School Committee: May 16, 2024

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

0:01 can if you want to be on it you don’t have to be we found that um that people can’t always tell which one of us is talking on that screen so if we have our own screen on they can tell which one of us is talking we’ve gotten feedback that no one knew who saying what um so we’re live we are Live on YouTube um and then just a reminder for anybody to have yourself muted at all times because the bar will pick us up and have your sound off um I will call us to order at 7 p.m. and I’m also going to call the public hearing for school choice for the 2024 2025 school year to order I just realized actually I was a little a jump the gum we’re waiting on

0:48 one person he just stepped out um so I’m just going to give us one minute um if it just to give everybody a little bit of the background um under the provisions of the Ed Reform Act of 1993 the department of Elementary and secondary education um presumes that each school committee will admit non-resident students under the school choice Pro program unless we vote to the contrary so every year we’re required to take a vote if we are choosing not to participate in school choice and that vote has to be done prior to June 1st um so I’m going to ask Dr mcginness to speak to her recommendation to the committee and then I’ll open it up um to any anybody who has any questions is part of

1:36 the hearing as well as the committee yeah sure um so let me just read a little bit about the history of this that um a decision to participate relates to the enrollment numbers that we have here um in classroom space my recommendation is to not elect to participate in school choice due to the lack of available classroom particularly our elementary level um and with our reductions we closely at Elementary class sizes um and so it seems appropriate this year not to go for Choice okay so then um I it’s it’s we are in a hearing for this if anybody would like to speak to it just raise your hand um if you have any questions

2:21 committee I don’t see anyone um so then I’ll ask for a motion and then we’ll open it up to discussion at the committee level so I’ll ask for um a motion that the Marblehead Public Schools does not participate in school choice program for the 2024 2025 school

2:40 year year that by Brian seconded by Jen chatner um any discussion within the committee all right so I will do a roll call vote we will start with Al Williams sa um Allison Taylor sorry just so I’m clear the motion and I apologize I’m not in person the

3:10 motion um can you mute down there okay and then can you turn the sound up on the bar Alison what were you saying I just want to vote the right way the motion is to not move forward with school choice correct you you would be voting to approve the motion or right but the motion was to not move okay approved I I just wanted to make sure that I heard properly

3:40 approved um Jen chaper Sarah Fox in favor the motion carries five to zero The Marblehead Head Public Schools will not The Marblehead Public Schools will not be partaking in school choice for the 2024 school year and I will be and I will close the hearing on school choice at 704 pm and we will go to our regular agenda um we’re going to start with commendations to does anybody have any

4:08 commendations okay um and then that will move us to public comment anybody has public comment you want to come up to state your name and address for the

4:34 Jonathan H 26 r Road Sally Chevy 0 Garfield Street so we’re here tonight to uh bring to the attention to the school committee regarding our sick Le bank so almost a year ago last year at this time um after a motion was made by the school committee to open up collective bargaining with the sole purpose of bargaining the sickly bank for unit a we had meetings we came to an agreement with our former superintendent John Bucky he brought it to the school committee uh so we signed it as an meba had a meeting with the membership to ratify it signed it and at a school committee meeting he did bring it to the

5:20 school committee and made a public comment that he had reached an agreement unfortunately to our surprise after it was implemented back in September through HR and through our business uh through our business department as well and we have actually implemented it this year where staff have know access that SI B uh it’s transformative for our contract something that we needed in our contract and we appreciate the fact that the school committee made a motion to enter collective bargaining for that sole purpose and then met with us with Dr Buck correct and then it came to our surprise during collective bargaining that that was was never ratified by the school committee so we’re here tonight

6:06 to ask the school committee to bargain in good faith and now to make a motion to approve that sickling bank so we have that formally approved by the school committee in the unitate

6:22 contract um is there any other public comment if there is just raise your

6:30 hands okay so then that will move us on to the student representative okay students are rounding out the second week of AP testing with Latin being the last exam tomorrow the annual culture Feast will be held next Friday May 24th at the high school from 4 to 7:30 p.m. the feast will include performances art pieces and a potluck style dinner to show cultures from around the world the 18th anural aaoa show is tomorrow at 700 p.m. in the mvms pack this will show up our own and local groups such as the drel tone luminescence the Grizzlies witch pitch and the Shirley tempos the opening night for the spring art exhibition at Abbot Hall was his past Tuesday and the selected pieces were incredible to see there was Catering by shubies and vvus and many parents and students supported

7:16 their fellow artists the exhibit will be open until May 22nd the sophomores will be taking the math mcast on Tuesday and Wednesday next week the marching band will be parading around town in the Memorial Day procession on Monday the seniors have been working diligently on their Community senior projects and the gallery walk will take place on May 24th in the high school Fieldhouse the junior prom was a blast last Friday at danversport and the senior prom will be held at the House of Blues on Wednesday May 29th scholarship night for seniors will take place on Tuesday May 28th at 6 PM in the high school Fieldhouse sports teams have been holding their senior nights recently to celebrate All That the seniors have have accomplished and the track team will face the NEC conference this Saturday danverse featuring our abilities across many track

8:03 many track many track events um and I just want to give a shout out to cat who will be participating on Saturday um she qualified I believe to my correct um so congratulations on that um thank you very much are you going you’re gonna be joining us for our next meeting or you yes okay perfect perfect thank you so much the next time we see you you’ll be walking across the stage MH we’ll see you then thank you um so that brings us to our district updates and I’m gonna go to Dr mcginness for thank you um I have just a couple evening um because here’s some great presentations that are coming up first

8:49 one is the special education program review the evaluation team um looked over five proposals from five different firms that submitted them and they decided on academic discovery um as the company that they’re going to go with and they’re commencing negotiations for the contract terms and the um conditions the cost proposal is 66,000 um and it should be confirmed in June and the recommendation would be to use Esser funds and idea Grant funds through special education tuition revolving funds well um to subsidize the 66,000 uh two updates that report would be available to will

9:35 be delivered to us for the review the actual report the timeline calls for the an interim report to be delivered at end of September and the final report later than December so can help influence Bud decisions that will also give them time to be able to come in during invol in schools in

10:00 session um and this covers all areas of special education and all gr corre correct all right sounds good when um you had that negotiation set and you want to you need me to put it on um the agenda just let me know for um for vote of approval this uh I think this5 here the school committee had had voted to require this this report so I think um not sure to vote from us but just let me know when I’ll schedule

10:34 uh the report will also be an excellent resource for the new assistant superintendent student services um as she makes a plan along great principal search updates um The Glover School principal search is reopened um unfortunately our finist declined the job there are many jobs out there that are competitive in salary um so we have new applicants and um our assistant superintendent Julia is continuing um to reassemble the Hing committee and then the Village School principal has had two interviews with the team very exciting um we don’t have a name to share yet uh reference checks are being done and then there’ll be a site visit so stay tuned um certainly by the next meeting but with the school committee a little sooner than that and then I just included the upcoming dates

11:20 for the seniors again I I won’t go through them but it’s just good for school committee members to know all the big stuff that you know cat talked about there as well um and also in the newsletter that I’ll send out tomorrow tomorrow or Monday um there’s a link to the summer sare that the friends of Marblehead head Public Schools do annually Marblehead Public Schools do annually which is a fantastic fundraiser and a fantastic group so the link is in there for people to buy this as well that’s all I have and just to follow up on that reminder to school committee members um that graduation is on Friday the 31st at 6 PM um more information will come we usually gather at um Field House or in the main office what time so more information what time

12:06 what time what time 6m so we gather at 6 We Gather at like starting I would gather the do’s open at 5:15 for the public so and Carrie um Michelle’s administra assistant will be getting out um hard copies of invitations of everybody and she’s really good at communicating time and everything

12:34 so also if this Suare we just should you know more

12:42 than yeah it’s just it’s a social there’s more than I’ve always had a good time actually a really nice time um right so that brings us to our youth risk behavior survey um and S Gina heart

13:16 first all right so I’m here with Gina Hart we are so grateful for the work that Gina does um as our clinical social worker at marble Hood High School um Gina leads um and sets the bar very high for the work that um happens and I’m just really grateful to be able to collaborate with uh with Gina so this is a product of of many months of Gina’s work and I’ve been able to collaborate along the way so I’m going to turn it over to Gina you have in front of you the um executive summary so that’s something we added this year for your view and we’ll be um pulling up some slides to share with you this evening as well hey thank you

13:56 Julia my name is Shea hardt I’m a social worker at the high school thanks for having me okay so we are going to talk about data this is the third year in a row we’ve collected data we’re very proud of this because it gives us a lot of information about where our students are at um here’s just a click overview so the whole school took this survey it’s the the methodology and distribution it’s the MGH C which is um substance use risk factors um it’s 743 students took the survey which is an 85% response rate which is great it’s up last year from 75% while I was trying to increase student responses we work with MGH on a grant and they implement the survey and the other thing that we do is we create our own survey because while this survey is great the one that MGH has we like to

14:42 ask questions that are specific to Marblehead maybe some things that they left out so we had a consult early in VI was Central but what other questions do we want to ask and that form also had 677 responses so students get to see the data before they take the survey so it’s important that they get to see where their student body is at you’ll see some longitudinal data as I mentioned for the last three years I’ll talk about risk and protective Factor factors things that make our students or Community more vulnerable toward a protected against substance use Mental Health one of the things that people always ask me you know how do we know students are hon us on this survey and that’s something that we should you know talk about as a potential limit to the study however we can never be 100% sure that students are not honest what we need to do is look at relative differences Trends and we use the data over time that’s how it’s most

15:29 useful we can also compare it to local State data and that’s how we have a baseline of where our students are at can I just ask a quick question um you noted 88.3% opted out through parent or guardan opt out do you do you have any type of data point on is that level with what it was in previous year increase or it’s just about the same I think it might have been a slight increase I think it was like 7% last year and just so we do send out this to parents they can opt their students out students can also opt out in the moment it’s completely voluntary it is also Anonymous and confidential we do a lot to increase buying to make sure students feel like it is confident and this is just the high school just the school um and we’ve added some new questions this year so some of the charts and the data points you’re going to see that we’re sharing will have some of that longitudinal data over the last

16:14 three years and some will just be from this year to share you want to make sure it’s valid if that wasn’t the exact question okay so things to note on the demographic slide gender diverses transgender nonbinary gender queer or another gender and sexually diverse as gay lesbian bisexual Queer as sexual transexual one thing to note that under Race White was identified 85.4% last year it was about 91% so our our population is a little bit more racially diverse some basic protective and respector 95.5% of students had a positive connection with ears which we know was um really helpful almost 6 63% had connections with staff um which is great we obviously want to improve upon that but that’s that’s wonderful being engaged in extra extracurriculars like

17:01 music sports clubs these are things that help structure our students time which is a protective factor and 30% of our students report getting eight hours of sleep or more which is the recommended for this age which it’s not enough we need more students sleeping more but it’s actually up it almost doubled from last year so that’s increasing we’re going to see a lot of data trending in the right direction so mental health above the risk threshold for anxiety depression or psychotic experiences based on clinical questionnaires so what’s really positive is to see just in the last year slight decrease in students who are at risk for anxiety depression and psychotic experiences however still important to note so this is saying back up saying that 11 go back 11.4% of our students of the

17:51 s00 or 700 OD students are claiming they’ve had a psychotic

17:57 experience it seems not that depression and anxiety aren’t an issue but you know they ask questions about either Senor here things are that aren’t there potential Panic or paranoia which could be classified as it may not be that they’re actually having a hallucination or delusion but yes it is significant and probably something that people don’t realize is happening um self-injury and suicidality so non-suicidal self injurious behavior which could be self harm suicidal thoughts and a plan for suicide is about the same from last year to this year one of the things that was you know we really paid attention to was the increase in suicide attempts from 1.6 to 3.1% so something to that’s double yes and it’s interesting because the mental health data has trended a little bit downward so that’s something for us to

18:46 think about it’s three% of our student attempting has had an attempt in their life report y signic for sure y okay body image and disord dating do you struggle regularly with body image or a negative perception of how you look just a general question about how many of our students are struggling with this about 45% um in both years this year we asked a new question to get into a little bit more of the Nuance could you have could you be at risk for disordered eating or an eating disorder as thinking about shap shape a weight made it difficult for you to concentrate on things that you interested in which is about 25% did you break this down into any of the subgroups whether by gender identity or so for theg yep that’s a great question for the MGH

19:32 survey they provide us with all that data and I’m actually going to go through some of that for this which was our supplemental survey we weren’t you know that’s not something that we were able to look at but we will see some of that stuff for some of the other questions that’ll be a slide I think it might be helpful know yeah which populations populations are absolutely yeah experiences of discrimination based on race or eth ethnicity so students who identified as something other than white answered this question and I think you know take a look at these the thing to note we called graci insulting names is the highest indicated 35.7% certainly this is very concerned something that

20:21 we experiences of discrimination based on personal identity so something to note here last year sexual orientation had the highest percentage at 7.9% decreased a bit this year the highest is religion which increased about 2% um also gender identity increased from last year as well other categories here the stability socioeconomic

20:44 set um so here’s here’s some of the um categories populations are more at risk for anxiety or depression 64% of students who are sexually diverse almost 80% of students who are gender diverse 30% of our Asian population 23% of Haitian black African-American 40% of Hispanic Latino 34% of students who identifi as multi-racial and interestingly 47.8% of our seniors so that’s something we want is that compare to the other I’m assum yes we’ll come back to that later too we have some ideas about how we can support who have you talked with about your mental or emotional health also we have we obviously have better outcomes for mental health treatment if people have access to it are willing to talk about it we’ve seen a slight decrease in

21:29 the highest categories around parent caregiver or um friend or romantic partner there’s been a slight decrease um teacher um there’s been a slight decrease as well School mental health staff has increased a bit um mental health provider outside of school has decreased a bit so this is something we want to pay attention to what can the school control how do we destigmatize mental health make sure that there’s you know kids know where they can get access to support inside inide scho well teachers too yes abolutely although it is a lower number it does look like there’s an increase in the online and social media which is concerning because that’s really not where assum we want the kids going as well as no one agreed

22:16 yeah what is substance oh they subst so that was not guess it was insignificant not that they didn’t use a substance they didn’t speak to their substance if you counselor right oh no I took it to me actually yeah so it’s just it’s just a category so so we have a really low number of students that would have to go into substance use treatment they exist but that those would be the only students who would have the option to check that out and what does phone text mean that was just their phone text are like hotline so like the suicide hotline yeah sorry some of these got cut off um go ahead thank you okay so now we’re going to talk about substance use parental attitudes around substance use we have a few questions you see these are these are some of the questions that

23:01 we have threee data you see a steady increase from 8 to 11% of students that are worried about their parents substances which is certainly a risk factor um a protective factor is parents or Guardians who may have a negative view or set a boundary or give or consequence around using marijuana or alcohol on a regular basis which is almost

23:23 90% like 10 you so the question is have you ever had a sip of alcohol have you ever tried cannabis or marijuana and this is THC um marijuana which is what the psychoactive ingredient is and then nicotine under the nicotine category it’s vaping products cigars cigarettes and dip so and this the last time State collected data around these was 2021 so we don’t have the most updated data which is why you don’t see it on here however the it is pretty comparable to to the latest State data that we have but about 40% for alcohol for all three years around 20 for cannabis or marijuana THC and nicotine has slightly increased up to 38% this year so this is so important age of first use I I have to read this because it’s it’s a really good quote the chances of developing an addiction are nearly seven

24:09 times higher for teens to begin using before the age of 15 than for those who delay use until 21 or older and 96% of substance use disorders and adults began before the age of one use begin the so it’s so important that we’re looking at how early are our students using substances and if we so this is alcohol cannabis and nicotine if we look at 15 and to the left we’re seeing that a lot of our students are using before the age of 15 their brain is still developing until the age of 25 so this is definitely something that we want to pay attention well we’re young and we’re gonna come back to that point as well uh exactly so we’re gonna talk about some work we’re doing at Village school as well Y in addition to middle school and high

24:52 school impair drug um so last year we asked about um students that had admitted to drinking driving after drinking out about 2% for both years we added a new question this year about driving after using marijuana students are a little more AP to do that at 3.2% um been in a car with someone else using alcohol it did decrease a little from last year it’s still a concerning number of 21% and been in a car with someone else using marijuana is about 15% well we haven’t been able to tease out and this is a question I asked last year is at first at the Assumption was this was a peer but I would like to know if it’s a peer or a parent because a fair amount of the that would be an interesting question to add well there’s another question that I think that I saw

25:38 about was coming up about have you ever um the first slide um yes the student has um driven

25:50 up on the top because I think if we CH out that parent piece that might be a wakeup call for parents that their kids are seeing this and noting this did take that feedback last year and we did ask it I just there’s so much data that we get back I just didn’t include it and everything but we can absolutely do you mind just email for sure and I I can also get you the the offshoot of psychotic experience of what actually for that this also seems like discrepancy like two not only 2.1% dur in themselves but 21% been in a car it seems like it would it would be more than just peers for sure yep and I we saw that in the day there was a mix of was it a parent a guardian up here we definitely get that okay just in the interest of time we couldn’t totally but yes you guys gave us that feedback and

26:37 we took it after we asked it okay this is Julia’s question yeah I actually I wanted to know this I was actually really curious um we see a lot of marketing campaigns and we talk to our our you know students about this and so I was very curious to see and um while it’s gr at 73.7 um definitely there’s you know percentages we need to take a look at um I’m just hoping that students are pulling over and when the necessary but uh you know another question also the early one do you driven in a car with some T yeah you can add that next year and then keep add into the question yeah there were a couple questions that had like offshoot data that we just didn’t but we can get you all of

27:23 it um okay that’s okay couple other things to note around substance use almost 70% of students who are using a nicotine bait product are planning to reduce a quit in the next month that tells us that students know it’s not good for them they want to quit it’s a really hard thing to do another thing that I think is important is feeling anxious or paranoid or having hallucinations after marijuana use 4.5% and 7.5% there’s a lot of misconceptions we’re having a lot of not necessarily us but in in the nation there’s a lot of um the high potency THC is so relevant now the potency of THC in marijuana has increased so much about 200% in the last decade people think there’s like they’re having an overdose or something was laced in the marijuana when we’re having emergency room business because of marijuana use it it could be Lac or something but often it’s just High

28:09 potency phc it’s really affecting our students brains especially the ones that are in the P um the rest of them prescriptions hallucinogens prescriptions could be um opiates benzo diazines propane hallucinogens these are the things that are more um have a higher o overdose risk fenol can be um in them often in them especially for the prescription pills that are being sold on the street so even though these numbers are small um these are things that these are the things that are killing people and if any of our students have experimenting or using with them we need to pay attention to the what are these numbers this is the percentage of students who have ever tried ever tried to prescription if You’ ever tried anything 3.2 try prescription yep 3.7 1.1 y not

28:59 3.2 of all the 700 respond yeah yes 3.2 7% of all theond not the respondents who said they so some must have said they’ve never use substance so there’s each each substance has a question that said have you ever tried it okay yep um I one one thing I just want to speak to is just to reiterate on the point you just made about you know the potency of marijuana and we have people going in thinking it may be an overdose but I want if anybody just worried this is G Terri if anybody is worried they’re having an overdose they should not of course yes we should go we shouldn’t assume it’s not in that it’s higher potency yes let me clarify you’re

29:45 already going to be in the hospital as the result I think what happens afterwards is people are like oh it must have been Lac with something because I had that bad reaction I just want to make sure that yes of course and then I wonder because we see you know math heroin ecstasy I don’t MDMA those are all 8.85 so I’m wondering because they are all the same do we think that there is this 0 85% who is trying multiple or is it just coincidental that they’re all the same percentage Yeah it’s it’s hard to know it doesn’t tell you it’s ites because it’s Anonymous yeah we but I do think you know one of the most important things is like this is data that helped inform the need for our Naran policy last year that our

30:30 nurses carry so this is like very important for us to pay attention to because of the highs okay we do a focus group every year because we collect so much quantitative data what does students think let’s have a discussion and it’s it’s always really helpful um and so one of the things I want to point out one of the themes from our focus group this year is there’s mixed reviews from kids sometimes that can be a tough crowd about how do you like what you’re learning in your health classes the assemblies that you’re having and in the past we’ve had mix mixed reviews this year we had overwhelming majority positive I feel like what I’m learning in my health classes is helpful I feel like the assemblies are helpful so I just want to give a shout out to like our health teachers they pay so close attention to their curriculum that they’re using um go ahead next and then one one thing I just

31:16 want to note before at the beginning I didn’t say what do we do with this data we share and we use it to inform the need for program we shared it with our staff last week we’re sharing with you we’re going to share it with the Board of Health other community leaders and when people sit down to decide on what goes into our curriculums what goes into our programming do we need money for this this is data that can important we need for that so now we’re going to talk about what do we do about it and I I just put together a few slides I a Qui question yes were there any questions around um domestic violence or relationship violence we could we could look at adding something that to that would be probably on our side of the questionnaire because this one is substance what each one is substance B right well yeah these are all the ones that we have so we can add you can add anything we want you want to look at

32:03 that um so what are we doing about this I think it’s this data even though some of it’s positive some of it’s concerning it’s not because of a lack of things that the school is doing they’re doing so much and I just want to give credit there’s a few slides here of just all the work that people are doing that fall under the mtss andal umbrella um it’s still so you can go to the next slide there’s a couple of them um it’s really important that we look at how do we enhance upon this programming you know how do we use it in tiered interventions um and then so this is what’s happening at the high school um and then Julie is going to talk a little bit about what’s talking what’s happening districtwide and so as a district as we’ve discussed are we’re focusing on the multi-tiered system of support framework and of course we are working not only to help support our students academically but with the

32:49 social emotional needs um and so what we look to do as part of our work with mtss is reduce those um those risk factors for our students um especially those who are marginalized or at risk to the point where they all can feel safe and supported and included um and I think what Gina started the presentation talking about you know at the high school alone 95.5% of students feeling um having positive connections with peers and almost 90% engaging extracurriculars that’s really important at the high school so I just want to shed some light on some things that are happening across the district as well here um so kindergarten through 8th grade our students are in the social emotional learning um developing their social emotional learning skills um and our teachers are working by uh to support them through responsive classroom and our advisory program um

33:36 they are also um fostering a sense of belonging through Community meetings and the extracurricular that they do like the high school we offer many outside um extracurriculars for our students to feel connected to the school and to their peers and one another um one thing I did I want to come back to the data point where we talked about the seven um the age of first use as 12 and younger um and that’s something actually Gina inspired me and something we’ve been working on and we are very grateful um for the school committee um and the work through um Dr mcginness because we did get the health educator position approved for Village school next year so we are very grateful that we are going to now be able to bring a true health education program um starting with grades four through six leading then to of course middle school and onto high school so that is something that we

34:22 really wanted to um point out and celebrate um so we will now have a vertically aligned curriculum grades four we to support students and then of course of course we’re always working to support our Educators as we learn new information um we’re sharing that in through professional development and also Gina did a great job she presented this to the high school staff as well so they have a really deep sense of understanding of you know their students and what they’re responding as well so okay and then lastly just a couple other takeaways um we’re doing a lot of tremendous work to support our students but how can we improve on what we’re doing paying more closely um more close attention to the early use issue harm reduction the way we approach you know curriculum in our he classes or assemblies um or education around reducing the risks of substances as opposed to sphere tactics s continuing

35:09 seal and mental health support lgbtqia into EI programming body imine eting disorders tiered interventions around that the the big Point too and I I’ve talked about this before is parent and Community programming the school can do a lot but the school can only do so much how do we work with parents and community members to mirror the messaging that we’re doing and teach kids in home in the community programs as well to work with the schools to make sure it’s like a three approach grade 12 programming some thought program support our senior class and using the schoolwide survey as an annual tool it’s really really great that we have three years of data we need to keep doing it so that we can look and see um the trends that work so to the grade 12 point we because of the seniors and what they um rated for their anxiety and stuff so we’re going to be doing some

35:54 some um professional development and planning with the um a team at the high school and mean on Gina for that but we’re excited to start something that we feel could have a direct impact starting next year to support our students as well High School class so when you talk about transition you’re saying transition into 12th grade or transition after graduation oh actually because the risk freshman year of college for the large portion ofri college is pretty significant for a lot of students that and they take the survey in October so we do know that there’s when they’re early and their senior year as well they’re feeling um those

36:34 emotions than the other thing I would suggest we talk Marblehead Head of Health um suggest we talk Marblehead of Health um has been pretty um vocal at least one of the members um wanting to work with the schools on this so I think um you know that that board is is like to work and have you know resources to help us so I think that’s something we should we should think about because I don’t know how much we’ve worked with them in that’s a great in one thing you know I’ll just reiterate because this is a great CL people hopefully watch our meetings read about them one thing that really when we look at these numbers and we see that what did it go from 10 to 133% of students sixth grade or

37:20 younger that just blows my mind sixth grade or younger are using a substance the schools are are we’re doing a lot of work we continue to improve our practice practices to do more but parents need to be having these conversations at home too because the schools cannot take the place of parenting or should so um I think it’s really important for any parents reading about this hearing about this that you’re having these conversations because this is all so important but the idea so keeps blowing my mind but 133% of our kids sixth grade and younger are using a substance that that’s scary this is why we also have to have

38:06 you know pretty Vigilant Zero Tolerance on being in school I we have you know to really focused on that one more thing if you can talk a little bit about last year one of the pieces you said surprised you a little bit was the percentage of students talking about body image and how significant that was and you were going to start some programming and it looks like you had can you just give us one little highlight of the programming you’re doing so the health it’s a tier one intervention so it’s in the health classes and so I can get you some more information on exactly what they ask to Heth teachers but it is something that they’re I believe they’re doing it in ninth grade um it might be ninth and 10th but it is something that all students are getting it’s basically like

38:52 an introduction to what it is um like body positivity approaches to talk about it in a more positive way treatment um but I can I can get you that information as well as the other questions for the options and was there anything anything else that I can send great um is there any we have two committee members online I gave you guys co-host capability so you can unmute yourself whenever you need to um so Al Ellison Brian if you have any questions or thoughts um for

39:28 Julia I don’t Sarah thank you Al go ahead no I was just gonna say I don’t have any additional questions uh at this time thank you I would think on the body Imaging thing that it starts young especially with females y um are you going to try to get some of that health programs in village for example yes absolutely and that connects to the focus on the nutrition standards as well so that would be part of that as well yeah um and thanks to Jen for mentioning Board of Health I’m sorry we didn’t men we will be going to um on the road and heading to Board of Health as well to share the data um and we’ve been in talks um the Marblehead head mental health talks um the Marblehead mental health task force really wants to partner with the schools as well um and so we don’t have any plans but we do to Sarah’s

40:14 point about the community and parents um we we are seeking we don’t have any plans to share now but we’re thinking and brainstorming and have um some ideas that we will share more as it comes to life and again this data will help inform that and um we look forward to sharing more as we have that thank you thank you can ion Elison sorry there you go what happens when you don’t show up um I just wanted to I I think Brian may have said something similar to this but from the the body image body positivity um angle I would agree that it starts at a much younger age and probably having and and I would I would also say that it’s boys and girls I think in in

41:00 General people tend to think it’s more girl oriented um I can I can tell you for a fact that it affects boys as well and I just think it would be great to have some of those initiatives you know candid conversations whether it’s you know in in their edu class or what have you at at the much younger levels as

41:27 well thank you guys very much and thanks to Julia for all your support

41:38 Michelle so that brings us to the staff support classification plan proposal and um introduce that absolutely so um our intern Director of Finance and operations Mary Deli is going to share a welldeveloped um structure for our support staff that are non-instructional support staff the district and school levels and there’s a both memorandum and extensive um support documents I’ll let you start yes thank you so about this time of year is when we start uh talking about contract renewals and letters of reassurance and so questions come up about uh obligations for salary increases and during these conversations

42:23 with the team uh back at the office I became aware of the clerical agree the clerk’s agree that exists here in Marblehead when I looked at that list and saw how many people it impacted a portion but not all of the district and school level support staff about 22 of the 35 were included in the umbrella of this Clerk’s aren so as we look across the board I think in The District in terms of the equity making sure that they’re both competitive and Equitable and paying people in equ fashion um something that I’ve done in other work in other districts is to develop uh these classification plans where we create structure and a system by which

43:08 our non-instructional non-aligned support staff are classified and um this is how we set their pay this is how we set their position titles um what I found is that uh across the district there are some inconsistencies in terms of gools position titles and pay so the intent here is to create a structure that would bring bring some Hance to that um I included for your review both a copy of the existing clerks agreement also the proposed uh support staff classification plan that we are asking for your support of to adopt to replace that agreement in addition uh there is an analysis that shows what the impact would be on these adjustments um should

43:54 we shift this classification plan and as you can see two important things that every body receives at least a minimum of a 2% increase which is what was included in the budget for fy2 but that also that these would be classifications and adjustments are essentially budget neut there’s a slight um deficit of a little over, created by these adjustments um also included our job descriptions there’s six job descriptions um having reviewed the school committee’s policies in terms of professional staff and support staff I know that uh the committee uh is Task obiously has the authority to approve job descriptions so in those cases where a new job description um a new position is titled differently than the old

44:40 position we developed actual job descriptions job descriptions here for your review and approv um I know it’s not on the agenda as AE so I guess you V in the future and I know there’s also a lot of information here as well but happy to answer question

45:14 enough um I appreciate it a lot of obviously big project to H on um and very important so I don’t know how anybody else feels I I think I just need a little more time and probably will have questions after I’ve had a chance to I um I’m really appreciative that we’re you’re putting a lot of effort into kind of clearing up some of our systems as far as various items I guess I know we’re having another

45:45 conversation in the future about other items as well um this one which I’m appreciative there were two I think two motions in there ask that’s correct so one one motion for to adopt the plan itself and the other motion to approve the job prescriptions okay so I will put those the votes on the next um agenda and just ask that if anybody um had specific questions that they want Mary to address um before we vot just to shoot those out in

46:25 email well um and then we’ll be able to have all the question yes I appreciate this by the way when I was principal and assistant principal I always asked was there an agreement with the secretary they said well I think there’s one uh and then somebody would say well I think there’s a one pager and so it was really no one really understood what their job responsibilities so this is a good step Al you had a question yeah I was just going to say I I did have a couple of questions that Mary did address for me so um I’ll just bring it up just so the others can have the benefit of of hearing them so one thing I had asked was was the HR uh was the town HR manager involved and Mary said that they were and I I felt

47:12 good about that um I also asked if you know we had looked at the new positions and are they similar to existing ones and you know Mary had said not really and it made sense for us to to kind of to create those and the last question I asked is you know I’m not an HR specialist but it looks like a very good framework but I was just curious like how did we come up with this like what what birth this and you know Mary said it was from her experience of doing this in other districts and also having you know working with people in other districts so I felt good about that so those were just some general questions I had that I felt were appropriately answered and I just wanted to share uh share with the rest of the committee one thing I I conversations Mary is you made a lot of suggestions of

47:58 best practices that you’re bringing to us from your experience in other districts which has been great um because you know the more clarity we have it makes things easier I do feel like for a long time various elements have have been you know is always done it or they’re a little loose and I think the tighter we have things put down here it makes it makes it a lot better um I think for a little while we had a practice of creating jobs for people rather than creating a job need person job so I’m really happy that we are tightening that up so thank you and make sure to put this

48:42 on all right that brings us to um the FY 24 budget sets yes um so I am happy to report as you know during the budget discussions we had a lot of conversation about available balances in FY 24 and uh what we felt might be available to help support our fy2 budget um as part of that commitment we agreed that we were going to essentially prepay tuitions like pre- purchase technology to the tune of uh $600,000 I know it’s been concerned will we really have $600,000 um come the end of the school year and so we’ve done another uh budget uh update a budget status review um

49:27 thanks to our amazing assistant business manager Emma uh and uh we’ve already accounted for $300,000 in technology purchases those orders have already placed uh so right now as it stands we are at a projected end of year surplus of 755,000 we have not yet prepaid tuition but we will do that to the tune of at least the 300,000 that we committed to prund for the fy2 budget um but we will also because we have received a number of District replacement agreements beyond what we budgeted for as un anticipated is we will probably use any additional Surplus beyond that to prepay additional special education tuitions to the extent we’re able to uh purchase technology that

50:14 wasn’t funded in the 25 budget or to replenish our Athletics an extra per revolving fund to allow us to hopefully cushion some of the impact that might have in ter students not able to potentially pay those fees for that would be the plan for as we progress from the year U if we do have and that’s your order priority and so just to clarify that 755 is after the 300 okay um and you did note that we’ve we’ve incurred I and committed to some additional out of District placements uh that will go beyond what was budgeted um

51:00 are we can we say what that amount is total amount is we’re over budget right now that we already know or do not I don’t I couldn’t give you an exact number I do know that we have just signed two additional grades beyond the four that signed so far what whatever else is in the pipeline Pat best be able to articulate that but certainly in June we can come back to just you know for a frame of reference in years past we the last few years we put those placeholders and by usually October we hit those placeholders um it’s may hit long two more for for the next for next year so it’s just something yeah and I just want to make a statement too that I

51:47 really obviously appreciate all the work you’ve done this year the work that Michelle pra did and this is always very very hard work this has been going on now five or six years since we’ve been in this and there are other school districts in the col that have had extreme crisis situations before going I just want to say you know it’s all different scales but um you know we’ve worked we worked hard and the team has worked really hard to do everything we can to mitigate what is a very very volner part of our budget I also think that special education program you will be helpful in this I’m really glad we start that I think there are you know there might be some opportunities here around programming that would help um

52:33 you know provide services for students and in District not require them to go out a district or even potentially working to build stronger programs with collaboratives or potentially even taking advantage of programs in other districts around us that might have strengths in certain that perhaps we have not built thank you sure you’ve done a lot of work in a short period of time and thank you to Emma um Emma will be this is probably our last meeting that the next meeting we’ll have some more product from her still carryover Yes June 7th is her last day so maybe we’ll make her come on the six yeah so Emma will be moving on um but we’re so so grateful for all the work she done so

53:20 thank you I did I and on that point I just want to acknowledge thank you for the expression of appreciation I would be able to do what I’ve done for you she W here and as yes she is she’s amazing I mean I asked her for something for number wise back she turns around like nobody’s Miss it’s great and you know what you’ve got a great support team in that

53:50 bu and they certainly entertain when I my my dbe with me um all right so that brings us to are are there any more questions on that uh FY 24 budget status update okay so that brings us to our schedule of

54:15 bills bigger stack deeper in front of me today than I used

54:22 to um so I’ll that was included in everybody’s packet so I’ll ask for a motion to approve the identified schedule totaling 1,365

54:36 42576 shner 42576 shner second roll call vote Al Williams in favor Taylor in favor Brian Oda in favor Jen shner favor Sarah Fox in favor motion carries 5 to zero um everybody had minutes in the packet as well so I will ask for an approval of minutes dated um February 1st 2024 2024 Jenner second Allison Taylor any questions roll call vote Al Williams

55:21 Williams Williams stain oh yeah okay um Alison Taylor in

55:34 favor fax fa motion carries four to zero extension um that brings us to school committee communication and discussion items just an update in the superintendent search process um last week we had met to decide we would do a site visit um on the next the next round of candidates we decided to move forward Barbara Calo and John Robo um after talking to all the candidates um I was able to connect with Barbara on Monday and she decided um that she at that point was going to withdraw and um but she did say which was um really great to hear that if we were depending on what we were looking for next year she does various things right now I think she’s doing in inter term Services role um

56:20 that she would definitely be keeping an eye on Marblehead and wanting to apply um she saw good things happening so we were very sorry to see her withdraw from that um we I have been working to coordinate with John Robo the day in District next Wednesday the 22nd um we’ll be going down at two different time periods um two of us will be going in the morning we will attend um the unified games which is a community event at which we’ll be able to talk with administrators um staff members parents students um as well as the superintendent um and then later in the day two more will be going down

57:07 attending another Community event where we’ll be able to talk with the same groups as well as meet and talk with some administrators um so that after that round we’ll we’ll come back um we won’t we won’t kind of no um we we’ll that will be the the firstep um back and the the groups will share their feedback um on what they heard um the there’s the fifth member also will be talking um is going to be setting up a phone conversation with someone um from his administration as well or school committee and then at that point at our next meeting we’ll come back everyone

57:53 will share their their thoughts and their experience and we’ll decide at that point um our next steps our next step from there would be reference checks and um if we continue to move forward um which I hopeful for um at that point we would be setting up a day in our district where the candidate could meet with our staff meet students meet with administrators um community members and then we’d be soliciting feedback from everybody at that point too that’s you know a longer day that will be scheduled out will definitely be communicating to the community when we have those dates and know that next step so the process is moving along it’s a very thorough process and um a lot of work goes into

58:38 coordinating all this so I just think everybody who new schedu is available to doing the part um can make a comment um because I’ve had a couple of conversations this week um with folks you know about town now that the weather’s a little better and couple call from a couple post and I think that um just I’m going to speak from myself I’ve been through several um superintendent assistant superintendent searches other administrative searches and what I’ve seen is that some some people were concerned about candidate dropping out um and what I have seen in my experience is that this is a process where this does sometimes happen in the course of this search process where you have a of candidates and there’s a difference

59:24 between only getting one candidate or having multiple candidates we narrowed down and then sometimes there’s some self- selection in that process and there are a whole bunch of reasons for that um and you know property you know what her reasons Mr Delo and um I just want to make you know my experience that this is this happens and and sometimes in this process you have a couple of candidates final candidates and then sometimes you have one and yes we are fully hoping that this works out um you know for every one and um we also can Beed yeah so no we’re not we’re not um we will only put a round Peg and round if we feel it’s someone that fits for us

1:00:11 um that’s what we’ll move forward for and I still continue to be really impressed with caliber of candidates we had fly um we had some really great interviews and I know looking around the state and following other searches there’s been some searches that had aborted because they just didn’t get candidates so we got a lot of app was great and I just feel that just I said just because I have several few people reach out to me case that was there

1:00:47 in um so that brings us to the communication survey results um we’ll be putting this on our next agenda um lots of feedback there’s a tremendous response to this yeah I can give you some basic facts okay is that okay we ended up 569 respondents okay the legal Women Voters got 53 comments I’ll send and then we had 234 on the open question okay so that’s a lot of lot of data for you guys to kind of dig through yes I’m digging through the 234 now that’s quite a bit of reading and I know you um you and Alison are going to be getting together again in the subcommittee to work on that presentation and um that’s a lot of

1:01:33 information to wait through so I I’m you know very happy to see that out to the next meeting and then we’ll hear some more information on you guys then um so that brings us to subcommittee in the on updates and discussion items um we have a budget that was right that got passed town meeting that’s very exciting um I just read I think it’s in xbridge a third town meeting they defunded their they passed zero budget for their schools in town meeting and come July one there will not be one penny allocated to the school system I don’t know how that’s going to work out I don’t even know and the reason for that will a town meeting it’s kind of where you can see how town meeting happen um but it’s the first time I’ve ever heard of it it just happened but they

1:02:19 completely defunded the space system I don’t know how that’s going to shake out it just happened last night um so that made me really grateful that ours best um because that was concerned um so uh that’s the budget um we’ll be getting an update uh we met again with the Union we’ll be getting that update the executive session and um communication survey we don’t I’ve had a few people reach out and

1:03:01 um had so much going on so our our hope is to um try to rec on a couple of items that are hanging out there um before the you know the last two weeks I don’t think there’s been a single day

1:03:15 without um all right so new business school committee announcements

1:03:22 request uh correspondence no so then that brings us to a motion to meet an executive session pursuing to Mass General Law chapter 38 section 21A for the following purpose purpose two to conduct strategy sessions and preparation for negotiations with non Personnel or to conduct bargaining sessions or contract negotiations non Personnel purpose three to discuss strategy back two and in preparation for colletive aring Mar Education Association substitutes tutors you professional CER uh because an open discussion may have detrimental effect t position committee as declared by the chair with the intent not to return to open

1:04:07 session by CH chatner by Brian Oda um roll call vote Al Williams in favor Alison Taylor in favor Brian Oda Jen shner in favor Sarah Fox in favor motion carries 5 to zero get read this again so we will be moving into executive session um to conduct uh we will be moving into executive session pursuant to master andw 30A section 21A for the following purpose purpose to conduct strategy concessions in preparation for negotiations with non- Personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations non- personel and purp three to discuss strategies with respect

1:04:54 to preparation refle argu Marblehead Education Association

1:05:01 subtit professionals cians discussion may have detrimental effect bargaining position of the committee you will not be returned to a concession at 805 I feel like I could be you know that guy when you were kids like the matchbox guy that um all right so I actually um am going to ask everybody in um that’s on to remove themselves um what session all right so I’m gonna end the session Al and Allison if you can sign back in um all right problem