basis. You’re ahead of a lot of comparable districts. You need to benchmark a little bit with some of these districts and find out why these, even the reduced level of funding is higher than what they’re spending per student in other districts.

1:04:36 Thank you.

1:04:40 Charter.

1:04:49 So I just, so I would encourage you to come to the mic and then ask those questions to us because the, just the mechanism you have to ask us and we can, we can definitely answer questions on what are, what’s reflected in our numbers, but, um, we can’t go back and forth between each other.

1:05:19 Good evening. My name is Justin Beachwood. I live in SGAs and I’m an educator at Glover School. Additionally, I have two children who attend Glover School. And it is for them that I implore you to pass a budget that will foster a safe working and learning environment for all students and staff. It’s hard to believe this is my 16th year working in the therapeutic program at the lower elementary level of MPS system. I was there at the old Glover when the program was called steps. I was there for the relocation to village and then to the new Glover when we were called Tides. I was there for the various room swaps within New Glover, then over to Bell for a year back to Glover, and yet another move right back to the very classroom that was specifically designed to support the population of students.

1:06:04 I teach Full Circle. Now, something interesting hasn’t happened since a therapeutic program was established at the Brown School. The Glover program has remained in one classroom for a record of three consecutive years. That means improved consistency for students, staff, and the culture of the building. Approving a budget that maintains therapeutic programs at both schools as was promised to voters in 2019 is vital.

1:06:36 Now throughout all those moves, one thing was relatively consistent, an appropriate number of therapeutic staff to support the number of students on my caseload. Then directly coinciding with the timeline of the previous director of student services. The staffing systematically dried up as positions were vacated by tutors who were moving on to be teachers requests for my superiors to fill the positions were met with refusal. The calvary is not coming. I was forcefully told. Now mind you, it’s the same individual that directed case managers to remove consult from the A grid, which has clouded the assessment of need in our district.

1:07:19 I’ve endured,

1:07:26 I’ve endured years of missed lunch breaks, little to no prep time, and increased mental exhaustion from this demanding position. Imagine trying to simultaneously look after six students, each with over four hours of support mandated by law across three grade levels and up to five different physical locations of the school. And you’ve only got one staff member to help. It’s unfair, it’s unsafe. Now, the staff, the student ratio on paper does not tell the whole story. The number of IEP grid minutes does not tell the whole story.

1:08:05 We know these students have disabilities that impact their regulation. They need a network of therapeutic guidance and BCBA staff who could dedicate time and patience to guide them through difficult, even traumatizing situations.

1:08:20 Sadly, I’m not the only teacher here tonight who has been hit, scratched, bitten, spit on cursed, had their hair pulled, had their life threatened or had their family’s lives threatened. Yes, these are five to nine year olds that I’m talking about. The kiddos I support are among the most challenging this district has and yet I continue to do my best to come back for 16 years now the next morning and greet every one of my students with a smile and it’s getting harder given the bevy of fresh names that line our district’s letterhead. I cannot overstate the message that current staffing levels for our therapeutic programs are grossly undermined.

1:09:10 It is time to demand that the health, safety and education of our students are the town’s top priority. So members of the school committee, I again implore you to pass a budget that addresses these needs in our schools. Thank you.

1:09:34 Good evening everyone. My name is Ali Barista. I’m a speech and language pathologist at the Village School. I’ve been in the district for Four years. Hi, I’m Alison Compton. I’m a speech language pathologist here at the Veterans Middle School as well as the Marblehead High School. This is my ninth year. Hi, I’m Jamie MTO and I’m a speech language pathologist at the Glover School and this is my 12th school year. Last year, Marblehead employed 9.6 SLPs. This school year Marblehead employed 6.6 SLPs. We are down three SLPs. The number of students who need SLP services have not decreased. The workload has increased dramatically for the remaining SLPs as we have absorbed the eliminated positions.

1:10:19 This has led to larger student groups and less individualized therapy sessions. SLPs are working beyond contracted hours, sacrificing planning time and lunch breaks to meet students’ needs, resulting in minimal time for our essential tasks like consulting with teachers and training parents on communi on a communication systems, and also resulting in SLPs completing hours and hours and hours of work at home outside of our contracted school hours in the evenings and on weekends. With the reduction of these three positions from last year to this year, SLPs have been assigned new caseloads requiring them to service students outside of their area of expertise, including one of the preschool SLPs

1:11:05 who services students at the preschool and the high school. Other SLPs have been told their full-time role at a school has been reduced to a halftime role in order for them to um, add services to help out in places of need. Um, they have also had to figure out how to service students on a schedule with one school that works on a seven day schedule and another school that works on a four or five day schedule. This is extremely difficult with scheduling and results in students being seen based on schedules alone rather than their individual needs. Caseloads change throughout the year as students qualify for services or demonstrate progress. This makes caseload numbers to determine SLP staffing inaccurate.

1:11:51 As caseload number numbers fluctuate constantly. The demands of our job go beyond testing and therapy and this leaves little time for us to complete essential tasks due to these overwhelming caseloads. The SLPs urge you to prioritize the speech language pathology department in the upcoming budget decisions. With the announcement of four open SLP positions for next school year due to three resignations in one retirement, it is crucial to make the district appealing in order to attract qualified professionals and ensure students receive their necessary services together, let’s ensure quality services for our students. Thank you.

1:12:39 Hi, I am Cty Rowe. I live at 15 Auburndale Road in Marblehead and I have been a special education teacher for the past eight years at the Village School and I love my job. I also absolutely love this town. I mean, look at all the notable awards. Our town has won recent news articles shouting our accolades including World Atlas’s recent six of the most overlooked towns in New England and New england.com voted as one of 2020 four’s. Best places to live in New England and US today ranked number three on the list of best coastal towns in the United States. And we know why sparkling summers, festivals, beaches, historical sites and heritage. It’s incredible and it’s magical. However, I no longer feel pride. I just feel shame.

1:13:25 Shame that my family lives in a town that cannot find a way to support its young people in their fundamental right to learn in the least restrictive environment. Shame that we continue to cut a budget that simply cannot afford to be cut. In fact, this cut alone terminates and I’m gonna read them all ‘cause they all matter. Four special education teachers, a student services assistant director. Three special ed support staff. Two adjustment counselors. One board certified behavior analysts. Four classroom teachers, a veteran school assistant principal, five gen ed support staff. Two reading teachers, one EL teacher five. Clerical administrative supports positions. Two facility staff. Four lunch supervisors. God bless those people. One driver. My heart hurts when I read this list.

1:14:11 The impacts of these cuts on our students and our staff are immense and immeasurable. We will have no one to run small group math services to students who are struggling to meet grade level standards. This puts more strain on our already stretched classroom teachers. We will have one fewer BCBA and two fewer adjustment counselors. Given the current student challenges with social emotional health and challenging disruptive behavior, I can’t fathom the impact of those cuts. We are cutting two reading teachers. This impacts our most vulnerable students who are also struggling to meet grade level standards and continue to tact our regular education staff to literally do the impossible. We’re cutting four special education staff and three special education paraprofessionals. Para who are literal angels supporting our most vulnerable

1:14:56 students with diverse learning and behavioral needs. Again, cutting staff who support our most vulnerable students. I’ve heard the district that’s in chaos. We have no one at the helm. How can we support this? How can you not support your students and staff? I ask you, we ask you, we ask the town fully fund our schools. Your teachers show up each and every day ready to make each day the best day for kids regardless of the chaos that swirls around us. I read that we support the teachers. Our teachers are amazing. Yep. We’re here. We as the administrative tornado,

1:15:38 as the administrative tornado rages outside and sometimes inside our buildings, we close our doors and quietly create calm for our learners. We are there and our own safe haven. We are asking the town and the school committee to fully fund our schools so that we can retain the best qualified staff so we can return to pride instead of shame. And so we can continue to show up and do our best work for our kids. Thank you. Yeah.

1:16:16 My name is Kristen Zaro and my name is Hannah Partica and we are kindergarten teachers at the Glover School. We are here to tell you about our experience in Marblehead public schools and why we need fully funded schools. I have been a kindergarten teacher at Glover School since 2014. In my 18 years as an educator in Marblehead, I have been privileged to know some of the hardest working paraprofessionals. They are asked to do everything with nothing in return. Up until last year, they were asked to do everything from taking care of our students to subbing in classrooms all around the school, all for less than minimum wage.

1:16:55 This year’s starting pay for paraprofessionals is $15 an hour and it’s an improvement, but it is not nearly what they deserve for what they’re asked to do at a moment’s notice

1:17:11 or even as they step through the door in the morning before they even have a chance to sit down. These people are trying to make a living to support their families while they are giving everything that they have to ensure the safety and success of our students.

1:17:26 What is the plan to attract and retain paraprofessionals and other staff members who are essential for our youngest learners successes When they can easily go down the road to places like McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Chipotle and make more money. When will they be respected enough to receive a living wage school committee? We demand that you fully fund Marblehead public schools.

1:17:58 Good evening. My name is Michael Fu. I live at 43 Smith Street. I’ve been teaching math and computer science at Marblehead High School for the past 10 years. I’m also a parent of a first grader at Brown School and a fifth grader at Village School. My fifth grader’s a special needs child and is on the spectrum. I cannot express the gratitude I feel for the teachers and staff who have supported not only my son, but my family as a parent, one of the most personally difficult challenges, uh, for me is feeling that I failed my child. That I can’t provide the best for them. The efforts and support for from his wonderful teachers have had a profound effect, not only for my son, but for my own health and wellness as a parent,

1:18:43 which in turn impacts my entire family. I’ve sat on both sides of an IEP tape meeting and have truly learned to appreciate the role and importance of teachers in our children’s lives. With all that said, it saddens me, frustrates me, and disappoints me that we are having trouble supporting our teachers with an adequate budget and proper staffing for our children and future generations. As an analogy, our high school building appears nice on the outside, but everywhere I look corners were cut to save money and we’re paying for it now. We’re constantly hiring and paying for repairs on the HVAC system every year because we didn’t get it right the first time. We now have hazardous work environment due to mold

1:19:29 and air quality issues about cutting corners and paying for it. Our school system is constantly facing lawsuits from families due to the downstream effects of inadequate budgeting. We’re also currently paying multiple administrators no longer even working here who didn’t perform their jobs up to standard and paying people to fill their roles. We know cutting corners might make a budget sheet seem nice now, but all I see is a town bleeding money from poor decisions and a lack of macro perspective. Without an adequate budget,

1:20:05 without an adequate budget, we will continue to have systemic issues. Without an adequate budget, we’ll continue to lose exceptional educators and be unable to track new ones. Without an adequate budget, we will continue to be understaffed, have unsafe work environments, and be susceptible to more lawsuits. Teachers on the line are, are on overdrive to make things work, but recently have been thrown under the bus due to poor decisions from certain leadership roles and an in adequate budget.

1:20:40 The Magician is a fitting mascot for representing our school. What the teachers are accomplishing with such limited support is nothing short of magic. I ask you not only as an educator, but as a resident of Marblehead and most of all as a parent to pass a budget that addresses the needs of our students and educators, our children and teachers deserve better. I also ask for open bargaining with the Massachusetts Education Association,

1:21:17 open bargaining with the Massachusetts sorry Marblehead Education Association. Be agreed upon moving forward as this town is starving for transparency which has been sorely lacking and breeding distrust with transparency, let the town decide how the best version of our school system could and should be funded. Thank you.

1:21:46 Good evening. I am Carolyn Ostmeyer Todd. This is my 23rd year teaching in the Marblehead Public Schools. My 11th year at veterans and I was 12 years at Marblehead High School prior to that. And very importantly, I’m also the parent of an eighth grader at Veterans Middle School who also went through Glover and Village and was very well educated by wonderful, amazing teachers in this room. I never expected my child to go to a school without a librarian. I never expected to teach at a school without a librarian. A librarian who would co-teach research skills, citation, educate kids about plagiarism, how to avoid it, why it’s important, not just for your academics,

1:22:31 for your life, and for the children who struggled with that worked one-on-one with them. So they really left understanding that lifelong valuable lesson. A librarian who also worked with every student and every teacher and could develop projects that were meaningful and engaging and connected. A librarian who read dozens and dozens of books and knew our students so she could select engaging summer reading. ‘cause English teachers don’t have enough time, sadly, to read dozens and dozens of books and journals to do that. A librarian who would stalk our library with award-winning books and who would give book talks and I would just watch those books fly out of the library.

1:23:17 And the more we read, the better we read. And the more we read, the better we write. And the more we know about the world we’re now facing, not only not getting our librarian back, but losing two positions that Principal Fox got for for years, a reading teacher and an assistant principal. And I greatly respect Principal Fox’s choice to choose the assistant principal ‘cause it saves more teaching jobs.

1:23:53 But I was at veterans when we didn’t have an assistant principal and our guidance counselors were there to support our students’. Social emotional health we’re also supposed to be disciplinarians. That doesn’t work. That’s a combination that does not work. We are also in an era where I believe it was just this week, we got an email maybe last week from the Chief of Police and our interim superintendent with serious concerns about student behavior. We need an assistant principal to support us with student behavior and we need our guidance counselors to be able to support social and emotional health.

1:24:37 Exemplary model schools have librarians, exemplary schools have assistant principals, exemplary schools have enough reading support. I implore you to please fully fund the Marblehead Public schools.

1:25:01 Good evening. My name is Samantha Rosado. I live at three Martin Terrace. I serve as a mathematics tutor at the Glover School. And I’m the proud mother of one Marblehead High School graduate. And two more who attend Marblehead Public Schools. I am here tonight because I would like to call for a budget that supports fully staffed buildings with appropriate pay so our students can learn in a safe and nurturing environment. I am here tonight because I’m inspired by my coworkers to advocate for them. This quote by a local educator in Gloucester sums it up perfectly. The question is not what will happen to me if I stand up for others, but what will happen to others if I don’t stand up for them?

1:25:49 My part-time role involves providing essential support to students in grades K through three running enrichment groups, supporting classroom teachers and ensuring that each student receives the help they need to succeed in math. Although math support can be specialized and tailored for each student, these tier one and tier two supports fall under general education services. I absolutely love my job and I’m so grateful to be part of such an incredibly dedicated and caring staff at Lover and the Greater Marblehead public school community. The current state of our school system is a cause for concern. Staff shortages and adequate support and low wages have created an unsustainable environment that jeopardizes the safety and education of our students.

1:26:35 Our dedicated educators across buildings are facing job elimination, reduced hours, increased workloads, and covering for jobs that are unfilled. Since joining the Glover School in 2021, I have taken on numerous responsibilities beyond tutoring. One example, math tutors learned and supported read naturally a tier two reading support and ran book clubs alongside specialists and reading tutors. Last year, math tutors took turns covering a lunch block every day. This year, reading tutors are covering a daily lunch and a recess. With all critical lunch paras slated to be eliminated who will cover the four daily lunches and recess next year. We are already understaffed. Paraprofessionals who play a crucial role in the classroom

1:27:22 deserve fair compensation for their hard work and dedication contractually. Lunch paras start at $11 and 93 cents per hour. And most don’t make more than 15. Paris who work in kindergarten have a starting wage of $13 and 85 cents per hour. Most here in Marblehead make under $17 an hour and are unable to make more than $20 an hour. Unless they have worked here for 20 years, they can be moved to cover other classes when staff is out sick, some cover additional lunches. We are struggling to keep Paris for an entire year because the job is paying poverty wages. We need to address this inequity and pay them more than what my high school son makes at his pizza job. They are already underpaid.

1:28:16 Tutors in Paris have all covered many other jobs. We have even covered IEP services because a student’s dedicated educator was absent. We have decades of experience among the group of us, but we have our limits more than once I was asked to teach in the therapeutic classroom. I’m not the only one and none of us felt comfortable doing it. I had helped before, but never alone. When asked, I said no, I didn’t feel like they or I would be safe. I was given a walkie-talkie and sent up to get a five minute training that was not nor will it ever be. Okay. Have I felt unsafe at school because of student behavior? Yes. Have my coworkers felt unsafe for the same reason? Yes. Have some of my coworkers been hurt at work by a student?

1:29:03 Yes. And sometimes when there’s a problem, especially this year, there’s nobody left to answer the call. We are already understaffed. As a parent and a staff member, I urge all stakeholders to prioritize the wellbeing of our students and staff. By supporting a proposition 2.5% override what I see being offered isn’t enough. And I’m not here to lay blame anywhere, even through Level services, it’s not enough. We cannot be sitting at meetings in February next year, learning of all the staff and programs that will be cut again. I’m here to ask that the school committee proposes an override that fully funds our schools. By investing in our school system, now we can create a future for all and ensure that every child receives a quality

1:29:49 education that they deserve. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

1:30:02 My name is Mary Beth Ren Farrell. I live at 11 1 99 Humphrey Street in Marblehead. I am a retired special ed teacher who worked in the Marblehead schools for 30 years, many of which in the Glover School. I am here to support the educators. Uh, I can’t sit back at home anymore and not come and try to speak up. Um, I am horrified what’s happened to the Glover School teachers. I I really am strongly asking for them to be reinstated.

1:30:50 I’m coming to know the names of those people. I know they’re supposed supposed to all be confidential. I helped train one of those people when I retired. If I was still working, I would have been one of those teachers put on suspension because that was what we were trained to do, follow protocol. And I have no doubt that that’s what they did. I am here to support the educators. I am retired on a limited income, but I would support an override for the schools. I ask for a fully funded budget that gives the teachers a cost of living increase to support their lives.

1:31:44 Hi, my name is Kaya. I live at 50 Rockaway Avenue. Um, I’m a licensed school adjustment counselor in a neighboring district and a licensed mental health counselor providing therapy to children and adolescents. Um, deeply concerned for Marblehead youth and for our town as a whole. The proposed staffing cuts will perpetuate the dysfunction and unfortunate incidents that occur when schools do not have adequate staffing to support the complex social, emotional and neurodevelopmental needs of our students

1:32:20 to focus specifically on Glover school. Um, because of everything that they’ve been through this year. Some quotes from the most recent superintendents bulletin. Um, school leaders and staff are continuing to focus to fo wait, are continuing their focus and learning around multiple tiers of student behavioral supports, particularly at the elementary level. So the proposed cut to Glover are to staff like Mr. Beachwood, whose expertise is essential to strengthening a tiered system of support in achieving stability for the bladder school community. A few, uh, um, another quote, regular consults

1:33:07 and observations with therapeutic teaching and support staff is an example of our collective focus on supporting student behavior.

1:33:18 So, um, best practice would be for clever to increase tiered therapeutic support in order to mitigate the need for more restrictive therapeutic ment. Um,

1:33:35 and with the proposed reduced service budget, um, the clever students wouldn’t have access to this tiered support, which, you know, that would be equity for them to get that if it’s at Brown. Thank you.

1:33:59 My name’s Steve Volpe. I live in Salem. I’ve taught in Marble Head now for 26 years. My sister’s taught in Marblehead for 29 years.

1:34:10 Finally, I teach at the Village School. I’ve been there since 2001. I’m a long time school committee listener. I’m a first time caller tonight.

1:34:20 I poked around the DESI website last night and I want to share some data with you. I’m not gonna say a lot about it, but I wanna let it speak for itself. In our state here in Marblehead, I’m gonna read to you a list of, list of local districts. Please pay attention to the names and the order in which I read these districts. Marblehead, Linfield, Manchester, Essex Swamp, Scott Beverly, Danvers, Peabody Salem.

1:34:52 That was the 2023 grade 10 English MCAS Meets and exceed standards ranked from the highest ranking district to the lowest Marblehead on top, tied with Linfield to be exact.

1:35:12 I’m gonna read another list. Please pay attention. It will sound very similar. Marblehead, Linfield, Manchester, Essex Swamp, Scott Beverly, Denvers Peabody Salem sounds similar. 2023 grade 10 Math MCAS scores, meets and exceeds standards ranked from the highest to lowest performing districts. Marblehead on top, no ties.

1:35:48 I have a third and final whisk. It will sound similar, but there will be a difference.

1:35:55 Linfield, Salem, Peabody, Danvers, Manchester, Essex, Beverly, Marblehead and Swamp. Scott, any guesses? According to DESI 2021, that’s the average teacher salary ranked top to bottom. Marblehead. Second to last,

1:36:21 Several of you have said you are numbers people, you like data. You got it. I think you know that excellent teachers make a huge difference in test scores. We see these numbers and the lists don’t line up. We need to bring the funding and the compensation in line with performance. Or you run the risk of having performance fall to your funding and compensation. You don’t want that. We don’t want that.

1:36:54 Clearly our teachers are doing a great job. It’s time for you to do the same fund our schools fully.

1:37:13 Jonathan Heller, 26 Rail Road. So tonight here as a Marblehead resident, a parent of a current third grader Glover School, an eighth grader at Marblehead Veterans Middle School. I’m a sixth grade teacher at the Village School. This is my 18th year in Marblehead. 30th year this year as an educator. And I am the co-president of the Marblehead Education Association. Uh, just a side note on the last list. That was from 2021. Since then, the swan scope public schools have settled a contract. That list is very different from 2021. Marblehead would be dead last.

1:37:58 So tonight, one of our core agenda items is a safe working and learning environment for all students and staff. On March 7th, 2024, the interim superintendent provided an update to our January 23rd report regarding the response to a roof leak and suspected mold in a class at Marblehead High School. Since then, it was shared that MPS contracted with a firm to perform tests on the identified area and the various other locations within Marblehead High School. O’Neill was contracted to perform limited indoor air quality assessment and sampling at Marblehead High School in February, 2024. In the report dated February 9th, 2024 plus,

1:38:46 and O’Neill reported the following, the American Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers recommend that indoor temperatures be maintained between 73 degrees Fahrenheit and 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Mold growth was identified on the gypsum wallboard in classroom B two 13. Similar visible mold was also observed on fiberglass insulation elective demolition of gypsum wallboard and fiberglass bat insulation to identify the extent of potentially concealed mold sources as recommended tape lip samples were collected within classroom B two 13. Were, uh, from an era were visible, suspect mold growth was present. The results of the tape lip samples

1:39:31 identify the following S four types. The spore type keto was identified as high counts, greater than 1000 per area analyzed. And the SPO type alaria was identified at medium 101 to 1000 counts per area analyzed. The laboratory results indicate the samples contain fruiting structures indicating the presence of an active moisture source, which we know where that’s coming from. The roof that needs to be fixed. Uh, Ian requires extensive moisture content for growth after a Google search and consultation with the health and safety Division of the MTA, we learned that keto feeds and spreads quickly. Making it difficult to contain keto is highly dangerous

1:40:18 and trigger infections in humans. The keto fungus type can cause several health concerns in humans that come in contact even through inhalation. Some of the common health concerns are swallows, allergies, asthma, hay fever, dry throat, skin and nail infections, nosebleeds dermatitis, headaches. Cooma contains mi uh, mycotoxins, which are known to cause both teratogenic a TerraGen as anything a person is exposed to or ingest during pregnancy that is known to cause fetal abnormalities and carcinogenic effects. So I have some questions more to pose than to answer. Why didn’t the district take the limited indoor air quality

1:41:04 assessment Sampling at marble at high schools proposal from fuss a nail to get bids to higher professional to remediate the mold identified in the assessment. Why was the remediation performed by the Marblehead Public School’s custodial staff who were told that the mold was non-toxic? What training do our custodial staff have about mold remediation and what precautions were they instructed to take by the MPS facilities manager? Did Russ and O’Neil ever come back to reevaluate whether the plan was successfully implemented? Was post remediation testing ever completed? Are you aware that of the significant water damage that occurred at March 11th, 2024 at Marble at high school?

1:41:49 Teachers came in that day and students reported that rooms had a musty smell, which based on what was discovered in February, 2024 by fuss and nail could potentially indicate additional areas of mold. Did you know the temperatures in the classrooms on that day were in the low sixties, which are temperatures conducive to the growth of mold? Plus IL did state that temperatures must be maintained between 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 79 degrees Fahrenheit. Recently, mar public schools had two candidates ready to start and fill two open facilities positions, but the facilities director was told that they could no longer hire them. Why? How is MPS going to ensure the health and safety of our students and staff by cutting two additional facility staff for FY 25?

1:42:35 When MPS cannot keep up with the maintenance of our buildings at is at its current staffing levels, the health and safety of our facilities must be a top priority within our budget. We must ensure that the budget is fully funded, not only to maintain our buildings, but to repair the damage left by years of neglect due to budget constraints. We have said in the past, we have said it, I’m gonna say it again today. We all must fight to protect the equality of education provided by the children of Marblehead to the children of Marblehead. Students and facility needs continue to rise and it’s unconscionable to consider deep cut source full staff and programs in our facilities. Budgets are moral documents and is time to invest in the Marblehead schools

1:43:22 and see where Marblehead stands when it comes to public education. Thank you. And I did put together for the school committee, so our staff at the high school have been sending us photos. I did put a compilation of those photos. I’m gonna leave it on the stage for you to see later. You’ll see ceiling piles missing from the high school in classrooms and the hallway. You’ll see water stains, you’ll see holes where they remove smoke detectors and heat sensors that have yet to be replaced in those classrooms. You’ll see the mold on the gypsum board that they pulled off the wall talking to the custodians. They did not do any type of, of sealing of that room. It was done from what I believe, some of it over vacation,

1:44:08 but some of it while students were in that building. Okay. Uh, I am talking to the custodians as far as we know, they were told that it was not toxic and we don’t know what protective gear they were wearing that day either. That is really concerning for the health. And on a personal note, I have an eighth grader going up to the high school next year. And to put her into a building like that when she has allergies herself and to have to sit there during the school day is just unconscionable. I I really, really am afraid for her health and the health of our students up there and our faculty up there as well. So I welcome McGinness a member of the school committee. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Al Doherty.

1:44:55 I live on 41 Baldwin Road,

1:44:59 but the, the teachers are our most important resource and they are needed. The thing is, it’s up to us to budget the funds so that we can continue with the teachers as they stand. My position, I’ve been at the high school for 12 years, first as a hallway monitor and now as the cafeteria monitor. And it’s a two hour a day job. I present a lot of encouragement to the kids. I work with the kids. I have, uh, tremendous rapport with all the boys and the girls. And it’s a, it’s a matter of just a full development

1:45:48 for the young people in this environment.

1:45:54 Um,

1:46:00 the thing is, my job has ended as of Jewel. So the two hours per day, five days a week, if you guys cannot afford that, then it’s time to move out of the community. Thank you very much.

1:46:28 Um, hi, my name is Sophia Weiner. I live at 36 Mud Bridge Street. And I just wanted to say that I’m so happy to have had all of these teachers that spoke today. I love school so much and it’s because of these teachers and I’m just so upset that they have to be here and that their jobs aren’t being, being funded because they’re so amazing and they are the reason that I want to go into education and become an English teacher myself.

1:47:04 Um, I want, I want to be supported in my schools. I’m graduating, but I care so much about the people that are going to be coming through these schools. I want them to be supported. I want my teachers to be supported. And I really don’t think that’s a big ask. And it’s, we need to pass a budget that is fully funded and supports all of the teachers. Thank you.

1:47:37 Thank you. We’re gonna go to some people who have hands up on online. Um, and if there’s more people in the audience here, I’m happy to pop back to that. Um, first we’ll start with Kasie, Kindle

1:48:01 Kasie, if you wanna unmute yourself. Oh, there you go. Sorry. Sorry. Can you hear me now?

1:48:10 Hi, can you hear me? Sarah, can you hear me? Okay. Um, so Kazie, hold on one second. We’re gonna try some things and if there’s a lot of feedback, I apologize. I’m sorry. Special ed teacher. So that’s not gonna work. You wanna turn your sound on and see if we can do it off ears. All right. Ka kazie Again. Can you hear me? How’s this

1:48:40 Dam? Hi, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I’m, I’m so sorry. I, I got hung up at work. Um, um, can you hear me now? Is it clear? Hello? Yes, go for it. Okay, great. Um, so I just wanna say that my daughter is now in 11th grade. And so I’ve been through an awful lot of these. And the format of these meetings over the years has changed from a true question and answer session where people could ask questions and get a response. Um, and over the years it’s changed into literally just

1:49:25 another public comment where people could say things and, and say what they felt, which is important, but they didn’t expect to be responded to. And I just want to say to everyone listening to the, uh, uh, everyone here at this meeting and everyone listening to this meeting, this is not just an opportunity to be heard. This is an opportunity to ask questions. And I haven’t heard many questions. I’ve heard a lot of really incredibly heartfelt statements, but I haven’t heard questions. So what I’m going to ask this committee, and I would really love a response, is I’m going to ask Farah, Allison, Jen, Brian

1:50:12 and Al, what are the questions you wish the community would ask you? And then I’m going to ask you to answer your own questions. Thank you.

1:50:30 All right. Thank you. And I do wanna re,

1:50:34 I do wanna rem remind everybody, you absolutely, this is a two-way conversation. So if right now questions are popping into your head, please feel free. Um, we’re here to answer them. So I’ll start at the end of the table and oh, I gotta hang the mic too. Um, so Al and then we’ll just go in order of, are there questions you would wish to have been asked? And what would the answers to those be? And you might not have the answers. Some of our administrators may,

1:51:05 I think,

1:51:12 works Now,

1:51:18 I guess I, I would like to hear how we persuade people who do not wanna vote for an over, right. I, I think my sense is we have a lot of like-minded people in the auditor auditorium and on the, the zoom call. And I don’t think we need persuading. Now that’s not all of us, right? Most of us do not need persuading. I think I would’ve like to heard questions around how can we perhaps, you know, persuade the people who are in the 75% of households that do not have children who may not be as like-minded as us. What do we need to do with the school committee? What do we need to be doing in the voting public to address that and get support in people

1:52:03 who may not be fully behind that right now? That’s what I think it’s going to take to get an override and for us to fully fund our schools.

1:52:27 Okay, so you asked how we persuaded this community. The MEAA couple weeks ago made a proposal asking for open bargaining. Okay, so typically we enter closed bargaining and that’s what’s been done in the past. This community is asking for information, asking for transparency. So like was was said earlier, agreed con agree, go back, talk as a committee, agree to our suggestion to enter open bargaining with us. Let this,

1:53:25 Okay. Um,

1:53:41 I’m not, Oh wait, I’m, I’ll wait on that. Okay. So to your point, Jonathan, I,

1:53:50 the question you could ask is what is everybody’s opinion on that

1:54:02 Allison Taylor’s vote for? That is a hundred percent yes.

1:54:12 I respect that. It’s not common practice. I respect it might be different from what our legal counsel suggested. Um, but I have shared unequivocally with this team and I’m was look waiting for someone to ask the question so that I could share it with you. Um, there’s no question about that. I think you could potentially ask us about, I’m gonna just dive deep end here. You could ask us our opinion on the four teachers at Glover. Um, you could, and my opinion personally is I haven’t seen the video and I, I think that that is perhaps a piece of information that isn’t necessarily known. I haven’t seen the video. I don’t know if there was 1, 2, 3 87 angles. I have the redacted version of the report heavily redacted.

1:55:01 I spoke at the last meeting about what I feel needs to happen, which is additional training appropriate and proper training and retraining and continued training because that is the only way to keep both teachers and students safe. I agreed with Jen that we would, we can’t change the policy of what teachers can do that’s state law. But what Jen and I can do is make sure that there is a policy that shares exactly what we are going to do in Marblehead to ensure that the training and the retraining is continued by appropriate people. Because when I read the report, I read everybody was trained a certain way and then someone else saying, no, they weren’t. And in my opinion, I can’t see the CIC recommendations.

1:55:48 It’s blacked out. I, I don’t care if I get in trouble for this. I don’t agree with letting those teachers go. And I think they, um, they all should be reinstated because I feel, I have not seen proof to show otherwise. Um,

1:56:09 I, I think that, I think that it’s important to note also from a a budgeting perspective. I like what Al said. I don’t think you’ll find anybody on this stage right now that doesn’t believe our, our students and our teachers deserve more funding. Um, and I personally, I agree with that as well. I think our community, from the perspective of the community, which needs to, it’s not like we have a pot of gold that we can open up and provide more. We can absolutely do the work to agree and advocate for that. We need the community support for that. That is the most important piece. I think that the budget books that we have provided, the analysis, the level

1:56:54 of detail is more than you have seen in very many years here or yeah, okay. Ever. She’s diving deep, ever. I’m very, very proud of this administration for that work. I’m very, very proud of the detail. I understand the level of effort. I don’t like the notion that we are trying to make a student or anyone that’s employed here a line item. But in order to get community backing for this, which is ultimately what we need, no matter how bad any of us want this, we need that data because that’s what they had been screaming for as well. I will answer Al’s question and I promise that I’m done. Maybe about how we, I guess persuade. I don’t really know convince the 75% of people

1:57:41 that live here that don’t have children. I would maybe remind them that perhaps they once had children that went to a public school that was probably partially funded by people that didn’t. That’s kind of the circle of life. Um, but I would also suggest, uh, particularly to the gentleman that was here tonight commenting on it, and I think he came to our last meeting as well, your teachers are right here telling you what they need. There were students that bravely came up and spoke. I’m not sure how much closer to the action or a pinpointed response on that. You get then by looking at this audience, looking at the people online routinely in our meetings and hearing them and listening to them. So it’s not the five of us preaching

1:58:26 or telling you what to do. You have teachers that are in the classrooms with these students and know what they need. You have administrators that are there day in and day out doing more with less. That’s who you listen to. I, I don’t know how much more clear it gets than that. One other piece that I’ll mention is I would also suggest that people look from the town perspective, which is where we get our money to start from. That’s, that’s the genesis of all of it and where it starts. And we, I’ve always been the one to push back, um, on the town anyway in regards to arpa. So I may as well do it here as well. I think it needs to start there also. Um, I think we need to be clear with them on what percentage of the budget we are.

1:59:12 And I think that that needs to remain consistent. It can’t be this in one, in, in one stance and, and something else in another. Um, and I feel very, very strongly from a healthcare perspective. And then really, I promise I’m done, maybe is that we, from a healthcare perspective, we need to somehow get that back from the town because, you know, that’s, that’s a big piece of this and we need to be able to manage that ourselves.

1:59:39 Oh, okay. Did, did Samantha did, you may have a comment

1:59:47 shout. Oh, sorry. So, Um, I’m wondering tonight, you are not gonna vote on a budget, right? I didn’t, I didn’t think I saw it on the agenda vote. I was. Okay, So you, you could vote, but if you were gonna support asking the town for an override, what is the deadline for that? When would you need to submit that information to the town? Would it be before April? That Would be at the floor of town meeting. Okay. So you don’t need to give a final number until the floor of town meeting. Yeah, we have a placeholder in place on the town of warrant that allows us the opportunity, um, up, up to the night of town or at town, one of the knights of town meeting, um, when that vote comes up. Okay. So you just need to vote a level, sorry,

2:00:35 level funded budget at some point, right, which is what We can vote any budget that we decide to vote. Okay, Thank you. Yeah, So I’m gonna, not to belabor Allison over here. Um, I just a couple of comments, um, to Jonathan. How’s point about open bargaining? Um, I do support or did support open bargaining. I do think though, um, number one, you know, legal counsel has indicated that that is virtually one or two districts in the state do that. Um, so I’m not, I’m not gonna debate this tonight, Jonathan. I’m just gonna tell you what we’ve been told and that it is that it is not necessarily considered best practice for either side.

2:01:21 And again, I’m not gonna debate it with you, Jonathan, I’m just telling you what was said. That being said, I think there’s a tremendous value to consider what the town has been saying they want in terms of transparency. And I will tell you that I think this year, this committee has demonstrated more transparency than any other board in this town has ever done. And I’m committed to that going forward. Um, again, not to belabor Allison’s points, I think it’s important to note that everyone in this room, I believe even the folks that are leaving now, that, that we all want to fund the schools. That’s why I’m on the school committee, why I ran and why I have been fighting for years for funding for the schools. But we live in a town that has other departments.

2:02:07 And I will say, and I’ll do a shout out tonight to the chair of FinCon is here tonight listening. The liaison from the finance committee to the school committee is here tonight. And our town administrator is here tonight listening to, to our budget hearing, which I’ve never seen before at a budget, a budget hearing as far as I can remember. So I appreciate that. And, but the, you know, the finance comm committee and the town administrator and the select court also have the other half of the town that needs to be funded and we need to be able to work together. And I, I think we’re taking steps towards that. But you know, it’s still a very challenging financial environment that we’re in, in this town. The reality of what our projected revenues are has to be understood.

2:02:52 Um, and then we have to figure out what other alternative revenue sources are available out there through various ways, including an override, other local receipts, other things that will be upvote at town meeting. So in the answer to I think Samantha’s question, Ms Otto’s question is we were tasked by the finance committee to present to them a level funded budget, which is actually a little bit more, um, based on projected growth for next year, but basically the same as this year’s budget with a little another $750,000 and a level services budget, which is to provide the same level of services that we provided this year, which included cuts from last year, um, uh, and, and to present that as well.

2:03:37 And it’s quite likely that the projections will not meet that. So, so that’s the reality of what we’ve been tasked to do. We as a school committee can vote and to present a budget that we believe is the right budget to the town. We have the right to do that as a school committee at town meeting and town meeting will decide ultimately how they want, how it wants as a legislative body to fund our schools. So I don’t know if that helped, but that’s, that, that was the que those are the questions that I’d like, would like to have been asked. I just ask one follow up questions that you made a comment that the, I am obviously, I’m not gonna get into it more my question, my only question is who does the attorney work for? That’s my question. The

2:04:24 Attorney works for the district of Marble head in the client of record is the school committee. Yep. I’m going to be clear as the chair right now. A budget hearing is to discuss budget. It is not, we are not bargaining here at the budget hearing. We are not, we are not discussing personnel. It is grossly inappropriate for any member of this committee to discuss personnel matters. It is clearly out of our purview according to mass general law. There’s no ambiguity on that. None whatsoever. And it’s not quite fair, frankly, I don’t think it’s fair to any of the personnel involved for us to be discussing their matters when

2:05:09 we have no purview over it. So I just, it’s a heck of a night not to have a gavel, folks. But I I I’m really gonna hold us. I think things go sideways when we divert from protocol. I think things go sideways when people don’t adhere to laws and rules. So I just have to be very clear, this is the budget hearing. There’s a lot of pieces of your question that have budget pieces and those absolutely should be asked. Um, but, but we can’t, we can’t bargain here. Um, so I think to, we got back to get back to CAI’s question, what question had you hoped would be asked and how would you answer that or who should be answering that?

2:05:56 So tonight the question’s been asked about whether school committee is going to approve an override. The question I did not hear that I need to hear is what are you going to do to get it passed? We are five people on the stage. We cannot get this override passed without somebody else’s hell. So what you should really be thinking about, yes you are, but what are you doing outside of here? You need to go contact your neighbors. You need to go into the streets, you need to speak to the elderly, the people on fixed incomes. We need to reach out and get people to support this override or else it’s going to fail again, that’s the question I didn’t hear. What can we do as individuals to get an override passed if you go forward with an override request?

2:06:44 Um, so for me, the question would be really driving back to the budget is I really hope someone asked what are the mechanisms in which to fund, um, the various options here. Because it’s not just black and white of override or cuts, um, by law. Now people may have varying degrees are opinions on what should happen, but through, through the mechanisms available to us, the school committee is allowed to vote a budget that we feel meets the needs and is representative of the needs of the model head public schools. We don’t have to only vote what is all,

2:07:30 what is what is our suggested allocation. We can vote in other, there is a precedent in other towns of voting the number that you feel is representative of what is needed to fund our schools. It, it would then be to the, a recommendation by the financial committee on whether they feel that number should be supported. And also there’s, there’s gives and takes in that too because there is a finite amount of money. However, you know, there may be an a second look at revenue projections. There are other avenues. Um, I’m not saying any of these is the right choice. What I am saying is we, the conversation seems to be here tonight only override or not override.

2:08:18 And and I had, I was hoping that people could kind of ask what are the mechanisms available to us? Um, ‘cause there are, there are more mechanisms available. Um, so that would be my question that I hope someone had asked.

2:08:39 Oh, I just, yeah. So there are more mechanisms. So we, we as a school committee can vote. So when I say we can vote our budget in years past the budget the school committee has approved has been a reduced services. And then they’ve also, and then they’ve taken that extra portion and plant placed it in an override, which an override requires a two thirds vote, a town meeting and then a 50% at the ballot. So there’s, it’s kind of like a double trigger to get that through. Um, the other mechanism is you can vote your budget on the floor of town meeting that you need and it does need to be balanced. But there are other, there, there are other revenue streams available to everyone. We, you know, we talked with FinCon today.

2:09:24 We can look at some of our revolving funds. There are some limitations legally on what we can use various revolving funds for. I’ll give an example of the kindergarten tuition. One that money comes in from kindergarten tuition and can go only go back out to pay for the portion of salaries for that afternoon section of kindergarten. Um, the athletics revolving fund, it comes in from athletics and it can go back out to pay for athletic salaries. And I’m not sure if I can cover piece or rentals and things, but so my point is there are other mechanisms, um, think time has encouraged us to look at some of those additional revolving funds. We will continue to do that. Um, we can go back to the town and say you have stabilization funds or can you take a second look at your revenue projections?

2:10:11 Do you think you were super conservative in that? Do you think that there’s any more room in that? I don’t know the answers to all of these questions. I just know that it is not only cuts or override that is available to us. And it is, these are conversations we’re having. This is a conversation, you know, know our, our last meeting, our four o’clock meeting with, um, the FinCon representatives is up on YouTube. Um, they came to us with a lot of suggestions on revolving funds. These are all conversations that are ongoing and happening and to seek fund funding so that there is not another year of cuts. I think what we’ve heard here tonight and what we’ve quite frankly hear everywhere is no one,

2:10:59 no one is saying, yes, cuts are a good idea. We need cuts, cuts will benefit our kids. I think we have to exhaust every discussion on how we get that funding. And as a school committee we will continue to do that. But I just, I wish that was my question. That what are our options to get to funding? Because at the end of the day, we need to fund our schools. I mean, I’ve sat through this conversation for more years than I can count. I’m, I’m gonna add two things to that. The first is, um, in, in terms of looking at some of our revolving funds, which are funds that come in from different, different sources. One of the things that we have to balance with that,

2:11:44 ‘cause we do have revolving funds that Michelle Cresta has worked for four years now, three and a half years to build up these funds to a level where there’s a healthy balance, where there’s a year ahead of, um, uh, funded a year ahead of what we’re going to need for things like special education and other items. I was on the committee in 2019 when that was not the practice where we spent every dollar down to zero on our revolving funds and we were left with a deficit. And for maybe many of you don’t remember it, but I know I see faces out there that were here in 2019 and that was not a great good situation to be in. It was, it was terrible. And we never wanna get back there. So we, I, I personally get very nervous when we start talking about dipping into revolving funds that we are finally reached a funding

2:12:29 level of best practice. So these are all these balances that we have to consider. Right. Um, and I think, you know, I think it’s important to note that one of the things I mentioned, and I’ve talked to Michelle Crest about what other districts have done, and I mentioned it to the finance committee today, the liaisons we spoke with. And that is that we all know that special education has been a rising cost going back to 2019. Um, and it is the reality of some of the students, of our, of our students that have learning challenges. And there’s tremendous pressure on our budget to be able to meet those needs. And it comes out of our operating budget every year. Well, I would like to consider looking at that as a standalone separate item at town meeting that the town

2:13:15 recognizes needs to be funded and funds it appropriately so that we are providing the education that these students need that are particularly out of district that we’re not able to do in district. And then our operating budget will truly be reflective of what we’re providing in the town of Marblehead to our students here. So that’s another example. I don’t think it’s gonna happen this year, but we can start talking about it for next year. So that’s another example of, I guess I would consider it either another revenue source or another expense placement, um, a geographical expense placement to quote our finance, um, chair of our finance committee. Um, so those are some things that we can bring the town into and to try to recognize that we are all in this together

2:14:00 and we need to fund all of our students together.

2:14:05 Oh, So Kazie, I see your hand up again. I don’t know if that’s a second time or, um, it just didn’t go down the first time. Yeah, no, no, no. I, I just wanted to, um, to, to wrap this up. Oh. So, um, One second. Um, we’re gonna come back to you once we figure out, once I have Dr. McGinness turn her sound on again, Mr. Letterman. Um, so I I I’m really glad, really glad that you mentioned the town meeting. Ultimately all budget. It’s not the select board, it’s not the school committee, it’s not any elected board town meeting that just signed. Okay. So to the people in this room who are talking about, you know, override, no override,

2:14:51 who do they go to place making these decisions in the PAD meetings? So my question to the school committee is, number one, are you planning to move the healthcare budget, which is by far the largest non-salary line in the entire account budget into the school budget? Why did you move Medicare but you didn’t move the move the, the cost of healthcare. And, And by the way, it’s, and it’s up to town meeting, not up to the town accountant or anyone else to do that. Um, there were talk, we, there were discussions about that at the starting start of the year, and that was the plan for this year. Um, ultimately we ended at the point where the town had req wanted to budget it on their side because they didn’t have all the data in

2:15:37 line to move it to us. But the schools were very eager to take over that health insurance line. Um, because where there is some fluctuation, it could, it would be beneficial to have that in our line. I, I would, I would say that over the years, certainly when I was on the committee,

2:15:57 There’s a lot of concern on the part of the town that when the schools would either add staff or subtract stuff, it would affect the quote town side of the budget. So moving it all, like now is the time. I mean, it just, it’s up to town meeting. Do it at town meeting, vote to move that line item into your budget and take it, it belongs to the schools, not to the, on the school side of the budget. So that’s, that’s sort of the first question. I, I hope you guys are assertive at town meeting. ‘cause in general, marble heads town meeting tends to just do whatever the finance committee tells ‘em what to do. And it’s really, that’s not how it works in most other communities where people are sort of paying attention. And it just, so that’s the first question. The second question is, and this is really to the superintendent and to the, any member of the committee who wants, and any administrator who wants to answer the question,

2:16:43 why is it that Marblehead pays substantially more per student in our budget? And it’s not just regular ed or special ed or regular ed. We pay substantially more per student, but pay our teachers less, less on average than many of those communities that, that Steve Volpe talked about. And I’ve seen those lists. There are lots of different benchmarks. There are different comparable communities, but I think all of us have seen comparable communities reports and Marblehead spends more and pays our teachers less. And what do you attribute that to?

2:17:14 So just to clarify, Mr. Letterman, I think from your first comment in this one, my take on what you’re saying is you’re implying we’re overstaffed. ‘cause if we’re paying less, but are per students higher? The delta there is the number of staff. So is that your question? I My question to you is what do you attribute that difference to? What do you attribute it to? Don’t, I’m not making an implication. I’m asking you why are we spending, in many cases, for example, Ingham’s, Winchester towns that are outperforming us on MCA that are higher than the list of people be mentioned, they’re spending substantially less per student, but they’re paying their teachers much more. They’re paying their teachers where we need to be. So my question to you is, what do you attribute that to? They’re paying them more and they’re spending less per student. There’s only, I mean, what’s the reason for that?

2:18:00 They’re getting the results. And I, and I’m asking it to, you know, Dr. McGinnis too. What do you attribute the, the fact that we spend so much more per student than our teachers make less.

2:18:12 No. Mary Deli, um, I have been here a hot second, right? ‘cause my colleague and, and good friend Michelle is, has not left the building. But I too have run some benchmarking ‘cause I’m sort of a data geek and, um, wanting to understand the numbers a little bit and, and saw the same things you saw. I, I looked at, um, Essex County communities, took out some of the more urban, I did leave Salem in because you obviously your proximity compete with Salem. Um, and saw the same trends, uh, of the 13 Essex County communities that I looked at. Uh, Marblehead per pupil spending for actual net school spending, uh, for FY 23 is the

2:19:01 second highest of any of these communities. Actually, the third highest, um, and you are right about salaries. There are districts that pay a lot less an average teacher salary. It is dated information. The one metric that nobody’s talked about is the student to staff ratio. That’s also on the DESI website. And this is based on our reporting to the state for our staffing by different categories. And Marblehead is, uh, 10.3 students per staff member. Um, that is the third lowest of all of those same comparable communities, which says to me, this isn’t a, a judgment or value, says to me, you have a lot more staffing.

2:19:48 Um, and when you look at the communities who are paying as much as you are per pupil, less per pupil, their ratios of student to staff are a lot higher. So I look at, for example, Andover that spends an average teacher salary $94,000. Their student to staff ratio is 11.3. Ours is 10.3. This is just data. There’s no value judgements. If you look at a district, um, like Beverly, um, they pay a little bit more than than Marblehead 84 7, 6 5. They’re at 12.8 students per staff member. Um, you know, Bloomfield, 13.6 students per staff member, they’re paying 96,000 on average.

2:20:36 So I do wonder as a data analyst, uh, you know, I think there’s trade-offs being made. You want more staffing in the classrooms to support students. And the trade off is, that comes with pot, potentially less money to pay towards salaries. So are we willing to increase class sizes, increase a little bit more to pay those salaries? These are clearly community conversations that have to be had. Uh, Mary, thank you very much for that, for that honest reply. I, you know, I too am a data person. I’ve actually gone even deeper than that and looked at certain grades. And one of the things that I’ve noticed particularly among this crowd is that our, where where it really stands out is, is that the high school far more than K through K through eight.

2:21:22 So when I hear elementary teachers saying they’re, they just don’t have the support, I believe them, but there’s been very little discussion about what’s going on at the high school. And if you actually break down the numbers at the high school level and you look at comparable communities, what you see is even more radical excess. Uh, or let’s just say other communities are running their high schools with a much higher student teacher ratio than Marvel had. Now, coming back to my original comments when I first, when I started, I think a lot of this has to do with discipline. Things are out of control. And the only way to tackle the discipline problem is to tackle the discipline problem. So when people misbehave, they shouldn’t be in the room. You shouldn’t need to have three adults in the classroom because one person can’t keep themselves under control.

2:22:08 So I guess I want you guys to think about that because that is where the solution has to come from. Because the community in marble have, you know, you talk about the 75% who aren’t here, and you go on Facebook and you hear about kids being rude to people in front of Starbucks and you hear about kids mouthing off to adults, the types of things that only a decade ago you’d never see, you know, just milling around this room before the meeting, talking to teachers, you said the behavioral problems are out of control and it’s worse here in Marblehead than it is other, other communities. People. I don’t know why the people are tolerating behavior in a way they just, Objection. Do You have a question, Sir? So my question is, are you guys going to propose that we just keep throwing more money at this problem? Are we actually gonna tackle these kind of issues?

2:22:54 The, the, the high school issues and the discipline issues? That’s the question.

2:23:02 Thank you. Thanks Jonathan. Thanks for the question and for, to bring up the point, because it is, it is a reality without a doubt. We are hearing this from the teachers from all grades. Um, and we’re hearing it also with throughout the town, right? We saw the superintendent’s email the other day in conjunction with the police chief. And I hear anecdotally from, from parents and from from business owners and folks who don’t ha don’t have children or in, you know, in town that they’re seeing this around town. So this is a community issue, um, that I have been, that’s been gelling in my mind since la since the election last summer, where I was talking about the culture and the climate in our school buildings. And it’s beginning to gel to me that,

2:23:49 that this is what this is about. That we, we are a, you know, a three-legged stool. We have, we have the, we have the staff, we have the, the leadership, and we have the parents. And we need to be reaching out to engage parents to answer your question. Um, um, and that’s something that I am committed to doing with hopefully the other members of this committee and the superintendent that will be coming in, um, in the leadership because it’s a lot of work, I think, ahead of us. Um, but setting the expectations and setting the standards around behavior and then un making sure we have the resources for, for our students that, that need the help to, to regulate themselves.

2:24:35 Um, ‘cause it’s real. And we’re not alone. I mean, you’re hearing it across the country, um, without a doubt. But in our little hamlet here, our town, we, we are I think, invested enough all of these, um, stakeholders to come together. And I would like to do that and work with our leadership next year to try to set those standards. Thank you. Anybody else?

2:25:03 Hi. Um, since we’ve been talking about how we can get the town, um, two paths and override, I think the biggest thing is that they think that they could trust that their money is gonna be used appropriately. Um, I am curious why we are paying two administrators that just lapsed through the end of the year without anything being looked into. Um, you know, we had four people that have had an investigation going on. A lot of us spoke off about these two administrators, and somehow they got to leave. They’re being paid. Um, they get to go find another job. Our town is still paying for them.

2:25:49 Um, and I just think that’s a big thing. I think a lot of people don’t think that they can trust how the money is gonna be used since we seem to be spending a lot on salaries of people who aren’t here.

2:26:10 That is not something the school committee can answer as that’s, those are positions and observational that are outside of our purview and it’s also personnel. But I will, But since it has to do with how our money’s spent. Yeah. And I can understand why those questions come out and you won’t like my answer. But as Sarah, you pointed out earlier too, there’s, it’s complex and it is personnel and I cannot describe any of it. So I’m sorry I’ve told you, um, everything that I’m legally able to, um, but it is Personal. We can’t answer why we didn’t look into a, any of the claims that the teachers had against ‘em and they just got to walk away. Yeah. Again, I told you all legally can tell you.

2:26:58 All right, thank you. Sorry.

2:27:05 Hi guys. Um, my name’s Kate Thompson. I’m a parent of two in the district. Um, I see those teachers in the audience and I’m super grateful. I’m also a graduate of this building that was a high school, in fact, fun fact performed on this stage alongside Ms. Taylor and several musicals. Those are really good times. Um, but I’m here because I’m willing to bet that most of us who are still in this room and watching at home overwhelmingly agree that we desperately need this money. Um, I think it’s one of the few things that still binds a lot of us who have had a lot of conflict over the last few years. Um, and I see this as two separate work streams, at least two, but two big ones.

2:27:50 One is the sort of number crunching and the money and where are we getting it and how are we finding it and what, how much do we need, right? And I’ve seen these administration do an incredible job, um, doing that work and partnering with the principals and coming up with a really difficult emotional but thoughtful solve. Um, the second work stream that I’ve heard almost nothing about is the selling of it. So, you know, it’s a marketing issue at that point, and it’s a tough one. It’s a hearts and minds kind kind of moving now, it’s not a, Hey, go buy some sneakers. It’s like changing people really deep seated beliefs about what they will and won’t pay for in this town. So when you think about the landscape that we’ve got, we haven’t passed a general override in almost 20 years.

2:28:37 We have two years of failed overrides in the recent past. We have an incredibly unstable leadership position going on within our schools, okay? And we’ve got losses happening every day that are really, really hurtful. So when I think about all of that together, um, uh, I’m a marketer, right? So I specialize in marketing and advertising integrated campaigns that help move people’s beliefs and behaviors. And any marketer will tell you it starts with an awareness campaign. Think of it like a funnel. And you have to, in this case, just tell people we need the money, right? That’s the most basic thing. And then you move them from there. Only when they understand that piece, you move them into consideration. And that’s where you’re giving them proof points.

2:29:23 Like, what are we gonna use it for? And what pain are we gonna avoid? And how is it gonna benefit them? And what is this to your property values? And all those compelling reasons for them to believe. And and after that piece, you move them into conversion, which is another way of saying vote. Like understand all those asks and why you should do it. But then like, go vote. And we see people not voting year over year over year. Okay? So like I thank you for the diligence on the budget piece, but what I wanna know is where’s the effort on the marketing piece? And I see that you guys are working hard,

2:30:08 but like, this is a huge gap to me. I know you have a PR firm. My question to you is, are you using them? Why are you waiting to town meeting to potentially spring an override on this community? And then you have one month until the election, you don’t move those hearts and minds in a month. And respectfully, these people have enough on their plates without having to go sell the override themselves.

2:30:49 Okay? So, um, I’m happy to let anybody else speak to this as well. We, we actually, we can’t use a PR firm that’s paid for with public money to promote a ballot initiative through campaign finance law. There has to be, um, there has to be a, a group that comes together and files paperwork and, and make sure all that’s done. ‘cause we can’t u we can put something, um, out as a school committee as far as putting something on the warrant. We can vote a budget, but we can’t use public money to push a ballot initiative one way or another. That being said, I think you’d be hard pressed

2:31:36 to find a single human being in this town who has spent more hours and thought more consistently year after year saying, we need money in our schools. Um, to the point where people, when I would go to the Rotary last year, I, one gentleman said to me, how much are you asking us for this year? And he said, when are you gonna stop asking us? And I’m gonna stop asking when our schools are fully funded. And that hasn’t happened yet because every single year we wind up back in some variation of how, where can we reduce X, Y, Z? How can we lessen the impact on our students?

2:32:22 And we do go through those exercises, but what we’re, you know, hearing loud and clear is this, the people in this room are done with that. I sincerely hope that more people in town are done with that. I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know the mechanism that we have available to us is we can vote a budget, we can vote to use a placeholder or not use a placeholder or whatever the, these are the mechanisms available to this committee. This committee cannot organize a ballot initiative to get any funding passed. It’s illegal according to campaign finance law. We can’t do that. There has

2:33:08 to be other people in the community that file that paperwork, that do those pieces. Um, but you know, to what Ms. Thompson said, what are we doing with our public money to pass this? That’s, that’s not legal. We can’t do that. We cannot legally use public money to, to do a PR campaign. Um, for that we can, there’s a lot we can do, but we cannot use public money to do that. So I just wanna clarify that again, we have public meetings. We can’t use public meetings. We can’t, there, there’s a lot of rules through campaign finance of what we can and can’t do. Um, but we can educate people. We can tell them why, you know, what that funding represents. We can tell them what that lack of funding represents.

2:33:55 We can answer factual questions and we will continue to be here to do that.

2:34:02 So I, nope. Cassie sand is not up anymore. Um, is, and any other comments?

2:34:12 Okay. Oh wait, no T Tawny. No, no rush. It’s fine. Everybody. I, I know, I know, but they get to speak. It took me a while. It takes me a long time to flex my thoughts. I, I’m Tony Callahan, 58 Edward Street, um, parent of two graduates, a graduate myself from this various school, a teacher in this town since 2001. Um, my entire career here, every year I’ve watched us with work with less. I watch these people work every day. Um, we cry together, we laugh together, we laugh, so we won’t cry. Um, my question to you is how do we then mobilize these groups? My concern, when we go for an override,

2:34:58 there are people on fixed incomes. They can’t afford the override. The town itself, I know that’s not in your governing body, but the town itself, the finance committee and other bodies need to figure out a way to provide some sort of stop for those people. Some sort of way that they can manage the money and that the people that can afford it can pay the override. This, I, I, I love this town. I grew up here. I go way too far back. Okay? But this has gotta stop this town. Keep, keep asking for us to do more and better and better without putting the money forward. Do I wanna pay more taxes? No, I do not. But do we have to? Yes, we do. There’s no way we’re gonna move forward unless that happens. But how do we make those vehicles happen? How do we mobilize those groups? How do we stop sitting here and talking about it

2:35:44 and start doing something? I can’t have this happen anymore. I can’t watch my friends, my family go through this year after year after year. Sarah, I agree with you. We’re all working as hard as we can. But what I wanna know is how do we mobilize these groups? How do we get the parents in this community who care to mobilize together and do something? Because I cannot sit here another year and listen to us talk about it. So that is my true question. I’m not angry, but I can’t sit here and do this another year. I can’t have my family have to sit at home and wonder what time I’m gonna be back and how are we gonna do this? And how many hours do we spend to do this? How do we mobilize the people in this town and help the people that can’t afford this so we can move forward? That’s my question. Thank you.

2:36:33 Take it so I don’t have the magic answer to that. Tani. I will say that frankly, you as teachers are under the same rules that we’re under in terms of organizing and using, you know, using public resources. So it really is going to have to be a, you know, a community person and you people, and usually it’s parents. So, you know, you have your contacts, we have our contacts. I mean, we can, we can try to reach out to parent leaders. Uh, we can work with the parent leadership groups that we have into, which are many of PTOs, pcos, um, you know, athletic boosters, arts boosters. I mean, those are the parent leaders. Um, and I would say, you know, reach out to ‘em and, and, and you certainly can, you know, offline, not in school building, you know, have conversations to,

2:37:21 to try to recruit, uh, leader parent leaders. I say parent leaders. I mean, there could be some non-parents out there that would be great, um, to help organize and lead, uh, an effort for, uh, for an override committee. Oh, Cassie, she took outta her pajamas came down. Um, one quick question. So, because there’s limits of what I can say in this capacity in this meeting, just get my phone number and Aspen and call me tomorrow in the parking lot. Seems a little seriously. Call me. Call me. Um, where’d she go? Oh, ZY. No, off her.

2:38:08 I went to work. I came home. I loved, I’m like, I need to be here. He to ask these questions because, um, it still, it’s still flick and going. I can’t turn it off. So I’m just gonna put this right here And I can, You’ll go microphone Anyway, go Up to this microphone. All right, lovely. All right. So thank you so much for answering my questions that I asked on the phone. I still have a couple of questions. So my, one of my biggest questions is, and and many of the people here will remember me asking exactly the same question. I think it was six years ago that I was at a FinCon meeting and I heard the chair of FinCon at that time

2:38:54 say to the school superintendent at that time, do not ask for any more money, because the answer is going to be no. And I said at that time, why doesn’t the school committee say to fin, come bugger you. We are going to ask for the money that we need. And the school committee at that time could not answer my question to my satisfaction. So I’m gonna ask you the same question. The school needs money. They know what they need. Why can’t we simply say to FinCon, this is what we need,

2:39:40 this is what we are going to ask for. Why has that question not been asked? Absolutely. Thank you. And I’m not gonna sit down ‘cause I have a couple more. Okay. We can do that. Kids, we can Vote the budget. I, I think maybe in the transit from your house to year, we might as talked about this, we can vote the budget we feel isn’t representative of the needs of the Marblehead public schools. I’m prepared to vote that budget.

2:40:12 Anyone else? The only thing I will say to that, which is a great question Ca Kazie, is also, um, that being said, we live in a community that has a set number, a set amount of revenue that we, that we collect every year that are, that are projected. And that is the reality, right? So it’s just like your home budget, right? Where you say, I really want, you know, I need something, you know, I need, I need to fix my furnace this year, but I simply don’t have the money for it. So what do I do? Mm-Hmm. I go out and find, find the money. I mean, right? There’s all sorts of things. But, but, but we live in a reality of what our projected revenues are in this town. We are also community members in this town and we have used all the other amenities in town, including

2:40:57 first responders and, and, and all the other departments. So we have to also work together with the townside. And we also, it is a, it is a balance. It absolutely is what you described, which I participated in as an elected official and before that, as a parent leader, um, was certainly not what, I don’t think anybody today on the townside of government or the appointed members would agree with best practice. And I think we’ve come a long way. We’re not necessarily there yet, but we’ve come a long way in, in recognizing that that, um, is not the best practice on how we should work together. But that we do have to work together to create a budget for the entire town. That’s not my job as a corp meeting member. My job is to vote a budget that I believe is right for the town.

2:41:43 But I have to keep in mind the fact that we are also in a greater community that has other needs for our limited tax dollars or our limited yeah. Tax dollars and revenue dollars.

2:41:59 I still have more questions. So if the school committee was going to ask for the number that Nate need, what would that number be? Where is the delta between what the town is willing to give to the schools and what the schools actually need?

2:42:21 I don’t know. I’m gonna give it down this way. ‘cause we have a number right now with the delta, but we, uh, as per our last income meeting a few hours ago, there are still some more things we need to look at. For instance, I’ll give you an example of in the reduced services budget, we took the director of food services and we moved it to the food services revolving fund. That’s something we can and should do an either, it’s still fully funded, it is just funded through a revolving fund. So we have to finalize those numbers to get to that exact, because, because we owe it to be fiscally responsible and to get that number funded through the best mechanisms for funding it, that take

2:43:09 as much off the taxpayer as possible while simultaneously staying with the best practices that we finally have gotten to. It took us a long time to get to where we have the proper rollovers that is in accordance with best practice. So, long story short, it’s, right now we’re at a delta, I think 2.4. But I think once we look at the funding mechanisms available to us, that that number will come down a little bit. Correct? Yes. 2.5. Okay. It’s 2.5 that went up, not down.

2:43:45 So it could rain money and we could get the schools everything they needed. What would that number be? We don’t have that number. Oh, that number isn’t the number that was presented. I mean, that’s a different number than, than the number even presented as a level service. ‘cause you have to remember, we’re at level service from what we were last year, which is minus the librarian, minus this, minus that. So that work is a, is a bigger exercise. And that has not been Right. So that’s one of my questions. We keep hearing from the community, give the schools what they need, but we don’t have the number. What do you need and why hasn’t that been explained to the community? Like, we need this much, we have this much, but yet we have to cut this much.

2:44:32 I think, I think like someone, and I’ll like full, full disclosure, I’m dyslexic with numbers. I, and it’s not, I’m not kidding. I really, really am. Um, but so when we are talking numbers, it needs to be clear to me and it’s not clear to me where the disconnect is to what the town has, what the school needs, what the schools are getting. Three very, very different numbers. And I’m not clear about that. Well, we Have a level funded budget. Right? But the level funded budget is, is already been reduced from previous years. Correct? Correct. So what do they need? So that, so, and we also have a level services budget, which again includes the, the cuts from last year LA I was not on the committee last year, but I believe last year there was an aspirational

2:45:19 budget, which I believe that was the title that was used. Which included, I don’t know, do you only wanna handle it as a, as a community member? I was PA watching and it, to me it was, um, the needs that the administrators, particularly the building principals had indicated that they needed in order to, um, provide an education to the students, to the, to the degree that they knew how to do that. Um, and that was not done this year because we didn’t believe that that would be something that would be realistically funded. Why not? Someone just said, why not? Well, We also weren’t tasked with it, right? So we do work with FinCon and that was not something that the finance committee, um, was, or the child side was looking to, to,

2:46:08 to entertain both from us or on the townside. I mean, don’t forget, the townside is also looking at cuts. They’re not, not making cuts on the townside either. And I haven’t seen an aspirational budget out of the townside either. And I think we can all agree and I’m not here to, I’m not here to, I’m here for the school committee budget, but you know, there are needs on the TOWNSIDE as well. Yeah. Okay. And my, my last question is something that we hear quite a lot is the staff to student RA ratio. And I’m not clear the definition of staff. I think what me and many other parents would like to know is the teacher, the teacher to student ratio as opposed to the staff, which is,

2:46:55 it’s it’s administrators, it’s the people. It’s it’s the lunch staff. Like what is the difference between the staff ratio to the teacher, the people in the classroom ratio to the students? I’m gonna ask that Michelle or Mary explain how that number is Derived. Thank you. I had to put you on the phone.

2:47:21 No, I, it it is, it does say, um, we are using DSI data that comes right off the DSI website. Um, only because it’s publicly viewable and vettable, uh, in the dsi uh, school profiles, it lists student to staff ratio. It does not break out teacher to, you know, student to teacher, student to different types of teachers. Um, we do report that data to the state, but they don’t make that data publicly available for other school districts. Okay. So in Marblehead, what is our, I dunno how else to say this. What is our administrator to ratio compared to the teacher ratio compared to the children, if you know what I mean?

2:48:07 I think you might know what I mean.

2:48:10 Are we administrator heavy compared to people in the classroom? Heavy?

2:48:18 Yeah. The student to staff ratio that’s shown on the DSI website is basically, um, position staff positions that are assigned to classrooms. Classrooms, not administrators, not custodians, not food service staff. It’s teach, this is done. We have to submit to the state each year. E PPIs, educator, personnel, information management. So these are teacher, these are staff members who we report through that system. We don’t, uh, report custodians. We don’t report coaches. Oh, there’s only certain categories that we, now this is a mix of instructional types of staff. Um, what I’m saying is you can’t go onto the DESI website and find out how many grade three teachers, you know, what’s the ratio of, of grade three in Marblehead

2:49:05 as compared to Salem as compared to Dans and so Forth. Right? This is the metric that they give us to benchmark with. Okay. So the reason I ask that when, when we hear that other, other districts have a this number to that number ratio, why do we have a that number to that number ratio? I’m just trying to figure out like, like who those numbers are. Are they in the classroom? Like where those numbers come from? ‘cause yeah, as I say, I really wasn’t clear on that. Yeah, it, it’s a combination of any staff that is, is student facing. So any staff that is directly interacting with the students on a regular basis, for example, it’s, it’s not myself, it’s not the superintendent.

2:49:50 Um, it’s not the custodians, it’s not your food service workers, but it’s the student facing, student servicing staff. All right. Thank you. I think those are the questions that other people have had that weren’t clear. Alright. Cheers. Thank You.

2:50:06 Anybody else? Okay, we actually still have a full agenda after this of voting some things. Um, I will close the hearing at 10 0 7. Um, and we’re gonna take a five minute recess for people to use the restroom. Michelle, can I touch you

2:53:19 My name?

2:54:32 I know

2:54:51 all.

2:55:24 They’re not done forever. They said. Oh no,

2:55:40 don’t think in the cafeteria. In the cafeteria. Can I get this? Oh, there we go. Um, can we call us back to order and rip through the rest of this agenda by chance here? We’ll see. I’m almost done with it. So, um, okay. Let’s see

2:56:06 what, Oh no, thank you. Where’d everybody go? Where’s that? Sorry. You’re, I know I started eat a piece of chocolate. It spit You always spin it out. I very strict. That’s why it doesn’t. Well Anna has those numbers a little bit. Well, No, I do good. It’s a slippery slope.

2:56:31 All right, folks, I’m gonna call us back to order in a second. Okay? Oh no, we can’t do anything else. Brian, we’re gonna call, go back to order. Um, so I’m gonna call us back to order at 10 14. Thank you. Oh, um, we, I’m gonna kick off our approval of minutes and our schedule of bills to our next meeting, Mary. That’s okay, right? Yeah, I, okay. Um, we have four field trips, which ha were all in our packet with all the information. Um, if any, anybody, does anybody have any questions on any of these field trips? If not, I’m gonna ask for one motion to approve

2:57:19 the DECA trip. As Do, do we have questions on the individual field trips? Um, I do. I, okay.

2:57:30 Um, deca reco ‘cause that competition. So just to let everybody know, the DECA team, um, three students, is it one at the state finals and qualified for the nationals in Anaheim for next month, but they need approval tonight to be able to commit to that. So I’ll ask for if there’s any questions specific to the DECA trip.

2:57:59 What was that? Okay, so I’ll ask for a motion to approve the DECA trip, um, to Anaheim for the dates enclosed in your packets. Moved. Moved by Brian Oda, seconded. Second By Allison Taylor. All in favor? All opposed. Motion carries five to zero. Let us know how they do. Um, so the trip to Ireland, Spain, and France, are your questions about insurance? The same for all trips, Jen. Very confusing to me and what I see in these shores, I don’t expect our administrators to the insurance sector did, but I am not convinced that he’s carried the evacuation of insurance visits very in the different versions.

2:58:46 So I am not going to vote in favor until I am comfortable with this. So you can call to vote. He just let even know how I, Okay. Does anybody else have any questions? Um, Jen’s question for people who didn’t hear ‘cause of the mike situation, um, her teens and she’s, she asked these previously as well in regards to evacuation insurance in the event of, um, a medical or other otherwise, yeah, So, so ASS Has a $55 million, Um, general liability insurance policy and I, I think it’s standard, especially for companies like EF and ais that we’re, I don’t know about Ireland’s. What company are you using? You celebration with Claim, it’s, yeah, they all have the

2:59:31 repatriation, um, insurance. I think that’s standard. Um, Candace, When I read it, it doesn’t say that it has, it’s very conflicting. Yeah. So, um, and I can say when I put in the document that I put in, which is we’re the same for A-C-I-S-I copied directly from the insurance document where it lists the evacuation insurance. And this is also the exact same document that we’ve had for our past trips. These are not new trips. So it’s, it’s always been, that question has come up before and we’ve always provided that information, but it’s, I made, and I can see that it has, has, this is what they do in these brochures. I’m not blaming you ‘cause you’re not a insurance person, neither am I. But this is what they do and it’s very vague and in the certificate of insurance, it, it doesn’t list it specifically.

3:00:17 It, there’s a whole category called evacuation insurance in the document that I included the Coverage plans. I’m looking at the, I don’t know what is what, first of all, which, yeah, I don’t know what that’s what I mean. I don’t know which is which. And I don’t know that we wanna get into it at 10 o’clock at night. I’m just telling you how I feel. Um, but Because we got that question previ before this meeting, which is why I included that information specifically, um, what, what I think that it’s today, what I think we can, I think we can do, and correct me if I’m wrong on this, is we can make the vote and approval contingent on certification of evacuation assurance. Um, okay. No, I’m not, I’m just wondering. Okay.

3:01:11 Yes. If you’re are, are you referring to the past situation where we had medical emergency because I was also the leader on that trip and we also had evacuation insurance on that trip that is also with the same company. And they have also that insurance policy has been increasingly, um, changed post covid as well. So I mean, I, I’ve been, uh, the leader on all of those trips and worked with that company. And again, the evacuation insurance was confirmed and is in its own category right on there for security reasons. For example, if there was any kind of, um, security evacuation where the whole group needed to be evacuated or medical for individual reasons. And it is listed in that specific category.

3:02:00 This is for the news report actually. It says, uh, travel protection covers trip cancellation interruption, medical expense evaluation. So that Mine says medical expense, emergency evacuation. Emergency evacuation, ation up to $500,000. I, when I fir looked at one of the documents when this, ‘cause yours came in on the Ireland trip came in two or three weeks ago, I wanna say. Yeah. And I looked at it when it first came in and that one did have evacuation.

3:02:35 Okay.

3:02:44 Evaluation.

3:02:47 So I am Can can you bring that, can you actually just, yeah, thanks.

3:02:58 Together. IUI used the documentation that, that came in the, the three weeks ago. So I don’t know if all of it didn’t get put In for today. Right, right. It went in the last Dropbox, um, for the February or for the last meeting as well. Um, yeah, that’s the document. I looked at it, it said the amount, it’s to, uh, it covers, um, Yeah. So what is this? That’s just, That’s the cover. It’s the second page. Okay. Okay. That grid right there. Okay, So this is nothing different. This is where I get No, that’s fine because it isn’t here on the descriptor and it also isn’t here the second, but it is in the grip, so I see. Okay. So I just, I

3:03:46 I don’t know it, it makes me narrative. Say Okay. It doesn’t describe in the narrative. I don’t know. This is again, this summary what’s in there expecting.

3:04:04 Yeah. It’s the grids. So More than on cases. Yep. And that, because evacuation insurance is mostly like when you travel, you might need to pay for different levels. But evacuation insurance, all the, yeah, this one say that Yep. Can be included on every, um, the deadline. Same all for, for France and bank is, So on Ireland, the evacuation insurance is up to 500,000 per, uh, per individual. Except that it’s not, But this is part of the policy as well. The grid is part of the policy. Okay.

3:04:53 I really need this Ireland one approved. So I’m, I’m gonna ask for a motion to approve and people can, can vote. However, I’m gonna ask for a motion to approve the Ireland trip for April, 2025.

3:05:14 We, we have in writing it, it, it was a document presented by the insurance company on a grid in writing. I the same way your insurance policy comes. This is not an insurance,

3:05:29 these are actual policy. We descriptors a full policy. So I just, yeah, you could go back and say actual policy. So I put the actual policy in there. ‘cause if you click the link, it, it primes you to like, put in a student, you know, you put in, you know, your travel dates, your age, and then it comes up with the policy. So the policy was there, it was under, uh, a file that said, you know, insurance sample quote was by trip mate. That, that was in your documents too.

3:06:14 Is it? Or is it the same? The same policy number? No. No. And then what’s the trip date?

3:06:24 I guess that’s the insurance that they’re contracting with.

3:06:31 I don’t have your,

3:06:44 Okay. All right. So I’m gonna ask for a motion to approve the music department trip to Ireland in April of 2025.

3:06:53 Um, Brian OTA moves Al William seconds. All in favor? Opposed?

3:07:02 All right, so the motion carries three to zero with two abstentions. Um, thank you. I’m going to ask for a motion to improve the Spain or the trip to Spain in February of 2025.

3:07:21 A motion to approve the trip to Spain in 2025.

3:07:27 Um, moved by Al Williams, second by Brian Oda. All in favor opposed abstaining motion carries three to zero with two abstentions. Motion to approve the trip to France in 2025.

3:07:43 Moved by Al Williams, second by Brian Oda. All in favor opposed abstained. Motion carries three to zero with two abstentions. Um, student Opportunities Act, um, approval. This is, this is something that’s required to be voted by April 1st. Um, the irony being all this work that we’re required to put in, to present this, this actual vote gets us $0. Um, or the calculation is we get no money. So, um, Julia is, we have to take this vote. Um, Julia’s prepared to do the presentation. The presentation was also in our packet. I’m inclined, since we get no money from this, no matter what, she have to be Cation. Why? Because there

3:08:29 was supposed to be a minimum $30 per student or something like that. The funding for the Student Opportunities Act. That was the basis when it first came out in 19. It, the, the basis in, yep. Michelle. That’s okay. So why did we get no money? Because we haven’t had any increases in our populations that would get us more dollars. Little Chapter 70 funding. It’s based on increasing in certain populations as well. Mm-Hmm.

3:09:03 So what is the motion you need? Do we wanna go through the whole presentation? I’m not inclined if we get no mon no money. Okay. Would, Um, motion to Approve ACT Application. So, um, the motion is to approve the Student Opportunities Act application Plan. Plan. Moved by Jen Schaffner, seconded by Allison Taylor. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries five to zero. Um, I am, We have schedule bill. Um, we were, we had, we were gonna table those for the next meeting, but I can do those now. A motion to approve the minutes for the January 4th, 24th meeting. Move by Jen Schaffner, seconded to Brian Oda.

3:09:51 All in favor opposed? Motion carries five to zero. Oops, I’m sorry. With, um, board of zero with one abstention. Um, motion to approve the schedule of bills totaling $429,799 and 70 cents. Moved by Jen Schaffner, seconded by Alice. Is that Allison? Yeah. Taylor. All in favor Opposed? Motion carries five to zero. I will adjourn us at, um, 10 28.