School Committee: May 21, 2026

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

0:34 2026.

0:37 Sorry.

0:40 Just need to let people know that this meeting is being recorded. We’ll start with the pledge of allegiance.

0:53 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

1:11 Okay, we’re going to start tonight’s meeting with a public hearing on school choice. So I’m looking for a motion to open the public hearing on school choice. So moved. Seconded. All right. Motion’s been made by Kate, seconded by Henry. All in favor? The motion passes three to zero.

1:37 So just going to use… We have a policy for public comment. We use a similar policy for a public hearing, and that’s really just to give everyone who wants to speak an opportunity to do so. So does anyone want to speak up about or have a comment or a question for us around school choice?

1:58 Anyone remotely wants to raise their hand or have a question around school choice?

2:06 Okay.

2:09 So we have a recommendation from the superintendent. I am looking for a motion to approve the recommendation that we do not participate in school choice. Did we want to have John explain the recommendation he told us about? Yeah, that’s a good point. So let’s have some discussion. John, can you just help us on, just- Yeah … give us some background, please. So basically in the state of Massachusetts, unless you vote not to have school choice, you are deemed to be a school choice district. My recommendation at this point would be to not have school choice. There’s discussion as to why or why not school choice. Part of it for me, some of it is when we have students come into the district, there’s a $5,000

2:57 cap that monies that come with them. So there’s always that conversation where per pupil expenditures are a lot higher than that. We’re only getting $5,000 back. That’s not really the whole reason, but that’s part of the reason. And the second part is when students come into us through school choice, a lot of times, it’s been my experience that we have school choice kiddos come in from any district that maybe haven’t been successful in other districts and are just looking for, sometimes it’s a refresh, a restart, but sometimes it’s just trying to move away from something that wasn’t working well for them. And the other thing to consider, generally, again, in my experience, the school committees generally consider the fact that

3:43 if we say, “Yes, we’re going to take school choice students,” we have the right to say what grades and how many, but we do not have the right to ask if they have disciplinary issues, what their needs or anything are. And so there is the inherent risk to say, “Yes, we’re going to bring students in,” which could or could not be something that the committee would want to do. But we don’t have the ability to be discerning about that. And I know that sounds cold and callous, but it’s just the reality of, again, my experience with school committees that I’ve worked with generally want to consider. So I think at this point, I think we have currently this

4:28 situation is we have budgetary constraints already. Having school choice students come in, unless we were to get a whole host of them in, the budgetary implications would be on the positive side, really, and run the risk of adding extra supports or resources that we don’t really have the ability to fund, potentially. So I think at this juncture, I would continue to recommend not being a school choice district with the consideration moving forward every year that we reconsider all the things I just mentioned.

5:04 Are there any questions, remotely or from the audience?

5:12 I’ll make a motion that we accept John’s recommendation to not be a school choice district. I’ll second. Motion’s been made by Kate, seconded by Melissa. All those in favor?

5:27 The motion passes four to zero.

5:31 Now I’m looking for a motion to close the

5:35 public hearing on school choice. So moved. Seconded. All right. Motion’s been made by Kate, seconded by Henry. All those in favor? Okay, that motion passes four to zero.

5:49 We are now back to our regular business meeting. And our next item is commendations. Does anyone have any commendations?

6:03 I mean, I’ll just say, I said it when I was coming in today, the fun run was this morning at Brown School. I just want to thank everyone for their involvement, all the volunteers, Mary. It’s my daughter’s favorite event of the year, and it was amazing. So they raised a ton of money. 28,000? 30,000. 30,000. It was actually. Wow. Yeah. So kudos to everyone.

6:30 Is there anyone remotely? Want any accommodations?

6:38 Okay. All right. I do have a commendation. Jonathan. Jonathan has

6:45 his hand up. Public comment. Okay.

6:53 So although Jen is not here tonight, she has a conflict, this would be her last full school committee meeting before the conclusion of her term. And I just want to take this opportunity to commend her for her service to the Marblehead Public Schools. Jen has served multiple terms on this committee. During her tenure, she served as chair, vice chair, and is an engaged member of numerous subcommittees. Jen has kept academic achievement and student success at the forefront of our work. Jen’s commitment to our schools also predates her time on this committee. She held numerous volunteer roles within our schools before she ever sat at this table. When her term ends next month, it will mark the close of many years of dedicated volunteerism and

7:40 advocacy for the Marblehead Public Schools. So on behalf of the school committee, and the Marblehead Public Schools, we thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want you to go first before I- Mm-hmm … if I go. There’s two commendations I want to make as well. First, I want to commend Will for his year of service to the school committee for the student representative. Fantastic job, and I wanted to recognize that publicly, and this is his last meeting, yes, before graduation? Yes. I want to thank him personally for that, and committee agrees. Well done, Will. Thank you. And just in regard to Jen Shaffner, she was instrumental in bringing me on board here in Marblehead, and she’s been very supportive of me in my role as

8:28 superintendent, and I’ve told her as such at many junctures, and I want to say publicly thank you to her, because, again, she was instrumental in bringing me here to Marblehead, and I love being here in Marblehead. It’s been a great experience, and I want to thank her for her dedication and the years of service, like Alex said. But I think, for me personally, she’s been someone that’s reached out. She’s been supportive. Even though we may not always agree with everything, we’ve always been able to talk things through, and as a superintendent, that’s really important, and so I want to public mention that. So I just want to thank her for her time while I’ve been on the committee as well and again as superintendent. Thank you, Jen. That’s all I have.

9:17 Mm-hmm.

9:20 Jonathan, I’m assuming you raising your hand for public comment, which we’ll go into now. One, two, three.

9:33 Hi, can you hear me? Yep. We can hear you now. Okay. I don’t know if I can get my… How do you get video on, on the webinar? Okay, so . You click on “Add.” Okay. That’s not easy. That’s fine. Can you still hear me? Yeah. We’ve got to make you a panelist. So you should get a prompt, Jonathan, so you can be a panelist. Okay.

10:07 All right. That’s better. Now can you see me? Can you spotlight? Yeah. Can you spotlight his since we don’t have him up. Okay. I can’t see my video, but hopefully you can see me here at Boindale. So I just wanted to take a moment and then drop a comment too. I’m joining you tonight live from Camp Boindale, where our village school sixth graders are in the middle of one of the most memorable experiences of their elementary years. Over the last few days, our students have been building friendships, learning independence, trying new activities, working through challenges, and creating memories that they will carry with them long after sixth grade. We have students who were hesitant to come because they’ve never

10:52 been away from home before, but now they’re thriving. One parent actually shared with me while fighting back tears how grateful they were to see their child gaining confidence, persevering…

11:05 Sorry. Persevering and embracing the experience. We’ve seen students catch their very first fish with pure joy on their faces, and we’ve watched new friendships and connections form from beyond the students within their own classrooms. Later tonight, students from all four teams will take part in sixth grade idol, one of the signature evening activities of the trip. The performances are completely student-led, and it’s incredible to watch the students step outside their comfort zones, support one another, and build confidence in front of their peers. I also want to recognize the tremendous commitment of the staff who make experiences like this possible. Teachers, support staff, and chaperones have stepped away from their own homes and families to spend nearly four days supporting students around

11:54 the clock. This time at Camp Boindale goes far beyond the regular school day, and staff volunteer their time because they care deeply about providing students with a fun, enriching, and memorable experience.I also want to acknowledge the incredible amount of work our school nurses did prior to the trip to help support students and families and ensure that all students could safely participate in this experience. Trips like Camp Borndale are filled with fun, laughter, and unforgettable moments, but they also depend on structure, trust, teamwork, and shared expectations. Those experiences help students grow not only as learners, but as people. Tonight, our students are laughing, cheering each other on, and making memories that they’ll remember for years. This only happens because of dedicated educators and staff who

12:43 consistently go above and beyond for our kids. So right now, I don’t know if I’ve gone over my three minutes or not, but you’re going to start to see- You have about a minute. Three minutes we gave to the other guys … So today is our color wear. I don’t know if you can see real quickly, I’m up above. Oh, hi. But the kids are all in their T-shirts. So the four teams is green, pink, black, and blue. So tonight, we took pictures of all the teams by the cabins by their team color. What they’re getting ready for now is they’re coming down to the beach, and we’re going to mix them up, because after tonight, they become one class. Right. And it’s amazing culmination to the first six

13:28 years of their time in Marblehead Public Schools, and truly an experience that they will never forget. So I just wanted to take a moment to share live from Borndale. And I also want to thank the superintendent who came out yesterday. Our assistant superintendent came out today. Our chair came out today as well. It was awesome to see them down here. I hope they had an amazing experience. First of all, John, Julia caught a bigger fish than you. Oh. Just saying. Okay?

14:02 I need proof. Okay. We’ll get proof.

14:08 She got a giant one. It was like, I don’t know, six feet long. Although one of the kids did catch a catfish today, and Mr. Volpe said that’s unusual to catch a catfish this early in the day. It was first thing this morning, and that’s what is on the leaderboard right now. And so he has a chance to win that rod and reel combo that Tomos donated to the schools. So it’s pretty awesome. Great. All right. So if that- I hate to cut this off, to be quite honest with you. Yeah. No, we’re good. I’m going to go take a picture of the kids, and keep checking our Facebook feed. And tonight, if you get a chance, 7:30 tonight, Idol Live.

14:46 All right. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. You too. He’s going to take home the grand prize. Okay. All right. I think that brings public comment to an end. Did anyone in the room? Is there anybody else in the room for public comment? All right. Thank you. We’ll move on to an update from our student representative, Will. Will you have for us?

15:14 Thank you so much, everyone. I’m really excited to do this one more time before graduation. That was a really cool Borndale update. I didn’t get to go, COVID, but I heard about it growing up from kids on the street, and it does look really fun. So I’m glad they have that experience. Math MCAS was this week for many sophomores, including my sister, who said it went really well. Quarter four progress checks came out this week as well. I mentioned this last quarter. But they’re new this year, and I think a very important step in making sure people are caught up on work and families are aware of their kids’ academic standing. So it’s a good thing. The NHS induction ceremony was last night. Students in the junior class were inducted into the club as members, and the senior members who completed over 40 hours of community service while in the club were celebrated and given their graduation cords. It was a great event.

16:00 A ton of family and friends, so nice. MHS Culture Feast is next Friday, the 29th at the high school from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Students can enjoy food, music, performances, and more. On Monday, we had our final instrumental concert of the year. It was really fun, featuring great performances from the jazz band, concert band, chamber orchestra, and the ensemble orchestra. This also happened to be my final concert playing the trumpet here at MHS, here at Marblehead, and a great send-off for the music program I’ve been a proud member of for nine years. For the first two years, I played percussion down at the village school. Then in sixth grade, I switched to trumpet. At first, that was online, and that presented an entirely new set of challenges. Playing music online was very hard. But then through the middle school and now in the high school, playing the trumpet

16:45 as well as a brief stint on the baritone horn when we needed some extra bass voices for “The Nutcracker.” But the music program has meant so much to me for those many years, and although it’s not the most prominent part of who I am, I’d certainly say it’s been a defining part of my high school experience. So I want to thank you all for supporting the arts here at Marblehead and really allowing me and so many other seniors who are graduating this year to have this great experience now, too. So thank you. Finally, sports. Baseball is eight and 11. Softball is also– or sorry, 11 and eight. Softball is also 11 and eight. The girls tennis is 11 and six. Boys tennis is 17 and two. They’re on fire. Boys lacrosse, 13 and four. Girls lacrosse is nine and nine. Boys track is five and two. Girls track is four and three.

17:31 The track teams both have their NEC conference championships tomorrow, which could go really well, so I’m excited for that. And that’s all I have for you today. Thank you so much. Thanks, Will. I’ve known Will since he was in seventh grade, and I’m so proud of Will and all of our seniors. He mentioned they didn’t get all the same activities and stuff through COVID. We were still dealing with that in seventh grade, and this group of seniors is resilient, brilliant. The National Honor Society event last night was amazing, and just to hear just from the group of students that were there, what they’re pursuing in their next endeavor, I’m just so incredibly proud of Will and all of his classmates, and I’m just so excited for graduation, to see them onto their next chapter. So congrats, Will. I’m so proud of you.

18:19 All right. Thanks. Thanks. Okay. Next, we’ll get an update from our superintendent. Mark. Thank you. Good evening. We have a robust agenda tonight, but I want to take a moment to share some items from across the district. Thanks again, Will. Good luck. Last week, Julie and I were invited to Jim Billings’ class here at the high school and witnessed a modernized scene from “Romeo and Juliet” performed by our students. It was really cool. They did a great job. They introduced the scene. They had to improvise props. They had to work together. It was really neat. So they had several per class perform. It was really neat. I got to go, and that’s across the game, across the bar with me, and Julie came, and it was really neat. It was a great way to bring literature alive and smart things.

19:04 So thank you for doing that and the kids for their great work. On Wednesday the 13th, the old school hosted a whole school assembly. Had an incredible speaker. His name is Thomas Smith. He came to share his story of resilience and passion after having not one, but three spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis. It was really moving. We had that whole school assembly, which I guess is the first time they’ve done that since COVID. And the kids were just engaged and there and present. It was really cool to see. He just shared his story. He had an unfortunate hockey accident that left him paralyzed, and he just never going to walk again. He was back down to IC a year later, had another hockey accident shortly thereafter. He got paralyzed again from the waist down. Was coming back from that. He unfortunately got in a car accident with his dad, got

19:51 paralyzed again. But he’s been so resilient. And his message of instead of being impossible, that I’m possible was great. The kids were like, “It’s really cool.” And he has a foundation. He’s raised almost $4 million for other people who’ve had similar things. He’s walked the Boston Marathon eight times now. He’s getting ready to transverse Antarctica next December. So really cool. It was really cool. I believe that Amy Madden was spearhead of the event, and she was just wonderful, and it was just great. It was great to see, and I was really glad to be able to be invited in for that, to be able to come witness that. So, continuing with the Village theme, and as we heard from John Connelly, Bournedale

20:37 is still happening as we meet now. It’s exciting experiential learning. It’s such a phenomenal opportunity for our students to learn and grow together. Thanks to Jonathan Keller and the whole Village team for ensuring the experience is so powerful for our students. I went down last year. It was, like, 40 degrees and raining the whole time. It was freezing. Yesterday, I went down. It was 90 bar, 80 with a nice breeze. Sunny was nice. It was definitely a good way to get out of the office, but more importantly, see all the kids just engaged, and just it’s really cool experience. So I can’t underscore it enough. If you get a chance to go down at some point, whether it’s for one of your children or anything, any reason, it’s really cool to see. I was glad. I was actually second on the leaderboard of fish when I was down there yesterday. It was at 12 and a half inches with a white perch, but I guess I got beat out today. That’s right.

21:24 Oh, okay. And finally, in Village news, we get a lot of fun in Village. They were the lucky recipients of a barely announced visit by DESE. They came in. They decided to come in, let us know they’re going to observe the MCAS processes and protocols with very little warning, very little notice. So I just want to thank Scott Williams and Jenny Conrad and all the Village teachers who demonstrated how prepared and organized the school is in administering and managing MCAS, but we haven’t received a final report yet, but feedback was very positive. And Scott Williams shared that as the gentleman or he was a gentleman who was leaving, he said basically that we won the lottery because they did such a nice job, and everything was just exactly what they were looking for. So I thought that was really cool. So kudos to the Village ducks.

22:10 Glover School is helping spearhead fundraising efforts from the John Glover Farmhouse. Students doing chores to help raise funds, and they got a walk from Glover Farmhouse as a culmination of these efforts. These are very cool community collaboration. When’s that again? 15th or 16th of June. Yeah. June. Thank you. I was looking for it on my calendar. I couldn’t find. So yeah, June 15 to 16th. So they got a walk down and just kind of as a culmination. So that’s really cool. We talked about the National Honor Society ceremonies last night. I didn’t get a chance to go, but I’m very proud of all the students and the hard work and their commitments. MHS and that’s middle school spring art show reception was on May 14th at Abbott Hall. Hundreds of students and community members came out to show their support. Thanks to Shirley Fuller White and Liam Bordery for

22:56 their efforts in this awesome endeavor. The exhibit will be on display until May 27th. So please swing by and check out the incredible artwork. Julia Ferrara and Veteran School English teacher Brigitte Barnes collaborated to apply for a grant from the Mark Shonwasser Holocaust Educational Foundation. Who’s giving me big words to say? They were awarded a $1,000 grant to pay for a Holocaust survivor to speak to the students at vets and to purchase copies of Anne Frank to include in their classroom libraries. We look forward to welcoming the Holocaust survivor Janet Singer Applefield, who will be speaking with the seventh and eighth grade students next Tuesday. So that’s really cool. The whole bio that was shared is just really incredible. So I’m looking forward to attending that as well. That’s really great to see that live and experience that live.

23:43 We had a Holocaust speaker last year as well, and I think it brings the tragedy and everything of the Holocaust to life in a way that you just can’t get out of teaching it out of a book. So it’s really, really neat.

23:59 Sorry, sorry. This week, the Marblehead Museum concluded years of work on Jeremiah Lee’s Brick Kitchen and Slave Quarters project. Built in the 1760s as part of Jeremiah Lee’s estate, the brick kitchen served as the hub of domestic labor in the Lee household, both hired and enslaved. The building functioned as a kitchen, carriage house, and living quarters for enslaved individuals on the property. Located adjacent to the Jeremiah Lee Mansion, this brick building is one of only three surviving detached slave quarters owned by a museum in all of New England. That’s pretty coolIn 2022, Marblehead Museum director, Lauren McCormick, asked Julia Ferrara to join this incredible endeavor. Over the last four years, Julia has worked closely with Lauren and the team in planning and development of this project. With recent funding being secured from the Mass Humanities grant, there are now nine social studies educators in our district from grades five to eight

24:48 in high school working on developing curricula to be published for all teachers in Massachusetts. It’s all teachers in Massachusetts, not just Marblehead. It’s a collaboration between Marblehead Public Schools and Marblehead Museum, and proud that our team is part of this historical project will be open to the public on June 1st. So thank you to Julia for her efforts and for Ms. McCormick for her efforts. And just incredible that this is going to bear some fruit for everybody in Massachusetts. That’s really cool. Both MASS and MAFC have drafted position papers to DESE regarding the graduation requirements. We’ve had those conversations here. MAFC and MASS have really pushed back a little bit on some of the things that DESE’s trying to

25:30 force us to do I guess, mandate us to do. And I just share this because as things come around, obviously, I’ll update the school committee and the public, but it’s just really things around mandates that come from DESE and folks pushing back to make sure there’s funding for it. That’s really what it boils down to, and I just thought it was appropriate to share since both entities put position papers to the DESE and to the state. And finally, graduation and prom are exciting times and should be cherished for all the happy memories. I just want to encourage all of our seniors to be responsible and stay safe as they finish the last few weeks, as Marblehead students. And also a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend to everyone as well. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Under the consent agenda, I’m looking for a motion to

26:18 approve the following. The identified schedules of bills totaling $1 million… I’m sorry, $1,174. I’m sorry. I’ll start over again. I’m having problems reading my own writing here. The identified schedule of bills totaling $1,174,747, and the meeting minutes from our May 7th 2026 meeting. So moved. Seconded. All right. The motion’s been made by Henry, seconded by Melissa. I had a comment on the minutes. Hmm? Henry Jack Attridge’s name is like the bad penny that keeps coming up. Yeah.

27:04 So the correction of correcting his names has his name wrong in the corrected name. This is from the…

27:14 It is on page

27:20 three.

27:23 Oh. The first bullet point under B.

27:28 Jack Attridge.

27:36 Oh.

27:41 Yeah, sorry about that. Do we want to amend the motion?

27:47 Yes. I’ll make a motion to… Well, probably have to read back. What’s the number on the bills? It’s $1,174,747.

28:05 Okay. So I will make a motion to approve the scheduled bills totaling $1,174,747, as well as the meeting minutes from May 7th with the spelling correction of Jack Attridge. Okay. I’ll second. Thank you. All right, so the motion’s been made by Henry, seconded by Melissa. All those in favor? The motion passes four to zero. Good. We’ll move on to our school community communication and discussion items. We start tonight with the Brown School Improvement Plan. I guess we’re going to walk Mary Maxfield up tonight. We’re going to finish up with our last two school improvement plans, first from Brown, then from Glover. Mary’s going to share what Brown School has

28:53 been lucky to do moving into next school year and alignment with the proposed dip. And if we can get going, Mary. Great. Good evening, everyone. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having us. We have a variety of goals. First, I wanted to say that we made some great improvements in our school improvement plan last year. We felt like we made some great strides. So the items on this year sort of dovetail off those as sort of the next logical steps that we have in our work. So our first goal, we just have three areas. The first one is under curriculum instruction and evaluation. And let’s see. Yeah, we can go right there. So they can’t see that, right? Can you make it a little bigger?

29:40 I can. Or do you guys have this? I have it. Do you have it? Okay, great. I can do it in 90% bold. Nope. Whatever’s easiest for people. I just want to make sure that they can see it. So two goals, broad school-based goals under this area. And one is about students achieving typical or stretch growth in math, reading, and writing as measured by i-Ready and CLASS unit assessments and Massachusetts grade level competencies. And then the second one is to assess preschool curricula assessments and resources in order to aid district-wide preschool program development. So we’re really looking at some consistent preschool programming across both of our schools. So this is the work that we’ll start to do in our school. And if you look under the improvement strategies, it talks

30:27 about doing an inventory of what kinds of materials that we have. What we have noticed is that it not only isn’t necessarily consistent from Brown to Glover, but it may not be consistent across all preschool classes. So we want to make sure that they’re getting, A, a consistent experienceAnd B, that it does everything it can to feed our kindergarten program. So we want to make sure we’re giving our kids every advantage possible. So in the first goal, I’m going to skip back to that one about the typical goal growths, excuse me, typical and stretch growth. That’s terminology that is used under the

31:12 i-Ready. And the way we’ve listed this is i-Ready, mCLASS, unit assessments, and grade-level competencies because they all measure things a little bit differently. And what we find is we want to go for the most rigorous, obviously. And what we have for reading, we have i-Ready for math and reading. And right now it works pretty good for math in terms of helping us decide which kids need more and which kids need more support, and which kid needs more enrichment. But that’s not so for reading. We find that the mCLASS assessment and sitting with a student side by side has a lot of value to it, in addition to our Wit and Wisdom assessments. So we want to make sure that we include all of that and

32:00 also include the mCLASS. So we know that it’s a third-grade assessment, but really it’s an assessment for K to three, like what they have gotten all the way up through there. And we tell our third-grade teachers this all the time, “It’s not a test of you.” It really is for our whole school to look at that data and dig deep and say, “What are the trends that we’re seeing? What are kids getting? Where are they strong? Where can we pat ourselves on the back? And where can we say, we really need to look a little deeper there?” So we’re going to look at all of those assessments as we take the next step. One of the steps that we really need to take is under our math progress monitoring system, particularly for reading. Reading, we’re looking good. We feel like we can really identify when kids need that enrichment piece and when they need that

32:48 piece for extra support. Math is different. In reading, you start with the sound, then the letter, then the word, then the sentence, then the paragraph, and there’s a continuum. Some of you may know, some of you may be better at algebra than you are at geometry. That actually starts in your brain really, really young. So sometimes kids may be really strong in one unit, and the next unit, they’re really struggling. So just because we think that we see a deficit in one area doesn’t necessarily mean they’re strong in all areas of math. So we want to make sure that we are capturing everything that they need with every single unit. So we’re going to dig a little deeper into that area.

33:33 And then I think I mentioned… Oh, and then the writing piece. So also under goal one, we’re looking at our writing development, certainly for consistency base, but also for assessment base. It’s no secret in the state, I think it’s about 24% proficiency of third-grade writing, and we exceed them, but it’s only 34%. I mean, we’re 34% proficient. So, we clearly need to do some more work around that and with some consistency. So Wit and Wisdom has given us some nice rubrics. And we’re going into year four, so we really need to make sure that in our PLC work, people are bringing writing samples. We’re actually looking at student work, comparing, and

34:22 finding out where do they need work, where are they really getting it, what are the competencies that we need to look deeper at. So that’s part of that goal. And then that last one, creating an inventory of the curriculum materials assessments utilized at the preschool. And we’ll work with Lisa Marie to give her that data so that she can form a district-level team to create some consistency across the district. So are there any questions on that area?

34:55 Second area that we have, so known as the blue goal. This is in student support programs. Can I just- Sure. So when I hear district-wide, right? So now we’re not talking about– It shouldn’t be in the school improvement plan, but it should be in the district improvement plan. So I just need a refresher. Is that component in the IP? Yes. It is. Yep. Good. And so at the- This is where we start to chop them down. Yeah, I just want to make sure those align, yeah. If you get back to the top of that one. So in John’s, at the bottom of the district initiative, the last one, it says, “Revisit current tools being used for the preschool curriculum.” So this feeds into his goal, and Lisa Marie will have the same one.

35:41 So absolute great question, and you’re absolutely right. We should be making sure that we’re all working in concert, yeah.

35:52 Under student support programs and services, we have our school-based goals. We have three here. If you look down just a little bit more. There we go. Ensure all students are provided with opportunities to exercise their personal voice, perspectives, opinions, and ideas. Also providing a safe environment. And again, this preschool, or what we’re going to do in this area is look at our transition plan. What do we currently have in place for students moving from preschool to kindergarten? Do a pretty good job with third grade to fourth grade, but how are we helping those kids that go from preschool on that? So page down just a little bit, and we can look at some of the strategies that we’re working on. So providing regular opportunities for kids to share and present their

36:39 backgrounds, their heritage, and connections. One of the things that we want to do is our Wit and Wisdom gives us some opportunities to do that.And we want to look across the curriculum and what areas are we allowing students to exercise their own voice, share their own heritage, share their own background, and who are we missing? What are the components that we’re missing there? So we have our leadership council, we have our Rangers in the lunchroom where kids get to have a leadership role there. We have our morning announcements. So tomorrow we’ll have a Memorial Day assembly, and it will be run by students, not the student council, but other students.

37:22 But where are we missing? Are all kids allowed to share their voice, and how can we identify who’s maybe not able to do that or provided the opportunity to do that, and how can we do that better? So that’s that one. And then the next one, establish school-based safety leadership team. So we do a pretty good job of having our safety protocols in place. We practice our ALICE, our emergency lockdowns. We have a communication team. We have our office team that does a great job during evacuation. But what we don’t have is a school-wide safety team that we should have. And I’ve had that in every other district.

38:07 I was talking to Scott, he said the same thing, that he’s had it in his past districts as well. So we want to make sure that– And it’s typically probably going to be our mental health team where we do review that, but we do need to make sure that we’re carving out time just for this, making sure that we are reviewing those protocols on a regular basis, with the safety team, and they’re bringing them back to their team. So we want to just make sure that we’re doing the best that we can with that. And then the preschool transition activities to kindergarten. So, we want to allow time for preschool teachers to meet with kindergarten teachers. What are you looking for? How are they coming in?

38:53 What is it that we can do better? And then offer times for our preschoolers to play in the big playground, spend some time in a kindergarten classroom. All those things. Go to the art room, go to the music room. Those are all new experiences for them. So we want to make sure that we’re able to provide as much as possible for them. And then the last area is- Erin, before you move on, can I ask a question? Oh, sure. Sorry. What percentage of your kindergarteners come from the Brown preschool versus coming from- About, don’t quote me directly, but about 30%, I would say. That’s my guess. At least 25%. Okay. At least 25. But yeah.

39:38 And that’s 25% in the year, because not all kids go from- Correct … preschool. Like this year, yes. I have four kids, but only some of them are three, some of them are four. So yeah. Okay. That’s what I was concerned about. I thought it would be something- It could be slightly less, but we have a lot of kids coming next year, so I think it’s growing. That was when I was parsing it out and looking ahead, that’s sort of where I was around. Thank you. And then our last one under leadership, governance and communication, under John’s goal, talked about reviewing district-wide technology resources to facilitate instruction, strengthen our teaching processes. We want to make sure that we’re ensuring that technology access and experiences are

40:27 safe, age-appropriate, and enhance the overall experience. So,

40:33 research is coming out hard and fast on this now, and technology’s changing faster than we can keep up. So it’s really important that we create a team and a system for us to make sure that we are properly vetting technology, making sure we know how much time kids are on technology within every grade level and classroom. And create a system so that we can help teachers understand that. If you asked me now, and I was swearing, I don’t know that I could tell you exactly. So I asked my lead teachers, “Tell me about how much time.” And they all were about the same, I said

41:19 per student. They were all between 15 minutes and 30 on a device in terms of i-Ready or their learning materials. So then we ask the next level question, when you do a read aloud, is it on the screen or is it with a story? And so that’s mixed. So we want to ask those questions and really see how much kids are interacting with technology, but also, and it’s not all bad. It’s good, right? There’s a lot of great things there. We just want to make sure that we’re balanced and that we’re doing right by our kids. I talked with Steven, he’s been great about helping me with this goal and helping me sort of parse it out so that we can make sure that we’re doing best practice on them.

42:06 Any questions? No, I’m glad you developed this goal. I hear about it from the parents a lot. Yeah. Although probably not as much as you, but you know. Yeah. I think it’s a really important one because exactly as you said, so much research is coming out about the impacts of the time and just having it as a focal area to just be monitored. Yeah. I think I know about how much is being used, but I have not collected that data, so I can’t say for absolute certainty. It’s hard to have a thought. You just said 15 minutes to 30 minutes, that’s pretty broad stroke, right? And then how much of that 15, 30 minutes is true academics? Right. Would probably be most are at that level. But then as you-Go further along. Some teachers may use more technology than others.

42:53 And it’s like, “Oh, you’re on a screen time all the time,” and that may not necessarily true. And then, as they move up the chain and as AI comes into that. So it is. It’s just ever-evolving, and there’s not a lot of longitudinal studies at that level especially, that says, “What’s the good balance?” Right. So it is, we’re kind of learning as we’re going. Building things as we’re flying, I guess, so to speak. But I love the fact that Mary kind of dug deeper into this goal for her school, especially, for all the reasons she just did, because it is important. It’s important to be able to speak to this intelligently when parents of younger students especially are asked the question. Because there’s this thing, “Oh, we’re just sticking kids on-“ Right. Yeah … “a device.” And that’s not true. I can unequivocally say that’s not true.

43:39 However, to have the data to speak to, it’s this, not this, I mean, it’s great. So yeah. And we need to create the conversation- Yeah … first, and then we can go from there. And I think we’ve got our work cut out for us in terms of collecting the data and looking at the research, and it’s coming out hard and fast now.

44:02 Any other questions? I just want to say, having worked with you a lot in my time at Brown, how much I appreciate the way that data drives your work, and I think the way that you’re using it in these goals. Thank you. I really appreciate it, and I think it’s going to give us a lot. The teachers that work really, really hard when I first came. They’re like, “We’re what?”

44:25 And yeah, data, it can be a dirty word sometimes because we do like the data a lot. Yes. But I will say also big shout-out to my teachers because I’m having evaluation team meetings with them now, and they are coming with data. And their goals are rock solid. And we shot for 85% of our kids to make sure they’re getting at least 80% on this, and here’s what… And they’re clinging to it. So that’s huge for us. They’re doing a great job. Thanks, guys.

45:07 And last but not least, we have Frank Kowalski, former principal, Sharon Hills.

45:18 All yours, Frank. It’s always hard to follow Mary.

45:26 But I do want to thank Mary because this is, as most of you do know, this is my second year. And Mary’s been a great source for me, especially last few weeks, about the improvement plan and my work and the work together. And we do want to, because our teachers teach the same level students, we do want to try to coordinate where our teachers are teaching the same and students get the same information as elementary school students in pre-K to three. But there are differences. We do try to have different schools, even though we try to make sure all the kids feel unified going to village, especially in fourth grade.

46:00 I do want to thank Julia and John for all their support throughout my time at Glover. Because you can’t do it alone. You always need support. It’s nice. I want to thank Sally behind me, who’s always at these meetings. It’s nice to have the support back behind me. And Sally challenges me because I take pride in the fact that I like to be the first adult in my building in the morning. Sally’s a quick number two. So I got to make sure I always get my sleep with Sally into work in the morning because I don’t want her to ever say she beat me. And Diane behind me as well. And Diane was on my SAC committee, and Diane was a big proponent of everything I talked about today, so I appreciate Diane too. That all being said,

46:47 I enjoyed my time with my SAC. We had a lot of parents that offered to volunteer their time with us. I selected a few. It’s great to talk about school improvement, to talk about Glover. It’s hard to imagine that we don’t talk about next year already, about what we’re going to do. But it was fun to kind of look at it. And not that I– I’m a very humble person, but bragging sometimes is hard for me. But I will say, sorry, Mary, that going into the spring, that we were the number one school in Mount Leb with our MCAS results- … and with growth. So I’m hoping that our improvement from last year was successful, and next year will be equal success. So with Glover School,

47:35 we’ll work to enhance classroom instruction through increased enrichment opportunities, increased data collection through assessments and benchmarks. The first goal we talked about was developing a collaborative approach where teachers can work vertically and horizontally, ensuring all students’ needs are met. We really try to have this system where our third-grade teachers can work with second-grade teachers, especially where all students get to know all their teachers. We think it’s important that our secondary teachers can start to build relationships with their teacher in the following year. And we like our teachers to know all the students in the school. That’s important to us. I know as a district, it’s important that all teachers know all the students in the buildings. And at Glover, we really take pride in the fact that no matter what level you’re at, no matter what needs you have, we want all teachers to know all students.

48:21 So we really work on– And by doing this, you want to identify the MCAS, guide writing data, and seek gaps in learning, and develop a roadmap for success. One thing we do a lot of at Glover is we talk to each other. We don’t really like to text and email. We like to go have conversations about students. Because conversations and text messages or emails, the context gets kind of skewed a little bit. So it’s important that we have real conversations about students. So that’s one thing we really want to work on developing even stronger.Goal number two, develop a protocol for staff members to engage in activities and conversations to further build relationships, especially with the Wayfinder. It’s our new curriculum this year, and it has so many great tools, so many great learning tools, so many ice-breaking tools. I know

49:07 John and Julie bring a lot at our admin meetings to talk about how us, as adults, we are adults, but it’s important for us to slow down a little bit to talk about how we can communicate better with each other and work together and just share things we do outside of work, not so much inside of work. So we want to work harder. I’m not a big icebreaker fan, so I’m going to try to get out of my comfort zone next year and work more, develop a free jail with my staff about finding out more about each other. We do this during faculty meetings, staff meetings. We’ll share the learning progress with colleagues, and staff members will carry this all over into the class. Because what we do as adults, the kids can benefit from. And my last goal in this area

49:52 is implement best practice by working with coaches to ensure grade-level performance and high level of proficiency in math and reading. Our coaches are fantastic. Mary, Dr. Renemile, they bring a lot to school and they bring a lot to our classrooms. They bring the data meetings and all the data stuff, and I know Katie mentioned that with Mary. We do a lot of data collection to make sure we know where the gaps are with the children. And when parents ask us how the children are doing, we like to not tell them, we like to show them. And it benefits a lot with… It gives us a lot of authenticity when it comes to information that we share with the parents. And parents want to know. They want to know where their child lies on the pendulum. They want to make sure they’re at grade level of proficiency. Excuse me. Teachers will, and we

50:41 will, work collaboratively to examine the WIN data, the FKS data again, and unit assessments to ensure. We assess a lot at Glover, and I know they do at Brown as well. It’s important to not always assess like this is a test, but assess verbally, talk to the kids, find out if they’re understanding it. Sometimes talking is easier than writing things down. So we like to make sure that the students are actually articulating what they’re actually learning and what they hear from the teacher. My next area

51:15 is professional environment. To increase overall student social emotional wellbeing and developing school-wide accountability around. We brought PBS back in at Glover. We didn’t have it last year, but we had it previously, previous years. It’s been such a tool that our counselors have done an incredible job, and they got great buy-in by our teachers and by our faculty, where students feel

51:40 empowered to be good, be kind citizens. And when they’re good and kind citizens, we all benefit clearly, and they feel good about themselves. And we really take pride in that. When they feel good about themselves, their image improves, their self-worth improves, and they work hard. We build off of that. So, we want to provide opportunities for faculty to celebrate all successes in their classroom and beyond. Our teachers recognize our students daily, and not just because we want to. They need to do something worth recognizing. We don’t believe every kid should get an attaboy, attagirl just because. It has to mean something. And we also have monthly Fridays where we celebrate staff and adults through PBS. We also have a system where our adults are celebrated as well,

52:28 by us children. The children would recognize an adult for doing something cool in the school, and they would give the adult a ticket for being nice. I got a couple. Which I’m still very proud of. So, we model what we do as adults through our children, students of my children, to make sure that we all work together in the school. And my last

52:57 goal that we talked about is leadership communication is student-centered. We develop a plan to have parent volunteers to offer that help for enrichments. We talk a lot with our SAC about tapping into our parent population, because we talk about when students are at grade level or above and they seem bored in class and they want some advancement, we want to find ways to enhance their enrichment in the classroom. Instead of sitting around waiting for a lesson, a new lesson to start, we want to find maybe during the WIN block, during other times during the school day, we can maybe bring in parents that have cool jobs or they have cool experiences that want to come into the school,

53:42 and teach the kids and work with the kids. I know that when our parents come in to read books on the students’ birthdays, the kids light up. They absolutely adore when their parents come into the school. So we want to find ways to bring parents more into the school to see what we’re doing every single day. It’s important that the parents can live the life of their child for a day and see exactly who their friends are and what they like to do and listen to their teacher. So, we want to do that, but we also want to continue to collaborate to ensure we’re offering inclusive practices throughout the school. Very important to us that all students should get the same curriculum. All students should have rights to everything else that anyone else is teaching. And we really work hard at including everyone. And that goes right back to that relationship building that we do in the building,

54:28 where we greet every student at the front door, and we make every student feel important. We want every student to have access to the curriculum, no matter where they are or where they are at the time of day in the school. It’s kind of what Mary was saying about we have students’ voice constantly. We have assemblies all the time. Well, once a month, we have students present in front of their peers. They do the morning announcements every day, to a point where I used to help them. Now I tell them, I give them a piece of paper, I tell them to figure it out.Because we don’t want to do everything for all the kids. We want them to think for themselves. So now it’s kind of cool where they take the list, they coordinate it. You do this, you do this, you do this. I stand back, I take a couple pictures, and they do it all by themselves. And it sounds great. And we do it,

55:15 kindergarten students do it right up to our third graders. So they get all the taste of public speaking in the school as well, too. We really believe in that students should own the school, have a part of the school, and have a voice in the school. We really worked hard the last 18 months to ensure that happens every single day at the school. I know John and Julie, they come up at school a lot, and they see it, and they go to our assemblies, and we take pride in the fact that we get to share the work with everybody.

55:42 Questions? Questions? Suggestions? All right. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. Williams. Yes. Can I ask Sophie to move the survey up so Jeanette can have it so- Sure … set on that. Before we do that, I think we need to vote too. Oh, I’m sorry. We’ll vote. Yeah, we’ll vote on it. Okay. So we’ll start with the Brown School. Looking for a motion to approve the school improvement plan that was presented to us tonight. So moved. Second. All right. Motion’s been made by Kate, seconded by Henry. All those in favor? All right. The motion passes four to zero.

56:28 Uh, similarly, looking for a motion to approve the Glover School improvement plan as it’s presented. So moved. Second. All right. Motion made by Henry, seconded by Melissa. All in favor? All right. The motion passes four to zero. Thank you. And I hope you don’t have a problem with where I’m moving. No. Yeah. That’s fine. No, I appreciate it. I didn’t mean to jump the gun. I just want to make sure we can jump into the next person. So yeah. So I’m going to invite Gina Bartup. So Gina’s going to share the Marblehead High School survey, substance abuse and related risk factors, also known as the SHRP survey. She’s done that for several years now. I would be remiss in not saying that

57:13 this is unfortunately going to be the last time that Gina is sharing this survey with us. We’re sad to report, although happy for Gina, sad for us, that she has chosen to move on from Marblehead. And I think in the conversations with Gina, I’ve only been here a couple of years, but in the time that I’ve gotten to know Gina, she’s top-notch. She does a lot of work. She’s well-respected in the district. She’s been here for how many years, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter because if you’re here a year or 37 years, she’s been phenomenal. And it’s going to be a huge loss for the district. But I think we’ve been very supportive of the move because I’m all about growth and development. I think Gina’s looking for more of a leadership role, and it’s definitely time for

57:59 her to do that and spread her wings. And so I appreciate the time that you’ve spent here, Gina, in our district with all the phenomenal work that you’ve done, not just with this survey. This is just one little drop in the bucket of all the… You do a lot of work here, but one drop in the bucket, what you do for our students and your colleagues and

58:20 receiving district’s lucky to have you here. We’re sad to see you go. So I just thought I’d start with that. I’m crying. Yeah. Now you can start your thing. Well, thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. And the reason I’m ready to move on to a larger role is because of all the support I’ve got from many people throughout the year. But for really central administration, who’s been incredibly supportive and mentored me and believed in me and championed me. So Julia, thank you so much. John, thank you so much. My building administrators, Christina, Michelle, thank you so much. And yeah, I’m sad to go, but I’m ready and I’m happy to share this with you. And I know that this will continue on after I’m gone because we’ve shared all the information and I’m always happy to walk the next person through what they’re going to do. But I know it’s of value to the district, so

59:09 thank you for that. All right, so let’s jump right in. So we call it our Youth Risk Behavior Data because it’s a combination of the MGH school-wide survey, which is substance use and risk related factors. And then we also have a chance to create our own questions, which we meet as the district leadership meets at the start of the year. We have a really great process. We meet, we discuss the data from the previous year. We talk about what do we want to know this year, specific questions to Marblehead, because this is a survey that about 100 schools in the state take. So we really want to make sure our questions are specific to Marblehead. And we’re now in our fifth year collecting data. So we have longitudinal data, which is really nice to see. And I just want to say how important it is that we do this because it’s actually used for things. We use it to inform the need for programming and curriculum.

59:54 I just presented it to the staff last week. Like a health teacher reached out and, “Can you send that to me?” Because it helps inform the need for what they’re doing in their classes. Our tiered interventions, our response to our restorative justice around discipline measures and diversion programs, when we have assemblies, our tiered interventions. So all different types of things. People go back and look at this data, and it’s also important to share with our community so that we can see the trends and needs and then kind of respond appropriately. I think what’s great is that we have so many positive trends to talk about. So yeah, I’m going to start sharing the information. So all of our students take this. They take it in the fall. We had about a 75% response rate, which is great. We always allow parents and guardians to opt out. We give them plenty of time to do so ahead of time.

1:00:41 Students can also opt out in the moment, so it is something that’s optional, but we do it in a structured way. We share the data with students when they take the survey because we really want them to know their community and what their needs and strengths are as well. You’ll hear me kind of show longitudinal data from 2022And we’ll talk about risk and protective factors, things that make our students more vulnerable toward or protected from developing substance use and mental health. And I think the important thing to also talk about is a limit of a study like this or really any major surveys. How do we know the data is valid? Are students are honest on the survey, school about substance use? And I think we have to consider that. And what we want to talk about is we can’t use it to be exact.

1:01:27 We use it as a jumping-off point, a base level, and we use it to compare trends over time. And we can also compare it to state data and national data, and that’s how we use it. And I think if you look at it over time, we have a pretty accurate database. So that’s just something. Do I do this up here? Actually. Okay. Go ahead.

1:01:51 All right. Things to think about. So the survey is anonymous and confidential. They do ask if students need support, and that question is separate. All that we get, the counseling staff gets, is just a student ID number. We usually get about six to 10 students that we then follow up with because that goes great. Other things to note, to minimize breaches of confidentiality, if there were 10 responses or less, they don’t include that in the data report because then those students could be potentially identified. So that’s one way to help to make it confidential. The other thing is we do get comparison data from the other schools that take it. When we write the report, we don’t always include it because one of the things they talk about is comparison schools are not selected to match any known characteristics of MHS, like location, demographic. So it’s not always really comparable. We chose some kind of data points to compare just so that we could see, but

1:02:40 I think it’s important to note, can’t always compare to the state data because the towns that take it are not necessarily similar to Marblehead for different reasons. So just demographics, I think things of note. One of the things we’re going to talk about is historically marginalized identities and students that may be vulnerable, populations for mental health and substance use. And so students that are sexually diverse, gender diverse, students of color. Our population is becoming more diverse. We’ve gone from about 90% white to about 80% white. We do have lots of different cultures, and so we are becoming more diverse.

1:03:20 Just some basic protective and risk factors. A great thing is that most of our students feel positive connections with their peers, which we know is great. Almost 60% feel connected to a staff member at the school. Always something to improve upon, but it’s a good number. A little bit of a risk factor, less than half feeling happy about the support they receive from people in their lives. So that’s something that we want to look at as a whole. Some really great protective factors is that structured activities and extracurriculars that they engage in. So many of our students engaged in music, sports, club, or having a job or work. Less than half of our students report getting the recommended hours of sleep that they should, so that’s something I’ll get. And a new question we asked this year was about risk for problem gambling, about 5.5% of our students. Something to think about.

1:04:08 And then really important, mental health. So you see now four years of data. Red is this past year. Blue is other schools. We did use the other schools to compare. So we have above the risk threshold for anxiety, depression, psychotic features. So the questions we ask, of course, we can’t then diagnose with it, but the questions are aimed at identifying symptoms that could create a diagnostic profile. So you’re clinically at risk for having anxiety, depression. It’s important to note that just because you may not be clinically at risk, a lot of our students have these symptoms, but these are kind of the ones that are more at risk of having a diagnosis. So about 19% for anxiety, 10% for depression, 6% for psychotic features, which what’s good is we’re trending downward.

1:04:51 Suicidal thoughts and behavior, always really important to think about because this is about the safety of our students. Non-suicidal self-injury, thoughts, plan, all either were the same or went down a little bit from the last year, and attempts was about 1%. I think we take that data really seriously because it is about our students, about safety for our students. And I think our response to this, tier one, we learn about suicide prevention and mental health and depression in the health classes, and the speakers come in and the mental health staff collaborate. We also have a really great training system and safety protocol for our counselors in the building to kind of respond to safety issues and assess and refer. It’s something that we’re always going to be looking at as it relates to students. Body image and disordered eating, again, trending a little bit down, which is

1:05:39 positive. About 32% of our students saying that they struggle regularly with a negative body image and about 16% having trouble concentrating or because of preoccupation, thinking about weight or shape. So that’s something to think about. I know they do include some tier one curriculum in the health classes around. So then looking at our populations that we need to be paying attention to that may be more vulnerable toward mental health. Those students that identify as sexually diverse, so 64%, and then we have all different students of color, 58.3% students that are Asian and so on, Asian, Black, African American, Hispanic, Latino, multiracial. And then

1:06:25 freshmen have the highest levels of anxiety. It was always seniors in the past, but this year it shifted a little, and really the numbers are right around the same, but it was the highest. And we can think about that, a freshman coming in, the transition. I know the high school does a great job and the middle school too of working together on that transition and having programming and support for some. And then rates of suicidal thoughts and behavior, our vulnerable populations again, sexually diverse compared to 8. So 44% compared to 8.8% heterosexual. We know this is across the board nationwide. This is data that’s pretty comparable. But then again, our students of color compared to, you see all the data there compared to 9.8% white. So this is where we want to think aboutThese populations, how do we make sure that there’s equity and representation in curriculum, that our staff are

1:07:13 trained in how to have inclusive classrooms, that our staff are trained in how to identify microaggressions? These are all things that we are always incorporating, but we worked more this year to incorporate, and I think moving forward, continuing to do that so that we’re providing the right support for historically marginalized students. A little bit more specifically, students of color answered these questions. And some of them were more related to peers, but others did not include you in their activities, this isn’t your English was for. Always the highest percent question for this is you were called racist names. So that’s something that’s really important for us to think about around our bullying policies and the interventions we’ve put in place around replacement language and perspective-taking and equity building

1:08:01 between all of our counseling staff. Dissuade from joining a visible class, dissuade from joining a club. People acted as if you’re not smart or afraid of you like that. So it’s really important to recognize that our students of color are having these experiences, how can we help respond to that and prevent it?

1:08:20 Experiences of discrimination related to other personal identities. So gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, disability. For some of these, we do also see trends downward, which is great to see. But again, it’s important to know that these things are happening.

1:08:37 And then it’s really important when we have mental health issues going on, who are we talking to to access support? So we do our best in schools to make sure that our mental health department is visible, that they’re promoted in the health classes, that we have a really great open system to refer to our student assistance team if there’s students of concern. And a lot of students are talking to their parents or caregivers, friends or family, some students accessing therapy support outside of school. What we want to think about as a risk factor is when people have a mental health situation, they’re not talking to anyone, which is about 14%. And so what can we do to try to destigmatize mental health, make sure that we use Cartwheel this year so that we can convert directly to a resource for therapy for students.

1:09:23 A lot is in place, but it’s again, just in case. So now we’re going to go into questions about substance use. So we’re going to see some positive trends, and we’re going to see some risk factors. I do think it’s important to note that sometimes that we know that teenagers are using substances. That’s absolutely something that we need to be responding to and working to prevent at all ages. Nationally and statewide data has been trending downward over the last three years for substance use across the board. So, when you look at it, sometimes it’s like, “Really? That’s it?” But I think, again, we think about using this as a jumping-off point. So it could be a little higher just based on a school survey, of course. But we also want to look at that statewide, nationwide, these numbers are trending down. So we have about 32% of lifetime alcohol use,

1:10:11 28% for nicotine, 16% for marijuana. Daily or near-daily use. So that first question is have you ever? Which obviously, in a perfect world, none of our children would ever, but that doesn’t give us a picture of who’s using regularly. So when it’s daily or near-daily, that’s much more of a risk factor. So about 1.5% for alcohol, 1.3% for alcohol, about 4.5% for nicotine.

1:10:40 Age of first use. We always talk about this being a risk factor. All the research shows that the younger you’re trying a substance, that as a psychoactive ingredient, the more likely you’re going to be to get addicted to that or have an addiction or a mental health problem later in life. So we have lots of conversations about what we’re doing at the lower levels to have conversations about substance use, protective and risk factors around mental health, engaging our parents and our community in that conversation. I know we now use the Health Class Village because of this, which is wonderful. But what this chart shows us is that many of our students are using alcohol, nicotine, and cannabis before the age of 15, which is a big risk factor. Gina, can I ask a question? Yeah. Does your data tie age of first use and

1:11:27 daily or near-daily use? Is there a correlation or a connection there? It can. One of the great things about the NGH survey is it will give you this really great report, and then if you ask for something specific, they’ll go in and look at that for you. So that’s not something that we have available to us, but we could look at that. So daily use and age of first– Yeah, that’s a great question. The younger they use, is it more likely that they’re using every day? Yeah, that’s something we can look into. Yeah, thanks. So this is another really important question around impaired driving. So driving after alcohol use, about 2.4% of our students said that they had done that. Driving after marijuana use, about 2.5%. And I think this is where we really– And I actually go into the health classes and they do

1:12:13 a lesson about substance use and mental health, and I share this data with them, and then we talk about safe driving. And I know they do things every year around safe driving because, again, looking at Q, if there’s something going on with that, it’s serious. And then also getting in the car with somebody else. So have you ever been in a car with somebody else who was under the influence? It did go down a little bit from last year, which is great, but it’s still at 9%. So it’s really important in all of our curriculums here at Juan. This is something that we’re talking about a lot with our classes.

1:12:44 Texting while driving. Only students with driver’s licenses respond, about 165 responses. 60% of students reported texting while driving, and what Chief Payne says is that’s more than half, and so we should be concerned about that. 34.5% say only when necessary, and 9.7% never. So that’s, again, there’s lots of conversations about technology, social media, I think that ties into that.Peer perceptions of substance use. So social norm theory tells us the more we think our peers are doing something, the more likely we’re going to do that, do it because we think the risk is low. So what our data tells us is 71.7% of students think their peers are using alcohol at a higher level than the data

1:13:30 indicates. 62% for nicotine, about 50% for them. So I think that tells us something. That’s why we share the data with the students. So we actually have a student-facing data sheet that they created for us this year that we hope to use in the fall.

1:13:46 Another either protective or risk factor is parental attitudes around substance use. So we asked about how would your parent feel if you were using regularly? Many of our students said that there would be a consequence or a reaction, which is positive. We want to be talking to our students about this, kind of have boundaries around it. And then another thing is if a parent or guardian has a substance use issue, or people are concerned about their parent’s substance use, it’s another risk factor. So, about 8%. And so that’s something to think about. When we do substance use programming, we always want to be sensitive to that. There may be students that are living this experience. So we try to always offer support, opt-outs. Also sometimes students are able to share their experience, which is great. So a little bit more about substance use. What’s great is our substance use on school property has declined from 27%

1:14:32 to 10% in the last three years. In the next month, the students that are using that want to quit, you can see the data there. That tells me that they’re getting great education about the negative effects of it and that they’re trying. It’s just really difficult. But we have a diversion program. And then when we think about substances that can be even more addictive or higher risk for overdose, 4.5% of students had tried prescription drugs, which could include opiates, hallucinogens, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, enhanced anabolic steroids, club drugs,

1:15:09 etc. Social media usage. We made this question together last year. Yeah. The three of us, I think. And Dr. Carlson. 91% of our students use social media. If you use the media platform, unsurprisingly, Instagram, Snapchat are the highest used. Positive aspects of social media, they connect to each other. Business and marketing, spreading awareness for good causes, community engagement. About half of our students recognize that there are negative effects of social media, like cyberbullying, peer pressure, phone addiction, privacy concerns and comparison, negative mental health effects. And so I know we brought in different programs over the years, like Project Reboot, around, like a tier one kind of discussion around this. And I think it’s something that’s always positive as technology is improving.

1:15:55 There’s always a discussion on the phone policy as well. We talked to them about that, and we did focus groups and interesting conversation. And so I think it’s important, too. That’s our quantitative data. I think it’s really important that we’re then having conversations with students about this. So when I go into the health classes, I then talk to them and have discussions, and then we also run a focus group. We ran one on April 29th. We had about 20 students participate. And so some of the themes. Alcohol may be viewed as more acceptable than other substances by adults in the community. When we talk about themes, it’s like more than half of the students in the focus group said the same type of thing. They’re aware of a parent discussion going on in the community around safety concerning about substance use. Marlboro may normalize substance use due to local demographics, especially in the winter.

1:16:40 Like location, less to do. What’s really great is to hear all the really smart conversations. Students, I’ve heard this a lot. The students that do engage in using substances, “We look out for each other, and we take each other’s keys away. We make sure there’s a sober driver. We encourage people that might look like they might be having a problem to get help.” Like, really great conversations around risk to kind of support each other. What we really try to pay attention to also, because it’s hard to engage in a school setting with students around substance use. It’s really hard to get them to buy in. And so what we’ve learned over the last few years is we’ve done some big assemblies, and those can sometimes have an impact, but students really appreciate having people with lived experiences come and speak to them in

1:17:28 small settings where they’re more comfortable to kind of share. And so we do that a lot in health classes. And then they like to say, “Don’t pull me out of my magic box because I might do it.” So having it built into their regular curriculum. So we’ve really tried to integrate that in the last couple years.

1:17:46 Okay, we can go on.

1:17:49 I won’t go over all this, but I added this. I think there’s three slides now. Because we try to then think about, all right, there’s so much good stuff happening. What are we doing for SEL? And these are just, most of the stuff is run by teachers, like in their everyday clubs, classes. So I just want to give all these people credit for all the things that they’re doing. I send out an email. Tell me what you’re doing. Every year, I get more and more back. So, what’s going on in their curriculums, clubs, some of the things we talked about for inclusivity is all happening. Our health teachers, Carlos Echeto, Kayla Kelly, Penny Holland, do an amazing job based on the data, putting all of this into their TEKS, so that all students are getting this 9 through 10, grade 11. So I won’t read it all, but you can see there all the important topics

1:18:36 they’re covering.

1:18:39 I always talk to vets about what they’re doing, and here’s kind of a list about their response to substance use and mental health. Oh, and then Village School, right? We have that information, so I think we put in that information. So yeah. So, in both the vets and the high school do S-ERT, which is a state-mandated substance use screening for 9th and 7th grade. And we look together at the data. And then just a couple notes about new support programming. So we have staff PD and training for MAG, trauma-informed care, commercial sexual exploitation of children, multicultural populations. So this is for all of our staff so that we then, in the building, know how to respond and role model for students. Partnerships like Mass Hall, the Board of Health.Groups and initiatives like the Anti-Discrimination Committee, MAGIC Coalition, Health and

1:19:26 Wellness Committee. Resources that we use like the CSA Cartwheel. We just signed the backlight with Cathy and Chris Sullivan for substance use. And we have really great funding resources like the beta-funded BA’s office and BCL.

1:19:41 Then this is Julia’s side. Obviously, love working with Gina, and it’s been amazing. And just this partnership over the last years has just been really great to think about the work that she’s doing here and how that can positively impact our students K-12. So we mentioned a little bit about how we use the data. When we previously came before as the school committee for funding for health educator at Village School, and that’s been going really well. And we’ve piloted a really strong curriculum there, and we’ll report on that soon. But within just Marblehead Public Schools, as a district, we have the multi-tiered systems of support framework. A component of that beyond the academics is the social, emotional learning, and the behavior. So we’re looking to work together based off of the data that we’re seeing at the high school and think about how we can support

1:20:28 our students to where they feel safe, supported, they feel that sense of belonging in school. We are now in year two of our Wayfinder curriculum, which was mentioned previously by our principals, and our teachers in K-12 are integrating lessons to support students’ sense of belonging and their skills. We are also continuously working to support our educators. Gina and others led amazing professional development this year, specifically on March 13th. Can I grab the nameplate? Yeah. I’m at the band banquet right now downstairs in the caf, but- They don’t believe you. Can grab this. Take it. But thank you so much. Autograph it later. What about that last night? Making the biggest play. That’s awesome, Will.

1:21:14 Great. Yeah. Glad you came back.

1:21:18 Love that. Yeah. It’s awesome. So Gina, your session was fantastic this year. And we have brought in a couple new guest speaking opportunities, but we did it, as Gina mentioned, in small groups or small settings. So we’re learning things and implementing that, because we really just want really healthy, supported students in the district. And thank you for your work. Thank you. I’m in a hall room for Wayfinder, and it’s really nice to see the kids engaged. All right. So lastly, what do we do with this information? And we kind of already talked through as we went, but paying attention to the early use issue, so having evidence-based prevention programming at all levels. Thinking about local specifics, what makes Marblehead

1:22:05 unique to some of the risk and protective factors. Harm reduction around substance use. So students really respond well to having open conversations and the idea of reducing harm as opposed to expecting nobody to ever use or using scare tactics and having that educational conversation about how it affects the brain. Social, emotional learning and mental health support, like Julia just spoke about. LGBTQI and racial and social justice programming, which we spoke about throughout, and that relates to the representation in curriculum and staff PD. Body image and eating disorders. And one of the things I always talk about is parent and community programming. We really need to partner with our parents and communities because the school does an amazing job, and so does our community and parents, but

1:22:52 it can’t be all on the school, it can’t be all on the parents. We have to work together to send the same messaging, so that three-pronged approach can best support our students. The social media and cell phone usage, and then the schoolwide surveys and annual tools are also really important things to be collecting data. Good.

1:23:14 Any questions? I have a question. Yeah. Yeah. In your opinion, what do you attribute the downward trends in almost all of these metrics to? Yeah, I think that’s a really good question. I think there is almost like a generational response to substance use right now. I don’t have the exact data on it, but like tweaking, evasion, other things, not being as interested in it. And I think all of that has to do with the education and the awareness around substance use and addiction being a mental health issue, and more conversations around that. In my opinion, that’s one thing. In terms of the downward trend in mental health, I think that’s really interesting

1:24:00 because as a social worker in the school, my day is very busy and our department is very busy, and we talk about that. Is there really a decline? And I think it’s hard to know. That’s why you talk about how accurate is the data. I think we use it as best we can. I think people are accessing mental health supports more and getting and learning coping skills more. That’s one thing that I think definitely. There’s also far more mental health supports available. And again, it’s the destigmatization around that conversation. It’s okay to access support. That’s my opinion without having concrete knowledge of the decline. I think it’s positive, but I think it’s important because I don’t want to assume it’s getting better, but I think we need to learn more about the trends,

1:24:47 and I think we need to keep the supports we have in place because we don’t want to remove anything because I think what we’re doing is working. But I looked at that too, and was like, “Huh.”

1:25:00 But

1:25:03 I think a lot of kids are… What we try to teach them, at least based on the mental health department in high school I know, how do we build skills and then get back to class? How do we build resilience to skills so we’re accessing? So I do think there’s a little bit more of a shift, too, in that. We want to provide support, but it should be really specific and focused to coping skills and stuff like that.So those are just my thoughts. Appreciate the thoughts. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And if I may add to that too, a lot of these conversations that we’ve been having, it’s kind of talked about the later grades, but now we’re starting to shift towards, “Hey, we really need to focus on the younger grades.” And I think we’ll see the data bear out a little bit differently over the next several years now that we’re kind of really integrating this stuff into village school and to vets and I’m hoping, I think

1:25:52 it’ll bear out that way going forward. Actually, and I think because of the response, putting in SEL supports far earlier is hopefully showing us outcomes now over the last few years that the more we kind of put these preventative supports in place around functioning and social-emotional learning, we then see… That would be my hope is part of the reason, right? Which I know we’ve been working on, so yeah, that preventative work.

1:26:25 I had a question as well. I appreciate all the work that goes into this, I mean, this is a tremendous volume of data. And so as you’ve sifted through it and looked at it, what would you say is a bright spot for you, and what would be something that you saw in the data that you’d be concerned about? Yeah, I think it’s the qualitative data, and that when you sit down and have the conversations with students, and they want to come and talk to you, and they want to tell you about all the positive things that are happening, and they speak really eloquently and maturely about really complicated, complex situations. And to see when they sit in a group together, the way they kind of support each other and respect one another. So I think it just in terms of process, and I think that’s a

1:27:13 really good way to know, because again, you’re like, “How many kids are taking it?” Or, “Are they being honest?” It’s a really good way in the room to know that you’re getting that good data. So, and I think also, like I just said, every year I’m adding a slide of all the things that we’re doing for SEL, and so that’s really neat. And people wanting to like, “Does this count?” And I’m like, “Yeah, we’re putting it in the slides.” So I would say that was the bright spot for me.

1:27:39 Yeah, glad to hear about that. The programming’s starting earlier. If you were to ask me what was contributing to sort of nationwide trends of reduced substance abuse, I would say we’ve got better at addressing it earlier on. Yes. And so there’s more reinforcement for the kids who are growing up now, so I’m glad we’re continuing to do that. The collaboration with the community is also huge too. Ian touched on it quite a bit, a lot of collaboration we’ve had with, it’s not just the schools, and that’s helpful. So for instance, I just had a conversation with Tom Sauer from the Board of Health, and he’s very interested in when this committee goes to five members to start doing subcommittee meetings like the school committee does,

1:28:24 because he’s seen the good work that’s been done there. And we had a conversation just the other day about if they create a subcommittee, can we include staff from the school on that and really be planned for? And I know as a Moral Head and Mental Health Task Force, this would be even more focused than that. And so we had that conversation already. So I think that kind of stuff is cool because people are willing to have the conversation- Yeah … willing to not just have the conversation, but put it into action. And it’s because of these kind of conversations, these data-driven decisions that we’re going to make here, that other people are seeing the good that’s coming out of it and wanting to actually be a part of it. So I think all of it’s positive. Kind of all positive. One more bright spot is when people ask me for the data, and more and more over the years, these students will ask for their groups

1:29:10 and when I had more and more people asking me for it for different reasons, and that makes me happy because it’s a base and useful. I think the stigma too, you talked about destigmatization. I don’t mean jumping in, but this is- Yeah, please … interesting to me. I think destigmatizing even the substance abuse and mental health, like seeking help for that is really cool too. Because I remember one of the first conversations when I had come on, it was almost like, “Oh my God, this is showing us bad stuff and we don’t want to see it.” See. Mm-hmm. And I think that that’s not the approach we need to take. I’m glad we’ve kind of shifted from that. Yes. And very quickly, I might add, and I think it’s a good thing, and I think that destigming, that word, around mental health is really important. You’ve done a great job, and so have your colleagues in the counseling arena, really helping with that.

1:29:58 I just support what’s happening. Anything else? No, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

1:30:09 I’m going to give that to Molly. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, our next item is a revision to our school calendar. Yes. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you. So we had vote on the school calendar, and then like anything else, we get small feedback. We’re on our PD days, and we had this, Juliet shared on the district wide PD day. And there’s really some eager folks to say, “Hey, can we replicate that, the PD day, the way we did it this year, next year?” And so the recommendation would be to move the agreed-upon PD day from March 29th backwards to March 19th, which is a Friday, March 19th. So that’s the only change we’d be looking to do,

1:30:54 and that’s based solely on our educators asking for us to do that because it worked out really well for them last NPS. If I could add, so when we presented the calendar to the school committee, the PD day happened after that timeframe. And they noted two important things

1:31:14 that we just didn’t think of. They’d actually really appreciated the Friday because then it sent them into the weekend on such a high note, and they could reflect on, and they didn’t have to go do a million things and then back in the classroom the next morning. They could really reflect on their learning. And also that weekend is, for some, a holiday weekend, and they were concerned that-Because we have amazing teachers that they wanted to have all the time to prep and be ready. And with the holiday for some of them, they just thought that moving it to the Friday would be a better fit to the 29th. And so we’re just asking for the school committee to please consider that again. As the superintendent said, it’s purely teachers coming to us, so the PD committee asked me to do that. I’ll make a motion to approve the revised school calendar. I’ll second.

1:32:00 All right. Motion’s been made by Henry, seconded by Melissa. Any further discussion? All those in favor? All right, the motion passes four to zero. Motion appreciated.

1:32:13 Our next item is an override proclamation that Henry has on the agenda. Yes. So I

1:32:21 was wondering what we could do to show support for the override for the additional funding in school. There’s obviously a long list of things we can’t do with the additional capacity, but issuing a proclamation in support of an override is something we could legally do. It’s also something that a lot of other school districts have done. And I think I see this as an extension of the vote that we already made to pass the override onto the ballot. I think if we didn’t believe in it, we wouldn’t have pushed them to the ballot. But,

1:33:00 for me, I think it’s really important for this school community to say that as a community, we support it. And I’ll read the proclamation, so that we should vote, but the gist of it is that we support the funding at the highest tier, at Tier 3 8.5 for the schools. That is really what the schools deserve and what we should be asking the town for. So I’ll read it. It’s in the Drive, but this is a proclamation of the Marblehead School Committee regarding the FY27 to FY29 override. Whereas the Marblehead Public Schools have successfully closed a $3.7 million gap for

1:33:46 FY27 through the elimination of 18.25- You just went monologuing Yes, 18.2… This is the problem. 18.25 FTE positions and the one-time prepayment of 1.5 million in special education out of district tuition. And whereas the one-time options utilized in FY27 cannot be repeated in FY28, creating a structural requirement for new revenue to fund educational expenses. And whereas the Tier 1 of the proposed override, 6.2 million school side, provides the funding necessary to maintain existing staff and programs and fund special education obligations through FY29. And whereas Tier 2,

1:34:33 7.2 million school side, builds upon Tier 1 by funding full-day kindergarten and establishing a sustainable life cycle for student classroom technology. And whereas Tier 3, 8.5 million school side, provides the most comprehensive fiscal solution by establishing a recurring school building capital fund and an in-district 18 to 22 special education program to manage long-term costs. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Marblehead School Committee officially supports the adoption of Tier 3 as the designated funding level to ensure the fiscal and operational stability of the school district through 2030.

1:35:16 Any questions about what I’ve proposed? No, I appreciate you doing this. I think it’s, as you said, we already voted on it. And I think it’s

1:35:29 something that’s important that we as a committee… Yeah. Thank you for doing this. Yeah. Well, it’s a committee- Hmm … so, yeah. I agree with what Melissa said. I think this is really straightforward. Essentially a recitation of the facts of our financial situation. Yeah. And I think that it’s all we can do, but it’s worth doing. Yeah, I agree. I’d rather risk over-communicating this than the opposite. Yeah. So, good. I have no problem supporting this. I’ll make a motion to approve the proclamation. I’ll second. All right. Motion’s been made by Kate, seconded by Melissa.

1:36:16 Any further discussion? All right, all those in favor? Motion passes four to zero.

1:36:25 Thank you, Henry. Yeah. Thanks. Look, we have taken that initiative.

1:36:31 What do I do with it now? Might be worth posting it on the website. Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow if I’m posted.

1:36:44 I’ll send it to you if you haven’t read it. Not until tomorrow. I think typically the proclamations are typically signed. Yeah, in general. So if we could just, yeah, have whatever the template we’ve used in the past, if we could just have that. Oh, I’d… We can look and see. With an artist’s impression. I’ll do some research. Oh, yeah. Got it. Or we can just put… I’m just thinking of how we’ve done proclamations in the past. Well, I can just put the logo or the school committee letterhead or something to be added and sign that.

1:37:18 Okay. The next item is district improvement plan. Superintendent. Thank you. Lundberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this has been a process, and I appreciate everyone being part of the process and giving me feedback. Everybody from staff to administrators to parents, the school committee. So I just want to start with-Just kind of framing this, and then I’ll go through the changes that I’ve made based on some of the most recent feedback. So, district improvement plan is kind of a framework. It’s outlined. Um, and it’s not really intended to necessarily identify granular level items. It’s more kind of overarching what we do because, as you saw from the SIPs, yeah, that’s where we

1:38:05 start getting a little more granular. The day-to-day work that we do is where that granular level work does. So I know there was some feedback saying, “Oh, we should add some of this and some more of this,” and where I appreciate that, it’s like sometimes when you get too many pieces of smaller detail, it starts getting lost in the sauce. So I just want to frame that a little bit. So if you didn’t see every single thing that was kind of, um, asked to be put in there, that’s part of the reason why. The point’s not lost on me around this plan was kind of driven by, I walked in the district, and one of the first things I saw, but in my first several months, I noticed that the plan for success was getting ready to expire. So I said, “We’ve got to jump on this pretty quickly.” This is the several iteration of the school police since I’ve been here,

1:38:53 so we didn’t really have the opportunity, so to speak, to have a planful discussion about what should the district improvement plan look like? What is the input from the school committee to the development? I kind of just jumped right in. And in reflection and in having conversations and reflecting, maybe it could’ve been done the opposite way than it was done. So, with that being said, I recognize that, and I understand that, I kind of did it from based on what I saw in the plan for success. Took the pieces that made sense, added pieces that I thought we needed to add in based upon my own thoughts, knowing the little I did know about the district coming in, and what I saw as some areas of growth that we needed, and then started to gather input.

1:39:39 So this has kind of been reiterated several times now, and I thought it important to kind of frame that part of the discussion, recognizing that, in a perfect world, it probably would’ve been driven from the school committee perspective to the superintendent. It was kind of done the opposite, and it just was done out of a necessity more than a planfulness. So what I want to mention about that is that, I mentioned that this is a fluid plan. I’m not someone that’s got to do a plan, stick it on a shelf, and pull it back out in three years and say, “Oh, we got to do it again.” This will be fluid. This is conversations with, obviously, our school leaders, with parents, with the school committee. And I think that I foresee that as we go through year one and into year two and into year three,

1:40:26 um, we’re going to see things that will evolve. School committee’s priorities will change. My priorities will change. Our school administrators’ priorities will change. The parents. Things will change, and then we’ll evolve, and we don’t need to wait till year 2029 to start. I think we make those changes as we go when they make sense. Um, and that’s not to say that, I mean, that’s not the same as redoing the dip every single year, because that would be crazy. But like just, where are we with this goal area and these objectives? Are we meeting the benchmarks, and are we way off the mark? And so I mentioned, I think the last or one of the last meetings, that my intent is to kind of come back to the committee and say, “Here’s where we are in some of these goal areas. Here’s where we are in some of the– Here’s where we’re excelling. Here’s where we’re falling short.” And that’s going to help

1:41:13 kind of drive the discussion. When the school committee meets to do your, um… I think welcome summer to- Retreat. The retreat. Okay. The retreat in the summer, yeah, that’s probably a good place to start having a discussion about, A, what might need to look different? How might we help Don to develop this in a way that’s, um, is really meaningful in a way that aligns with this committee’s priorities. Um, and you only bump into, it’s five members of the committee now. It’s election come up, it’s going to change, and then it could change again. So every year you may have a change in the committee, so that’s just part of what we deal with.

1:41:58 Doing this a long time, this happens every time. Um, and it’s just part of what we need to do. So I think that’s really important to me to kind of explain that, um, I recognize that. I think it’s an area that we’ll continue to work on. And I think, um, having the progress kind of is where I have a lot more, uh, lot of those discussions in their ongoing way, rather than waiting to the end of the first year and saying, “Oh, what did I do well? What didn’t we do well?” That’s hopefully the school committee will agree with that. Um, some of the changes that I made from the last iteration was, uh, I added the cover letter, and there was some conversations about maybe there needs to be a little more of an explanation as to why or what the dip actually is. And again, my shortcoming, I’ve been doing this for a long time, so I always think like, “Oh,

1:42:44 everybody understand what it is.” So, um, that was very good input. I kind of outlined that on the front cover sheet. Just kind of DESE guides this. The goals are based upon what they, you know, the six overarching goal areas that are outlined by DESE. The core value areas are stuff that we identify, and then we kind of, um, start to build up plan from there. So I added that. Um, there was some feedback around the, uh, on the left-hand column, the improvement strategies, to number them, which actually is pretty astute observation. Um, I should’ve done that to begin with. But so, like, for instance, it set a goal one, the core value areas that are addressed in that goal. So you might want a feedback that, like, there’s not the same amount of core value in each goal area, and that’s purposeful because not necessarily every single goal area is identi- uh, you know, addressed

1:43:30 in every single-Overarching goal. But anyway, goal one, the curriculum instruction evaluation. The goal focus areas are listed there. Then you have objective A, and then what we do is objective A, one, two, three, four, five, six, and so on down the left-hand column. Then obviously person’s responsible, resources needed. Then the other input then I had was that other column said assessment evidence kind of seemed to be a sticking point for folks. So I kind of aligned that to the SIPs a little bit around, it’s more of a data point than necessarily evidence or assessment. Some of it could be evidence, some of it could be assessments, but it could be other things that are more considered data points. So I changed that and I think it fits more aptly into the overarching document. And then the other feedback that I got from several folks was adding in some sort of

1:44:19 timeline or an intended timeline in there. And the way we thought to do that was, if you look at that right-hand column, year one, we’re looking to work on these items. And then it’ll may say, year one and two, may say year one through three. So there’s always going to be ongoing phase. It’s going to carry as well. There’s going to be things that we’re going to focus on first. And just because it’s goal one, objective one, doesn’t mean that’s the most important. That’s just listed as goals. So hopefully that timeline will help. So when we get into next year, obviously focus on the ones that just say year one. Those would be the progress area focus that I think we’ll plan on identifying. So I thought that was some good feedback we got. And then there was some specific stuff. We added some language around the specialized programming a little bit.

1:45:06 We added some more ELL language in there. We added a little bit of MCAS stuff, but I didn’t get too deep in the data stuff because that’s really kind of born from the conversations that the principals have with the community and share that. We added in some of the areas where the teaching and learning was kind of maybe not absent, but needed to be focused on a little bit more, like who’s responsible for that teaching and learning, a department, things like that. So, tweaked a lot of that. I was really thankful for Julia in this last iteration, along with the school committee feedback. Her teaching and her coaches for teaching and learning department really kind of went through together, even though they had the opportunity as an administrator, as staff, some of them as parents, to give their feedback. They sat together and really-

1:45:53 It was great … it was great. So it was good. It was good, solid feedback that was like, “Oh, yeah.” And not that we hadn’t had the conversations, it was just a different view and a different input, and I love that, and that was great. And you joined us. I did. You were amazing to join us and have conversations. And we had a couple questions about things, and you- Yeah … outlined a great vision for us, so we really appreciated that. Yeah, and again, I thank Julia. And I think reflecting, right? It’s always good to reflect. I try to model that for our administrators, is when we reflect on what we’re doing, like how could we have done it better, how could we have started maybe in a different way, like I mentioned earlier. How could I have maybe got some affinity groups together differently? We met as admin teams and they, “Yeah, this is whatever.” But of course, it’s the

1:46:41 beginning of the school year. They’re trying to get their buildings on. I know. Come on. Whatever. So we have to kind of have those ongoing conversations. But I think it’s good. I would’ve liked to have maybe some, again, I’ll reflect on this, is how do I get staff to give me a little bit more pointed and ongoing feedback? I think sometimes when you create things in a survey kind of thing, people get nervous because this survey wasn’t intended to be anonymous, but folks get nervous. They’re like, “I don’t want to share my thoughts. I’m going to get in trouble.” Whatever. That’s a culture thing I have to change because realistically, input is important. And to give the input so I can put it in a plan and address it, is what I’m supposed to be doing as a superintendent. If I’m not getting the input, I can’t. I don’t know what the areas are.

1:47:27 So, I’ll look to kind of evolve that a little bit more. And so ongoing groups. But again, I know I didn’t address every single point that folks made, but I hope I captured somewhat more of what we’re looking for as a team. And be more than willing to have further conversations and ensure that whatever needs to be in this plan from all perspectives is in it. That’s what I have. John, I think this is a small thing, but on page two, you specifically address the core value areas that are encompassed in the plan. Yeah. And there’s six items listed, right? And all the goals aren’t going to address all six, and you

1:48:12 detailed which. But you go down to page 10, I think it’s goal four.

1:48:21 There’s seven core value areas listed. So I don’t know if the solution is just adding one more core value at the top.

1:48:31 I don’t think there’s any… Is there any doubled up? No, the nurturing, safe educational environment was added into that. I think that was added in as feedback from one of the groups and- So therefore maybe sending it back up to the top so we have seven core value areas- Yeah. For sure … is fine. I want to say that probably came from the admin group when they had some editing rights in the middle. Which is fine, and I appreciate you pointing that out. I saw the feedback and it was like… No. Okay, great. Yeah, me. Got it. You got it? Mm-hmm. Yep. Appreciate that. Yeah, there’s a lot of bullet points here, so I appreciate-

1:49:17 Thanks for sharing all of it … all of it. Yeah. And it’s hard to look at all. It’s hard to, in the way it’s formatted, to scroll down. Yeah, it’s great.

1:49:27 I appreciated your comments at this opening because I know that these are important responses and feedback that I’ve given and- I think that this is a great plan, and I’m really behind the goals and objectives that are articulated here. I’m struggling with the fact that I don’t see sort of the overarching message of, “This is where we are trying to go, and this is taking us. Where is this taking us?” But I see that as really the school committee’s role to say, “This is where we want to go, and then you tell us how we are going to get there.” And I don’t think it makes sense at this juncture to sort of impose that higher level plan

1:50:13 on top of this. But I think that now there’s an opportunity for the committee to sort of deeply engage in using this to shape our own goals for next year. Working with you on where our progress is, and then using that to drive the creation of the next plan, and to have that start from whoever is sitting at this table at that time saying, “This is where we want to see the Marbleheads go in the next three years. Tell us how, what we need to do to get there.” And I wholeheartedly appreciate it. I think that’s great, and that’s kind of what I was alluding to at the beginning, that this was kind of driven by, you know, “Hey, what do I think we need to do in Marblehead?” And now, I’ve been here two years now, so

1:51:00 I have a much better or much clearer thought about some of the things we need to… Julie and I have had this conversation, like we’re starting our third year together, which is crazy on one hand, on the other hand, I’m like, “Wow.” But I feel like I have my feet a little bit more firmly on the ground after the first two years and starting to develop closer bonds and relationships with staff. It’s helpful because now people are seeking me out more and having conversations that they’ve been nervous to have, and I think that new vacuum’s in. So all that matters, and I think part of what you were saying, Kate, also with the dip and the sips and all the conversations really drive. I try to lead from the middle. I don’t lead from the top down. I try to lead from the middle. And part of me leading from the middle is establishing evaluation goals for administrators for this year.

1:51:48 And that shared goal helps to create culture, it helps to create alignment, it helps create consistency. We’re not there yet, by any stretch of the imagination, but we’re getting there. That takes a little while. But this is some of the work that has to happen to be able to create goals and make sense. Like I came in like, “I think we should start here,” and that’s what I did. I, quite frankly, I said, “I think this is where we need to start.” So this, it’s all great. It’s all good stuff.

1:52:15 I think it’s an interesting perspective. Now, when I think about strategic planning, usually you kind of identify what the end point is, and then this is more how you get there. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe we can… I have no problem with the school committee stepping up and doing some of that. And maybe we can tie together if some of what the end points are a little bit more identified, that might be providing some of the why we’re doing this and where we’re trying to get. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think some of it is baked in here- Yeah … and it’s just sort of about pulling it out and I have a whole separate thought for another time about, I somehow ended up on an email list for my high school, and so I received their strategic plan in this sort of beautiful produced

1:53:00 electronic format, and I think that that’s something that the school committee could help distill this into. It’s not going to be what that was. Yeah. But communicate out to the community so people understand what the plan is for the next three years, what we’re working on and why. But that’s a conversation for another- Yeah. I think there’s value in making it a little shinier, for sure. And I think there’s also, I also don’t want to hide things in shininess- Yeah … because I’ve seen that happen, like firsthand. I’m like, “This looks beautiful, and it’s a strategic plan.” And you read, there’s no substance whatsoever. No substance. So I hear you, but I’m like, I’m almost going like, “Here’s the substance.” Okay. Now- Yeah … the learning folks have already offered to… They were showing me all sorts of links in this and that, and I was like, “Wow.”

1:53:46 But then, we have some really good folks in the district that do that all the time, helping them get access, too. So I think the partnership and the collaboration will be, I think it’s awesome. Yeah. I like the idea of having this as a tool when people come to us with questions. Have you ever thought of it? Like this happened to me today, the fun people would come up to me, “So what’s it about?” The technology in schools, and what I should have been able to do and what I should have done was pull this up and say, “Well, this is actually one of our district goals, and here’s the timeline for it. Here are some of the data points that we’re using to measure it.” So I think getting people accustomed to using this document in that way

1:54:34 would really help it. Yeah. Yeah. And people will use that as a gotcha. I’ve seen that. Oh. I don’t love that. But sometimes it’s accountability is accountability, right? So I mean, again, I try to model that for our administrators, too. Like, you have to be accountable to your own actions. You have to be accountable. You can make mistakes. And so a public document like this, 100%, people are going to be like, “Well, you said you were going to do this, and you didn’t do this.” And that’s going to happen, and I get that. And because that one thing might be very important to a handful of people, and if they’re not seeing progress on it, we’re going to get called out on it. And that’s why we’ve been playing field rush. It’s never kind of a live document. Some of these might go away.

1:55:20 We might decide, hey, time has gone. Yep. 16 months has gone by, and now this particular goal doesn’t make as much sense as it did then, and so we’re going to remove it. Versus always keeping it on there to say, “Why didn’t you do this?” Exactly. I think if you’re- Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. I didn’t mean to cut. If you’re accomplishing everything, then your goals probably aren’t- Enough information. Yeah. You shouldn’t be able to. Yeah. It should be a balance, and that’s kind of what I was going to say. Like even when we do our teacher evaluation goals and our administrator evaluation goals. So I’m sitting down with someone at the end of the year, and they’re like, “Oh, yeah. No, I finished that in September.” Okay, you should back up. Or same balance, say, “I’m like close to finishing this.” Then you shut the device. So it’s the balance, and that’s really part of the challenge that we’re going to be talking about this, because you’re never going to hit it right on. But you also don’t want everything to just simply go, because some of it can be in.

1:56:07 But the other thing is, is there was some feedback at some point, that was like, “Well, we’re already doing a lot of this.” I’m like, “We are.” But this also gives us opportunity to say we need to continue doing this, and how do we enhance those areas to do it better? So it’s not just forward. I mean, I don’t do stuff forward and stuff, so. What would you recommend we do in terms of checking in with the city? Do you want to check in in six months? Do you want to check in- I think- You know, like- I think it makes sense to probably do almost like maybe plan like a quarterly kind of thing. Because obviously this’ll basically be implemented for the fall, right? So I need a little bit of time to get going.

1:56:55 So maybe somewhere before the holidays makes sense to do a first check-in. Yeah. You know, October, November-ish maybe. And then we can kind of talk about it from there. Probably makes sense. But I’m open to suggestions. There’s no cookie cutter approach. I would highly advise against waiting until the end of the year to find out, or certainly not the end of three years. Easier to do it- It is … at once. It is. Go back through or whatever, yeah. And then also we can say, like, we can identify right then and there. Like, okay, we’re not close to this one. It’s close to max. Yeah. For sure. I’d much rather do that than be like spending that whole summer redoing the whole thing because we’re in week 17 of our school. Yeah. I think we’ve established that key. Like for the financial updates, which I know bi-monthly, so it’s a little

1:57:43 bit off. But having a cadence to the topics we’re checking at these meetings probably would help. And also, again, I hope that the more we do that, the easier it is for teachers to- Yeah … understand what to do. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So are we comfortable starting with quarterly? Yeah. I think we’ll get to that. And maybe we’ll make that part of our- Yeah. Big calendar and- Yeah … it kind of gives us, you know, miles- Yeah, quarterly … for each quarter. Yes. But I think we’ll learn this thing, you know, we probably want to focus on things that are a little bit more in the immediate future. If we have a goal that’s two years away, that may not… We don’t have to report on that- Yes … for immediate quarters. Or can even do like maybe easier, like-

1:58:29 Just do year one … larger goal. Yeah, do the year one stuff. Here’s where we think we’re going to be. The year two goals. I mean, obviously a lot of stuff through the summer, we’ll get into that. That’s probably the way to do it. I’ve done it different ways. And there’s sometimes, like you say, there could be… Like say for instance, if we’re building a new school, that would be a major part of the district. That would cause us to have check-ins. Not just on a facility, but there’s a lot to it, right? So you would check in a lot more frequently. So if there’s some big thing, you might want to focus on that a little bit more. But I think the way we have this crafted quarterly makes sense, and if we need to do more frequently, or let’s see how the fall term suggests. Yeah. So are we comfortable approving the district improvement plan tonight?

1:59:17 Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. I’ll make a motion that we approve the district improvement plan as presented by our superintendent tonight. I’ll second that. All right. So I’ll make the motion, seconded by Kate. All those in favor? All right. The motion passes four to zero. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Mm-hmm. Thanks. Thanks. Quick village, yeah. It’s good to go. I appreciate all the input, feedback. All right. Our next item is an antisemitism task force and Jewish Heritage Month activities update. So I’ll turn it over to our superintendent. I’ll just contract again for maybe one second. So a couple of things. One,

2:00:03 the…

2:00:08 I’ll start on the antisemitism, it’s actually anti-discrimination committee. Thank you. That’s okay. Anti-discrimination committee update is that we met on March 16th was our last meeting. We’re scheduled to meet on June 4th. We were meeting pretty regular, like mostly monthly, every, well, I think like six weeks or so. We had some committee members that have been not coming regularly. So there’s been a little bit of a disconnect. But what I will tell you is that the last couple of meetings, what we’re working on, what we’re going to finish up the year with on, hopefully on June 4th, is a reporting form for students and staff. A reporting form for discriminatory actions, behaviors. So what we did was we looked at our current

2:00:56 policies, we looked at what do we have. We have a lot of forms and things from bullying and harassment, which obviously can be parcel of. But we didn’t have anything specific to discrimination, harassment specifically, because not all bullying incidents, they’re not all either or the other. So what we did was we looked at several different school districts, what they had for policies and their forms, and we discussed it as a group, to say our harassment policy really speaks to what we need to do. So we felt comfortable with that. But we just didn’t have a reporting form that spoke to discriminatory things, harassment. So we’re looking to hopefully finalize that.

2:01:41 I have to just touch up some things that we came up withSome parts from one school district that had done it and so on. Another just have to gel it together, bring that to the committee on the 4th, and hopefully we’ll have enough committee members to have a robust discussion and then hopefully have a finished product before the end of the school year. That’s the plan. And then, we’ll talk about what that looks like going forward. Do we continue to have a committee in an ongoing way? Do we start off this way? Do we ad hoc? All those questions will come up, just like any other committee that we have. Just have to see what the lifespan is and the necessity. We know it’s necessary, but how big of a role and what does it look like? I think we’re in a much better place than when I started.

2:02:31 I think there’s always people that think that it could be a lot more and a lot different, but that’s just part of being on a committee. So I want to just reflect on this year and see what went well, what could’ve gone better, and where we actually need to go. And we’ll have that conversation at that June 4 meeting as well. So there’s that. The Jewish American Heritage Month update. I’m not going to go to… I’ll give an update, but I thought it was a little weird that we’re asking for this when we didn’t ask for any update on any of the other heritage months. So I’m not really sure why, but I will share. That is something we probably need to think as a committee to be more consistent- Yeah … around. Yeah, no, I’m fine. I’m fine doing it. I just- Yeah, I can understand where it’s a little inconsistent right now, but we’ll

2:03:17 address it. Okay. No, I appreciate that perspective. So anyway, I want to talk mostly about the high school because then that’s where the bevy of most activity is. So we’ve had student voices benefiting conversation that we’ve been having since last year. So student-led effort. But four of our students that are Jewish, Maya Berman, Gabby Berman, Jack Conley, and Deliah Hite. Keija, our co-director, and Dr. Carlson met with the students several times over the past few months to help plan some of the activities for the school. And Keija’s also encouraged the students to interject some of the Jewish heritage into the culture feast that’s coming up. So I thought that was really cool. So, there’s also been conversations with

2:04:04 John Constantino in the food services around how do we address any of the heritage months through the food services. And I’ll just be very blunt that some of his concern in making sure that his authenticity in providing food of a certain culture or heritage, he gets a little nervous that he’s not doing it justice. Not that he doesn’t want to do it, he’s just a little hesitant. So he’s doing something for Jewish Heritage, and want to say, “Don’t quote me, I think he’s got to do like matzo ball soup.” So it’s because you start talking about different heritages, if we have kosher, we don’t. Things like we can’t really do, the proper way. We want to make sure we’re not…

2:04:45 But we’re working on that. We’re going to get better at that. So let’s see. Dr. Carlson and Mr. Williams at Village talked about students visiting to share information in also with the sixth grade, prioritizing Jewish Heritage Month. So that’s kind of been an ongoing conversation. The Magic Coalition, the Jewish Student Union, trying to form a partnership in a little different way. Hasn’t gone exactly how we would’ve hoped, but working on that. So that’s something. And then there was some conversation about from the students around when the banner, flag and banner, also was created, Jewish Heritage Month banner was not one of the banners that was identified. So they were talking about should we have that as part

2:05:34 of… Should we hang that, should we not? So I had the conversation that we need to have that conversation with the public policy subcommittee at some point, and how do we manage that? Because I’m thinking there’s also other heritage months that we may have… You always run the risk when you make a list in a policy, then you’re going to miss something. So I think that’s for future conversation. But it was part of it. So, I just want to share that. Dr. Carlson has Jewish American students doing morning announcements throughout the month. Just doing all the announcements and sharing information. It’s also been now with Asian American Pacific Islander students as well. It’s also that heritage month. Let’s see. She’s doing– They’re working on providing

2:06:20 or watching documentaries in social studies class year. One is called Shared Legacies for students in grade 11 US History and AP US History. They’re going to view that film. And then The Path to Nazi Genocide, which is for students in grade 10 Western Traditions and AP European History. They’re going to view those films. Those are films that they talked about, and the students brought those forward. They vetted them through the administration. Not sure exactly when they’re going to be added in, but they’ll be viewed as part of Jewish Heritage Month. We’re going to talk about that. They’re displaying famous Jewish Americans on the screens and posters around the building as part of Jewish American Heritage Month. And

2:07:06 district-wide, we talked a little bit about the Holocaust environment that’s going to be speaking at events. We have one of the students earlier mentioned, Gabby, who’s going to bring 100 latkes- Latke … to culture feast. So that’ll be full. And then they did talk about getting the

2:07:25 snow cattle car. The cattle cars for the… But it’s really expensive, so they just couldn’t fund it. But there was conversation to get that as part of the heritage month. Those are the main things. There’s other things going on in the district, but those are mainly folks in the high school. So, yeah. That’s the update. And again, going forward, I think we just need to have the conversation more.Update each orange month or not. So just so we Mm-hmm. Thank you.

2:07:58 All right. Our next item is subcommittee and liaison updates.

2:08:05 Facility subcommittee met. We reviewed the items that we

2:08:11 uncovered during our building walks, sort of where those lay. If anybody’s interested, I know Mike has a list, and also he went through that list, the status of all the things on that page. Then the other thing we discussed was the village court, which some improvements too. There’s a parent group, PTO, giving false

2:08:40 . Mm-hmm. Policy subcommittee hasn’t met since our last meeting. Next week, we have a very ambitious agenda in an attempt to fully review policy manual and the SC update changes. So brace yourselves. It’s policy on things. I just want to say how the key agenda item wasn’t. Having done that before, having been part of doing that before, it’s very onerous and appreciate it because MAS is constantly reviling, but I think when you propose, what we’ve noticed, there was a lot of like all the hate-created policies that me and Mark were looking at. We get to share all my– I reviewed them, and she’s terrific. Ben kind of shared with me and Cab

2:09:28 presenting all the, Steve and a couple of them, Megan Falcon on some of the health ones. So this is certainly a lot of collaboration with them. So just want to share my thanks because that’s yeoman’s work for sure. And we heard from Betsy. They approved the revised CTE- Excellent … middle school acceleration. So thank you for all of that. Right. Special. Right. Any other updates? All right. Any correspondence? Just the two that I put in the GroupChat. That’s right.

2:10:04 I have way too many papers tonight. The gravy. All right. So Samay talked about the Nelms visit to the middle school. So there’s a little publication called “Midlines,” and we

2:10:20 celebrated this. So it said, “Marblehead Veterans Middle School is the newest Nelms Spotlight School.” I won’t read it, but it talks about how they came and they did it. And we’ll say, “During the tour led by eighth-grade students, one said, ‘There isn’t a room that I walk into that I don’t feel comfortable in.’ Another said, ‘It’s just so great. The teachers care so much.’ It’s what we were feeling as well, what we wanted. It’s great to hear directly from the students.” So that’s really cool. So we were published there. So that’s awesome. And then we received a congratulatory letter from Commissioner Martinez, and I will read this because it’s short. “Dear John Ramadu, congratulations on your school’s good work on reducing chronic absenteeism. We recently released chronic absenteeism

2:11:06 data through March 1st, 2026, and your district is one of 55 districts that decreased chronic absenteeism by at least five percentage points or more over the March 2025” product. I don’t know why they keep saying that so many times, but I can’t say it. I’m not going to say it. “ Absenteeism rate. Thank you for your attention to this important subject, which is the foundation of student success.” And then filled out the survey around the strategies that your district put in place that have led to this improvement. “In the meantime, I hope you will share your district’s accomplishment with your school community, and I hope your school community takes pride in all that you have achieved.” So that’s from Paige Martinez, the Commissioner of Education, which is awesome. Yeah. It’s clearly not where I want it to be still. We have to shoot higher, but one out of 55 districts

2:11:52 out of 361 districts in Mass is pretty cool. Yeah. So we’ll continue that. It’s important to be in school. I will, at the beginning of school year, share my little data chart that shows what 10 minutes late means, missing one day of school over 10. And there’s some pretty telling little chart that I like to send out just as a reminder. But chronic absenteeism is tough, and it’s a collaborative effort. It takes talking to parents. It takes a lot of the stuff that Gina talked about today is a reason why kids are coming to school more frequently. So all good stuff. Thank you for all that you and your team have done. Yeah. We know how important that issue is. Yeah. Thank you. I’m serious. It’s awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Good stuff. That’s all I have, Chairman. Mm-hmm. Thank you.

2:12:37 I’m looking for a motion and vote to meet in executive session for the following three reasons. Executive session pursuant to Chapter 38, Section 21 (3) , Purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to and in preparation for collective bargaining. The Marblehead Education Association, occupational therapists, physical therapists, board-certified behavior analysts, occupational therapist assistants, physical therapist assistants, certified nurse assistants because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the school committee and the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. Executive session pursuant to Chapter 38, Section 21 (7) , Purpose 7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law, federal

2:13:22 grant in aid requirements, specifically the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Sections 22fg, relative to the school committee’s executive sessions for the following dates, December 19th, 2023, October 17th, 2024, November 20th, 2024, November 25th, 2024, January 6th, 2025, January 15th, 2025, July 31st, 2025, December 4th, 2025, and December 18th, 2025An executive session pursuant to Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, Purpose 3, to discuss litigation, Marblehead School Committee, and Marblehead Education Association,

2:14:08 MUP-26-12060, as an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the school committee. And the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. Second. So moved, yeah. All right. A motion made by Henry, seconded by Kate.

2:14:30 I believe it’s a roll call for this. So Leslie, we’ll start with you. In favor. Henry? In favor. Kate? In favor. Al in favor. The motion passes four to zero. So we will enter into executive session pursuant to Chapter 30A, Section 21A30, Purpose 3, to discuss strategy with respect to and in preparation for collective bargaining with the Marblehead Education Association, occupational therapists, physical therapists, board-certified behavior analysts, occupational therapist assistants, physical therapist assistants, certified nurse assistants. Because it’s an open meeting and may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the school committee, and the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. Also, executive session pursuant to Chapter 30A, Section 21AC, Purpose

2:15:16 7, to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law, federal grant-in requirements, grant-in-aid requirements, specifically the Open Meeting Law, Chapter 30A, Section 22FG, relative to the school committee’s executive sessions on the following dates: December 19th, 2023; October 17th, 2024; November 20th, 2024; November 25th, 2024; January 6th, 2025; January 15th, 2025; July 31st, 2025; December 4th, 2025, and December 18th, 2025. And also executive session pursuant to Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, Purpose 3, to discuss litigation, Marblehead School

2:16:02 Committee and Marblehead Education Association, MUP-26-12060, as an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the school committee. And the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. Okay, we will have our executive session in this room.