School Committee: March 7, 2025

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.

0:05 okay great all right so um first on our item is public comment I’m going to ask that we keep the public comment to 15 minutes um which is our policy for the school committee and we ask that um folks keep their um comments hope to uh three minutes or less if possible so um if you would like to speak you just need to raise your hand I see a couple hands raised which I appreciate um and at the bottom in case anyone’s unfamiliar with this at the bottom of your screen you should see a little icon that says raise hand and if you click the little up arrow that will raise your hand and I will call on you so I’m going to first go to uh Angus Angus mcquilkin I think you should be unmuted

0:52 Angus have you heard yep okay um J should I assume the policy that’s been posted with be meeting documents is the policy that’s going to be reviewed today regarding flags and Banners correct that was what was submitted To Us by our attorney y okay well then thank you for the opportunity to be heard let me start by saying that I think it’s extraordinary that this subcommittee went out to the community for feedback and then proceeded to ignore all of the feedback that you received including the thoughtful well- researched well- reason proposal from our students the community has been clear in its feedback we do not want the school committee to be making these decisions based on your own personal politics these decisions should be made within the school Community with involvement from students teachers and administrators and now frankly you’ve come up with a policy proposal to be discussed at a time when you’re quite

1:37 aware that students cannot participate that is even worse than where you started one that will never be accepted by this community the role of a school committee is to set policy not to serve as the day-to-day implementer of those policies the role of implementer is left to school administrators and teachers not the school committee this policy would have the school committee making day-to-day decisions about what flags can be displayed in the schools apparently without any input from any other member of the community the school Community students teachers and administrators have for literally hundreds of years hundreds of

2:20 years reach decisions on this without elected officials making these decisions this policy would remove all of those people from the decision-making exactly what this community has told you forcefully and overwhelmingly through forign after Forum they do not want residents of this community have come to understand that you have a political objective here to remove a particular flag to which you object and that you have now spent months of valuable time trying to come up with a policy that will allow you to accomplish your political objective I read the letter from your hand selected Law Firm hired by the way with no accountability or RFP process and it’s no surprise to me that your hand selected Law Firm has given you the opinion that you asked for but what your handpicked Law Firm has provided is the thinnest possible legal argument to try to justify the seizure of authority that

3:06 you are attempting through this policy based on a case from outside of Massachusetts that your Chen law firm’s own letter acknowledges is not applicable in Massachusetts know that I and other parents students and teachers that have been paying close attention to this issue strongly oppose this latest draft flag censorship policy and will be very vocal in our opposition as the school committee as a whole proceeds with any further policymaking process in this topic but I’ll wrap up with an important question a critical question who exactly under this policy is a third party would I a parent homeowner and taxpayer in Marblehead be considered a third party under this proposal would a student or student group in our schools be considered a third party under this policy last I checked the First Amendment to the US Constitution in

3:52 addition to guaranteeing the freedom of speech and expression affords me and every other citizen the right to petition my government for a redress of grievances so if your reference the third party means what I think it means that nobody not on the school committee can ask the school committee to approve or disapprove the flying of a flag or Banner what you’re proposing here is not only contrary to the values of this community it is also blatantly unconstitutional thank you again for the opportunity to be heard thank you Angus um I have um Meg

4:29 o hi there uh I’m me oare I live at uh 28 Roosevelt a um I moved to Marblehead last year I bought a house here it’s very expensive as you guys all know um and I moved here because of the schools and since then I have been hugely disappointed in the work of the school committee um kind of to the point where I’m I am shocked uh this policy is bad this the alternative presented by the students is if we want to flag up will talk to the principal it’s incredibly reasonable um also we’ve been fine without a flag policy I don’t understand

5:16 why the school committee and also based off of you know the vote of no confidence from last year and the lack of changes up until now why the school committee is trying to Garner a new responsibility when the responsibility that already follow with the school committee are not being done very well um as you can tell I’m pretty upset by this I made a pretty big bet on my and my family’s future in moving to this town and we’ve already you know run up over a quarter million dollars of legal fees in the way that uh the strike was handled and why are we passing another policy just to get sued again and waste more money like I don’t

6:02 understand why the students driven and also legally vetted solution of like everything else in school we want something we talk to the administrators the administrators can say no like I don’t understand why this is something that the school policy needs to pick the hallway decorations like this just doesn’t make any sense to me um also I don’t know why I have to come here in the middle of the of my workday in order to voice this opinion when already I’ve come to other meetings where this has been the same overwhelming sentiment like what is this I am legitimately confused and pretty upset thank you for your

6:48 time thank you mag um I have uh Chris Bru

6:58 BR thank you uh like every the the woman Meg that just spoke it’s just it’s just overwhelmingly disheartening at this point that we’re still dealing with this and still having the same conversation I mean let’s just let’s just be honest at this point it’s it’s just clear that the community Forum was just a performative exercise being carried out so that you could check off a box that said you offered the public a chance to speak when it comes down to it it’s pretty clear that the subcommittee maybe the larger committee is not interested in what we have to say or how we feel you’re not interested in what our students have to say you’re not interested in how our students feel you’re not interested in the negative effects that this flag censorship policy will have on many kids who are already being ostracized mind you this comes at a time when the federal government is on

7:43 a war path to literally eliminate the identities of our friends neighbors and family members we should be doing more as a community to protect these individuals not less as members of the school committee you were elected to quote provide a safe and nurturing environment in which our students can develop the values Knowledge and Skills needed to achieve full potential in their personal social and work lives and become contributing members of society it’s becoming more and more apparent that some of your views are clearly not in alignment with this Mission nor with the broader community’s values I for one look extremely forward to voting for a new school committee and new school

8:30 committee members this June who share the beliefs of a majority of marble headers not just a loud and boisterous minority tired of this thank you thank you um uh paulander I I don’t know if it’s Sharman or

8:59 else if you could unmute yourself is it charman or Jeremy

9:08 pollander all right I’ll I’ll come back to you I’m going to go to um just if you want to speak just leave your hand up I’ll come back you just need to be able to unmute yourself I’m G to move to Lindsay Smith thank you Lindsay Smith 15 Washington Street I’d actually like to take this moment to address the students who unfortunately cannot be here because this meeting is while they are in school um but I would like to applaud their courage their persistence and their determination as well as their excellent flag policy which I fully support I want them to know that this is a moment in time and that what is happening right now will soon be the past they are the

9:55 future the future is inclusive the future is affirmative of all identities and this what is happening right now is exactly what you think is happening so please don’t give up the fight please keep speaking up for your truth and for others and thank you for your time thank you Lindsay um so I think colander is unmuted again I don’t know if it’s Dan can you hear me CH Y is that you Sharman yes yes hi welcome hi charman pollander once again I will speak on behalf of my children and myself I’m continuously listening to all of you on your soap boxes telling this community and what saying to this

10:44 community what I need and what people of color want this is yet affects my children the ones that you claim are marginalized and clearly you don’t want to listen to what people of color have to say we have listened to all of you continuously say the exact same thing how people are speaking up and they want these flags well did you ever think about the constant harassment that I’ve received that Nyla had to endure last week that my children have to deal with these flags have continued to be a divide in this community and in this country I’ve lived in this community for 20 years I have never had any racial issues

11:29 issues issues until 2021 and to be honest it is continually getting worse my husband had to write a letter to the current because they failed to report on what happened to Nyla Duo last week that is the problem that you people do not seem to see or understand but please continue to tell us what we need and what this community needs do not blame it on the school committee it’s you you are all at fault think about the people people of color who live here who are taxpayers I am so sick and tired of listening to all of you on your soap boxes acting like we need white voices to speak for us and our children I am sick of it I don’t

12:15 even feel like I belong in this community anymore do you any of you have any idea how that feels I’m sorry for yelling Jen I am so angry and my husband is so angry and he would be on this if he wasn’t traveling shame on all of you thank you thank you Sharman um Cindy Tower loen welcome uh yeah Cindy you should be

12:51 unmuted hi um I’m going to keep my um video off because I am in the car and um I did not know that this meeting was taking place um um until just recently so uh Cindy Tower loen 12 Trinity Road Marblehead Mass um I’m first going to just um say something to um charman in the sense of I am sorry that you feel the way you do um and um I I believe that there are many of us that are on this call or have been part of this and part of this community who are not looking at this as

13:38 a um being on a soap that said I have very strong feelings I have um many friends that are not only black brown white asian um and um they do not necessarily agree with some of the sentiments that um charman has said but we all have different opinions and in this case I have to say that I am in agreement in terms of what Angus said what Chris Beal said and also what Lindsay Smith and Meg said

14:26 um what I see here is you guys had been approached to have a policy because there was no policy I get that however this has been going on and the fact that you guys called the meeting and you have the right within 48 hours in terms of posting it but with everything that has transpired on this particular policy draft you called this meeting without giving really substantial notice other than what you’re mandated by and then you call it at 11:30 on a Friday and I’m sorry you guys can do a lot better than this and that’s what we expect as a school

15:12 committee is that you guys can do a lot better because the students don’t have the opportunity to be here whether they’re white black Asian they do not have the opportunity to be here and a lot of other people don’t have the opportunity to be here and I just think that it is um clearly in my the way I look at it is you know did you guys really listen to the community the students and and let’s just address the students did you really pay attention to what they were saying that they wanted input that they wanted to be part of this decision that they wanted to be the ones that made this

15:57 decision it’s really hard for me to sit here and say that you guys really really did that and instead we’re here on a Friday 11:30 with this draft and then of course with the attorney letter I mean I’m sorry Jen you know I still think you can do better okay I’ve known you for a very long time and I expected more in addition to that I think Angus said something regarding you know the political view and so let’s just put it out there okay our kids and anyone else needs to feel safe and protected in the environment that we have right now and yet here we are if this isn’t politically charged then I don’t know what

16:43 what what is and I do believe this is all about the black lives matter flag as opposed to the other flags and that breaks my heart because black lives do matter it is not a political statement yet other some people do believe it’s a political statement and the the things I work on and I’ve worked on in terms of black lives and Justice and Equity here we are and I just feel like what’s going on in our country is playing out in our school committee right now and that saddens me and I really truly wish that you had taken what the students said and you

17:29 decided to go with that versus what you are putting forth today thank you very much thank you Cindy um I have krie lequin lequin I don’t know if I pronounced that correctly you did thank you well welcome thank you um just wanted to make sure that I set a voice for the students for their amazing work that they put forth at the last meeting everything that they did and say that their voices should be recognized for that that they aren’t here and have that opportunity to speak on their behalf this is really what it’s all about it’s about recognizing that school is a place where they’re included and safe you know in healthcare we wear badges that says you know this is a you’re safe in this

18:15 space this is where you can you’re we’re somebody that you can talk to that you can come to we’re going to protect you and education is about growth and it’s also about feeling all the time that they can share their points of views whatever may be and be able to express that and I think it’s just really important to realize that you’re you’re not giving the majority of the community a voice in this at all you’re making a unilateral decision and you you’re supposed to do that this is part of your job we all expect you to do your actual jobs every day like we do ours and I I just feel like you’re using power in an inappropriate way and it’s just it’s not okay anymore you know we’ve all seen it

19:02 we’ve watched it over the last couple of years and it it’s just it’s it’s just not what you’re supposed to do you’re part of this community you should be respecting your constituents and the voices that we all have it’s really important that the students have an opportunity again to you know speak or for you to say exactly why you’re not taking in what they propos to you you know that’s really important take a stand tell us why because I don’t think anyone’s really going to like what you have to say and you have to at some point be responsible for the decisions that you’re making Marblehead is an amazing place to live and grow up as many of us know we all work really hard to afford the community that we live in and and it’s

19:48 really important that we set aside you know again differences and give everyone a voice that’s just not happening it’s just not happening if you really want to go with what everybody’s thinking I know people have talked about on this that there is a very loud minority and they are they’re very loud that’s their intention and unfortunately you two are part of that and you know that just has to be recognized so it’s time to really make sure that the students who this directly affects every day are involved in this decision making and that’s what they’ve asked for and it needs to be

20:50 you sorry it looks like you’ve been speaking but you’re

20:57 onm there you go um we didn’t hear anything that you just said Jen CU you’re on mute but I got a notice to unmute so I did sorry sorry about that um apologize for that so thank you um and thanks everyone so I had two more can you guys can hear me now Alison can you hear me yeah yep I can hear too yeah all right so yeah I have two um I are you still there okay yep she is she just lowered her hand so I think it moved her on the thing oh okay all right so I had K Thompson and Nyla um duah those were the two hands I had left and we’re well past the 15 minutes so I think we’ll with those two we and and move on so Kate why don’t you go ahead okay sorry sorry about that um that’s okay Kate Thompson Bo Road um I agree with the vast majority of what people have said here today so I won’t

21:43 restate um but I do want to ask two direct questions the first one is do you plan and this is sort of piggybacking on what Carrie just said do you plan to issue a formal response to our students in your words in response to their thoughtful proposal that they took time to create um not lawyer speak just your words and your rationale directly explaining your disagreement your I guess apparent vehement disagreement with their POV I think they deserve at least that much and my second question is and I’m glad that masc is here today to see this conversation um I I just like to know when you’re going to get back to the normal business of

22:30 policy work and I’d like to remind the community that in the two almost two years since this policy committee was seated there have been two conversations on the table one is this flag policy and the other one is a blip about recess and if I’m wrong maybe there were a couple others that I missed but the two big topics were those and every town around us and every school committee and every other place in this nation has been cycling through policy work first reads second reads final reads getting Community input on these things they’re doing basic maintenance on their existing policies and they’re

23:18 implementing the new policies that masc recommends all the time we have done none of that work for two years in favor of this one topic mostly and I’d like to know when you’re going to get back to the basic work of a school committee which is setting budget setting policy and hiring and firing superintendant just let us

23:43 know thank know thank you okay I have Nyla du Nyla you should be able to

23:57 unmute okay that work yes hi Nyla we can hear you hi sorry I don’t know how to take the um the I don’t know how to make the video work that’s okay I’m on my phone okay so um I wanted to just address a couple of things quickly first of all one of the reasons I think we all need to be clear the reason this has become such a big topic is because it hits at the heart of liberalism and freedom itself when I keep hearing people say our students all the student or be students everyone words like this and the students need a voice but all I’m hearing is that some students

24:43 are claiming to have a voice for all of the students the students that came up with that policy were not every single student in the school they did not represent the students at Village School even though last year I mean at the at the last meeting one student said that he was representing the students at Village school but I know for a fact that he wasn’t representing all the students even the student at vets who had 60 signatures he was not representing all of the students and so I think that you guys the subcommittee did a very good job at making a policy that rises above all of the students and doesn’t

25:28 allow any one faction whether it be students administrators or the school committee to decide which symbols speak for everyone and I have to be clear because the distinction here is the free speech of the students versus the speech of the government which speaks for everybody so if the students the students have tons of free speech rights and I do think that I think it was Kate Thompson is correct that it is important to explain to the students what the nature of this policy and why it’s being implemented and in my mind it’s because you know not one group of students can speak for the entire school and even the school committee or the

26:13 district itself can’t speak for all the students and say that this BLM flag necessarily represents all black students that it necess that the and the pride flag I know someone said that the pride flag um that nobody has an issue with it but that is untrue and I think that there’s a lot of people who can’t speak there are siblings that can’t that feel that they can’t talk about it we also have the Israeli flag that went up at some point um who’s going to be the Arbiter of those flags you know you can’t have people picking and choosing and I think that it’s important to let the students know that they can wear flags they can have they have lots of opportunities for free speech what

27:00 they can’t do is tell the government what the government can say for everybody because we elected you guys and I you know you’re making the decisions because we elected you or you’re making the policy because we elected you um and I think it’s very smart to make a policy that says that nobody can decide which symbols speak for everybody so that’s pretty much all I have to say and I ex the only thing that I will leave you with is that it’s I think everybody needs to very careful of their language because it gets really really upsetting to me when people say everyone people say the students people say anyone things like that because it doesn’t necessarily represent I have three or I

27:46 had three kids in the district one graduated I have you know she was a lesbian at one point I have two kids that are you know they have black grandparents and you know these symbols do not speak for my family and we live in Marblehead and there are many many other families there’s 20,000 people here you can’t say that this one tiny group of students that made this draft flag policy speaks for the entire school or the entire District because it’s a district policy so thank

28:21 you thank you Nyla appreciate that um I did see one more hand up I think it’s Audrey so I’ll go to Audrey ask you to be um brief if you could because we we do need to move on on but I do see you have your hand up and I I it says Audrey iPhone so I’m assuming that’s your your Audrey

28:41 username you need to unmute uhing the button we can hear you yep um Audrey house lincol um just quickly to nyla’s um Point um when we say everybody the high school kids who were involved in that proposal were the kids who cared a teacher I can tell you the kids do not care what color you are or anything like that it’s the parents that place that on kids so I just want to say if this flag policy passes I am moving my kid out of marble head and I think a lot of people are starting to think the same thing if we have this very right-wing school committee making these crazy policies

29:27 that the majority of marble headers have expressed very clearly that they are opposed to then there is a big problem in the school committee and in the town and I’m going to tell you an experience from my own home I hear people say we don’t need that stuff in our schools we don’t need to talk about Pride or black lives matter my child came home she’s in the brown school she said to me mom is it true that white people are smarter than black people that’s what she came home with so I don’t care about what everybody else says like if that is in our schools that should be something that teachers are talking about because

30:13 I don’t want my child to hear that from somebody on the playground and if she does I need a grown-up in the school to say hey that is not okay it’s not an opinion to say that a white person is better than a black person it’s not an opinion it’s not a fact it’s not an opinion it’s just wrong it’s hateful and it’s disgusting and I am telling you right now you should not pass this SL policy because a lot of people will be out of Marblehead Head Public Schools thank out of Marblehead Public Schools thank you thank you I Audrey I hope I pronounced that correctly okay thank you all right great so I am going to end

30:59 public comment and we are going to move on to the um just get the agenda here um to the draft flag policy so um Allison let me just get here Allison you should have received I had forwarded to you the brief that was I guess it’s a brief or the opinion that was written by the our attorney and the draft flag policy um those two items do do you have them there yep okay great um so just want hopefully I’ll answer some of these questions um uh that folks had are and maybe address some of the concerns I’m not sure so we had um the forums that we had um we did have uh students um submit a draft or a suggested policy to us that was shared with our attorney

31:45 um John foscot who’s the associate um at the our uh firm that handles that so he responded we actually had a conversation um and he responded I asked him to specifically Write a response based on what we talked about that could be released to the public normally um you normally when you get an advice from an attorney and if it’s in writing it’s normally subject to attorney client privilege and normally it’s not released per se it would be something we would discuss but it wouldn’t be released but I specifically asked for that because I think it was important although it was um quite detailed um is in regards to it being a you know a brief um and also what he said you know clearly what said in in the brief is that um the issue around uh in in terms of the case law that he was referring to the issue is that it is according to the

32:33 attorney it is not um an issue around First Amendment rights it’s an issue around govern or first public speech or first first amendment speech it’s an issue of government speech and so what his opinion was and what has been shared with other districts is with particularly with the Supreme Court case um that we H we have to be careful about what it is that we’re saying is government speech and and that is what you know he was sort of detailing in in the brief um and that therefore um so that we are not going to be accused of breaching that um the recommended policy is which was the draft policy that he gave us which was to limit in terms of the sort of the official display on flag Poes or in

33:21 common areas in the schools um to the flags that he had listed I think it was the US flag the state flag and um potentially any military Flags um I think there was a comment around the third party um request which was a line in there and just so everyone knows this is also the um hang on I’m just letting some folks in here this was also the uh policy that has been adopted by Sharon Massachusetts um they had a similar situation I think this was over a year ago or two years ago um and the question is who is a third party is probably worth going back and asking and defining but it would be my understanding is anyone other than the school committee um and so that that’s that’s the case and that is his recommended policy to us

34:08 so where we stand right now and Alison let me just finish real quick is that you know the normal process of the policy subcommittee which by the way our subc commes do take place during the day we have Alicia here with us again we typically have administrators or other folks who come during the work day and I know some folks said they don’t like that I I understand that um but that that is typically when subcommittees meet um and we um would typically talk about a policy we would go through a draft you you and I you know the committee would work subcommittee work it out and we present it to the school committee um we the policies do require three separate readings into the record um so I want to get your thoughts Alison and then I have some suggestions on how I think we should move forward but maybe if you could just if you have any thoughts you want to

34:54 want to want to share yeah I mean I I think there are couple of additional things in regards to this policy that I had questions on or that I think need to be further vetted before we we move forward um I don’t know if these are things you can take back to John um I think the school committee will not accept any third-party requests I think what Angus was suggesting is who is a third party is a parent a third party is a teacher or a third party versus a student or a student-led group um I think that absolutely should be more detailed there

35:40 so that it can be clear um I’m not sure if we have if we are talking about this just outside on the flag pole or if this is for outside and inside or if we want to consider having two separate ones I might sneeze

35:59 sorry nope um that was another thing that I I had thought about I’m definitely going to sneeze I can feel it um

36:10 and the length of time that Flags or banners would would be displayed if we wanted to put anything like that into this um are we talking about displaying a flag outside are we talking about just a banner inside um those are some of the things that I think need to be further vetted I do think that outside of having you know this is largely similar to what the students suggested but the deciding body being the school committee versus being the administration um I do worry or the the principles in the schools I do worry putting that on an Administration or a principal would be um too much I they I don’t believe I ever got an

36:58 electronic copy um of their policy Jen did you no I got I got a hard copy and that’s what I scanned in so sent that on to John yeah yeah no I thank you um and we didn’t get a copy of their their Google form that they said they sent out um with the 100 responses um but it and it would still be nice to see that just to do a side by side comparison um I do think that as the you know governing body or the elected body anyways um it is important uh I think it’s dismissive to to say that it’s just checking a box I do think having the discussion and allowing them

37:44 the opportunity to speak and share their thoughts whether it’s the community or students um is important and hugely valued um that doesn’t always necessarily translate into doing what they SU suggested um and certainly having been on the other side uh for years I understand that frustration um I think that we should really think about vetting those things out a little bit more before doing an official reading with the full school committee I’m sure that they’ll have additional um comments and concerns or thoughts as well that we will want to make sure um

38:29 to take into consideration because it would be great to have something that could be agreed upon by all five of us uh moving forward okay so um okay so we’re looking for some clarification I can get that from him um uh so I can work with that offline and may actually have you also have an opportunity to speak to him we just have to be careful about obviously the open meeting law in terms of um absolutely and this is not um a subject for anything that would go into executive session or anything like that um so the question is who is a third party um the length of time um and then the outside flag pole issue I can get clarification on that I do know what he was saying is that he there was a little aside at the

39:15 bottom which I thought was interesting which he said he had made clear um to administrators in the past when this did come up a couple of years ago um that there is a statute on the books in Massachusetts that says that it is it is a actually a criminal offense interestingly to display any other country’s flag on a flag pole um on a municipal property um schools or otherwise um outside of a building so an outside flag pole so that was sort of interesting he said that there has been um there have been a few cases that that is also been um the case for inside a building but the actual the actual law says um no um outside countries flags can be H outside on a B which that has

40:00 not been the issue here so he just sort of threw that in as as just an aside um so okay so I can go back and get those anwers for him I’m going to suggest it might make sense for you um to have a conversation with him as well just so you can hear it directly um okay because this has been going on for you know quite a long time and I I think we you know in the interest of wanting to move it forward I My Hope was that um we however we decide to to go forward with this um that our next school committee meeting is March 20th I wanted to try to shoot to have a March the March 20th meeting that we would present um because I do think although we probably have I know we have an option to do at least one or two readings in subcommittee I don’t personally think we

40:46 should do that I think that we should I’m suggesting we present to the school committee and the full school committee can discuss it and deliberate and the three readings would take place at a full school committee meeting just you know given you know the um um intensity of feelings around this um and I want to be respectful of that so um so why don’t I do that but so if we could try to keep for the March 20th if that’s you know a goal that you and I can have that we have a a draft of either this policy or some version of this if that’s what it turns out to be after talking to John and that we would move forward on the 20th okay that makes sense yeah I mean we have time still yeah so I’ll after we hang up I’ll I’ll email John fos I’ll put you know make sure you guys get together I’ll have a conversation with him but you and I can’t have a

41:31 conversation and then we can come back together um and perhaps reward this or more effectively have him draft something because I think the other thing that you know again folks out there know and Alison I know you obviously know that um you know we have to take or not we have to we take our advice from our attorney particularly in this case and if there are folks out there that would like us to um to ignore our attorney’s advice um that’s not something I’m willing to do uh other school committee members may choose to do that I I think we start going down a slippery slope when we stop listening to what our attorney says um if people have issues with the attorney that’s a different story um but we we do have them they have they they are giving us advice and and we we do potentially

42:17 have put ourselves at risk if we specifically do not follow their advice so I think it’s the right thing to do to you know continue to get clarification and um and see if based on you know your thoughts or our thoughts about that whether the the draft could be reworded um for consideration on the 20th okay or expanded upon yeah that’s I I think you know um Angus brought up a couple of thoughts that I had as well from reading it so okay and if if anyone is having it we we want it to be to be clear from a interpretation perspective yeah and then I know there was an some someone brought it up um that um a communication back to the

43:03 students and I think I think that’s fair but I think we need to know what it is we’re going to be communicating because we’re still in the process of determining what this draft policy will be so I think that that makes sense when we do have um a policy we’re going to present to the school committee all right y so I’ll set that up and we’ll move uh and then so we you and I will meet again before the 20th okay all right okay I’m going to move on to the operating protocol calls Alicia of inquiry point of information Miss did you say that you didn’t have a copy of The students’s Proposal no I have a hard copy that accurate No I have aop have a hard copy yep a hard all right okay yeah thank you yeah we had asked for an electronic copy to be emailed and I don’t have a record of receiving it but I they handed me a

43:49 hard copy um okay Alicia have a hard copy too I just meant electronically with their their Google form Alicia are you there I am yes oh hi there you are welcome okay so we wanted to we’re moving on to the next item on the agenda which is the operating protocols and I don’t know would it be helpful for me to bring those up or have you had a chance to take a look at them I did take a look at them yes but I think um having them on the screen is probably a good idea as we go through okay give me one second

44:23 here no here no wait just got to pull it up here hang on

44:36 all right give me SP up here oh guess what I think I have it here let’s see all right I’m not an expert Zoom sharing person so just give me a second

44:55 here okay can you see my screen yes so it should be here the operating protocols I didn’t download the document I don’t think it’s downloadable so we’ve still got my the rest of our website here but um here are the school committee operating protocols um that do fall under those categories who we represent I’m going to scroll down here how we govern uh there’s a lot of those uh I have I don’t know if anybody else has but I have Alicia do you have a gray box yes I do oh there’s like a gray box in the middle of your screen Jen I mean I can see most of it so that’s okay but that’s weird um do me a favor here it’s like a rectangle it’s like yeah okay I just didn’t know if it was just I was sure it wasn’t just me all right give me a second

45:58 uh Jen I have them downloaded um if you want me to share my screen sure if you want to do that okay let me stop sharing mine do you did I make you I made you a co-host right you did yes yes you should be able to oh they are downloadable okay can you see that now yes thank you

46:22 fantastic fantastic okay so thoughts on where you wanted to start with this I did go through them and um I I think they’re good operating protocols I think there’s some places where you could probably tighten the language up a little bit more um but I do think they I like the way they’re broken down um as far as your sections on who we represent how we govern how we communicate I think that’s a really effective way to organize operating protocols so what would you where would you like to start with this um well Elison did you have any thoughts or I no I I would actually be looking to you Alicia to see in particular the places where we can add more detail be more clear I think those

47:08 would be the the most important places to focus okay I think also Alicia just you know my thoughts were I just they seem long so I just yeah I mean in terms of numerous is the word yes yes so I’m actually going to show you all some other um operating protocols and I believe I sent these um back after one of our workshops but I want to show them to you on the screen now um every district has to every school committee has to come up with their own operating protocols and how they put them together um but these are some really effective ones this is from the Westford school committee uh which is the town I live in they have broken it down to how we serve how our meetings work and how we communicate and they’ve done so in a

47:54 very clear and concise way that they’ve arranged bullet points um I I think this is a very effective way to communicate their operating protocols they also um they all sign it uh not just the school committee members they also sign they also have the superintendent sign it so it’s understood that this is how we communicate not just with each other but with the district as well um Melrose has a fantastic one too where they’ve instead of starting with the categories of what they do they’ve started with sort of their core value statements where their’s are about supporting the educational welfare um demonstrating professionalism Etc that is also a way to potentially uh do that so going back to yours

48:46 oh sorry about that um I like that you have who we represent how we govern and as we scroll down how we treat each other how we communicate how we will improve and what are the limits of our Authority and what happens when things go wrong I would suggest what we start with is instead of having all of those categories which many of them actually overlap a lot what we should probably do is come back to um three or four categories and then condense the things in them so that they’re more succinct so I would say start with who we represent that’s your value statement that’s your you know who are we here for we’re here for the um needs and interests of all of the students we place them at the center

49:31 of all of the um decisions we make start with that and then um how how we govern and um what was it called it was what are the limits of our Authority so I would say let’s try and work on combining the how we govern and what are the limits of our Authority um that should be more of a statement of these are the things that we are responsible for as a school committee these this is our charge from mgl um this is how we will carry those things out so that should be the place where we talk about um we hold meetings in accordance with open meeting law this is how things get on the agenda this is how discussions

50:16 happen um that’s the place where you put all of that and then I would say next up should probably be communication um you have some really good things here about um how you communicate um channeling information understanding that the superintendent is the spokesperson for the district and the chair is the spokesperson for the school committee um and then how you communicate to the district itself um you did have a really good line in here about

50:53 um you did have a really good line in here I don’t think it’s in this section about um communicating information requests to the superintendent and not going out to various um staff members I think that’s a really important point to make you want to make sure that you’re doing that that thing we talk about in roles and responsibilities where you’re channeling through the middle that doesn’t mean you don’t ever communicate with staff it just means that um out of respect for everyone’s you know Lanes you Channel through the middle um I also like the addition of the uh masc social media guidelines I would say if you’re going to leave that there attach that to the document um and then I think what the best way to do to combine the how we is to how we

51:41 treat each other and how we will improve I think those two things should probably be combined and we should look at that along the lines of um maybe something like uh we acknowledge our responsibility to be the um to demonstrate leadership in the district we will approach all of our um meetings with respect for one another and respect for opinions Etc and then talk about professional development and setting goals and things like

52:17 that so is that already in there I’m just trying to see about professional development and that sort of thing be adding that I’m just trying to I’m scrolling down to there is how we will improve so there’s a little bit in there about um like you don’t necessarily need to restate that they have to attend orientation that okay that’s I mean yes they do but the state law says they have to within a year so yeah um I think revising operating protocols annual Workshop all of those things are great in that section um developing goals developing and maintaining a district new member orientation program do you currently have one of those no okay um

53:02 so I would say definitely I would keep that I think we have a checklist yeah we have a checklist but I wouldn’t say it’s yeah program program it’s charting the course is basically what it is yes so I would say instead of saying you know developing and maintaining I would say you would want to word that more along the lines of providing new members with the information and support they need and then you could do as a school committee goal developing that actual process um and I can actually I can share with you um some slides that I have from the nishoba tech new member orientation process because they have a it’s my committee I had no part in developing this though that was all before me they have a really thorough

53:49 onboarding process for new members which is phenomenal um so I think what we what we should look at is let’s break down your categories to um start with take that who we represent language and we want to move that up to your initial your introductory statement this is who we represent this is you know what our mission vision is okay um and then so we’re not gonna have that as a category that’ll just get moved up right that will just get moved up and we’ll combine that with the um the statement that’s above there about academic social and emotional success y um and then I think we take how we

54:39 govern and what the limits of our so govern and the limits section yep and we’re going to combine some of those statements so that it makes it clear that we govern through these processes so it doesn’t say limits it just says this is how we govern period okay um I would recommend in addition to having in addition to the language you already have there um I would say one of the I say this during charting the course all the time the super secret fourth charge to a school committee Beyond budget policy and superintendent is knowing where to send people for the correct information when you are not the person they should be asking so referring parents and caregivers and students and community members to the

55:25 appropriate administrators you wouldn’t ask the super endent why your bus was late unless it was a chronic thing and had risen to them at that point you would ask the transportation director what was going on with the buses so communicating to your constituency who it is they should be approaching for that information I would add that to that um how we govern section um and then how we and then are you just interrupt for one second if we’re if we’re sort of collapsing if you will the how we govern and the limits of our Authority we’re not going to have all of those items right so you’re suggesting maybe we go either separately or come back together and suggest how we which we want to eliminate or do we want to do that today and which we want to keep or rewrite them so I think um it’s like seven

56:10 seven seven and maybe what what we should do is come back again um you both so not with each other but separately take a look at the language and think how you would want to combine them um I can go in and do a little tweaking as well and then we can meet again to talk about a a more appropriate draft to send to the full committee okay perfect um okay so I interrupted so it so right now I’m showing one Cate I’m I’m labeling at number one yep if that’s the order and it’s a combination of how we govern and the limits of our Authority and I don’t know what we’ll call it maybe we’ll call it how we govern or we I we could also I don’t want to say plagiarize but we could look at other other school

56:55 committee protocols that’s not a good word to to use in an academic situation um and just you know decide you know kind of words Smith it but basically I’m calling it you know govern governance yep um and I can give you some more suggestions from other districts for the sample protocols um so section number two category number two is going to be how we communicate um and that’s where we will talk about

57:26 um let me scroll down one second um the communication from the committee to the superintendent um communication going through the superintendent Etc we’re going to use a lot of what’s already here we’re just going to squish it down a little bit more um recognizing the chairperson is the spokesperson of the school committee and we’re going to add the superintendent as the spokesperson of the district to make that very clear um do you have I have a quick question on that for a moment have you seen or like a bigger question but if you seen any protocols that address like that’s important obviously right superintendent’s the spokesperson for the administration school committee is the spokesperson for the school committee um but I’ve always been you know sort of a believer in the chair

58:12 position and not in the chair position that you know school committee members do speak you know to the public they speak to community members they actually and they speak to the Press um 100% yes you know they’re just they’re not officially speaking for the committee and so is that Worth or is that important to have and Alice I don’t know what you think to have that in there too I think because I want like I think it’s important you know important the committee members know it and important that the you know the community knows that yes you stifling people a member doesn’t disappear into the body you always retain your um ability and right frankly to speak your mind the spokesperson for the committee is more along the lines of um if there’s a statement that the school committee drafts and it’s going to go out to everyone

58:58 sometimes when there’s like a big issue on the table and you get that flood of emails sometimes what some committees will do is they will have the chair as their spokesperson answer those emails so that not every Committee Member has to answer every single individual email so that people’s email you know your constituents aren’t getting seven emails that say exactly the same thing so that the chair would say something like thank you for your input this is when we’re meeting to talk about this or this is when the hearing this is um and we hope you’ll join us to share your your opinion then so it’s not so much that the chair is um speaking for the opinions of the entire committee it’s that the the chair is the information Point as the spokesperson for the committee so you wouldn’t send

59:46 seven emails to the entire District saying you know we’re having a budget hearing on Monday the chair could say we’re having a budget hearing on Monday so maybe we want to Wordsmith that a little bit Alison what do I think you know just I think that would be important to know yeah for everybody oh yeah yep okay yep for the committee and the public yeah yes 100% um and then I think your last one should be um well no maybe not your last one I would say professional development and I hope I’m not making anyone nauseated um yeah professional development should be one it should be I would say how we improve

1:00:38 um and then you know what I would actually move the section about um how we treat each other and what happens when things go wrong I would maybe move that to the beginning um and that’s that’s about communication but that’s also about norms and things like that so we’ll have to figure out what the appropriate typ for that is but I think the beginning is a good place to lead with that this is how we speak to each other this is the um trust and respect that we are building um the Dignity of disagreement Etc I think that should probably be your first category and then the other ones should come after it so okay so you’ll start with so my recommendation would be to start with um

1:01:24 sort of the ground rules of this is how we communicate with respect this is how we you know build trust Etc then move on to this is how we govern and the limits of our governance follow that with this is how we communicate with each other the district and the

1:01:46 public and then the last category should be this is how we improve our service okay all right so that’s four Cate one two three four yeah four categories the I will can I just make a comment Alice i’ be curious your thoughts like the uh the what happens when things go wrong and I guess how we treat each other more of the like when things going it seems to be sort of like you know this shall not happen like it seems like they’re sort of on the negative versus I think we prob I would like to have it be a little bit more like in the positive like this is what we shall do right like yeah

1:02:32 I I think that the the problem with this for me and and I I think I’ve struggled with this I think as a full committee people have different views on this it’s okay for us to disagree it’s okay for us to even be passionately disagree that doesn’t mean I don’t still respect the other person it doesn’t mean that I don’t still trust them there those are two dramatically different things and I think sometimes they get really really conflated in all walks of life not not just here but I think here in particular and I think that that’s the important that’s you know that we want everybody to have their own opinion the

1:03:18 reason there are five pretty different people on our committee to be honest is is great because you get a lot of different View points and a lot of different lenses a lot of different experiences that are brought to the table and it’s important to hear those and I think that that’s a good thing so I think if we could find some way to write this where we are celebrating the differences and the Viewpoint the different viewpoints that that are at the table understanding that they might not all agree um and that even when an outcome happens that maybe it what we were the dissenting vote on we’re still moving forward as a group we still trust each other everything’s still okay but I still have my opinion

1:04:04 or Al still has his opinion you know isn’t it it’s sort of hit baby we can hear you hang on um sorry mute people sorry I I absolutely 100% agree with you there we can craft a statement that we don’t want necessarily want to talk about when things go wrong we want to talk about the value of collaborative problem solving and the Dignity of disagreeing in such a way that um the disagreement between members of the body is what gets the body to the best decision that’s why we have committees in the first place um and I know we have a little bit of language around that in our charting the course slides so I will see what I can pull together there

1:04:52 too the other thing in um just jumping on to that idea too and I don’t see we used to have this in the past but I don’t and I might have missed one in here but there also was we used to have a protocol around um you know we will actively deliberate and discuss but once a vote has taken is taken you know we will all support the decision and the vote that was passed um and that’s the responsibility of a committee regardless of how you voted on how your vote fell um and I’m not sure I see that in does that does that ring a bell with you Alicia I think that’s straight out of charting the course no one no one likes every decision no one gets the end of the budget season and they’re like y we have all the money we need forever we’re great um and that you have to work with what you have and move forward as a group so and it

1:05:38 definitely doesn’t mean that you can’t still look for ways to you know in the future end up with the outcome you would have preferred but it does mean that you do work within the bounds of what the committee has decided while that is still in effect so yes that is that’s straight out of charting the course it also doesn’t mean sorry go ahead Jen no go ahead Aon I was just say it also doesn’t mean that your your opinion changes yes 100% you don’t go from liking cilantro to not liking cilantro just because the committee agreed that you know they like cilantro I don’t like cilantro for the record right it’s like soap but that’s fine absolutely 100% okay um yeah is did you does that exist you said it’s from trying the course but

1:06:24 does that exist as a like as a protocol out there in the world or or um yes in other District sample protocols um and I can resend that sample protocols document to you as well okay that’d be great because we do uh we do so many workshops on protocols that you know we try to collect the good ones that are like yes this is a great idea so um okay that would be great so all right so we’ve got four categories so what do you think for next steps Allison do we sort of go off and maybe take a stab at this ourselves and come back or what do you think Alicia so I would say individually not together individually go ahead and take

1:07:10 a stab at it if you want to have a another committee a subcommittee meeting where the two of you talk about it yeah you can do that with or without me I’m more than happy to attend that subcommittee meeting to help you work on it I can send you some language pulled from and the sample protocols so why don’t we start there is I will send you some sample language I will send you the other sample protocols you guys take a look at it and decide do you want me at the next um subcommittee meeting or do you feel like you can each bring a draft to it where you too can work on it I’m willing to do either way um well we we can maybe sort of just think about that a littleit I mean I would like to have you here I don’t I don’t want to bring you in if we’re not you know ready for that but I think um you know why don’t we well why don’t we schedule it and then we’ll I’ll email

1:07:56 you and and we’ll see if it works and we can we can bring you in and we can at least run it by you I mean it take might take us a couple iterations but maybe the next time to make sure we’re sort of on the right path um and then um it’ll be probably you know another meeting or two or whatever to kind of really Wordsmith and narrow it down exactly how we want to present it to the school committee yep sounds good my goal Allison is to I mean it is a goal right so I’d like to get it you know done in the next you know whatever by the spring right get this done so we vote on it before the end of the school year oh yeah we can totally do that yeah good okay great um so um anything oh so the other last thing um I think we talked about last

1:08:41 time Allison um Alicia was that um we had done school committee had done a full policy review back in 2018 I was part of that we did it with Mike Gilbert it took um 20 months uh or 18 months it was it was a lot it hadn’t been done in about 12 or 13 years I guess so the question is um do we I don’t think we need to do that yet I mean I’ve gone through and I think we’re up to up to I think speed in the most cases of our policies but is there is it worth it to is there like a sort of policy review light or is there you know just to go through and make sure we’re up to date on

1:09:27 everything so if you were to take take it on yourself which if you did it in 2018 with Mike um he was two field directors before me um and phenomenal um if you did it in 2018 with Mike then you have a lot of our base policies already that he recommended to you I would say if you felt like you wanted to do on your own a review of your policy manual then I would step back through the bulletins that we send out that have the lists of policies should be updated um and you could do that on your own you could go through and update each individual section if you wanted to bring us in for the full review um I can drop in on meetings and give you

1:10:12 feedback on things you can send me you know hey is this the most upto-date masc I can do that but if I were going to sit with you that’s that policy thing that Mike did that’s a whole other um contract but you can definitely start because you already did it with Mike in 2018 it’s not that long ago right a lot of the policies should be the same I would say maybe start there start with our bulletins start looking at whether or not you think it’s something you can take on yourselves um all of our stuff is online it’s linked through our our web page our model policy manual and other District’s model policy manuals you guys know that you’ve gone through them before um so start there and see if it’s something you feel like you could take on by yourselves and if not we can talk about what it would look like to do

1:10:59 the whole policy project again okay so okay um the other question I had um Elsa and I curious your opinion so there is a service I guess for lack of a better word from Mas by masc where our policies can be housed if you will on the masc website um there is a cost associated with that um I’m not sure what the percentage is but I’ve gone on to the masc website um just in looking um for various policies um and there’s a lot that are on there and it is very convenient um to be able to find them all when you’re doing you know sort of some research um there are some there are many districts out there that their policies are not um easily accessible I mean I’m not being critical it’s just the reality they’re not easily

1:11:45 accessible on their website and in fact I found some that their website’s not as up toate as AMC site is so I’m just wondering Allison your thoughts on do we want to consider this um maybe going forward or for next school year um it would be a budget item um to have our policies on the MSC website because it also I believe we you automatically update them or no I guess you can’t without a vote but how does that work Alicia so what happens is the the initial putting them up and I can send you the uh draft contract so you can see what the process is and what the cost is the putting them onto um what we call our policy 21 service that is um all of your at that point current policies and then what

1:12:32 happens is once you get into um updating individual policies as you go along you send them to us and we send them off to the site to be updated so we don’t follow whether or not you guys are updating things you have to tell us and then we put them up so okay is all right I think for me with that obviously will be cost dependent but I think the the biggest I don’t like how hours I I think trying to find hours is very difficult and cumbersome and so the the Lynch pin for me would be is it easier to search and find what you’re looking for on the mcos I have to believe it is because ours is not but um yeah i’ be interested in seeing

1:13:19 that um I’ll send you a link just so you can you can take a look at that Allison and yeah if you could send us over the sample contract that would be great um Alicia because I don’t again I don’t know what the cost is but um it and I’m not looking to take on more cost obviously but it I I think it would be helpful for the community for the public for the Press um it’s it’s just so much easier than um than what we what we have been doing um I thought and maybe I’m wrong I thought in the past that it was you there were sort of when you did this that and I guess there is no difference you guys send your updates for policies to school committees so that doesn’t matter their housed it’s up to us to do it you’re not giving any sort of oversight of the policies and the updates so okay all right well something

1:14:06 to think about um so she send that over um I will um Allison take um a a stab and I think that um Lisa Manning can help me with that or help us with that too to go through the bulletins probably going back um well probably going back to 2018 believe it or not um because I know at 2018 we had clean policies uh um but there were a lot of ones during covid that are no or several that were that are no longer applicable so that time frame I think that was kind of Co related um so I can have Lisa do that that might be um you know good use of some of her time and then come back and see and if it looks like listen maybe there’s a handful out there that were missed um I didn’t see any the like I went back about two years and I looks to

1:14:52 me like we’re up to dat but um it’s probably worth a good oversight of that

1:15:01 and then we can come back together yep okay all right um did you have anything else Allison no okay so I’ll put you in touch um with John foset and we you and I will um determine when we can meet again before the 20th perfect for the draft flag policy and Alicia I’ll be in touch with you as well okay because we’ll try to do both we probably be a similar agenda to today

1:15:27 thank you Alicia all right Alison did you have anything else nope that’s it all right I’m going to adjourn us at 12 50 thank you thank you