e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e she couldn't see me yeah so you want to go to this one okay we're back on we want we want to thank Noah yasco who is our student representative and is currently on Zoom thank you for joining us we have the consent agenda bills and payrolls regular school committee meeting minutes from March 4th 2024 special meeting in the school committee minutes from February 28th 2024 and committee the whole meeting minutes from March 13 2024 is there a motion for approval I member motion to approve brandley thank you for coming through um seconded by second member Ola all those in favor I all those opposed consent agenda is approved we do not have any reports of subcommittees and we have six reports of from our superintendent first up is our superintendent's updates and comments Dr Maurice edwad vincon thank you good evening I'd like to begin by wishing Ramadan Mubarak to our Muslim Students staff and community members Ramadan a month-long observance which started last week is a time for increased religious devotion and self-examination during this time many Muslims fast during daylight hours abstaining from food and drink until night we're wishing everyone who observes this holiday an easy and meaningful fast I also want to share that yesterday I hope that everyone enjoyed the St Patrick's Day holiday this weekend this holiday holds particular significance for many Irish and Irish American families in Medford and around the world it's time for corn beef and cabbage parades and musical performances and my favorite part delicious soda bread Erin gobra I would also like to take a moment to thank and acknowledge Miss Melanie mlin our former colleague and member of the school committee Melanie we are all extremely grateful for your four years of service on the committee in particular your dedicated and tireless advocacy for equity and inclusion the needs and priorities of our special education programs disability awareness and access throughout the district and the voice and perspective of Medford Public Schools parents I am confident that you will continue to make a difference as an advocate for the Medford Community for many years to come as we Bid Farewell to member mlin we also warmly welcome our new school Committee Member Mr John inapa member in TOA is a Mustang through and through even serving his Medford High School class of 2019 as class president we're excited to welcome his perspective to this school committee and are looking forward to our work together we want to remind our community about two upcoming religious holidays all schools will be closed on Friday March 29th in observance of Good Friday and on Wednesday April 10th in observance of Eid alfit I also want to just bring point out a few highlights that took place across Metford Public Schools congratulations to our Metford High School World language and culture club and the World Language department for hosting the school's first ever World Language Festival I'd like to thank member renfeld who attended that event as well um on a Friday evening the festival did take place earlier in the lobby of the high school and featured performances for Medford High School students our world language class uh all of our world language classes Raffles and food sales collected from the event were all donated to World Language student scholarships it was a great event and we the event ended with amazing homemade dishes from a variety of world cultures and the celebration of world language learning make sure to visit our Medford website to look at writeups from our Junior Claire gingo thanks to everyone who worked hard to make it happen Also earlier this month local author maren Harrington in her inspirational pup Ivy joined Medford Elementary School students and their families at the Roberts Elementary School for an interactive reading and discussion of Ivy the very determined dog thank you to miss Harrington Ivy the elementary Reading department and Elementary principles and assistant principles for facilitating this great event photos from the meet and greet can be found on Facebook and on our website I have an important announcement Middle School Lottery is coming up we're actively preparing for the April Middle School lottery in 2019 the school committee voted unanimously to implement a random Lottery system with the goal of balancing our racial and socioeconomic differences between the Andrews and middle mlen middle schools this change policy has resulted in progress toward this goal with the sixth grade enrollment more balanced than in the past the 2024 Lottery will follow the protocol established in 2019 grade five students from each elementary school will be assigned to one of the two middle schools with some exceptions in place for sibling preference and specialized program offerings for English Learners and special education students it is important to note this year that sibling preference will not include younger siblings at the mlin elementary school because of shifts in demand and population the lottery cannot include the younger siblings this year however the lottery will still take place I will be hosting a virtual information center session concerning the lottery for all grade five students and their families this information session will be held by Zoom this Wednesday March 20th at 5:00 pm the lottery will take place on Tuesday April 9th um and the results will be posted on the district website at 3m. letters confirming each student's Middle School assignment will be sent to All grade 5 students by Wednesday April 24th also this week there's going to be a very important Medford Malden transition Fair the Medford and Malden Public Schools will join together for a transition fair to provide students families caregivers and professionals with information about communitybased services for our adults with disabilities this event is free and open to all Medford and Malden residents and surrounding communities students between the ages of 14 to 22 years of age who receive special education services through an IEP along with their families and caregivers are welcome and encouraged to attend this event has exhibitors um the event exhibitors serve adults with a number of disabilities including autism developmental disabilities in intellectual disabilities and emotional disabilities I hope that you take advantage of this great event taking place on Wednesday March 20th in Malden this year at tonight's meeting we have a packed agenda including updates and reports from Stacy Schulman our director of School counseling and Behavioral Health and Paul tesera our director of English Learners and title three they'll be sharing insights and news from their respective departments both of which are crucial to our day-to-day School operations and the overall educational mission of our district I'll also be sharing a recommendation to the committee regarding the state school choice law and an update on behalf of our Director of Finance lastly there will be a report on the resolution of um I'm sorry there will be uh two additional reports recommendation uh to approve donations to the Medford Public Schools and I'll be asking for your approval for those reports as well thank you those are my remarks for this evening thank you Dr Edward Vincent we have a recommendation to approve donations from the JS Lim foundation and mbit and Associates Dr Edward Vinson I'm going to turn it back to you so donations to the Medford High School uh Medford Vocational School fund for the 2425 school year the JS limb Science and Mathematics prizes this donation totals the amount of $4,000 um there is a $1,500 amount mathematics prize for a student a $1,500 amount for Science and the prize collation and award pack which is uh plaque which is $1,000 um this request will be um announced this year um at the school award ceremony in May um of 2025 each award will go to a grade 11 student in uh entering the 2425 school year and so um you have a a brief one-page report but my request of the committee is to accept this generous donation from the JS liim Foundation um that is my request for this evening thank you Dr Edward Vinson member Graham then me member reinfeld I'd like to make a motion to approve both donations from J the jsim foundation and the amount of $4,000 and the mbit and Associates donation in the amount of $2,100 thank you member Graham member reinfeld I just wanted to know if this is the first when is this the first time these Awards have been offered um are these inaugural or are they continuing I do not recall presenting on these two Awards and I'm not sure if anyone on the team is aware of that it may be the very first time these are continuous um donations um so the JS slim is for 4,000 and the mbit and Associates is for $2,100 um dollar great I'll second motion for approval by member Graham seconded by member reinfeld all those in favor all those opposed I don't think a donation but we could just in case member Russo sure maybe I'll look up when we're supposed to so I actually know after six years um member branley yes member Graham yes yes member Ola yes member reinfeld yes member Russo yes Mar L longer yes seven the affirmative zero the negative donations accepted thank you to the foundation and to the mbit and Associates number three recommendation to approve Medford as a no school choice district for school year 24 and 25 again Dr marce Ed vinon thank you um Medford Public Schools um we are doing a significant amount and every year um we are required by desie to come before the committee and ask um my recommendation to the committee is that we remain a no school choice District that um if we were to participate in this program we would have to accept students from other communities in the Commonwealth receive Baseline tuition which could be well below the actual cost of the services that students may need and um s such acceptances would be on a seat available basis they could also affect enrollments selectively throughout the district and as a result um increase costs that would add to our budgetary burden um and so I do feel that Medford right now is doing a a very good job of servicing our student population we have a very diverse community and it would not be in our best interest to become a um school choice District so my recommendation is that the committee um vote to reject the school choice for school year 2425 motion to approve motion for approval by member Russo seconded by second member Graham all those in favor I all those opposed osed motion passes thank you Dr Edward vinent next up number four report on resolution of the fiscal year 24 potential budget shortfall um Dr Mar vinent yes so um in your packets you received a um a succinct summary from Mr McHugh our fi Finance director I will um quickly go through this report so that um you can hear what the findings were on the resolution for our budget shortfall Mr McHugh appeared before the school committee on February 12 to report a potential shortfall of 2.5 million in the annual budget this was based on the first projection of what our spending versus budget would be by year end we began a process of reviewing spending reviewing encumbered funds and identifying resources that could be utilized to ensure a balanced budget by year end this review identified the following One account was over encumbered by 265,000 due to a contract that crossed fiscal years we identified spending that could be postponed to fy2 the city identified a balance in the FY 23 school budget that could be used for any fy2 for expenses that could be properly charged to FY 23 we have a $173,000 balance in an account that holds State reimbursement funds for homeless transportation we have a balance of 291,000 in the state funded circuit breaker account that can be used for special education tuition we are projecting a balance in our final year of Sr funds of 200,000 which can be used for eligible expenses currently being charged to the general fund there is a balance in the vocational tuition revolving fund and I've targeted 200,000 from this fund to pay for vocational program teachers being charged to the general fund I created a chargeback to our school lunch program of $557,000 to recover the proportional share of natural gas gas and electricity used by the program in addition with the assistance of the city's Finance director an error was identified in the projection model which was causing the deficit to be overestimated after correcting this error correcting the account that was over encumbered by 265,000 utilizing the FY 23 budget to fund the final August 23 payment of the teamster settlement of 212.5 um, and creating the school lunch fund chargeback of 57,000 the projected deficit now stands at 216,000 we will use the esa balance and other budget management initiatives to ensure we finish the year with the Balan budget any of the identified resources that are not needed for deficit reduction in FY 24 are eligible to be carried forward into fy2 they will be carried forward attached is an additional document showing reconciliation and so that was just to give an overview of how the FY um shortfall was addressed for Medford Public Schools thank you thank you Dr Edward Vincent member Graham thank you um I really want to say thank you this is what transparency looks like to me so there's lots of choices about how you deal with a shortfall and sometimes you do it quietly and sometimes you have to make choices about um when to let the committee know and I think Jerry did exactly what we have been wanting and needing um really since I've been on the committee to be proactive to talk to us about what the challenges were um and then to do the work um that comes with um these kinds of things with such a fluid budget um and I just wanted to sort of Comm commend Jerry and and say this is what the community is looking for when they say they want transparency sometimes transparency is uncomfortable and ugly um and I think it has been uncomfortable and ugly to to hear about a $2 million deficit or2 and a half million dollar deficit um I do think it's our job as the committee to um you know sort of listen to what our finance people are telling us um and let them do the work and assume that they are so I was happy to hear um a brief update on this last week um and I would encourage anybody who is particularly interested in our revolving funds to watch the committee of the whole that we had last Wednesday it was the first time since I've been on the committee where we actually had a conversation about revolving funds and what they looked like um there are some absolute concerns um in The Bu in the revolving funds budget um but we are now in a position to talk about them which we've not been before so um overall there you know there's a lot of there were lots of comments about that in the in our budget meeting Committee of the whole last Wednesday so if you um didn't join us and I think most people did not um but are interested in like what does that mean and what are those funds um it was um I think very educational and informative um and sort of helped guide us in terms of some of the resolutions you'll see on the agenda late later tonight but um many thanks to Jerry and his hard work navigating us through this and um keep up the transparency thank you yes member branley so um yes a lot a lot of thanks to Jerry um obviously I was thrilled to hear that there was you know less of a deficit here than what we're looking at the day before uh or the week before the meeting before um so I just have a quick question um the error that occurred the error was identified in the projection model which was causing the deficit are we sure that that's correct now I think that Jerry and Bob Dickinson who's a CF o from the schools and Bob's the CFO from the city were doing a lot of number crunching and then they found they found that error so it sounds like this is correct but as things progress I think they're looking at things daily weekly together to make sure we recover that balance and then budget for fiscal year 25 perfect so would we get an update if anything changed I think we Jerry shown us he's probably gonna update Us by weekly basis if not um sooner if anything comes to a surprise and we have our first bu meeting I believe April April 3rd and then our next meeting is April 8th regular meeting so I'm sure we'll get be getting regular updates now that it's budget season um and then just one other question says we identified spending that could be postponed to fy2 does that make things look worse for us for f y25 i mean we can push them off now in Balance but now does that mean in FY 25 where causing a bigger problem it depends what he's projecting for that for that figure he's talking or he's talking tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands yes hundreds of thousands would be a problem but I'm hoping that it's minimal something that could be paid and if if we fall a little bit short um but I hope that we're not pushing much forward yeah so could we get a dollar am month on that can we request that just yeah we just request an update at our budget meeting on what you mean by what um our school CFO means by carrying forward certain amounts to fiscal year 25 perfect thank you motion by member branley seconded by member Grant say something um I think what he's suggesting is that balances that are not needed to cover the deficit can be moved forward not costs like I did not read what he wrote there in that paragraph as pushing pushing spending out into next year what he's saying is if if I'm planning to use $100,000 from a revolving fund and I don't need to it'll stay in the revolving fund for next year so I I don't think it's actually a spending issue even though it says spending where does it say spending it says we identified spending that could be postponed where is I'm sorry sorry honey second line Second PLL here so yeah I guess spending sorry I was reading the bottom paragraph which is more about um payment so um yeah there may be something in there that he is projecting into next year but we we I think historically when we have like big payments for curriculum and things like that if we can prepay them we do so sometimes it's not that they're due necessarily but if we have the budget we pay for them so it could be something like that but he can better describe that so second yeah exclanation on those two lines um by brandley seconded by member Graham all those in favor I all those opposed thank you for this update and thank you to our CFO as well we have yes um just if you press the button pretty loud there you go um elanar o Larry 30 norwi Circle um Secretary of the medfit Teachers Association um we were just wondering the accounts that will be rolled over or whatever they're going to be rolled over we know they will be affecting somehow the budget next year will this be made public that we as teachers will know what's going to happen will it affect layoffs will it affect how what where in the budget will this affect is what we would like to know as a union so I'm just wondering where this would be made public we know tonight it was being mentioned will there be another meeting will be mentioned that we could all um attend and find out all of our meetings will be posted public as it budget so the budget will be mentioned again yes oh yes and from what I understand with the motion that was just made we will have more clarification on what Jerry found and from what I've heard you say super intendent was and I'm could be wrong that he was saying that the bill did not have to be paid until 2025 so that was what I took that they were moving that money to the next budget so it doesn't have to be paid till next year that would clear up money for here but I agree that I agree with um school committee brandley that is that going to be an issue with next year because now all of a sudden there's a bill that has to be paid that we thought we were paying this year and now it has to be paid next year so I think either way it's going to affect somehow and I hate to say this but it always comes down to the backs of the teachers and that makes us a little nervous as a union thank you okay may sure remember Russo and then we'll um I I just want to we have four new members so I think sometimes saying things that seem obvious have to be said anyways but we statutorily cannot run a deficit there's we cannot end the year with negative one cent we must have that money come from somebody whether it's the mayor's office or whether it's layoffs or whether it's turning the power off and bu like we must get to Zero by June 30th so um you know most businesses and lots of other organizations can run a deficit and figure out what to do with it the day after but we do not have that option so I think that's in my my time here we have frequently done things like oh we have 300 extra thousand doar so we prepay some out of District special education expense for tuition or we buy stuff we know we're going to need but we weren't planning to buy until July 1 um or we have a little bit of a deficit and we delay paying school committee members for a month um or something like that so that the um because the zero is the only allowed number um and I don't envy the uh finance department figuring how to manage it's it's a terrible needle to thread in my mind but so this is one 100% normal that we do this every single year whether there's a little extra whether there's a little too little um and two 200,000 300,000 400,000 is in fact a normal amount to be you know it's it's big number at the start of the the year when we do our budget and that is a relatively small number and I'm kind of amazed we get that close every year um considering all the unknowns about how many students we're going to have you know whether we're going to have lots of Staff out on leave and then have to hire additional staff or all the other things that change every year so I I think it's really normal and um I'm I'm excited that the number is not two and a half million though because that would have been a disaster so thank you thank you Miss McKay hi can you hear me okay um Joan M I'm the financial secretary for the union um so our question financially is will we be privy to this formula um era that they found um because it's a substantial amount that it went down it was 2 point something million down to like 200,000 does that become public does the public get to see like you're you you all have a document there is this something that's public record that we can see that we can see a formula um will that come out at a budget meeting or mayor member Graham um two things the the error was a small piece of the reduction from what Jerry first cited to us as his concern and this this reconciliation so that was a piece of the problem not the entirety of the problem um but yeah this memo is on the floor and so it's public record and we can definitely send it to you um yeah so that you can have it and see it and all that than absolutely and then I would um I would suggest that if you all haven't watched the committee of the whole from last week that you do um it was just really um an interesting look at our enrollment we talked about our um counts of low-income students because the state's reimbursement is different for them so we talked about all the pieces that sort of make up funding the budget so to speak um and what those numbers are looking like for this year that's all very much still a moving Target because the governor made her proposal the house has to do their proposal the Senate has to do their so all those numbers are potentially subject to change but he um you know he took a really like thoughtful approach through those initial stages of like what is the sort of quote Revenue as as it were um and I think that look at the um revolving funds um is also really enlightening and important because that money is there um it's intended to be used for very specific things but um he walked us through a whole process of allocating expenses to programs that generate Revenue like the after school program for example we've never like done any sort of facility charge to that program so it looks like that program is very very very profitable but our general fund budget has been paying those expenses for all of eternity right so all the electricity all the space all the supply all those things are being paid for out of the general fund and he is actually implementing mechanisms to writefully allocate um things like G natural gas and all of those things to programs that are Revenue generating so that a we can know what those really cost because I think everyone thinks they know what those programs really cost but we are not we are not charge back charging back to those programs so we don't um which I think will be very enlightening and maybe problematic in some cases right like when we talk about rent facility rentals like we want to make sure that the money we're bringing in for rentals is actually paying for the expenses that we're incurring because if it's not then our general fund budget is paying for it so he's doing a lot of good work in that space too and that was all talked about in the committee of the whole so I think that's another like really important part of like what I see as like a lot of reshuffling how expenses are allocated this year um that we've never done before but it's like very very timely and important and then not to um waste your time if the if I look at the meeting could this be answered so like by a revolving account like is that just programs like that or is that things like we budgeted for two math coaches that were never hired those would not be in there those that would not be in there they would be in like a general account correct correct okay um yeah so this it's like um it's everything from like lost library books to Kids Corner to rentals before and after school that okay thank you he's an interim that will be around through this fiscal year at least okay so at least unless he commits to another year yes are we going to try to get all this done before because he seems like he's doing such a great job I hate to say I feel like yeah he I mean he is doing all of that work to be able to build the budget so when you look at what the budget will ultimately look like the ins and the outs can't be described to us until he has done some of this work so yes he's actively doing all of this to try to get ready to to do that presentation in a week all right thank thank you next up we have our social and emotional learning we a motion on the floor didn't we have a motion to request we I don't think we voted on I think I I think we did take a motion yeah we can do it again but motion by member brandley seconded by member Graham all those in favor I all those opposed motion passes thank you member reinfeld number five social and emotional learning seal update Miss Stacy shman director of School counseling and Behavioral Health welcome hi good evening um Dr krushing is going to help guide my presentation up for everyone um so this evening I'm going to talk to you a little bit about some general overviews about what is in the department of School counseling and Behavioral Health at meter Public Schools um you can see there are five different Specialties within the department School adjustment counselors or social workers School psychologists our school counselors which were previously called guidance counselors bcbas and behavior Specialists part of the department is also social emotional learning which has the five different components in it self-regulation self-awareness responsible decision-making relationship skills and social awareness so here's a general overview of the roles and responsibilities I won't read to you every single thing on the slides um but it just gives you a general sense of how those different um positions differ from one another so how a school counselor is really talking about the counseling on a broad level more as a generalist and then doing that academic transition postsecondary planning working with 504s our school adjustment counselors or social workers same same name um are really more Mental Health Specialists with counseling consults um supporting the general School environment communicating um with Lea On's Community needs assessment and our school psychologists are um even more specialized to be able to deliver those psychological evaluations for special education and they do provide Counseling Services as well the different Behavior roles um a bcba board certified Behavior analysts we have four within the district are a very highly specialized role they conduct fbas provide trainings for faculty um consult with staff and conduct observations and support plans our Behavior Specialists there are five positions within the district assist with those support plans support students in crisis bcbas do as well um and support the bcbas with doing observations and fbas and and classroom support as well that's needed so your average counseling day that's the um largest number of Staff we have is about 60% inir direct Counseling Services 15% um consult staff meetings and then 25% of their time is paperwork evaluations um contact with service providers in the community parent Outreach and work within the building for our elementary Services um the support really focuses heavily on groups so we work a lot of lunch and social skills groups also providing individual counseling Behavior Specialists are only in our elementary schools um and we're often trying to provide all those resources and parent support the best that we can this is an overview of our elementary counseling staff you'll notice that every Elementary coun every elementary school has two um School social workers the Brooks one of those positions is filled by a community-based social worker we've contracted with Elliott um to fill that position and there is um a little bit of a difference between the number of school psychologists in the building and that really is dependent on our specialist education programming and how many evaluations we think we will need our elementary social emotional learning um consists of responsive classroom the zones of Regulation um our Nexus classes which is the um Specialists that we added in 2021 and our um Sandy Hook promise programming first start with hello once you move move up to um Middle School Services that's when School counseling which we previously called guidance comes into play every student has a school counselor um we still offer lunch and social skills group based on need and there's individual group counseling and of course resources and parent support for our staffing um each of our middle schools has two school counselors and then they have a school social worker or two um the mlin has one inhouse School social worker and a community based counselor from Elliott who comes three days a week and they each have a school psychologist and the difference in Services first staff is really again dependent on the programming within the schools for our Middle School social emotional learning we have advisory SLG guidance classes it's called advisory at the Andrews and guidance um at the mgin but we start really focusing on those restorative practices so talking to our students we hold community groups and we also have um conversations amongst themselves to build those social skills um when something goes AR in in the school environment between students for our high school Services again every student has a school counselor group support is available by topic so anxiety grief trauma we have individual counseling same resources for parents the difference for our high school students really comes in for our steps program which is our Hospital re-entry program which started in 2019 um and we also have a community counselor within the building for students who have difficulty accessing it um outside of school our High School counseling staff consists of six school counselors four social workers two School psychologists um and we of course have two School social workers at the Curtis TS as well that gives you a sense of the general overall case load um for each of those Specialties and then this is when we start to really introduce a heavy push on the College and Career counseling so we're looking at students as individuals what are their interests their values they're meeting with their school counselor to talk about what all of our goal is is to successfully transition you off um into our community so where how can we help you get there um we have started one CE again coffee with counselors this is for school counselors um parents can come in on these dates it's in calf 1 at the high school from 8 to 9 am we really welcome everyone to come to talk about certainly um students and what how we can help help you help your child when with their plans to transition after Medford High School the high school social emotional learning consists of once again that heavy push on restorative practices our advisory and wind blocks health and wellness classes um we also have a block of Nexus at the high school it is a different iteration um it's for ninth grade students that started in 2016 who we have identified in eth grade as maybe just need needing a little more of a home base there are two faculty within that classroom um it's a small group of students and they focus on just providing a little bit of extra support for them and our counselors have been going into our um English learner classrooms to push in and provide more of those social emotional learning um support certainly as far as what they can expect from Medford High School compared to their previous high school and another country so I want to talk a little bit about our Hospital re-entry program which is called steps which stands for student in transition for engagement progress and success for Staffing in that program we have one social worker who is dedicated um solely to that program and we have six teachers who cycle through on a schedule to provide academic support um so we offer clinical counseling family communication and of course care coordination and this is for our students who either are coming back from some sort of extensive medical leave or um some an incident that is required them medically to be out of school for some time so again students are absent due to psychiatric hospitalizations medical hospitalizations we have our fair share of concussion protocols we help students with or chronic absences due to a medical compli application this gives you a little bit of um data for our numbers for the steps program so again we started in 2019 of course that was an abbreviated year due to the closure um but we're averaging and I expect us to meet this as well we're averaging about 60 um episodes and about 45 students that were supporting each year so an episode might be a hospitalization so for some of our students that have repeat hospitalizations depending on the challenges that they're facing that year this all fits into our multi-tier system of support so um information that and support that we're offering all of our students groups of students and those really specialized tier three services um for students in need so how it all works in this is a visual for you um which really just groups all of those Services I talked about in terms of how we're working with our tier one students how we're filtering through our student support teams and referrals into group counseling supports or crisis management um and those individualized really highly specialized services at tier three we offer a lot of screenings at our middle and high school um one of the largest is espert so screening brief intervention and referral to treatment then this is around substance use so we're screening students in seventh grade and um we screen them again in 10th Grade and then we also utilize screening through our signs of suicide program which is provided to us free of cost through Sandy Hook promise but developed through mindwise so students receive education within their health classes around suicide how to identify the signs of it and themselves or their friends where to go in the school for support and then we screen um our students for clinical depression and provide them a little more education or in you know if more extreme circumstances crisis valuations at the school I want to talk about our community partner highlights this is something I haven't talked about more at school committee um this is a look at some of our major Partnerships for mental health um so we are partnering a lot more um with agencies we really rely heavily cha has been one of our newer Partners um with their walk-in clinic for mental health they've done an excellent job both with providing immediate Services um in a walk-in capacity and also pricess evaluations at our school they come very quickly we really appreciate them Massachusetts Center for adolescent Wellness is a new um intensive outpatient program for students they've been extremely collaborative with us um children's room is pushing in for grief groups we've worked with Elliot for quite some time with our clinicians Massachusetts Alliance for Portuguese speakers has done a phenomenal job running groups for our Portuguese speaking students and providing them community supports and then bright is the overarching network within Massachusetts for Hospital ranchy programs that provided us startup support and continued support um I'll talk a little bit more about our partnership with MGH and car Solus as well so car Solace is the program and platform that we utilize to guide students families staff into community- based care as you can see here this is the number of cases we referred so far this year 123 and car Solis has made 61 appointments um there has been around 11,000 total Communications between care Solace and those seeking care so a couple more Innovative um Partnerships for this year is uh we have a wellness coach through a grant from U Massachusetts General Hospital and C4 Innovations to provide all of our expert screening at the high school level so previously we were working with our nursing staff and our counseling staff to screen all of our ninth grade students in about one to two minutes the wellness coach is actually transitioning to 10th grade students um and they meet with students for about 10 to 15 minutes so it's more robust education it's more robust um conversations around what their substance use practices are but really more focusing on what are their positive habits that they have how do they keep those going what are their goals for their future and providing them resources on how to stay on track um and I decide is a program that is for tier 2 level for students who have self-identified or identified through the expert um screening process as needing substance use education and support and that is also um curriculum offered to us for free from MGH which is great um these are some of our College and Career partners we've worked heavily with this year um they have been wonderful and providing us a lot of support for our students I'll highlight a couple for you um on the next slide so we've had several um Partnerships with local universities for on the spot admissions so they're coming in they're meeting with students they're reviewing their information they say great you're in um so we had several students I think about six accepted very quickly to Leslie University in December we just went to UMass Dartmouth um they hosted a nice meeting for us um Bunker Hill Community College has also offered on the spot Admissions and middle sex has come in to talk about their dental assisting program and really give some Hands-On information to our students we have a program that is sponsored through tus called let's get ready um and it really helps students plan in a more robust way who need support for transitioning After High School um and we also offer Bunker Hill dual enrollment courses so these offer the ability for students to take courses at Bunker Hill Community College um and we provide um assistance with that and and it's been working really well we have a weit list um for those courses our community based scholarships um so these are scholarships that are either within Medford or very close region currently we have over 30 scholarships that are offering our students a half million a year so that program is incredibly robust and we're thankful for that so what's next um this spring we're looking to offer career panels for our Juniors and seniors we're going to be bringing in you know different um members of our community and those who are connected to community to talk about what their profession is so that our students can make informed decisions we're going to continue to strengthen our Community Partnerships we really cannot be you know continue to offer all the Rob robust programming we have without them and caregiver engagement and education is certainly something we're looking to grow um the other exciting news is I've been on a list for seven years for a needs therapy dog and I hounded them every six months as far as when my application is coming up um and they've re been very patient with me but they said expected in 2025 um so I'll certainly come back to you if that application is accepted and we'll talk about what that would look like thank you Miss shman member Russo thank you you covered all the basics um I have two questions um on the steps program you mentioned there's six teachers that cycle through are they current me Public Schools teachers that are leaving the classroom for a period of Time how does that work so every teacher at Medford High School has a mini section that they teach it's um two classes per cycle so two out of the six day cycle so instead of having a mini within their classroom they're going down to the steps room um and we have divided It Out by specialty so we have history teacher science math English all rotating through to provide specialized support for our students during different times of the week great that's awesome that the schedule allows that yes interested to hear how the new schedule whenever that gets presented will work um espert only in seventh and 10th grade which I'm glad we're doing it obviously um I just think about Middle School is not I don't most of us don't remember it fondly if you did go to middle school but um is there are there places where they do it every year and is that like I'm sure there's a huge effort involved with doing this but I just think about like that's a lot of years three years of major change for adolescents and it seems like a long time like you know seventh grade they do this everything looks Dandy if in later in the same seventh grade year eighth grade or ninth grade they they have a new Addiction 10th grade's a long time to wait to find out um so is that what are your thoughts on that we had previously done seventh and ninth grade um espert screening the purpose of it is really to focus on preventative strategies so we're looking to prevent substance use um with the guidance of MGH they've asked us based on their research protocols to switch it to 10th grade and so those students who are currently in 10th Grade undergoing the screening also underwent the same screening in nth grade um but you know we've looked to our partners there as for as far as guidance um and they've identified those are the best years for them okay thank you yeah member Graham um could I just ask that when coffee with the counselors happens some communication goes out to high school parents who are not available on Fridays between 8 and 9 A.M to ever hear what's being said in those sessions sure um I I think the um the PTO has indic a willingness to help disseminate that information but um I haven't seen it materialized yet and I don't think it's for lack of asking so I'm hoping the counselors can formalize whatever it is that they're talking about and make sure it's shared a little bit more broadly than the audience who can make themselves available during the school day certainly cool thank you member brandley thank you for being here um so I just wanted to complement the steps program my family has um benefited from that um and it was a huge plus trying to get back to school um you know when obviously you're going through something um to make sure that that gets done and the rotation is Awesome with academics because the teachers are coming in there they're helping when need be and it's really a safe space um does Miss Cunningham still she do yes she's amazing so I just want to give her a shout out for that um very grateful to her um and then just one other question the High School counseling um like so that's Nexus for high school correct yes and that's done by the counselors no it's academic teachers academic teachers so like Health teachers no so one is a um Ela specialist um and the other is science okay so it's a co-taught classroom co- talk classroom okay does it how does it not fall under Health like under under health I guess how how does English and science teach the ne like the next portion of that yes so the Nexus curriculum is similar very similar to Health in elementary school when you come up to high school it's a very different model so it's a support classroom okay yes all right that and it's only for a small number of students okay perfect thank you thank you member in tapa for sure thank you uh director Schulman for presenting all this information um I guess the first question is a clarification on the uh steps program is very similar to the bridge program like our chapter of likeed it okay great um that's huge and that's proven in other districts to really help um a lot of uh our youth especially well not our youth but it is seems to be helping our youth but youth in other districts um especially as the Mental Health crisis and epidemic as people were calling it are is increasing and we saw that in an increase in numbers and you know we're slowly seeing them coming down um in terms of tier one tier two and tier three in terms of I noticed that um was it suicide screening and prevention was that all tiers and different approaches with that how are we approaching it at a tier one versus a tier three ESS so that works through our health classes in middle and high school awesome and then um love to see that a lot of things were starting in Middle School um I was curious to hear about some of the things that were starting an elementary school in terms of um sort of Education with this because obviously you don't want to like put all these topics on Elementary schoolers but I know I was a student who suffered with severe anxiety and was put into therapy as a third grader um and a lot of that was the unknown of what I was feeling um so I'm curious to see uh there's two parts to this curious to see where we're going in terms of possibly seeing in some soft integration of possible you know mental health education within our elementary schools um because that can be one of the scariest parts of when you know you're eight you don't know what's happening why you feel a certain way um I know that was certainly the case for me as well as looking at and we talked about it I believe you talked about a little bit in the program about the self-reliance skills not self-reliance but it was uh social and emotional learning outside of the classroom and looking at other programs sort of I know that some universities are adapting things like headspace subscriptions for students um you know obviously institutionally wide but maybe for us case-by case basis ways for students to learn how to I hate to use the word deal with these things like off hours of how students are able to get support and resources um because a lot of these issues are still stigmatized there's still an issue of why are you stressed you're 13 what's going on what's stressing you out so much but for a lot of these students it really is is a a huge huge problem um so curious to see the direction possibly we're looking at um of outof class help support and resources you know even just like a brochure of phone lines to call if you're feeling this way in the middle of the night who who do you get into contact with um because I don't again I've only been out of the M public schools for five years now but I don't ever remember seeing that maybe it's because I didn't need the resources at that time but that also says is I feel like or I I'm under the impression of I feel like this information should be present without needing it like we should have these ready it should be nowhere to go before we even need to you know think about the bridge program sure so that's a lot um but I guess the to the to Long didn't read of all that is looking at possible integration with you know the elementary school seeing where we're at in terms of screening there um because that's also where I was screened for ADD and that really helped set me up for my further education as well as the as it's put in the report social emotional learning um integration throughout see where we're at with that so from an elementary school level we utilize the Michigan model which is Health um and that has a social emotional learning component within it okay um and then we're also using zones of Regulation so part of zones of Regulation is really talking about how am I feeling what is this feeling um and reducing the stigma of every feeling is a good feeling in some ways right and when certainly when you're feeling certain ways sometimes you need to utilize coping strategies because they may not be appropriate for that environment right so teaching our children about what is a feeling and and when a feeling you might need help from somebody right um so we're utilizing those programs I'm always looking at screeners so what is a screener that is valid and reliable how can we be screening more of our students for support right and then leaning on community right Community Based care is really important so we can only provide so much much within six hours we want to make sure our students and families know where to go in the community that's where car Solus has come in they've helped us tremendously sort of reduce those personalized phone calls that our school social workers and counselors um were previously trying to make and on the behalf of our families as well to get community based care awesome after school hours did that answer your question yeah and I guess the more part of like I know this would probably be more for high school or would integrate starting in the high school but again that um looking at other programs outside of the classroom for students to access whether it's a portal online or even like again like a brocher of uh resources outside of the me public schools that they may utilize looking at integration of that as well within this um so we have a 30 page brochure of community- based resources that we provide to families it's been translated um it needs to be updated a little bit but we go and make sure every year that things are relevant I think certainly the addition of CHA with their walk-in clinic this year is something we've been trying to heavily promote um for families not waiting until you're in extreme crisis right um but if you're feeling like you need care more urgently they've been tremendous awesome thank you so much really appreciate it yeah sure shman thank you um next up we have English learner El update and enrollment report Mr Paul teera director of elll and title three welcome good evening everyone and Welcome to our new members uh tonight tonight's presentation is an overview of the El program to kind of help the new members understand what's happening in Medford with our English Learners so the program that we have is a sheltered English immersion program and that's a two component program where we ensure that students get access to grade level content curriculum as well as English as a second language instruction to support English language development among our Learners we have programs in every Elementary School uh we have newcomer programs for students who are uh at the foundational level of English language acquisition at the mlin and at the misuk in grades one through five and then we have V pull out in every Elementary School for students who are at the transitional level uh which is 3 through five and then uh at the middle school we have a program at the mlin middle school which encompasses newcomers as well as ESL and then at the high school we have a newcomer program and ESL program and we offer we have a dedicated teacher on the vocational side of the house to support newcomer students as well as um transitional students with the CTE programs that we offer how these decisions are made is based on when students register they fill out a home language survey form which is a federal form that everyone's required to complete when we complete the registration we test the students for their English language proficiency it's a test that include all four domains so it's four separate tests in listening Reading Writing and speaking we administered the test we get a level we create a schedule and determine which program the students will go in once the students have been in the program for a year they take something called access that is a state mandated test similar to mcast but it's specifically for English learner students again it measures the four domains of language and based on this they take the test in January we get the results the end of May and then we make our placement decisions in June for the fall following September this is only one piece of data that we use to make our placement determinations we use a lot of District determined measures such as map scores we do writing prompts that are used um that are scored using the weda writing rubric which is what the ELD curriculum is based upon so enrollment numbers I have the history going back to um 20156 and I'm keeping it in there because eventually we're going to hit 700 students and I want to know what year how many years it took us to double our numbers so at this moment and this says 631 but today we just had 632 join Medford so we have 632 English learner students that number is in real time at the end of the year when desie runs their report the number will go down because if you see 2223 that was at 528 but we actually at one point had 58 students last year desie counts a student as an English Learner in the previous year if they are recorded in our Sims data our student information management system for two cycles so when we do our October report and our March report then the student counts if the March report and the June report the the number counts but any students that leave us in the interim even though they may have been with us for three months don't count in those numbers so if you look at the bottom we have how many students were tested so which one sorry to interrupt just I I saw that chart what year is are you that this year since this school year we've tested 391 new students in the district of those 391 259 qualified for El services but then we've also had 134 students withdraw from the distri district we have a very fluid population of English Learners we have students who will come here because they may have existing family they get started here in Medford then they find their own housing they move out we have students that go back to their home country uh we have students that you know just leave the district to you know unfortunately many high school students they go into the work Force to support and help their families so we've had 134 withdrawals this year but basically 765 students have passed through our doors to date for English Learners so with that we have um university Partnerships so we have a partnership with Leslie University they have an elementary education program with an add-on El license and what that means is while they're completing their coursework they do a year-long internship in one of our newcomer classrooms in the district so we get a teacher candidate from August and through you know through June and the Great Piece of this is that essentially we get to train the teacher and when we have openings we can hire them they're certified in both areas and they're familiar with the district they're familiar with our protocols the other university partnership we have is uh the UMass program last year I presented to you that we were part of a grant opportunity with the US Department of Education to uh have 15 seats for a free half Masters in Applied Linguistics and that gets teachers an ESL Certification so it's for existing teachers in the district to kind of broaden their teaching acum so that they can put you know forth all of the teaching strategies Beyond retail into their classrooms so this program ends in June we had 13 people successfully complete the program um and they'll be dually certified in their content area as well as ESL if they pass the mtel so we have a district English learner advisory Council that is similar to uh special education CPAC uh I call this many districts will call it an lpac uh English uh language parent advisory Council I like to take the word parent out of it because many of our students are here without their parents and so this is the equivalent it's the district English learner advisory Council we have monthly meetings eventually what should happen with this group is that the caregivers will eventually take it over uh it's challenging because they all don't speak the same language and so we utilize high school students um who are bilingual to come to these meetings to serve as interpreters kind of bridge the gap between uh the different languages in the group we have um people who have signed up to be leaders uh and you know they haven't started scheduling and running their own meetings but it's a work in progress and with that we've also contracted some um seminars for caregivers through the Massachusetts partnership for Youth and in March the presentation was on uh healthy balance screen time this was to support our caregivers with establishing boundaries with um devices in their home how they can support the school how they can use them as learning tools and some internet at safety and next month's presentation is going to be on vaping then we've also partnered with the welcome project in Somerville the welcome project helps um provide caregivers with uh English classes for free they got a grant a year and a half ago to expand outside of Somerville I was working in partnership with Sarah lren from uh the welcome project and we ended up uh creating classes here in Medford we hold them at the Medford Public Library this way here families don't have to come into the schools get Corey checked for the classes or anything like that they have a beautiful new space in the library that they've been using we've run three inperson classes and then uh those are on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then we have virtual classes in the evening so the funding for this grant that the welcome project got is ending this year this will be the last class but we're going to continue with the classes in the fall and we'll use a Federal grant title three to continue these for our caregivers and then Tech goes home is another partnership we have this is an organization in Boston that allows us to teach digital literacy to our caregivers um we've trained Medford teachers who will work in the evening uh We've created a curriculum uh for the caregivers it's everything from how to navigate the Medford Public Schools website how to check for school lunches how to communicate with your child's teacher how to send an email uh how to find English classes it's a 15-hour course and I actually just found out two hours before this meeting our course was approved so we'll be running another one it begins August 8th and it will end in June and at the completion of this the caregivers get um a free Chromebook a free year of internet access headphones carrying case other news the El department just completed its tiered focused monitoring this is similar to what special education just had to go through with the Department of Ed every three to six year every three years on a three-year cycle um dessie comes in and does a complete audit of the department there are 12 criteria 11 seems to be cut off on my I mean number 12 seems to be cut off on my computer but these are the um criteria that they measure the efficacy of the El program with so for the past year I've had to upload hundreds of pages of documentation for each of these um criteria and then criteria and then um they came into the district in February and they did classroom walkthroughs at the mlin the missu um the mlin middle and then also the high school they interviewed uh caregivers they interviewed teachers general education teachers El teachers they interviewed students and the administ uh and administrators they'll be putting together a final report we should have it in the next few weeks and I'm sure I'll be back here to explain the findings in their report to you and then the new literacy program at the elementary level uh into reading these are the new materials that were purchased that the teachers have received extensive PD on the El teachers are included in this whether they're a newcomer teacher or a pullout teacher even though we have our own English language development curriculum what the El teachers are doing is they're modifying the curriculum to support components from the inter reading program so that the goal is that you know students leave newcomers will go into a mainstream classroom and while they're in the mainstream classroom they'll still get EL support but all of the inter reading all of the strategies for early literacy will be the same so it's not a culture shock when they change levels so there's a team of teachers um putting together the curriculum taking the old curriculum and aligning it with the new materials and then talking points is is you'll hear people talk about this all the time this is a two-way communication platform that the district purchased it pulls information from our student information system to allow teachers administrators District administrators to engage in two-way communication with our families this isn't just for English learner families it's basically a text message system and if um in our home language or in the the home language which is identified as something other than English the app automatically translates the message so if it goes you know if Portuguese was selected teacher sends a classroom message home it gets translated into Portuguese just for that that family the family responds in Portuguese it translates it back to English for the teacher so teachers have been using this now for a little over a year with the district subscription that we purchased and I just pulled last week's data to show you like almost 1,700 messages were sent home in a week another translation device that we purchased for teachers and for school staff who interact with um multilingual families is something called pocket talk it's an oral translation device so you hold the button you choose your target language you speak it interprets it flip it the other person speaks their language it transfers it translates it back into English these were given to all building principles all building secretaries um nurses anyone that comes into contact with caregivers where they may may need on the spot instant translation and this isn't going to take the place of talking points it's not going to take the place of hiring interpreters for in-person meetings this is just the on the Fly you need an interpreter uh we ended up purchasing puring 45 in the district and then Chad Fallon bought 15 for the CTE teachers because they'll have newcomer students going through the CTE rotations and sometimes it's really helpful for those teachers to be able to translate especially where you know safety concerns in the shops um right there on the Fly and then all of the newcomer teachers have them as well and then for professional development we the El Department offers professional development outside of the typical professional development days uh all content teachers need to earn 15 hours of professional development in SEI uh or ESL strategies so these are on optional PD days these are in the evenings um so teachers it helps them recertify but these topics were based on what teachers have asked for and what we've seen in the district and and then coming up we have summer enrichment planning we offer summer enrichment uh for um elementary middle and high school uh this slide has changed from what I gave you because I realized I missed some stuff so I'll give the new one to Lisa for you um we run an elementary summer program k to5 at the Miss talk and then uh I've partnered with Anthony patris with uh summer fund and I will fund teachers to work in the after program so they can take El students who want to stay longer for the day and it's at no cost to the families um we have a program for students in grades five and six it's called Starbase it's at hansum Air Force bace it's a stem lab it's a week-long stem lab students get to use um 3D printers they um have robotic Wars with cars they do the derby cars they launch rockets they do chemistry experiments uh that's offered through um Starbase and uh we've been doing that now for I think six years then we have Middle School summer enrichment at Medford High School and then we do credit recovery for students in grades 9 through 12 and then uh 9 through 11 and then in grades 6 through 11 we offer summer reading support I'll um I can use title 3 funds to pay teachers to do office hours at the Medford Public Public Library so any middle school and high school students that need help with their summer reading choosing a book any of their math packets or history packets that they get there's somebody there um two times a week mornings and late afternoons to get that support and then this leads me to my last slide which is an ask for the committee um as our numbers are increasing we have a large flux of students in kindergarten this year and I never have a crystal ball I can never tell exactly how many students we're going to have so I have to base it on Trends from the previous year and so basing we had I think 38 newcomer students last year uh in kindergarten and we currently have 32 students in first grade newcomer classes now that's not all from that class that's students who have come in through the year but that's the how I gauge what my numbers are going to be this year we have 20 more newcomer students than we did last year and so we are going to need another first grade classroom for newcomer students and preferably at the mlin because that is where the bulk of the students are um I won't know the exact number until the end of you know until the end of May beginning of June because with the kindergarten students they take that access test in January anuary and there is so much growth in a kindergarten student from January to June that it's not an accurate measure so we take the you know two options if the teachers say this student is ready to be reclassified as a former English learner student we give them a test called the WAP again it measures all four domains Reading Writing listening and speaking and that will give us the determination if they have the cut score to just go into a general education classroom if they were a newcomer student and the teacher is recommending that they go into first grade newcomer they also give that WAP test that will give me the data I need to know that yes they they have to remain in newcomers and so that won't happen until the beginning of June but based on previous Trends this is what I'm predicting thank you Mr txa any questions member inapa then member brandley yes thank you director Sahara for coming and all these numbers um I'd be interested to see at some point sort of our statistics I know this probably pertains more to our high school students who come in as um English language Learners um with their sort of integration into the Arts and athletic departments and how they are sort of coexisting in those spaces I know that um at least my time at the high school it always seemed very sectioned off in terms of not just academics but also in terms of um culture like the culture of just Leisure and existing in these spaces together um and that's really unfortunate um you know even at um we had a lot of um El students participate as stage crew uh in the drama club and they always stuck together and were off by themselves um and I'd love to find out if there's a way that we can minimize that culture of things I mean it's a very scary thing of you know learning Linguistics and settling in and for some of these individual students there was an individual who was on the uh crew team with member olapa and I who had just landed in the US in summerow their first year and we met them their second year and they didn't know the word for screwdriver and then by the end of it you know they were um uh the growth that we witnessed with that individual because of how integrated they were and how socialized they were with us and um how the program really benefited them um it was a really beautiful thing so I'd love to see sort of what we're doing as a um as a Division I don't know the right word uh at the moment to push students to sort of more coexist together because it's benefit for both sides it's benefit for all involved um so I'd love to see that at some point well and that happen with um the CTE exploratory programs all of the new students go through the same rotations and they're not a cohort it's you know six in this group five in this group so they are you know the students are integrated with everyone and those rotations include all the CTE exploratory programs as well as the Arts love to see that thank you member brenley I'm up well thank you for this this is very interesting um um one question um I'm looking at the numbers here it looks like my glasses broke as I walked in so forgive me um but it looks like our numbers have doubled from our 350 back in 2015 and 16 to 631 as of March 1st so I'm curious how our staff has risen with that have we so we have been we have been increasing staff you know throughout the throughout the years um and that is something especially the elementary strand of newcomers at the mlin which is where the biggest numbers are the way the program is structured is it's sustainable to continue to add new students but that's why I brought up the first grade class because I know that's not sustainable because I can't have two first grade newcomer classrooms with you know 25 students in them each no So and I've been in some of those classrooms um at the Brooks and it is amazing to me the teachers that that teach these classes not that they're not using their words but it is such a diverse group I I I think I remember Ali and I can't even think of her last name right now but um her saying to me that you know 10 languages in her class or and you I remember saying to her how do you do this I mean we're speaking English in the kindergarten downstairs and I feel like half the kids aren't listening you know like I feel like they're not hearing us so how are you doing this and it just amazed me how creative they are to so that everybody is getting the same curriculum at the same time it really is astounding so huge shout out to them and then my other question um I want to thank Mr Fallon for buying uh 15 of these little things he he's a rockstar too and then um on one of these Pages here you have the schools I don't see the Andrews so I'm just curious um I know the programs are housed at the mclen middle school but how does that change their enrollment all year long I mean it must be constantly changing it is but what happens is with any other new students who are non-el that go to the Andrews or that come into middle school if they don't need elel programming they go to the Andrews so the numbers are actually and I'd have to look up what the exact numbers are but the numbers between the two buildings are similar it's Equitable okay that that was just my question because I'm figuring if all of these kids are INF flexing to just the mlin how are we balancing that off because it seems like that would happen a lot more than someone that would move in still right so if we could just get those numbers I I would love to see that y if that's possible thank you so much thank you thank you Mr SEC and the last thing that I wanted to say on the last slide is that none of this work could H could happen without the El teachers because every committee I mentioned every daac there are people I have El teachers who work on all of those programs that I just described the tech goes home the um the the summer programs none of this work could happen without those teachers so thank you to them thank you yes thank you to you and our El teachers we do not have any presentations to the public or continued business but we have a number of items and a new business first up 202 24-11 offered by member rouso member Grim member ol resolution in support of Massachusetts Association of school committees resolutions reaffirmation whereas the Massachusetts Association of school committees bylaws article 9 Section 1 requires adopted resolutions of the association to expire three years after adoption whereas the mcast masc bylaws article 9 section one required Medford school committee to vote for the read-option of expiring resolutions for consideration at the annual conference and whereas the following resolutions of matters the Medford school committee has previously Port supported now therefore be it resolve that the Medford school committee reaffirm support for the following resolutions access to menstral supplies 2019 mandatory recess in public schools 2021 prohibiting the use of Native American mascots 2021 one climate change 2019 poverty and children 2019 Charter School Reform 2019 two request a secretary of the Medford school committee convene oh sorry convey to the masc resolutions committee chair our support for the above resolutions being reaffirmed and request Secretary of the meod school committee engage with the masc resolutions committee and other Mass School committees as necessary to reaffirm the above resolutions presented to the bylaws of the masc member Russo thank you so um last year the uh our professional association adopted um a new bylaw um because each year the resolutions committee would put forward and school committees could put forward resolutions for masc then these would become the things that masc would be pushing for with the legislature um their advocacy work would be centered around these resolutions and um before last year those resolutions just kept getting added so they're their their docket of things for which they should be paying attention to was quite long um and there was no mechanism even if they succeeded frankly for them to stop pushing for it um so last year they adopted we adopted um the association adopted a new bylaw that says that every three years any resolution just automatically will expire that if a member school committee wishes to reaffirm that as a priority for our association um we had to vote for it and then um if three I believe it's three don't hold me to that if three different School committees um reaffirm that the resolution should be continued as a priority then it will just automatically be continued um to the actual conference in November where be voted on um so that's that's the gist of it the list of expiring uh resolutions included many more that I think we all many of us care about um some of them were partially already um had been partially successful others were um well these were the ones that after I looked at the list I thought were important and I also took a kind of a pragmatic view some of them were things for which I didn't NE really think the association could effectively advocate for um so I that was just my opinion uh but this is the list of the ones that I thought we should reaffirm and hopefully we can get the association to continue that motion to approve motion to approve by member Graham seconded by member second olap all those in favor I all those opposed motion passes 202 24-12 submitted by member Russo policy bbbbbbb School Committee Member qualifications oath of office will be updated with the following language to serve in the school committee an individual must be registered voter in the city or town from which they elected or appointed and must take an oath of office as required by law each new member will be will present to the committee secretary official certification of H having sworn the oath before the city clerk before entering on their official duties as a member of the committee from the superintendent newly qualified committee members by law will receive and sign a receipt of a copy of Massachusetts open meeting law governing the conduct of committee meetings in general and in executive sessions in particular newly qualified committee members shall by law receive a sign in sign of receipt for within 30 days of taken office a copy of the Massachusetts ethics commission summary of the conflict of interest laws as Massachusetts employees all school committee members shall receive a copy of said summary annually all school committee members shall within 30 days of taken office and every two years thereafter complete the Massachusetts ethics commission's online training program completing the online training program members shall provide notice of such completion to be retained for six years by the superintendent member Russo and then member reinfeld thank you um so it was funny this I I keep a I have my own system for keeping track of resolutions that I want to put forward and that's got a long list um and I try to prioritize them because there's only so much work that can actually get done at a time and I was cleaning up my list and I found that I had this one sitting in there from several years ago which I thought was very timely since we just had a new member U this is language that is almost Verbatim what everybody else has in other districts um and with the exception that there's a lot of like towns slash do this s you know like the law is written to be generic for all the various types of communities we have so I cleaned it up because in most of these in the language that was originally uh provided that I found it was it said the city clerk would do things that our superintendent does and I wasn't really looking to change anything I was just looking to get the language to reflect what actually already happens so um that's why I put this forward because our current policy is out ated and missing some of the stuff that changed in the law thank you member Russo member reinfeld yep I had two questions um one and I know this is this was in the old policy as well what if the secretary is a new member is that I mean a new member can't and the secretary's um elected during that first meeting at which point the duties have started so I'm a little confused about the logistics but I know this is this has stood as is for quite a while so I don't know what to do about that um and then my second question is uh there was a phrase removed about um non-discrimination that there's membership on a school committee is not limited to race color sex religion national origin or sexual orientation that yeah member Russo I'll take the first one first um so um wait what was the first one sorry how can a new member if oh yes sorry um it's a great question and uh if we were all new it it traditionally and again it's just a tradition that the leadership of committees are typically not new members just because there's an awful lot to learn but it is entirely possible especially in Medford where everybody is up at the same time that we could be an entirely new committee um I think that that's not considered in the language here um I think that we would vote for a secretary and then that person who good luck but would have to then know all this stuff as well um so I I don't know that we can get into that because if that happens it it's going to be very challenging for the committee anyways um the other uh question though um so we have been trying to clean up our policies and not have policies contain other policies say this is covered by the non-discrimination right we have a non-discrimination policy and by inserting the language all over the place every time we change it we effectively need to update dozens or more policies which we never do so then there's like language it's outdated and wrong all over the place so this is not an attempt to suggest that a school Committee Member would not be uh following that on the other hand it's also important to note that elections are elections and that if a school Committee Member wants to violate all of our policies and wants to violate the law there's literally nothing that can be done about it so having meaningless language is something I'm opposed to because less is more so um I think having Lang that is enforceable is important um so thank you thank you motion to wave the first reading topper head is handed first sorry my apologies thank you m mayor my I share a similar concern with M reinfeld about uh section two each new member will present to the committee secretary official certification I I'm not sure where else it's done um but to me I feel like this as someone who just went through through the process of policy not existing um and policy being vacant and a week of anxiety around what happens next um this I it almost it I don't want to say it feels unnecessary because I appreciate the work that's been done but I don't see what the committee secretary has to do with the process and again that could just be my naiveness of this I'm two weeks into this um but to me I feel like striking almost this from the policy I I don't see it um like you said less is more and to me again if we have a total rehaul of our school committee which could happen um what does this do and what happens then um but I would almost move to have like the rest of the policy very understandable makes sense um especially the Massachusetts ethics commission some of the conflict of interest law making sure we're up to date on that information however section two to me uh feels almost like it could be striken out of this policy mayor the current policy already actually says that this is supposed to come to the secretary okay um and I believe that's language directly out of the law I don't want this it doesn't make sense to me that it would come to the secretary like the keeper of our records by law is me but by practice as the superintendent and I think that's the case in virtually every school committee there is because the secretary is not a 9-to-5 full full-time job um but I think and I don't know if there's anything in in the statute about should we be delegating authority to the superintendent or not but um but that's that's the way I mean this is current language um and um it doesn't make sense to me and if nobody ever comes and gives this to me I'm perfectly fine with that um nobody has ever done it I'm not aware tell you I didn't um and I wouldn't know what to do with it if you gave it to me right but I think the superintendent is is has her office acts as the keeper of Records even though like I take the votes and that's because of the secretary's role so I certainly understand that it's I think it's just weird yeah um but I think the other thing though is that in Massachusetts there are just there's while School committees for the most part are there's different sizes but there's still fairly like the same kind of idea districts are not there's you know there's Regional School Districts and um they're they're very different kinds of uh some Regional districts are literally municipalities like a city Meanwhile we're not a m municipality as a school district um so I think there's some other weird and I think whenever they write these laws they want to make Universal things get frankly muddy is an understate so I I hear your point but yeah it's current also on that point if I may just from the chair and then I'm going to member Graham if it's not law maybe we could change it shall present to the city clerk to get sworn in um before by oath before entering their official duties maybe makes more sense I was going to say because I believe that is the protocol we had to follow was we had to present the uh certification of election or in my case appointment to the city clerk that's the language does say the oath is with the clerk May member Graham um so I just want to offer like a really tactical example of why somebody on the committee knowing what's going on is really important so when I chaired the meeting two weeks ago or three whatever that was the entire committee was completely unclear whether we had an absent member whether we only had six members whether we had a new member who wasn't yet sworn in and like nobody here until like the very last moments of the meeting was clear about what that was so we recorded a member as absent which was not true it turned out um so I think this language makes sense because there is a role for this in our group but also once we adopt it we should send it to the clerk so that he understands his responsibility to the committee when he swears a member into office so he he would still swear people in we just need to know what's happening here so that we can conduct business accordingly so um I have a motion on the floor to wave the first reading there's no motions to amend motion to wave the first reading by member Graham seconded by member reinfeld all those in favor I others opposed motion passes uh motion to approve the updated policy as outlined motion to approve the policy as outlined by member Graham seconded by second member ol all those in favor I all those opposed motion passes looks like we all need to get our certificate certifications to member Russo don't 2024 d 13 submitted by member reinfeld whereas the public has a right to view meetings during and after their occurrence and whereas me both Meer public schools and memph Community media currently provide online access to meetings VI res the school committee meetings page on the memph public schools website will include a link to archived recordings of Medford Public Medford school committee meetings and that individual recording links when available will be posted along with past meeting minutes whose posted is described by policy be DG G be res further resolved that meeting notifications described by policy BEDA will include information about non-participatory realtime viewing options via local access television Comcast channel 8 Verizon channel 45 and streaming services EG Medford Community media video on demand Medford Public Schools YouTube along with individual Zoom access links this resolution is offered with a goal of making Medford school committee meetings more accessible to members of the Medford Community me member reinfeld I'm going to give it to you to maybe explain little lower level so some of this used to exist and then when we moved to zoom that became the only online access that was announced in meetings um this was this is just to say when people go to look at the minutes they should be able to see get to the videos quite easily I realized that it can be difficult to post the individual video links um I did talk to um Tom about whether not this would be possible he said it would be fine um but in the absence of that I would be completely fine with just the link to find previous recordings here um it was suggested that there might be some policy changes required on this um I went and I looked at the policies and they really just describe what's in the minutes and what's in the announcements about time and place it doesn't need to be doesn't seem to be needing an amendment on the videos I have that language if we need to add them but it kind of changes the name of the resolution so happy for questions this is just about making these things available to the public Meo do you have a question no um sorry you have your light on sorry I was just that's how I've been trying to see motion to approve motion to approve if if if I could ask a question or Tom if you don't mind coming up because I want to better understand each meeting director of Communications Dalton will have to go and get the link from memph Community media and then put it on the minutes is that what you're asking for to post yes with the so we have agenda and then we have oh and then we have the minutes are posted once the minutes are approved the minutes go up and it would be easy enough to just add that Zoom link or so I'm told I would be perfectly happy with just to here's where to go and find it but I was gonna say so it's would that H how time consuming is that compared to just making sure that people have full access to medf community media media where they know they can just type in the date and then the meeting minute meeting um recording comes up yeah thank you mayor um and thanks to the committee um there it it's definitely doable either way um I could defer to the preference of of the committee and I mean when we get it up and running I can even show you the difference but um the bottom line basically is that not only Medford Community media but also the Medford Public Schools YouTube page is a repository for all the meetings um because the the zoom meetings get pushed straight to stream on YouTube as well um so it would be really really simple just at the top of the web page that we list all of the meeting minutes on the past meeting minutes um to just have a link to Medford Community media link to the YouTube page you know here are two options for accessing the video recordings of past meetings but um if we found there was a strong preference for whatever reason we could also list the individual links to each video next to the um the minutes you know at the same time that we upload the the the approved minutes for each meeting that said I think that just having a link to the YouTube channel probably does the job it's under our control we know it's not going anywhere it's easy to navigate because it's YouTube um so I I think it would be simple enough yeah and I only ask um because it would be your time and and if you if we do approve this policy you're G you might have people like really check in Daily to make sure you are getting those links up and you're going to you will get emails you'll get emails and say the March um 18th meeting isn't up yet where is it and it might just be a lot of time where we definitely want you doing our press releases and helping with cs so I don't know how the committee feels but I I would be fine with just a zoom the the links so then people know where to access yeah and if I could add also I mean I think the other benefit of of linking to it is that then we're also not waiting for minutes to get approved um because the recording is the recording is the recording right um it doesn't take the Committees approval for that to be it's it's up immediately after the meeting ends and it's always there uh if you know how to find it so yeah I mean I I would favor just having the YouTube link and and we can do it from there thank you member Graham did you and and that's one part the other part was about letting people know where they can watch it on cable and through live streams which as I said used to be the case um and as somebody who would often tune in and listen to it listen to these meetings while I'm dealing with dinner or children it was helpful to have those links with the meeting info okay so do we need an amendment just to make sure so the first first paragraph is that okay to change it to making sure the YouTube link is is up as well as MCM um yes well I think you can just strike and at and that individual recording links through the end of that sentence there right just where archives recordings of public of Medford public school committee meetings Dr Dr Edward wion has a question member member ryanfeld so just for from a clarification perspective on the actual agenda you're asking that we place the channels as well is that what you're saying I am so in this um box the the table that we have on this first page where we have the zoom link if we add one more bar that says TV access channel Comcast Verizon that would that would be sufficient if we add an additional role yes okay thank you yes um I just want to add on on that front in terms of listing the specific Channel um we did do that like even as recently as when I started with the district um last year we were still listing the channels at some point the channels changed and we couldn't quickly which channels they were updated to we were getting mixed reports about which channels local access was available these are the education channels and there's a separate local access and is it not consistent I I think it is consistent I think at the time we were getting ready to post a meeting agenda and we said you know what let's just say it's available on Medford Community media and not list a channel number until we confirm so this is a helpful reminder that we can in fact track down that that channel number and make sure that we include it and I don't want to be a pain but if I may from the chair again if there are multiple meetings in a night and we have a subcommittee Mee if the council's here we have a subcommittee meeting the channels do all change yes okay so they dotra work all right so the live stream to zo though you're saying that um our zooms do get pushed to to YouTube that's right our our um this meeting is is streaming on on YouTube right now in addition to Medford Community media um and that Link's the same yes right yep so it's always the same channel we could put the YouTube link on the agenda member Russo thank you um the Met Community media though is often not up for several days so um I mean I I feel like we should send a mail or I know it cost too much but YouTube is amazing literally you can watch us right now you can plus pause go to the bathroom and come back and hit resume as if this meeting was literally pausing for you live right now what did Paul just say scroll back a little bit oh my god um so I I mean if you have access to me Community media you're on the internet so you have YouTube so um not that I don't love Meer Community media but I can't imagine why anybody would use it when YouTube exists because you can scroll around in the meeting you cannot do that on metri community media unless you download the 5 gigabyte file to your local device which is what I used to do before we had YouTube so if you're using that for Community media now's your time to know go to YouTube um so I'm a fan of just having the link um I also did want to say though we have a policy um that if we want to our our agenda format is actually in a policy bedb which I think you mentioned um no you don't but if we want to change the format of the agenda we actually need to amend bedb which we can do at another meeting but that's fine yeah I was looking at that as the minutes and the notification but sure um we're g to wrap this up we got member Ina and then we'll take a vote as amended I was just going to say does a a motion to amend need to be put on the floor because I can do that right now is what think um member reinfeld put the amendment on to change the first paragraph to YouTube and MCM links and to strike and that individual recording links um so then we'll just need um motion to amend if if that's how member reinfeld wants to proceed with the YouTube link on the agenda versus the channel mbers I don't have a strong preference on this um my sense is that the people who aren't watching it online want the channel numbers but I would I I not to be difficult but I would make a motion to amend to have the channel links but to also to have the uh me Community Media Link the YouTube link as well as the channel numbers because again it helps if you're trying to watch that on the TV it's it's a question I would say Channel numbers and YouTube channel and YouTube Correct yes so that that's that would be my motion to amend would be to strike that and include Channel numbers and YouTube link Dr cushion do not to make it too busy sorry not to make it too busy on the agenda on the agenda but for those just getting the paper agenda we put the QR code on now so they can go directly into the zoom I can swap that Q we can swap that QR code so it goes directly into the YouTube instead however you want to do it um but however you want to do it I'll also say that I I think the the the uh resolution is is completely practicable as written um just from my perspective as as the probably the primary uh Stafford to carry it out I think it's totally doable um way it's written so amend don't amend um but I I can manage it I will also say that these meeting sorry the notice is posted to the website where we are we have agreed to put that link so that link exists where meeting notification exists so I don't need that link on the agenda I think the channels make sense on the agenda okay so no YouTube link just the channel numbers member Russo um I just I do think that we have to also consider if we put the wrong information whether the meeting can proceed if we say we're meeting here and we decide to meet elsewhere we are not having a legal meeting so if we put channels and they're not going to be right I think it's reasonable to ask whether or not the meeting should proceed so can we get these channels and always have them right I think it's it's not fair to tell people this is how you can watch this meeting live and then they go there and they can't granted there are alternatives but um just like there if we if the power goes out here and we decide we want to go to the high school no that's not an option so that's my only concern about the channels I think more information is great but it has got to be accurate all the time or we have taken the Public's um ability to participate in a in a meeting in public um so that's my concern yeah member and TAA then I yeah with that that information makes complete sense then I would move to make a a motion to amend and just have the YouTube link on the agenda circling back thousands of times but if the if we can't rely on the channels being consistent even if they're next to each other we do open ourselves up to that liability of again false advertising where the um it's being broadcasted so I was thinking from a standpoint of people who may not have Smart TVs who may be using you know the educational platform but then again we don't want to run into that issue okay so we're back to a different Amendment so YouTube and MCM paragraph one YouTube link paragraph two if everybody feels that is let's take a vote for that um so motion for approval by member inapa as amended seconded by I second member branley all those in favor I I all those opposed motion passes 202 24-4 submitted by member rouso member Graham and member olap resolution in support of a stabilization fund for the City of Medford whereas the use of free cash is only possible for a few months each year from when free cash is certified by the state through June 30th when the fiscal year ends whereas me Public Schools may experience unexpected expenses not planned for in the budget cycle such as a major equipment failure floods fires roofs Etc whereas Meer Public Schools cannot borrow money to cover such expenses whereas at present the only mechanism for member public schools to receive additional funding to cover unexpected expenses is by a supplemental appropriation submitted by the mayor to the city council for approval whereas the inability to use free cash for much of the Year places the menford public schools in the city of menford in a precarious position should a supplemental appropriation be required to ensure educational continuity for our students whereas a stabilization fund provides a mechanism for the allocation and spending of money throughout the year and whereas the use of a stabilization fund resources requires a mayoral request to the city council for approval now therefore be it resolved that the Medford school committee thanks the Medford city council for approving the creation of a stabilization fund urges the Medford city council when a request to add funds to the stabilization fund is received to approve the request before the expiration of free cash and request the superintendent of schools sends this resolution and a record of the vote of the school committee to the Medford city council member Russo thank you mayor um I think I should also thank you because you wrote the paper that went to city council and I as soon as you're reading it I'm like oh my gosh sorry it's okay um yeah so I I did watch this um this part of the city council meeting was it last week the week before it's all a blur um and um I know that you know the stabilization fund is not like a free cash is the worst the most poorly named concept I think that ever existed especially as a taxpayer I feel like everybody should think free cash that's my cash it's but it conceptually it is just means it's the money that the city has that didn't get spent from the previous year um and not having access to that money for almost the whole year is kind of um Bonkers I don't know I can't find a better word um and so the while the city has money something horrible can happen and we literally can just look at the money and just like oh wouldn't it be nice if we could spend the money on the Urgent problem um and so so I think that having a stabilization fund which did get approved um but I believe at this moment there are zero dollars in it um so when free cash gets certified by the state um I obviously urge that the mayor as I'm sure she will want to will ask the city council to transfer some of that money from the St from the free cash uh account into the stabilization fund and give her give her give the city council and give the school committee the ability to respond to emergencies you know um in summer bill they had a roof partially collapsed and they closed a school over a weekend and they had to spend a ton of money I'm sure to figure out what to do with all those students that was not planned for if that happens here it better happen between the middle of March and June 30th or or we don't have the money to do that so um I think this is a a critical thing and it's a it's a constant risk that we just sit with when it doesn't need to be so thank you for your efforts mayor and uh thank you to the city council yes member Graham thank you um I in addition to emergencies this is the kind of fund that we will need to rely on um to demonstrate to msba that we have set aside adequate money for feasibility study which we will need to do to get out of the elgibility phase so um I am completely for it I think this is part of stabilizing our budgeting process which I we've all been working on um and I do hope the council will approve um any requests that you send them to put money in the stabilization fund both for um the unexpected um and also um eventually for the feasibility study for um mba's process thank you no thank you all for um putting the resolution on if I it may from the chair I proposed a $5 million stabilization account the spring of 2023 that that did fail at the time and I want to thank the current city council for approving opening up the the the account so that we can hopefully next month add at least 5 million into that account because as you wrote in the resolution come July 1 until free free cash is certified again which has been mid to late March of the last year and it will be this year there is no money available except what's in our budgets to to pay for emergencies so if we or any any type of outside funding outside of the budget that we happen to need that free cash gets closed down and you cannot spend it so if we have a situation where we need money for like you you mentioned a roof or an emergency or even we need a million dollars to get an OPM to do a new high school this is the account we would have to take it from because there would be no other account so this is extremely important we've been able to get by because we have that nine more months of arpa but this is important passing because once December 30th comes until free cash certifies in 2025 there will be no funding and then the year after that July 1 2025 until March 2026 there will be no outside funding so it's kind of unheard of that city city our size does not have one some cities and towns have multiple this is long overdue it's going to be a huge accomplishment for the school committee city council uh and our office to to get this um set up and get us prepared for emergencies to come so thank you for the support and I see there's move approval m friendley sorry so I was also uh in attendance I was here actually during all of this the other night um at the city council and it didn't seem like the the voters were very happy about that um it seemed like there was a lot of uproar about it so um I feel like it's trickling down to us to make a decision too so that does make me nervous um how are we going to manage this this fund I mean I know it says here emergencies but then we also said the stability so can we use that for anything it's a stabilization account but it would need um to come from the mayor's office and that would be a recommendation by the school committee if it was school spending and then it would have to be vot every dollar that's spent out of the stabilization account um 99.9% sure would have to be approved by the city council okay thank you yeah I think there was a maybe a lot of emotions in that real I I think once you're clear on what is stabilization account which is a a spending putting taking money from free C free cash and putting into an account some some cities in towns have um multiple stabilization accounts so Capital Improvement stabilization account stabilization account for emergencies this is just our first of at least have something on the books to be able to spend in case we do have an emergency or some sort of spending we need um without that free cash being available remember R and this Citywide not designated for schools this is not designated for schools this is just a city stabilization account but of course could be spent on a roof that collapses you know that needs major repair that we don't have 300 400,000 to fix second motion approval by member Russo I believe it was seconded by member Graham roll call roll call member poty oh member poty I'm sorry I didn't see your like Oh I thought okay um sorry you said I'll just get used to his hand because he's just so tall so yeah if you need me you just throw your hand up member brandley no uh member Graham yes member and tapa exstension member Ola yes member rfil yes member so yes Mar L yes five in the affirmative one no one abstained motion is approved 24 20 24-15 submitted by member rouso member Graham and member olard whereas the resolution on the disciplinary practice of suspension was unanimously adopted by the M school committee on October 14 2020 whereas the language of the resolution on the disciplinary practice of suspension provides that the following actions will be taken by the mord public schools ends the use of out of out of school suspensions effective the first day of the school year 2021 except as provided by law provides for the continuation of a learning environment for every in school suspension ensures that in school suspensions will not occur in isolation without instruction or rehabilitative counseling selects alternative tools for use and discipline such as restorative justice wherever possible we complete a comprehensive program review of disciplinary practices across the district including but not limited to systemwide disciplinary measures reporting to the school committee social and emo supports for victims as well as establishing a staff feedback process to be presented to the school committee in May 20121 seeks to incorporate any funding requirements to ensure the implementation of the selected Alternatives with Fidelity in the next budget cycle and establishes an annual reporting process that includes but is not limited to systemwide disciplinary measures reporting to the school committee as well as establishing staff feedback process whereas it appears that there are occurrences of non-compliance with the policy happening in the district and the occurrences have been observed since the effective date of the policy and whereas the annual reporting requirements of the resolutions have not occurred now therefore be it resolved that the superintendent will will number one provide a description of the onboarding process that ensures District staff including teachers Vice principles principles and our prives of the policy to provide a report of training available to all staff including staff participation and training offered disaggregated by building three provide a detailed report of disciplinary actions taken from the start of the 2023 2024 school year through March 1st 2024 the report provided should be a modeled to comply with the annual reporting requirement going forward and will contain the following minimum data types of incidents determinations and discipline the above data elements summarized for the district the above data Elements disaggregated by school by grade level and by school in grade level four provide a description of how Central Administration determines compliance with the policy five provide a report of the number of times the above policy has not been followed by building leadership and what actions are being taken to remedy these instances of non-compliance six conduct a review of all sub suspensions from the start of the 2023 2024 school year through March 1st 2024 and provide an assessment of how many suspensions were inappropriate and provide information requested above at the April 8th school committee meeting member Russo thank you mayor um actually think it's self-explanatory so I don't need to keep us here till midnight on it approval by member Russo second oh member Graham yeah um I I just wanted to add that in addition to this the resolution um which has been repeated here the district also issued guidance uh in 20 21 I believe um that outlined a specific set of occurrences for which the district had identified that a suspension was both appropriate and in compliance with this policy and um we're bringing this forward because we are continuing to hear about instances outside of that set of parameters that is both compliant with the policy um a and compliant with the like set of reasons outlined by the administration um so I just have a lot of concerns that a this policy was never properly implemented in the first place the things that were described in terms of funding and um the things that needed to happen from a um uh from a a funding and implementation perspective none of those things were brought to us and we have to um I think we I think we're just veering way far away from the intent of the policy um and that is symptomatic of of bad implementation and we have to think about how we can recover from that so um I want to make sure that um we can be clear and I think there are some people who want to speak tonight about this um from their perspective but I want to make sure that we are we are really evaluating whether the things that are happening in our buildings are appropriate and consistent with this policy um and I think it was always Our intention to hear from the administration on on multiple occasions about how the implementation was going and I don't think we've really done that at all so um that I think we need to start to change the dynamic here around this policy so we can make sure that a we're funding the supports needed appropriately um that came up uh very specifically in 2021 when it became clear that there was no staff um or mechanism for an in school suspension which is an alternative to suspending kids out of school um which I think is very viable and use by a lot of districts but we just have never properly like resourced or funded such a thing so it's fine if we don't need that because we don't have reasons for it but if we're hearing about students being suspended for things that are outside of our policy like I think that's definitely a signal that um we need to go back to the drawing board on this implementation and make sure that everyone in the district understands the policy and the guidance provided um and that we can start to adhere to those things or something can come forward to us for consideration and we can make a change member and TOA um if I can I'd like to wave my time I believe a member of the public would like to speak so I I can wave out of order and then Circle back because I I don't know if I have some questions about um impact so if the member of the public has any answers about that uh I can I can reassess my my questions I believe so I wave my time yep name and address for the record yes we just got to press the button I'm sorry there we go thank you okay my name is Mary Davis I have two children at the high school um and one that graduated in 2022 um I'd like to share a deeply unfair incident that occurred with our family in terms of the long-term suspension um at the high school first I want to say that none of my children have been involved in any disciplinary actions in the past so we are not repeat offenders um but this January my daughter um was heckled and bullied by a large group of girls that ultimately ended in a fight uh there were eight of them and there was one of her she was surrounded and closed off in one of the bathrooms and according to her she threw the first punch out of fear after that first punch a number of the girls actively assaulted my daughter and filmed it um when I picked my daughter up that day the school acknowledged that the fight started out of bullying of my daughter um and this statement was reiterated by the assistant principal later in a police report filed by the school um but the school ultimately lumped all the girls together um that engaged in the physical altercation into a criminal assault charge um and then my daughter received a long-term suspension pending the outcome of the criminal charge that the school submitted um even though the administrators acknowledged to me that her actions um related to the criminal charge were clearly an act of self-defense and that was on video so it was a videotaped Act of self-defense most concerning to me was the fact that the school refused to share any information related to the incident and the disciplinary action that I needed to understand and refute the charges at that long-term suspension hearing I hired an attorney uh to draw the school's attention to their own policy and legal violations at which point my daughter's long-term suspension was reduced to five days but at that point she had already spent two and a half weeks out of school um my daughter has very high needs and is on an IEP with a high level of services so during that time when her she was suspended indefinitely they also effectively eliminated her iup um services along with it and she is still struggling to make up the loss time from school so although I do agree that suspensions have a place in some extreme circumstances um as it relates to safety my concern is that the current school practice is totally out of line with legal expectation and due process they can suspend a kid indefinitely without providing any evidence at least in my case of why a kids a danger to the school they can take away their access to education and health services without providing evidence to the family on what happened and why taking away their kids education is a fair punishment so with that I support the school committee doing a further Deep dive into school practices and I'll also add that I would really like I didn't see this in the motion but um paying particular attention to the effect of pulling kids with IEPs I do believe that they're being suspended at a higher rate thank you for presenting member Anapa and then member brandley um first off I I just want to thank you for coming forward and sharing your story that's not easy and I apologize that that happened um my question surrounded the effectiveness of what we're proposing but it almost sounds like we need to take a reassessment of what we look at in terms of um the disciplinary practice of suspension looking at the cases um and also just to do the work looking at the claim of of who's being affected higher in terms of suspension rates um as you had mentioned with iep's students um so my questions have greatly shifted um but I'm wondering where we have to look at reassess the language into see what fits in best practice me me member brandley so um this obviously hits very close to home for me I know that we spoke um privately uh over email but I just want to thank you for being brave enough to come up here um because I know personally how hard that is um I promised myself that I would never cry to school committee meeting I'm not going to start now it's still too too early in my term but there's still time um but thank you thank you very much for for sharing your story with us because I know what that feels like I how all of this fails and I know that um when I did return my email to you that I said I it actually took me courage to even respond to you um um so thank you for standing there and know that this could be the result of you standing there one time you just never know where the road is going to lead you so always speak up and I said that to anybody that's out there in the public like you never know where the road will lead you or sometimes you know what you think or what is your some of your darkest days turns into something completely different so thank you for being brave enough to to come here and tell your story I think we have a motion on the floor member Russo I like to make a motion to approve but I have an amendment um so my motion is since I wrote it I can motion to approve as amended if you agree with that um the um the bullet under three the third bullet says the above data Elements disaggregated by school by grade level and by school and grade level I wish to add comma and by Desi category reporting categories um I don't have to list them here but Desi has a set of reporting categories which includes students with disabilities and a host of others so that's my Amendment okay motion for approval as amended by member Russo mayor member Graham um can I offer another um two things there is there anybody on Zoom who would like to speak I thought there might be somebody with a hand in the air I don't see anybody okay um okay so I would also like to make an amendment um to um item number three that maybe it's its own sub bullet um that describes the number of instances where um Medford Public Schools has filed a police report um in a in a related incident um to a suspension I I am super concerned about students with records um and charges against them um and I want to make sure that we're doing um our due diligence to keep the community safe but that we are not um ruining the lives of children in our care um who make bad decisions at time so there's definitely a needle to thread there and I'd like to see us um explore uh an understanding of that um in addition in item number three is that member member Ryan is that the number of incidents with the police report or the number of police reports because my understanding is there are sometimes multiple police reports filed around a single incident or is an incident deci defined as one student um I would say per student um but I I don't know how that data is collected so I don't have like a strong opinion about how we know about the the reporting of it I just want to make sure that we are discussing that okay motion for approval by member Russo and seconded by member Graham um as amended as amended by member so and then member Graham all those in favor I all those opposed mayor who seconded that member Graham thank you motion passes 202 24-16 submitted by bember Graham be resolved that the administration will present proposed fiscal year 25 rate cards for all tuition and fee based programs and rentals for review and approval by the meit school committee which may include but is not limited to pool usage facilities rentals athletic user fees preschool Meep and Kids Corner we res further resolve that the reviews will occur as available but no no later than June 30th 2024 for the upcoming fiscal year motion for approval by member I had a question I'd like to offer an amendment that the rate cards be accompanied by a historical perspective for these funds or history or for those that are recommending a rate change I don't know which one is more appropriate here General history or just those with a change in mind um I think the historical record is it makes sense is three years a reasonable Amendment on that yeah um so motion to approve as amended motion for approval as amended um by member Graham seconded by member second reinfeld um all those in favor I all those opposed motion passes do not have any reports requested we have a few condolences um the members of the M school committee Express their sincer condolences to the family of Joseph fretti assistant coach of the Mustang football team members of the meod school committee Express their sincerest condolences to the family of James Burns former Medford High School teacher and Junior Varsity Boys Basketball coach the members of the me school committee Express their sincer condolences to the family of Margaret kinslow mother of Jane King administrative assistant at the Medford High School and the members of the Medford school committee Express their sincerest condolences to the family of Mary jodice wife of the late Paul jise former teacher at mefford high school if we all may rise for a moment of silence our next regular meeting will be on April 8th 2024 in the Alden Memorial Chambers Medford City Hall in addition to zoom and YouTube thank you motion to adjourn um and we have a budget meeting on April 3D I believe 5:00 pm we have we'll confirm and send that agenda out so budget meeting on the 3D regular meeting on the 8th motion to adour by Meo seconded by