##VIDEO ID:AtAoSyD4wsI## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and welcome to the what is today's date December 5th 2024 meeting of the Brookline school committee um I'll start by moving the consent agenda do I have a second for that okay thank you Jesse um do we have any questions or uh comments on the consent agenda this is um minutes of November 14th um approval for repaving portions of barlet crescent and Lawrence trip to New York City Andy I had a question about the New York City trip yes Mariah um my question was just um whether this is the first outof state trip that we've had since covid I couldn't remember no no okay thank you all right any other questions if not we can move to a vote on the consent agenda um Jesse yes Sarah yes stevenh yes Suzanne yes Ellen yes B yes Carolyn sorry I I I had my hand raised I'm just getting okay sorry other items on the consent agenda um there are other items on administrative business but the consent agenda was just those three oh okay that's so the pier Pierce proprietary um and the calendar and um steps to success are the other items but we'll be doing those separately oh okay yeah then yes okay um and oh Mariah yes okay and I vote Yes as well so there goes the consent agenda um the next item is a possible vote to improve peerce school project proprietary items uh Helen would you like to give us some background on this sure I'd love to um so with any uh school project that we do school building new bu School building or renovation um there are certain items that we we have to put everything out to bid but there are certain items that we would like to specify what it is we want mainly because it helps in maintenance it helps in having the spare parts for things it helps in um just efficiency for the building department for us um so what you have before you we already voted a number of uh proprietary items such as the heating system I think it was the the type of controls um but this is for the um technology piece um some proprietary items to be able to Monitor and do this all very efficiently uh so we don't have seven different types of um systems that we're going to be using does that does anybody have any questions about that or in particular so this is so in order to put it out to bid and specify exactly what we want and that people can only bid on that as opposed to having three like items we have to vote this and the select board has to vote it would you like to move that item Helen oh yeah I can meet do you want me to read this um or um sure if you like yeah well um so I would I'll make the motion that we approve all the proprietary items um that are listed on the sheet in front of you which include for information technology department the current monitoring system compatibility the Energy Efficiency one the scalability and flexibility of Schneider electrics modular design for upgrades so it's the Schneider Electric uh uh system basically uh and for and charge Point EV Chargers that's what the town has decided to go with so all our our EV um Chargers our charge point and this would just keep it the same for this school there'll be I think 13 Chargers in the garage something like that maybe 15 do we have a second for that item okay thank you Stephen um any further discussion on it or questions I just had a question then this is for their computers then which one the first page it's all it stuff so basically like backup power for the Computing systems that servers in the town things like that okay exactly for not in that they they talk to one another yeah yeah I gu yeah thank you all right I see no hands raised anywhere so I think we can move to a vote um Jesse yes Sarah yes Stephen yes Suzanne yes Helen yes yes Carolyn yes Mariah yes and I vote Yes as well Andy before we move on can I ask a question um going back to the consent agenda um this doesn't affect my vote but I just wanted to to better understand something when we vote to approve a trip are we also I thought I knew the answer to this but I'm I'm I perhaps I don't are we also voting to approve funds to support students with any fees associated with the trip I thank you Sarah if you want to answer that in general I'll let you go first but I'm I can answer that in specific to this trip is that that trip that that's going to be taken care of by the families that are able to to pay for this particular ex trip so is a trip dependent no it's been decided that that will be met um I mean in in general does it depend on the trip so in general I don't I don't know I only know for this trip in the past usually either the students do fundraising they have bake sales they have all sorts of you know um car washes and things like that the principal has some discretionary money sometimes that can be used to make up the no student should not should not be able to go because of lack of funding right I'm aware of the principle I'm just I'm wondering if we're if in our vote we're also approving the administration uh award money to the trip itself or if that's not part of our vote no that's not part of our vote okay thank you our vote if you look at all the that was my understanding I just wanted to confirm it that when they fill out the form there's a form that gets filled out I think we we had it with the that lists you know how is it going to be paid for what are you going to do if students can't afford to pay um you know there's a number you know is there a hospital nearby there's a lot of things that that go into it and okay thank you Ellen including the curriculum connections those are part of it too and this was all filled out as you said yeah all right anyone have anything to add to those responses okay if not um next up we have a possible vote to authorized steps to success to serve beer and wine during their annual 2025 Step Up celebration on May 3rd at BHS we all received the memo um outlining uh the safeguards that they plan to have in place to make sure students don't get access to the uh to the alcohol anyone have questions about that or I guess I'll move it oh a second would anyone like the second okay hel in seconds anyone have questions or comments all right I don't see any so Jesse Yeah yes Sarah yes Steven yes Suzanne yes Helen yes Carolyn yes Val yes Mariah yes and I vote Yes as well all right the last item of administrative business for today is um a set of draft 2025 2026 School District calendars including the possible addition of it Al fitter as a new category one holiday so um this is not the meeting at which we'd be having a substantive discussion about the calendar uh the reason it's on the administrative business is um to conform to our own policy According to which if we're going to take a vote on a calendar we need to have it attached to the docket of the meeting before the one where we where we vote right so this is to um this is to preserve the option of maybe having a substantive discussion and vote on calendars at our next meeting um so uh let me say a little bit about what's on the docket here so there are now four uh different draft calendars um many thanks to um to Betsy Kathleen and lonus for getting some of these together on pretty short notice um so version one is pretty much the current calendar configuration just rolled forward so that that one came before us um a few meetings ago for for discussion version two is the calendar that uh the committee asked lonus to um to come back to us with so that does add adal fitter as a category as a new category one holiday uh version three uh is this is something that we haven't seen before but the idea has come up I believe in the past which is that we have a PD day in November uh if we moved it to March it would coincide with adol fitter without any other changes to the calendar at least for the coming year um and version four is also new um that was added um at the suggestion of one of our members um sort of a day or two ago this one it came up in a general way um when we discussed the calend at our summer workshop which is this idea of getting rid of all religious holidays um so this one would remove rosashana yum kipur and Good Friday as days when school is closed and of course each of these calendars can um can have further small tweaks as Mariah pointed out right if we if it comes up for a discussion and vote we can make small amendments the purpose of having them all um shown here is just to indicate the range of options that might be on the table uh when we have that discussion okay um so those are the the draft calendars um another thing I'd like to point out is that we've gotten a memo from town council's office with some guidance about what we should be keeping in mind in um in voting a calendar I'm not going to try to summarize that um that is publicly available among uh the documents uh for this meeting so anyone who wants to can can look at that and understand at least what the school committee is is supposed to be thinking about here um I'm trying to find my copy of it uh here we go I'm just going to read like The the summary sentence of uh of the the memo which says thus in considering adding or removing school holidays now and moving forward into the future the school committee should rely on criteria tied to the learning needs of PSB students that are one supported by evidence and two non-discriminatory so those are things that we definitely need to keep in mind um and I think that at any meeting where we're discussing the substance um we would invite Town Council to be present to uh answer any questions and now if if members have questions about the memo um you know they're available we should just email them with questions we can also discuss here and now any questions that the committee might have um that we can put to to Town Council s before we meet again okay um what else did I want to say about this um yeah so the one one thing I'd like to come out of this discussion right now is uh whether the committee feels like they would like to have have the vote uh next at our next meeting or whether they feel like we should wait a little longer um and one wrinkle to this is that um if we feel that uh the newly added calendar with all of the holidays removed like so so we'd no longer be closed on yum kipur rash and Good Friday if that is a live option for enough members um then we would need to postpone the discussion until January um the reason for this is to be complying with open meeting law we need to indicate in advance any the nature of any major changes that are being contemplated to the calendar so this week's docket includes a mention of the possible addition of Aid as a as a new category one holiday does not include any mention of the possible deletion of a bunch of religious holidays right so we would need to notice that I think in the next docket and then have the discussion the following meeting which wouldn't be until January so basically I you know I'm hoping to get a sense of the committee as to whether we should plan to have the discussion next time or push till January if enough people think that the drastic calendar it really should be a live option Sarah I'm sorry I was listening and I missed something so um are we voting on The 2025 to 2026 calendar only and so there's a possibility that we could put off the decision to have no religious holidays after that yes okay yeah so um we have to let you know right now if it's just for the 2025 26 calendar I don't think you have to let me know right now I am trying to get a sense of the committee so that we can plan uh and and the public can also uh kind of understand our timeline here whether we want this to come up at the next meeting or whether members feel like they need more time I had been thinking that if we were to do something as dra or contemplate something as drastic as removing all those holidays that might not be for the calendar that might not be for the the upcoming calendar but for the one the year following um but you know we had a member request that it be docketed for this year just in case people wanted to to take that up now y so I see Mariah and Caroline's hands up so Mariah and then Caroline um I I agree with you that I I think for this next year I wouldn't be contemplating that option okay Carolyn Mariah by that option you mean the uh deleting deleting all the religious holidays correct correct Caroline um so I mean I'll try to be brief I've been giving this a lot of thought um and it especially in terms of having received a legal a memo on the legal issues um sorry I need to turn my phone off I think I feel we need to have a more substantive discussion than we have had um with with more information that I think is really important um legal we have not made any requests as a committee for data that I think I think should be informing our decisions um if our decisions are going to be centering instruction and centering our students um and and ensuring that the decisions we make make the most of our precious 180 days that we provide instruction to our students um so I would definitely want an opportunity to to talk about the legal aspects to make a request for data um and I'm I'm interested in contemplating the sort of Clean Slate um based on on those issues based on a great conversation that I had um with Jamie yof who gave me permission to to share her feedback um and that it's fun it's interesting you use I like the word drastic I mean really what's what's drastic right now is that we're not making the most of the days on which we're providing instruction to students so I'd love to to make a a more informed decision um with with data and more consideration of of the legal issues so Caroline what would be your preference for you know when we when we schedule um a substantive discussion and possible vot v as soon as possible I wish that we had been discussing it before now and I know we have until I think it's February 13th um so I'd love to have a substantive discussion um at our next meeting okay but um I've been saying that we probably if it's if the vote happens at the next meeting we wouldn't really be able to vote on a calendar potentially that includes of removing all the religious holidays because that hasn't been noticed in time oh any well then I would love to have a substantive discussion next time um including requests for data or incorporating data requests that get made by email um in the interim um and and give consideration to a clean slate calendar so that would mean not voting next time okay thanks Jesse um yeah I I would say that um since we're just seeing these two new ones this evening and since they uh it is based on some information we were provided back in August um I would agree that we should uh have a deeper discussion about this and push it off to say January okay or okay I see further nods around the table um Helen well I I feel pretty strongly that the days of low attendance that we have presently uh we will find that we won't be able to conduct classes that we won't have teachers in the classrooms to be able and we won't have the budget to be able to have the substitute teachers along with students so if you only have a few students in the classroom you can't do your regular lesson so I'm not sure we would accomplish what some people would like to accomplish of having 180 days that are real true days um if we were to uh subtract the these two um Rel or three religious holidays four I would not be in favor of it sorry we have four holidays right now all right so not sure right now is that we should be getting into the substance so much but I I am I'm hearing enough to convince me that you know there there's there's enough interest in in talking more about this option that we should probably um plan to to do that in January at least to have the vote in January and we'll see whether we can also have a discussion of it at our next meeting uh Stephen um I'm happy with either date I I just would like to know in what Manner this is for you Dr Giller in what Manner would you I I don't want you to be inundated with requests for data so I'm wondering if there's a process that we might establish to submit requests in advance of these meetings so that we might receive uh information prior to these meetings rather than have a sort of an ad hoc emails to you and your team for information maybe we can have a point person uh to receive requests for information that uh that can be passed along to Dr Giller and his team by a certain date that can be passed along just a number of questions that we we would find Illuminating to have answers to prior to the substantive discussion I I just wouldn't want I mean we're heading into the holidays I I don't want to be unreasonable with our expectation of what information should be provided prior to these conversations no that makes uh perfect sense just uh uh a point person to gather collect the requests um I would say if we're talking about a conversation in January is this the first meeting or the second meeting um I imagine the first yeah so that means that we need to get that probably by next week um whatever the information request is because at the same time we're um deep into the budget building process and the number of these folks are also working on that so we're going to be diverting or stretching resources in that regard so um it's not impossible but we just want to be suct with what it is can I propose maybe that we send questions to you Andy and that you pass them along in one or you'd rather not no I'm I'm happy to just or someone else perhaps no I can do it Ju Just so long I I just I just feel like having all of us email you with different questions at different times is a recipe for frustrated school committee members and I'll make sure to also share with the whole committee what the questions are that are being passed along I'm happy to Nom be mindful of the fact that it is the holidays and that staff have many other many other right but also perhaps we could set a deadline by which we have to send you questions um okay yeah um if that's he is willing to do it that would also that would make more sense can we set a deadline for those questions as well um yeah um what would what would be um it's Dr Giller you said like within a week right yeah so a week from today Caroline has her hand up yeah so I saw Sarah then Suzanne and then Carolyn I wanted to ask if the data that some of our members are referring to is data of low intendance because I was under the impression that we don't have that data um so I wanted to just make sure that when people refer to data they're referring to something else because I don't believe that we have dat data for low attendance of days that we're currently having off uh right but then we do have you know there are days that we don't designate as days of low attendance where in fact attendance is low uh so that might be the kind of data we do that's the type of data that people are referring to yeah okay because I it I was under the impression that we haven't designated holidays based on low attendance for a very long time um if ever and that we don't have you know numbers of of teachers that would take the day off um so that's not available to us I just want to like make sure that we're all aware of that and it might be that when we look at what holidays make sense to have we might be looking at something different than low attendance right so when we have a when we have a conversation about building a really good calendar it might be that our requirements for what days we want to have off might it might be about something else so yes that that is the case okay Suzanne then Carolyn and then I'd like to bring this to an end because we're we're already quite far behind schedule and this is not meant to be a big substantive conversation yeah I just wanted to remind the committee that we've had discussions now in August and in October and we understand we have said that going to a no religious holiday calendar is going to involve quite a bit of conversation with the public probably with the union with with our committee and so our initial thought was that we would have a calendar for next year and we actually uh voted to ask the superintendent to put that calendar forward which he has done and that we said we would come back in January or February to look at the following years uh and so I think we don't want to rush into this even in January it feels like we're rushing a little bit if we're doing a long-term plan or a change in our policy and so I think we should go back to what we talked about in October and said that for next year we would recognize Eid and then we would have a conversation in depth about where we want to go in the future just to remind the committee where we were in August and in October thanks Suzanne and Carolyn and then I think we should wrap this up so and the the fact that people are talking about this and you're Keen to wrap it up I think it speaks to my question question and also indicates that as I said before I think especially based on a substantive substantive legal memo that we received we need to have a discussion so first of all I would just want to clarify I'm hoping we can have a lot of time set aside to unpack these important issues including the legal issues that are new information to us as a committee at the next meeting looking to January potentially for a vote because if you read that memo and do some research on the law we can't that memo is cautioning us to to whether we can make a decision about adding a religious holiday as a day off based on something else um the reason that you can only close for low attendance is that you can't dis you can't endorse religion so we need to have a substantive conversation about the legal issues here and I think it's important to note that you know we received an open meeting law complaint on about our conversation in October people are paying attention to this and it's important to get it right legally and it's important to get it right to ensure that we're centering our students um so I'm I guess that's a question as well as a statement are I hope we're talking about having a minimum 30 minute conversation next time to inform a potential vote um I think that makes sense this conversation itself is almost 30 minutes already so yes um yeah okay I I don't yeah this will this will take some time thank you all right thanks Carolyn um all right I think we should move on from this for now U but we obviously will be coming back to it soon all right next up we have the superintendent report good evening everyone it's great to be here with you I'm going to give a brief um District update and then get into the highlight of why um one of my favorite times of the year here um so coming up I just want to make the committee and the Community uh where we um have both interim principles at Baker and f frr um and I'm getting ready to launch those search processes soon for the permanent principal uh process there so I'll be getting information out to the community about that and you all know that we have posted our Deputy Chief of administration and finance position and are in the process of receiving uh applications now and we'll be forming a commit committee to uh go through that Pro those processes um as far as our budget building process we're deep into the throws of that um we are we have a deadline of this Sunday to for folks to submit their budget requests um so that we can then begin the budget build process and um Andy and I will say a little bit more uh about the Outlook a little bit later so with that I want to switch to one of the true highlights uh of um the annual school committee uh meeting process for me and that's the presentation of the Massachusetts Association of School superintendence awards for academic Excellence to Brookline High School seniors who have distinguished themselves from their peers we are honored this evening to welcome the 2024 awardees uh May and Michaela to our meeting the mass excellence awards are reserved for some of our most accomplished students students who have demonstrated not just their academic potential and integrity but who have also shown great determination perseverance and strength of character these students truly represent the very best of Brookline High School we are delighted that may and Michaela are here with us in person this evening joined by their families and support networks here in town hall and many other others who are watching online at this time I would invite BHS guidance counselor and BHS um grade 12 associate Dean Jenny longm Jenny where you there she is and Cara Lopez as well um to the podium to introduce each of our awardees and help us learn what makes May and Michaela so deserving of this prestigious honor so uh Miss Lopez I believe you're up first to introduce May and tell us all about her amazing accomplishments thank you okay can everyone hear me good evening everyone it is an honor to no I can yell speak loud hello can you hear me good evening everyone it's an honor to present the the Brookline Public School Superintendent Ward to a truly remarkable individual my Haj her journey through high school has been defined by resilience strength and unshakable commitment to her family and herself during what should have been a Carefree chapter of her life my fac challenges that would have tested anyone her father's diagnosis of lymphoma and extended recovery coupled with with her mother's hospitalization for reactive arthritis thrust her into the roles of emotional and practical caregiving far beyond her Years yet Ma did not let these adversities Define her or derail her path instead through love dedication and incredible hard work myi found ways to excel in school support her family and continue her growth as an individual her favorite quote I must not fear fear is the mind killer from Dune by Frank Herbert reflects her courage and her determination my faced fear headon let it pass through her and emerged even stronger on the other side today we celebrate not just Ma's accomplishment but also the incredible person she is and that her parents raised she is a beacon of perseverance and love who remind us all of the Power of resilience in the in the face of life's challenges congratulations ma we are all so proud of [Applause] you uh ma will you join Miss Lopez and I at the podium the certificate of academic Excellence presented to my hagy hogy having duly qualified under the standards prescribed by the Massachusetts Association of school superintendent is hereby awarded the certificate of academic Excellence it witness whereof the Seal of the association and the signature of the superintendent of schools are here on to affix congratulations [Applause] thank you so much [Applause] I forgot one more thing this is the letter so just in transition I just want to give a huge shout out to the number of seniors that are actually sitting in this room I'm I'm a senior Dean I'm very proud that you're all here so a little shout out good evening I feel lucky very lucky to be here tonight as Michaela's Dean I'm about to read some words that are written by her guidance counselor Miss Young Alex Young Who unfortunately could not be here tonight but I wholeheartedly agree with every everything she said it is my honor to president M Michaela an exceptional student whose resilience determination and Leadership to make her a standout among her peers Michaela has faced unique challenges during her time at Brookline High School including her family's on growing struggle to find affordable and stable housing over the course of her high school years she and her family moved multiple times packing up their belongings and relocating without knowing how long they could stay at each residence despite the instability and the stress of housing insecurity Michaela never let it affect her positive attitude or her her academic performance she continued to excel in school earning top grades while nav Excuse me while navigating these personal hardships when you think of Mich words like smart ambitious unwavering and resilient immediately come to mind her leadership has been evident in many areas including her selection to Mentor younger students through the Flair education program where she has shown great dedication she has also represented BHS and R program embodying the role of a youth leader within her community academically Michaela became proficient in English in just 6 months after moving to the US and her hard work has earned her recognition as the top student in our English language learning program not once but twice she has taken on challenging coursework including AP Physics and AP Calculus and consistently demonstrates academic Excellence beyond the classroom Michaela has committed herself to community service volunteering over 100 hours at the Brookline food pantry and at the team Center her contributions reflect her deep sense of empathy and her desire to make a positive impact as a multiport athlete she has excelled in swimming basketball wrestling Jiu-Jitsu or sharing a gold medal in the world Jiu-Jitsu league as president of the latinx club Michaela advocates for inclusivity and promotes pride in her cult cultural heritage she also serves as a m for spish excuse me Spanish speaking students helping them acclimate to a new environment and supporting their success Michaela is truly a force to be reckoned with her resilience in the face of adversity combined with her leadership her academic Excellence commitment to service make her a remarkable individual she is on a path of tremendous success and we are so proud of her congratulations Michaela [Applause] congratulations again Michaela I'll reach your certificate as well the certificate of academic Excellence is presented to Michaela Bergos having duly qualified under the standards prescribed by the Massachusetts Association of school superintendents is hereby awarded the certificate of academic excellence in witness whereof the Seal of the association and the signature of the superintend of schools are here onto a fixed congratulations [Applause] [Applause] so if May and Michaela's um parents are here if they wouldn't mind standing up to be acknowledged as well yeah um if people wouldn't mind I think a group photo with the committee would be C certainly an honor for the committee so if we could take a minute or so for that all right the one time I'm not [Music] there for e [Applause] all right thank you very much Dr gillery and um congratulations and admiration to May and Michaela from the skull committee as well yeah thank you so much for everyone that is here present and thank you so much for the school comedy and my whole team that is also here my family has gone straight up from Peru and I feel extremely lucky that like everyone um is able to not only be present here but also like kind of saw my whole journey experience even though the worst of me young miss miss miss Jenny were amazing and I just want to thank everyone to that take their time to not only HT but also like is here sharing the emotion with me and I hope that everyone just gets an amazing night and an amazing year thank [Applause] you all right okay all right so next up on our agenda we have public comment uh yeah byebye and thank you so before actually moving to public comment I would like to take a moment to uh acknowledge what happened during public comment at our last meeting oh yeah I guess uh we're still having handshakes here so I'll give it in minute yeah thank you yeah okay not to change the mood too much but um I would right now before we go on to this week's public comment um I wanted to acknowledge what happened during public comment at our last meeting on November 14th um on that occasion we had lots of people come to us to speak about uh the doors event at BHS that was originally scheduled for yesterday um and has since been postponed and many of these speakers were part of an organized effort to pressure our staff and silence one of our students and as chair I just have to say that I'm sorry that our public common period was misused in this way and I'm especially sorry that what happened here contributed to an atmosphere where BHS leadership um had to worry they had to worry that if the event went ahead they wouldn't be able to keep people safe and I just wanted to express my support for Anthony Meyer and his team uh and my trust that whatever decisions they make are informed by compassion and understanding for all of our students so I had to say that before we go on to this week's public comment um we only have one speaker signed up uh today that's fizaon so um since you're only speaker you have the floor for five minutes can you hear me sorry no you want all great thank you thank you um hello I'm here today because your agenda included at least one version of the proposed school year 2526 calendar that had e designated again as a category 2 despite the decision to designate it as a category 1 holiday at your meeting on October 10th this move made me wonder if the school committee is trying to appease the folks behind the oml complaint filed on October 22nd requesting that the school committee void its granting of the Eid holiday the reason school committee did not explicitly state in its agenda that Eid was being considered a category one holiday so opponents and people who disagreed could argue against this we all know that that oml complaint was a time buying tactic first the fact that the school calendar review was on the agenda should have been sufficient notice that any holiday SL School closure could be discussed so this complaint shouldn't have any Merit whatsoever second it is concerning that we repeatedly see this town and school officials consistently trying to please allowed vocal presence with little to no consideration for the minority that has little influence this vocal presence is Relentless in making demands of the district and school committee regardless of how these demands impact everyone else around them when there was no demand to be made they now seek to take away the only one bright spot Muslims in Brookline had recently experienced District observance of Eid via the back door and oml complaint come on the question is how does giving Eid as a holiday affect this special interest group anyhow six weeks ago six of the seven school committee members voted yes to ensure Muslim community members can enjoy at least one of the two major holidays with their families it was apparent the six of you partly or fully understood what it is like to be a minority and many Muslim community members truly appreciated it truly if you genuinely seek to serve the needs of all students in Brookline consider different ways Eid can be observed in PSP but having a PD day on Eid is not a sustainable model it may work for one year but what about the subsequent years when Eid will be on March 10th Fe February 28th and and so on and so forth Brookline is neither the first nor the only town where this request is being made how did other towns like Medford Welsley Westboro so on and so forth many with similar Muslim communities make it happen initially and continue having it off if a day of low attendance is the only way a day can be given off how are these cities designating Eid as a school closure day also if low attendance is the only School closure justification are all holidays on the PSP list of category one holidays currently being scrutinized to know that there are actual days of low attendance I wonder if we know the number of student absences required to meet the low attendance threshold I also wonder if someone is keeping a track of this information that is a lot or is the low attendance rationale only to to be put in actual practice for the first and only Muslim holiday we are requesting this is exactly sometimes and many times maybe all the time how institutionalized racism Works hidden behind legality please think carefully about the message you will send to this town and the other cities in Massachusetts if you now argue against Eid being a holiday simply because of one complaint and that two without Merit this is definitely not the president we wish to set about the conduct that's endorsed and then rewarded in this town the code of ethics for school committee members reminds reads may I remind a school Committee Member in his or her relations with the community should remember that he or she represents the entire community at all times isn't it time that we started focusing on what it means for all students to experience a sense of belonging in our community instead of Solly appeasing these voices seeking to serve only those that identify that they identify with thank you my microphone thank you very much Miss con and that concludes our public comment for this evening and next up we have presentations and discussions of current issues and we begin with um an hour for climate and sustainability task force recommendations Stephen over to you thank you Andy let's see do you want to bring up the slides okay so I'm going to introduce this uh you can go to the first slide I'm just going to make a few comments and then I'm going to turn it over to representatives of the team um I just want to make uh three comments to introduce this first give a little bit of background on where this came from second talk a bit of pro talk a bit about process and then third just make a general comment about um what we might do with this information so um the idea for this task force started with a sustainability policy which um the school committee passed in October of 22 um the sustainability policy has a number of areas they are education and engagement energy and high performance school buildings schoolyards Food Services uh waste and transport ation the if as I recall it the idea behind the sustainability policy was to codify some of school committee's commitments to sustainability across PSB um and the sustainability policy has a number of specific commitments that we make um and it also has some general principles that we aim to follow the climate and sustainability task force came about largely as a way to look for good strategies to operationalize that sustainability policy acknowledging that there was expertise in the Brooklyn community that would help us Identify some of those good practices to put into practice um the uh the ideas of the sustainability policy so that was October 22 in May of 23 there was the issue for the we issued the call for volunteers and the the Mandate of the task force was three-fold first it was to inventory the town for assets that could be brought to bear on supporting the sustainability policy those assets could be manifold they could be initiatives organizations activities Investments funded positions anything that the town already supported that PSB could leverage use partner with that um that it could use uh towards the objectives of the sustainability policy that was phase one so that lasted until what was it December of last year right um and that was collected did in a series of documents that formed the foundation for the second phase which was issuing the recommendations so that that has been worked on continuously uh until now and that is that is the third phase which is going to occur today which is the presentation of those recommendations um I want to say a couple of things about the people who've worked on this these have all been volunteers they have come from a number of uh sectors of Brookline they are various experts in sustainability in climate they are Educators they are nonprofit uh workers and they are students there are a large number of students who have worked on this and theyve worked very hard on this and I just want to say that a ton of work has gone into the research the thinking and the practicality of these recommendations the one other thing I want to say in the background piece is that the parameters for creating these recommendations is that they be uh feasible for the school committee um we we want to dream big but we also want to be able to actually take concrete action so the specific actions recommended take the form of actions that the school committee has power over they are policy actions they are budget actions they are soft power actions um and they are advocacy actions they are within the school committee's uh purview um the last comment I'd like to make is uh just my own personal reflection on this process uh I read a book about a year and year and a half ago this Kim Stanley Robinson novel called Ministry of the future it's a climate fiction or CI did you read it Sarah it's um it starts off with a dystopian scene of millions of deaths due to a climate event but then it pivots it's not about a dystopian future it's about a small group of bureaucrats trying to imagine what actions they could take in a highly bureaucratic environment that could actually create meaningful change and I that really resonated with me because I guess I see myself as a highly constrained bureaucrat in a lot of areas of my life searching for Meaningful theories of change um and I see and I see this very much here where um climate education and sustainability education is very hard to commit to as part of uh of of PSB but it's an issue that as we'll see in the data uh significantly affects students it's something that students care a lot about and if we want to commit to it we can um we can do something substantive if we follow a number of these recommendations so so that's how I think about this and I want to now turn it over to the four subgroups uh the first group that's going to present is the education and curriculum group they're all going to take about 10 minutes to present the first group perhaps a bit longer because there's a more background and data in it and then at the end of the four presentations we've allotted some time for Q&A about 15 minutes so with that I'm going to turn it over to the Reverend Roger Grandy who will speak on curricul education okay thank you are my slides the same as this okay sure okay am I am I uh can you hear me without lifting this up not so well okay A little clumsy um okay uh good evening and thank you very much for uh giving us all uh the time and to to take seriously what we're um presenting um I'm Roger Grandy one of I'm Roger Grandy one of the three um uh members of the task force on curriculum uh BHS social studies teacher uh we also joined by Min song who's the uh chair of the English Department at Boston College um and uh involved in academic work on climate change and Lawrence Doo who is a longtime um prek educator um next slide um so we are focused on uh curriculum and pedagogy uh and learning um and just a bit I'm not going to read everything tonight and I'll go through the slides somewhat uh quickly and just highlight some things I think you all have access to them that you can go back to later um but sort of as our starting point uh we see that climate change will increasingly challenge uh the Integrity of our infrastructure tax our natural resources and built environment impact governance and our social Fabric and strain our mental and phys physical health and well-being our recommendations aim to design a scope of essential learning to prepare young people to thrive in a climate disrupted world to engage civically and professionally to lead a sustainable transition and to support Educators uh to help their students reach these goals um and as a educator myself at the high school who also teaches about climate change I think all the time about uh the trajectory of my students lives uh that track with the trend line of rising CO2 rising sea levels lethal heat and much more and again constantly engagement with students on these issues um I can say uh with confidence that climate change is bewildering uh for our youth to behold um as they contend with increasingly rapid and profound changes um and as I think about my R uh to prepare them for their adulthood uh and all that uh that entails which includes learning to manage uh this massive challenge of reducing emissions uh to lead to reorient their communities to adapt to challenging circumstances and to gain a sense of control and the data that we'll show in a minute I think really speaks to a a lack of feeling of control over these again Transformations um I also want to just add that um while we're not asking to completely revise and uh redo or undo uh our pre- 12 uh curriculum um at the same time I think it's important to note that as the world changes you know my job as an educator and the role of Educators is to rethink from time to time what we're doing with our students to prepare them for the world that they will arrive in um as adults and the skills that they need so in some regards what we're asking for in curriculum is sort of standard practice next slide please um so three recommendations that we're going to highlight one is about Outdoor Learning for all students the second um is to invest in student competencies which I'll explain more uh briefly and lastly to invest in Educators um a lot of uh our work sort of uh derives from uh survey um that I've now conducted three times and this is from early 2024 of students uh and their sort of understanding and thoughts about climate change um and I'll just focus a few things uh here next slide please um again you can look at this more in detail but it's a fairly representative survey it was Anonymous uh and voluntary and uh offered to students uh through canvas so electronically um and sort of three or four takeaways I want to highlight number one is that uh nearly all students are confident that global warming is happening um and that the vast majority of students uh understand that humans are responsible for that secondly um and I think think that is disconcerning is that uh about 90% of students are not confident global warming will be stopped although students uh understand that humans have the agency to do so um about 80% of students um think about climate change um have thought about climate change in the previous month from when they took the survey and about 25% uh report that it's on their minds most days and um it's taking a toll um I can't exactly see the data too well here but it's about a third of students um report that it does um affect their mental health and about 9% uh reported that um so much so that it uh interrupts their ability to function normally at school um so with that our first recommendation which is about Outdoor Learning which ties very uh powerfully I think to uh the mental health data that I just uh shared um as a educator who spent a lot of time taking student students um Outdoors working in gardens uh we really want to uh reinstate the um the stien for garden Educators um at the schools it's not such a large investment um and we see this as a a near-term um expense um but it is perhaps more importantly something that signals a commitment uh from the system and again enhances and supports uh the great work that educators are doing uh and hopefully be able to coordinate some of that um next please our second is about uh integrating student competencies for sustainability literacy uh again uh beginning to tie uh the work that educators are already doing across uh pre- 12 um thinking about the skills for stewardship and resilience in a world transformed by climate change next slide please um and there's sort of three uh components to that the first is to launch a sustainability Education team that would might include Educators uh some curriculum coordinators OTL uh community members uh secondly to think about learning outcome so where we want students to end up when they leave the system at the end of 12th grade uh and how do we build that out uh prek uh to 12 focused on um strengthening knowledge citizenship and resilience um again I'll say a little bit more about that but those are sort of our end points uh and we want to really begin thinking about how we get there across the way and then third in this uh recommendation um is to think about that scope and sequence that I was just sort of uh suggesting uh and what we see here in the medium term knowing that there's a very large uh initiative around literacy going on so we sort of imagine this as that um initiative begins to move towards closure that we again uh create this team uh and think about that scope and sequence and ideally pilot it in a few grade uh next slide please uh and for example on citizenship that might mean that we think about um empowerment or citizenship or advocacy work uh within the school system and that again maybe we pilot that sort of across schools uh for example fifth grade this is just something I sort of made up but you know something like running a food drive uh the food system is you know one of the largest sources of emissions and a great sort of service opportunity uh perhaps eighth grade could manage schoolwide composting again you know the mental health data that I suggested that I showed suggests that students are um you know feeling some grief and we want to sort of flip that and offer students opportunities to uh to be empowered to uh sort of have agency um next please um and then lastly to can I just note that so this was what I neglected to say at the beginning was that these all the group recommendations were workshopped with subcommittees and this the second recommendation was revised if I may Roger after uh feedback from the curriculum subcommittee which noted that it was that was very large in scope so the Roger and team is proposing a scal down version of what was initially proposed to occur after the literacy investment as as possibly the next big investment from PSB although not as big as the literacy investment and to happen on a pilot basis and select grades rather than to have a a simultaneous investment at scale so that's that's a significant change from what the curriculum subcommittee saw I just wanted to highlight that please go on Roger okay next SL and then our third and final recommendation is again about investing in uh our Educators um and next slide uh there sort of two ways to do that one is this is more of a long-term uh but beginning to think about having a uh lead sustainability educ educator who can help sort of coordinate this work uh between Educators OTL school committee um and modeling on the garden uh uh Garden leaders uh sustainability educate lead Educators uh that are school-based as well uh perhaps like on a stien basis um and then finally um offering uh systemwide professional development I won't go over all the bullet points but on the next couple slides we also surveyed um staff um you can just go to the next one too as well please um and you know about two-thirds report that they are very interested in uh professional development a little bit more than half say they're already trying to address sustainability uh or climate change and I think the Gap there uh speaks to the fact that there is not yet sufficient uh training and opportunities for teachers to work together to collaborate to really build out a more robust sustainability curriculum and again I just want to highlight that I'm not we did not sort of come here with the idea that we need to upend uh all the hard work that has been done over years and decades but rather to find a way to tie together and perhaps revise here and there or add a project here and there but to tie together so that students understand as they move across the system that they are part of what they're doing is preparing for leadership resilience um and knowledge to manage uh what is truly a transformative um uh World in front of them I think um again there's a little bit of data about it was a representative sample about 111 Educators from all schools uh across grades so again those are our three recommendations and I just want to end by um saying that we really want um our young people our students uh to discover that their work has value beyond the classroom and I think climate change in many ways uh as it's thrust upon them uh is again a bit bewildering um we want them to feel that they possess the power uh to make change to meet an unprecedented challenge um and that they recognize that their agency when it is most required rather than accommodate to a sense of powerlessness which I think that Mental Health Data revealed um that all of those things are in fact prerequisites for fairing well uh in a climate disrupted world and we believe it's imperative that the public schools of Brooklyn sees uh this opportunity again we want to not see it so much as a mandate or something that requiring people to change but rather we have an incredible opportunity uh to do some pretty awesome stuff here um and to prepare every learner uh included in that to prepare every learner to uh acquire the knowledge and the skills uh to tackle climate change and promote sustainability and sustainable development as if their life depended on it which it does um so thank you very much [Applause] G keep going Betsy go ahead Matthew thank you Stephen uh Matthew yton uh I'm representing working group two uh working on the energy buildings and the outdoor spaces uh I want to open first that during our phase one kind of understanding the lay of the land getting the preliminary data we actually want to recognize the great work that's being done by both the School Employees but also the town employees we found there's actually tremendous amount of work being done already um maybe not necessarily communicated out uh across the community and you kind of see that in our in part of our recommendations the other thing that we found in general was a lot of this was based on the passion of these great individuals that we have in this community so kind of feeding back on what Stephen said a lot of our recommendations are how do we institutionalize this within the system to ensure that we can meet the commitments outlined in the sustainability policy uh rather than just relying on the passions of a few individuals can you go to the next slide So to that end we've come up with three priority recommendations to do just that we have three secondary as well but I'm going to focus here uh we do have double clicks into each of these on subsequent slides but let's just stay here for a second so the first one as they often say you can't improve what you don't measure so in this case uh we did do we kind of pulled all the data from both the school and the town on the on the various schools both from an energy perspective but also from a climate emiss emissions perspective I think what we found was I don't necessar say surprising to some but it was new information to a lot of people that we've shared it with thus far so I think that speaks to the fact that our first recommendation is how can we institutionalize making sure that we have any anual reporting of that information so we can track how are we progressing against those commitments we've made in the sustainability policy um generally we think that's going to be a human resource investment not necessarily a capital type investment um we know there's some potentially some resources in the town who can help coordinate with the school to pull this data and do basically an annual report at the end of the year again KS like the eui the carbon emissions uh we really think that would be beneficial both from again showing the great work that the community that is being done to the community so that they understand the Investments that are being made are actually having tangible results uh as well as providing this information to students teachers and the community so they can use this data uh for other projects and work the second recommendation we have is really tied to how do we actually go ahead and make sure that we can achieve the fossil fuel-free commitment made in sustainability policy again great work being done by some of the functions in both the school and the town uh but it's been a little bit ad hoc in terms of well you know we have some funding let's do this project we have some funding let's do this project um what might end up happening with that type of of process is you might end up kicking some of the can down the road and you'll end up 2040 and not necessarily understanding of this is what it actually cost to get to that commitment so what we're really um uh as the recommendation here is similar to honestly what we've done U so I work for thermofisher scientific which is a large corporation this is something something that we've done and a lot of our peers have done uh where we actually go ahead and look at all our facilities understand what is it going to take to get to fil for three between now and the the time period that we're looking to achieve this so that's really to ask here is again there's an informal list that the building uh facility has how do we formalize this how do we formalize what are going to be the actions and what's the timeline and the cost associated with that so it's very clear to both the school system to the town into the community of how do we actually going to get there and here's what it's going to take to get there um again we think based it will probably take a year or two to do this there might need need to be some support from external Consultants who are experts in these fields um but we think the town has a good start on this and just really needs to solidify and finalize that type of plan um so that's the second recommendation we have and the third one is very much tied to that is is once you have that formal plan how do we go ahead and ensure that there's funding for those particular actions that have been identified in the plan at the timing indicated obviously there's many ways to get funding um but the the recommendation is to identify possible measures and to secure those obviously we think that's going to take a longer timeline to ensure that depending on what the plan finally says at the end of the day um so one again we think that the outcome of that is essentially that once you have that plan once you have that funding the town and Community can feel secure that they're going to achieve the target they set out in the sustainability policy um the second one is really and we saw this with uh Driscoll um without that kind of that set plan there can be decisions that are made that sometimes create um change orders or inefficiencies of and this potentially cost more money um than if you just kind of go along with a plan and you know the plan is going to be that so in general those are our three priority recommendations again there double clicks but I'm not going to go into those they have a little bit more about what we think the timeline for this a little bit more detail on the outcomes but I think I've generally referenced them uh so we can just quickly go to the secondary recommendations I'll spend a little bit less time here again similar in concept here how do we institutionalize so four is really there's a lot of great experts around this community we have a lot of colleges a lot of universities a lot of experts in the regions how can we pull in some of the experts when we're trying to make some of these hard decisions or trying to get into these new areas obviously P was very new um I think the town did a great job the school syst a great job of kind of pulling in an expert from Harvard to make sure that that happened how do we make sure that that's that's not the the exception that's just the how we do it here in Brooklyn the fifth one is around a little bit more about annual training and reminders for educators and that's really about the kind of the quick easy wins how do you just turn off lights and like how can we make sure we just do those those easy things that reduce energy save us money and help the climate all at the same time and the last one here um this a little bit goes a little bit more into the we we know there's been some discussion of how should the school system handle on site solar a solar on the roof should we should there be a you know a vendor that takes care of it should the town own it itself it might just help streamline if there's just an evaluation and a decision made saying this is the way we're going to do it in the town um and lastly I just want to add I know it's a a point of concern within the town we did run an evaluation on artificial turf when it came to the climate impact of it um I'm not going to go into detail but in our final report there's a two-pager on our evaluation of the impact uh and the conclusion of it uh thank you for your [Applause] time Zen I think you're up oh Ezra hello everybody can you all hear me or should I use the mic have to use the mic yes that makes sense um it's nice to see you all tonight I believe it was about this time of year four years ago that I came before this committee for the first time um my name is Ezra klebo I am a senior now at Brooklyn High School um and I've been involved I'm group three Food Services and waste um I've been involved with the food services department for about the last four years I first reached out to Sasha Palmer our amazing Food Services director as a freshman and Pitch the idea of meatless Mondays you know serving more plant-based more sustainable food um and have been so lucky over the past four years to work with her um and the rest of the Food Services Department to expand meatless bundes Beyond just the high school um to the entire district and to guarantee that we're serving plant-based options every day in every school and this year um to guarantee that a minimum of 50% of the food we're serving districtwide is fully plant-based by 2027 which is a higher than any other District in the country so we really have an amazing Food Services Department um it's really incredible and there's always more work that can be done so we have some recommendations for you tonight um I like I said I'm part of group three the food services and waste along with Dean Cody from the solid waste advisory committee um Annie Linden Bo who's a parent Chris muddy who's a town meeting member and the executive director of the Chamber of Commerce um and marari Allen and aiv Schwab Jacobson two Juniors at Brookline High School as well as our advisor Sasha Palmer the director of the food services department and Rebecca saguro the sustainability coordinator of um the Food Services Department so we have four recommendations for you tonight the first has to do with composting the second has to do with food rescue the third has to do with reusables and the fourth is a staffing recommendations so I will get into all of these now thank you so much um so our first recommendation is that um the school committee support expanding composting to every school in the district right now every cafeteria in the district does compost back of house um but only five of the 10 cafeteras compost front of house um so right now now it is Baker RL and Pierce at OSS that are being onboarded to the composting program and will be composting in the next two years or so um and then Lawrence and Ridley have not started yet um so our first recommendation is that um the school committee support expanding compost to every school in the district um and that's something that uh DPW and food services are very excited to work together to do last year from composting in just half of the cafeterias in the district we saved 103 tons over 103 tons of waste from going to the landfill so we expect that to double when we add the other half of the cafeterias next slide please so our second recommendation is um that the district commit to implementing a PSB food rescue plan so that's um some schools right now have a food rescue table or a food rescue bin that uh if students take a piece of fruit or a snack that they don't eat or don't open um but they're not going to eat anyway um they can put it on the share table they can put it in the share basket and someone else can take it um and then the district also has a partnership with the Brooklyn food pantry that allows this food to be donated and distributed particularly during holidays and school vacations and this is a USDA recommendation um and is something that I know Rebecca and the Food Services Department um are working with the health department and School nurses at different schools to make sure it's happening and happening safely and in a sanitary manner um and so this is not something that will cost the district anything um and is something that we would love your support in next slide please um our next recommendation is that the district move to reusable food wear and eliminating all single Plastics in all the cafeterias districtwide uh so that means uh making sure that we have reusable trays and reusable silverware in every cafeteria as opposed to disposable trays and disposable silverware that a number of cafeterias use but also that means individually wrapped snacks uh that means like packets of salad dressing and all those kinds of things um this year it was really exciting that the high school started using reusable trays in the main building and reusable silverware and when the uh Freshman building opened a couple years ago they started using that too but again this is something um that because Food Services just received a grant to install electric dishwashers in every school in the district which dishwashers are one of the major barriers to using reusable trays and reusable silverware um but now that food services has a grant to do that this is not something um that will be any financial burden to the district um and it's something that we would love your support in next slide please um and our last and I think potentially our most important recommendation um is that the district make the sustainability coordinator position permanent um since Rebecca started uh on a three-year um period position in 2023 as the Food Services Department there have been just Leaps and Bounds that we have made that we've never been able to do before since Rebecca came we've started reusing using reusables at BHS like I said um the indoor Farm also got started that we signed the forward food pledge the 50% plant-based food um we've had like popup restaurants and she's been working to expand compost and there's just been incredible amount of change that Rebecca has been able to catalyze really fast because she is someone whose job it is to make sure that the district is striving towards our sustainability goals and I think if if sustainability is something that we really take seriously there needs to be a job you know there needs to be someone whose job it is to make sure that it's something we're always striving towards um what you were saying Mr arberg at the beginning about sometimes feeling like a bureaucrat I'm not sure what to do and like I I feel that but we have the opportunity and we have started to make a permanent position you know someone whose job it is because everyone else gets busy everyone else has other things they need to do um and so I think is of the utmost importance that we have a sustainability coordinator full-time position um yeah I think that's it next slide please cool thank you last we have the transportation group uh we are group four um we are the sustainability task force and um these are the members of the transportation subcommittee that that helped work on the slideshow it's mostly just the members of our club at BHS climate and food Justice um my name is Marina Turin I'm an SS Junior at BHS and these are our recom next slide please oh yeah I'm I'm also a senior I'm airor I'm also a senior I'm Tia I'm also a senior I'm Lea I'm also a senior Toby also a senior I promise we have other Juniors they just weren't able to make it today okay so this kind of an overview of our recommendations we'll be going more in depth further on but our first recommendation is incentivizing greener staff commuting this is a policy recommendation it will be shortterm about one to two years and the outcome that we expect from it is that it would reduce the percent of teachers who drive to get to school which would mean lower ghg emissions from teacher commutes our second recommendation is that we switch to electric vans and eventually electric buses this would also be a policy recommendation this would be medium to long term so somewhere two to 5 years and the outcome that we expect from this is that the electric vans that are already in use for students with special needs and sports teams will reduce um ghd emissions our third polic our third recommendation which is bicycle infrastructure advocacy which is a policy SL SLS sponsorship recommendation the sour would be longterm it would be F five or more years and the outcome that we expect from this is safer bike lanes and as a result more student and staff bqes which would reduce fuel consumption and finally our fourth recommendation is restricting car idling around around streets that are close to um close to schools this would be a human resource investment it would be short SL longterm so anywhere like 1 to 5 years and this would not only and this would help with reduced ghd emissions around schools which has been which these emissions have been linked to higher rates of asthma and other respiratory conditions so this would be benefiting the students who attend these schools um our current Transportation students live an average of 1 and a half miles from school and in the morning and afternoon um as the graph on the right shows the primary mode of transportation to school for students even though most people do walk a lot of people do still drive even though most students don't live that far away and for staff uh a wide majority 71% drive to school every day um 12% use the MBTA and 10% walk um and 60 as I said students live an average of 1.5 miles from school but 60% of BHS students live within one mile walking distance of the school which means that a lot of them are able to walk and 84% of BHS students live within a two mile biking distance of school so considering that we do have a portion of our students who use Meco buses to get to school this means that a lot of the students who are currently driving could be biking which are policies aim to increase the numbers of people who do okay great so um I guess to address uh the second graph that Marina showed um one of the biggest issues that we face um in terms of like barriers to transportation is um the lack of Mobility that staff have um you go to the next slide and then the one after that um and the one after that uh so our first recommendation is subsidize staff Charlie cards um so the city of Boston does this um and they do 65% um of employee Charlie cards up to $232 and then the rest is deducted from salaries um but it's not just the city of Boston like a lot of other cities Do It um and then a lot of other like private companies do it in Boston like Children's Hospital does it because I my mom has that um so as Marina showed um over 71% of VHS staff currently Drive um but we also did a survey where we looked at who would switch based on like this example of a 65% subsidy um and 53% said they would switch from driving to public transportation if subsidized Charlie cards were available and we provided like an example of a monthly link pass which is $90 um and so at a 50% subsidy that' be $45 a month um and so for an example of like what this would cost um with a 50% subsidy um if 150 staff switched and got monthly link passes which is like approximately 10% of the teacher population um it would cost $67,500 a year um but this would result in significant uh emission savings um and later we're going to talk about how this would also save money in terms of like parking spaces but um in terms of emissions um if just 10% of psbma Staff switched um it would save over 110 tons of CO2 emissions per year and if 20% switched it would it would save 220 tons of CO2 emissions per year um so the next part of this like recommendation is um the non-driving subsidy and currently um most schools offer free permits for parking near their schools and why while it is very important um to make sure that teachers and staff are able to get to school um we are like trying to increase a transportation that is like um sustainable so our recommendation is to provide a little incentive or bonus for people that don't get this permit um and so then like they would be taking the public transit or walking or biking instead of driving um and we also acknowledge that cost does have a very big influence fortunately like which recommendations will be implemented but this one will be able to kind of um fund itself because um first of all if 20% of the staff switched then we would have then we would save2 20 tons of CO2 emissions but also with this decrease in staff driving there' also be um less parking that is used and since land in Brook line is very expensive and like very valuable um school committee could like use that land in whatever way they wanted but you could like uh sell it for parking or like in um parking lots at school you could kind of like repurpose that um the parking space and use it for like other purposes and so um if it was like a 50 mother monthly uh subsidize then um it would cost 160,000 yearly for about 320 uh staff members but um if only 170 parking spots were like rented out at $90 a month it would provide 15,300 so it would kind of um give back money and then also that money could be used for other recommendations um sorry so uh basically um yeah basically um with that off street parking um there is about 200 spaces for some for some school systems for some of the schools in our uh school system but um this could be repurposed and um providing more uh funding for other recommendations next slide so our second recommendation would to be uh to replace our current diesel fuel Vans and buses with electric so electric vans have a lot of benefits uh like through parking like it's it's a lot more cost- effective and also more there's more accessible parking since you don't have to find a place with like diesel fuel gas right and also it's a good model for electric school buses like we understand it's like it's a big commitment to switch to Electric school buses especially considering the costs and so it would be a good way to show us like what it's like like what are the benefits of an electric van and how can we further Implement that with buses and also uh we would Envision this to be used through like sports games that are close by or Meco or specialized students and yeah so as you can see um we have a couple of suggestions for the electric bands uh for example the this mercedesbenz Sprinter passenger van this one retails for 66,000 and we also found um a a model one which is a company that uh creates customizable electric bands and we can get quot to figure out like how much would C and so we would recomm to replace at least one of the the diesel fueled Vans to be electric vans or more so like if a if a van breaks down and we need to replace it we can replace it with an electric van and if we use this van here the Mercedes-Benz as like a framework we can assume that it would be like around 66,000 a year to integrate an electric van um next is electric buses which is eventually right now Brooklyn uses diesel buses which are not environmentally sustainable and Diesel buses get eight miles per gallon R South Brook uses two diesel buses that run 50 miles per day which is 12.5 gallons per day or 2275 gallons per year and there's 22 22.5 emissions gallons which means 26 tons of CO2 slash emissions per year which is personally a little too much and electric bus and electric buses would lower those CO2 emissions by a lot but we do acknowledge that electric electric buses are a big commitment for Brook line brick line to have because the cost of not cost of charging stations are very unclear with them being super expensive or not as expensive so we don't really know about that also Brooklyn does not have the space right now for electric buses because it have to also account for the charging spaces and the costs for electric buses almost everywhere are very expensive so we do acknowledge that maybe later on when we can have more a better in infrastructure for electric buses we can get it but right now we can't but right now there's a Federal Government Act called the inflation reduction act that lowers uh buses and electric buses yeah toy I think we have to go a little bit quickly through the last two recommendations um our third recommendation is bicycle infrastructure advocacy and we're asking that school committee and um obviously anyone else within the school system use their political influence their soft power to help create a network of safe bike GRS to school by advocating for the adoption of protected by LS so for example there's a project currently being debated on Washington Street um and if we could get school committee to support that that would be incredible next slide please um and to add on to that current bike infrastructure townwide is um inadequate as evidenced by a clear lack of protected bike lanss this denies a lot of students a safe to school next up please um and this is I won't go through every every one of these uh sub recommendations but like I said we want school committee um to support ongoing and future bicycle infrastructure projects for example on Washington Street um through these specific ways next slide please and then our final recommendation is restrict imposing restrictions on car idling near schools currently there's a state law that says um anyone who Idols for five minutes or more should be F $100 and to enforce that ban we recommend that school committee approve the monitoring of drop off sites in your schools and work ideally to close streets around schools to car traffic during school hours that's everything thank you before you sign off Toby I just want to point out that Toby um made a film about the work that this subgroup has done and if you could just let people know how they might see that film I think that would be really appropriate yeah I would be more than willing to email it to all of you but people might be watching as well so if you want to just say how people could see that film yeah currently the video was recently uploaded to YouTube so if you go to the Brookline Interactive Group Channel um should be there somewhere thanks Toby thank you okay I think thanks everyone for presenting in in 10 minutes each we I think we also have Sasha and Rebecca online is that right Betsy and do you know if Alexandra is also online great so we have Sasha and Rebecca online who supported the uh food and waste group and Alexandra veio is also online she is as you know our town sustainability director is that the name of the position thank you Alexandra for joining us so we'd like to open up to questions from the committee well I want to just Begin by thanking the group for uh this outstanding work um the succinctness of it and I just really appreciate um the pulling together all this information I think when you first came on committee you were talking about sustainability and so one of the first things I asked was well what are we already doing doing type of thing and so to see from the curriculum all the way through what's happening in them future States I thought this was very comprehensive and I appreciated that Sarah go ahead oh sorry I didn't see so Helen then Sarah I don't know who was first okay um first of all thank you all for this excellent presentation uh part of me is very happy that we are doing things already and you've shown some of that in the different um presentations and um so it's been great one of the things that was very interesting to me because I know maybe 10 years ago we started talking about giving um passes out to staff to be able to drive and there was a study done at that time I'm not sure if you guys had um access to that um but there Cara brutin who's our town help me somebody with's her planner thank you um did the study back then because the town was considering it um and I think part of the biggest issue was the distance people had to come so I'm not sure if you looked at the teachers and where they live um I I saw the you know rather large percentage who said they would use it but I'm wondering if that's really feasible um in terms of getting into school on time at you know 7:30 or so in the morning um it just was I was curious about that if you how you got your numbers and um if you looked at the distance that teachers actually live from Brook line so I believe I saw that report um and it's changed a little bit since then um since the T has expanded so much um but I'm not entirely sure like how we could um look at the sustainability of it like through J other than seeing other people say that they would take it um to school that way um but I also think that given that the monthly length pass and like the 7-Day pass are not like restricted by location um it would generally be feasible um for the average teacher to use it if they lived like relatively close to a station okay I wanted to say that I love anytime we talk about learning as planned and one topic building on it on the the last topic and building towards the next next topic so one of the things I really appreciated was that idea of curriculum and of teacher training where you look over the years at where different topics fall in so it's not just ad hoc but it's really planned and so I especially appreciated that so uh kudos to You Stephen for organizing the I I assume you had something to do with the presentation because it was very clear if not you did a great job everybody just those charts really help us when we see those so thank you for that um I'm just wondering you know I'm kind of I know we've been working on composting in the front of the house for years um and so I'm wondering why we're we're still stuck we have five out of the 10 we still have a few more to go I'm wondering if there's um if Rebecca is able to help she's I think she's online if she is able to help the schools finally realize you know uh what composting in the front the house would look like and I'm wondering how it's working like at the high school I know you've had a lot of volunteers at the schools but I also know that's it's kind of a burden on the volunteers who come in um so anyway I'm just kind of really wondering where we are with the compost and and and how we might go forward hi everybody this is reao um so the composting is a program that belongs um to the school administration so Food Services and thew are here to support them but it's it start as an inititive from the administration so um if they're interested in composing then they can reach out to us and then we can organize so Food Services is responsible for the back of the house composing which we are doing and I am collaborating also with the D W and DPW is actually um and I think Alexandra can confirmed that that they are the the ones um providing in infrastructure the know how and um so it's basically a collaboration between DBW good services and administration um I know that H DPW cannot take all the school at once so it's been like a process so right now as I think Esra said five are composting and we are about three other so is really uh a couple of a couple of years and then we were able to to have composing in all schools um some schools are easier than other schools for example Drisco since a brand new we started from the beginning is so much easier to ward those some school are a little B more challenging because of the sometimes configuration of the cafeteria or not enough space or it takes a little bit more time um uh but yeah basically that's that's uh I think it we are getting there it's just it takes a little bit of time to coordinate all that this is Alexandra beio I'm the uh director of sustainability and resources for the town of brookln um Can folks hear me okay I apologize I'm driving from a town event that just yes we can hear you Alexandria and thanks for joining okay yeah of um so uh thanks to the students I I unfortunately had to jump on a little bit late because I was coming from that event but I was able to catch a lot of the presentations and just really excellent work so kudos to all of you um for all of your efforts um and thanks to Rebecca who's been a fantastic partner for DPW when it comes to SCH composting so I'll just add in on this that you know the school compost guide um and met with uh school principales and the administration about that a couple years ago just to introduce the concept to all the schools and something that we've discovered for that uh front to school composting that's really important is you need to have the right infrastructure and I think Rebecca spoke to the infrastructure in terms of physical infrastructure but it also really requires people infrastructure so it really requires um Champions within the school that are able to support the effort requires that there are teachers that are willing to help with or some school Administration staff that are willing to help with the training and oversight of the compost um collection within the schools um and it really requires that our custodial staff are able to support it as well so uh we've been pretty intentional of outlining a process that folks can go through to bring that program in and make it hopefully a successful one and uh it has really been an optin process for the schools and so I would say that uh that's been a really critical factor for us to to find the success that we that we have thus far and um to your second question about BHS I will fully acknowledge and I know uh Dean Cody is in the room um she's one of our many Fantastic uh volunteers that have worked with school composting in the past and I will tell you that BHS has been an incredible uh is it has been a challenge um and could not have done it without the school compost volunteers um but it became and those folks are the ones that were in the cafeteria overseeing to make sure that nothing was getting contaminated but it was really um a trying effort for them to continue doing that and so they have since slowly phased out of that role and it's now on on the students at BHS and they've taken on some leadership roles under the um direction of one of the school teachers but that has been been a really challenging spot for the front of house composting and so I think our hope is that as more k through eight schools come on board that it'll already be integrated into the school structure by the time the students make their way to to BHS um but without that oversight and that leadership within the school it's really difficult for it to be a successful program and I think because BHS was one of the early adopters on on front of house composting it we had a lot of lessons that were learned from that process yeah Jesse did I just say one thing about okay so I it's not that I'm so obsessed and focused on composting but I do think it is a really great first step for all our students even at a young age to start thinking about how they can you know what what they do with the food what is the food how do we share it how do we make sure everybody has it and then what do we do with the waste that we have and how can we reduce the waste but that they can start doing that even as five and six year olds and so um I know this is just one of many recommendations made tonight but um I do feel like it's an important place for us to really start and get our young children our young students involved with the whole food cycle uh you know and what that means so thank you for those who have have worked hard on that I know there's several people here who have I just want to add on if justess will you thank you Jesse uh to what you're saying because I think that's very true I think what Alexandra said about as the young kids get this just you know a second nature um you know they'll become the high school kids who will do it and and know that how to do it and do it well um and I think you know you do need champions in the individual schools maybe some of the high school students could even help the younger kids in their schools that they used to be in um you know have a team that goes in and works with them seniors who are at the end of here could do that type of thing but thank you yeah hi I just wanted again um this is the second time I've heard your presentation and it's uh just keeps I'm absorbing more and more of it every time I'm right in tune with you guys uh great work and I was going to say also that you know this dovetails very well with some of the work we're doing in uh the transportation board pedestrian advisory committee where I'm a member uh biking for Brookline the bicycle advisory committee all these groups need to remember and need a little bit of push from the Next Generation you know bringing up these issues and I hope that you know the Juniors and sopomu guys are guys and gals are are are tuned in like you are and energized and passionate to keep pushing us um you know I'm thinking for example you know safe rats to school getting high school students from South Brook line to the high school big big issue something we need to work a lot about sidewalk safety for kids for parents who let their little children walk is another big deal uh Crossing some of our bigger streets like kids coming from one side of Wilston Street to the other um not only in the Lincoln School area but up near the brookly reservoir um traffic which is something you know we're doing a lot with on in pedestrian advisory because of crosswalks uh even near the school even for you know delivery trucks we say we want to close um you know some of the streets there's issues obviously with keeping deliveries coming and keeping everything humming in terms of all the things that need to need to be delivered to the to our school buildings and around school so I just think that that that keep pushing on this because there's a ton that we can do and there's like a big road ahead of us so thank you for all your work Stephen thanks um I just want to make two comments one is uh I would really like to see uh further consideration by the school by the administration of of an initiative along the lines of what the first subgroup recommended which is some investment in I feel like we The District in general and PSB in particular have done a lot of work around sustainability uh infrastructure but there's been less of an investment in sustainability capacity sustainability education specifically we focused a lot on buildings and uh geothermal and solar and what we can do with transportation and there's still lots more to do but there has been a concerted effort about what it means to have a pedagogy or a curriculum that uh that that marks a shift in how we think about sustainability education and I think uh acknowledging the scarcity of resources acknowledging that we are currently in the middle of a big literacy curriculum investment uh it's worth considering whether we want to make a pilot investment in some kind of sustainability competencies um and pilot them in some grades and see if there's some purchase uh among Educators with doing something like that I I guess I I personally have a fantasy of Brookline being a place where we are proud of having sustainability education uh or being a leader in sustainability education that that being some place where we're innovating and really pushing things forward so that's that's my editorial my my process comment is uh I'm also really interested in in thinking about uh how to collect these recommendations and pushing them forward in an organized way so um uh and I have two thoughts on that one is I know sustainability is part of the Strategic plan and the Strategic plan is not for school committee actions but it's for administration side actions but not all of the actions recommended here are really school committee actions especially group one On's actions so I'm wondering if there's a way to put some of the recommended actions uh I wonder if there's a way for the administration to consider some of the recommended actions here within the purview of the Strategic plan whether it could form potentially part of a work plan or at least be considered under the work plan for sustainability of the Strategic plan um and then the second part is I think there's a list of policy actions that we can consider I'm the chair of the policy committee so I could worry about the myself but the rest is budget and I wonder um I know there's lots of competition for Budget uh but I would love to see some kind of like perhaps Workshop item where we can review these budget items in in a systematic way and consider whether there are priority sustainability Investments that we might consider and uh and push that forward if sustainability really is a priority for the school committee those those are my that's my process comment thanks well maybe related to this Stephen um just thank you Stephen and everybody on the task force for I guess the mindboggling amount of thought and expertise that went into this like can we look forward to some kind of written out version of what's been presented so like something that people can refer to years the next steps from from the subgroups point of view is that there will be a written version of what you've seen apart from the presentation there'll be a a document that goes along with it that includes the inventory and the presentation but has some narrative alongside it as a document and um um yes so the answer is yes to your question okay are there any other comments or questions if not yeah thank you again this is um this was amazing and comprehensive and very impressive thank you all right other um current issue for discussion tonight is the quarterly update on the PSP strategic plan that um Step just referred to Beau hi everyone thank you for bearing with me while I shared our screen with our presentation for tonight I'd like to orient you a little bit to what we're doing if you have your written copy of the Strategic plan suzan I know you have it in your bag Andy I just saw you with yours we're going to be reporting out on the targets um not the benchmarks because much of that will come at the end of the year report but we're going to be focusing on the targets um for our report this evening and this is a little preview I'm going to close with this as well but this is a preview of something coming soon which is our strategic plan dashboard which the school committee will have access to I'm really excited to talk through it a little bit um later but this is something that we've been working on with our partners at open Architects to help keep the school committee informed in real time about what is happening in um our strategic plan and the district yeah I was no I was going to do it at the end it's a tease it's a [Laughter] tease so as you know our first goal is related to teaching and learning which is my wheelhouse and we want to just to remind us that our first goal of the Strategic plan is to increase achievement for all students by establishing imp M menting and regularly assessing a consistent highquality and challenging curriculum using evidence-based best practices so our Target for this year is selection or creation of curriculum materials in ela and World Language I'm really excited to tell you that we are going to be bringing forth a recommendation for our new Ela curriculum for the committee to vote on at our next meeting on December 19th so stay tuned for that I want to thank our wonderful literacy Specialists and our teachers and our administrators who have just done tireless work evaluating different programs um and coming forth with their feedback in order for us to make a well-informed recommendation our next goal is to complete 90% of educator evaluations we can't um report out on this yet because the first the formative site hasn't completed yet that won't be completed until um February 2nd 75% of PD will be on multi-tiered systems of support um for the first part of the year we have really been focusing on tier one instruction and that's the um tier that's kind of the floor that all students get so that they can be successful in their general education classroom and we have have um this year taken advantage um with our K to 5 teachers of Tuesday meeting time and our professional development day and we've delivered we don't have a lot of professional development time in our calendar so being able to say that we've delivered four hours of PD focused on literacy tier one literacy instruction is really exciting um we also had done a lot of talking probably more around the middle school schedules but really about creating um an efficient Elementary School schedule so that students have the maximum time on learning during our tiered Focus monitoring review We noted that that is something that we had to work on this year OTL has instituted new recommendations for time unlearning and we've also reviewed every school schedule to make sure that we are getting that 900 minutes of instruction that we're required to give um we need a clear process for vision of BHS graduate work with a timeline and benchmarks and I was really thinking as we were talking about sustainability um and our students and what we want to have that would be important to fold into this portrait of a graduate work that we are doing and before I turn it over to my colleague Claire who is online to talk about our last bullet I realized that we ALS I forgot to address the World Language curriculum piece um that work has been stalled a little bit due to the need to hire a French teacher at Baker which is an issue that I know the committee is very familiar with it's one that we're working very hard on we've offered the job to two candidates who who have turned us down unfortunately we have a third candidate whose application is under consideration right now um we're doing some reference checking and reviews um for that application and unfortunately if we can't find anything um anyone to take our position what we're going to do is contract with a company who will provide us with a French teacher that will come in um to be able to do um the work so we'll we'll keep you posted about where that lands we're working really hard Sarah if you want to come back it's half timee it's lovely not to put you on the [Laughter] spot um so now I'll turn it over to Claire who will talk about our Equity audit hi everyone good evening um so we're really excited in this particular um Target is to is to complete an equity audit diagnose issues related to diversity Equity inclusion and belonging um we're excited that we were able to put together a team that has representation from oee OTL OSS and oaf as well as an assistant principal and our Meco director we received seven proposals and have narrowed the search to two companies um all documentation um thus far has been submitted to town procurement um we have a meeting on Monday with the final two that we are looking at at and from there we hope to have a decision made um by the end of next week and then um that documentation will also go over to town procurement they will do their final part of the phase of um the financial piece and then um we should have a selection made so we're excited that little slow but um we are excited that we're on our way um we've been assured that um even though we're slightly behind schedule that we will still be able to complete um the audit um um probably by um June of 2025 as opposed to May so our next goal is around community and connections and Dr Giller is going to present this part so goal to is to develop U develop and Implement a culturally responsive Community engagement plan to Foster connections among Community among caregivers of school and the district and the community so first the first Target that we are attacking is um rebuilding and relaunching the district website um we are I'm actually have a meeting tomorrow with our communication specialist to look at um the plan that um is being built out there one to start surveying the community to get their Insight what they're looking for on the on the website and then build a Comm a committee to then engage in this work so to hopefully have this completed uh within the fall uh within the spring time frame so more to come on that but that work is uh poised to continue moving forward uh Target Two is developing Equitable and consistent systems of protocols and expectations for communications to in effectively inform caregivers at the school and District levels um so again this is uh about a series of communications um that we're putting out um revamping as we're talking about in the website portion but that's also um I think it's final site that's the larger um Communications body with whom we're working and our our weekly messages and those types of things come out through that um we're also uh have introduced this year a superintendent staff bulletin and that goes out to staff at least one Wednesday a month and other departments are utilizing in that but what I'm trying to do is not inundate our community our staff Community with a bunch of emails but trying to really drive home um uh communication that be can be expected uh at those times and certainly when we have emergencies we can deviate from that plan and then the office of teaching and learning has also uh contributed to uh is now kicking off a monthly newsletter for the KA curriculum um materials and that's sent out to the KA uh staff as well we want to continue our practice of getting input from caregivers um we certainly had our climate and culture survey and continue to Levy that feedback that we received there and then um Jody talked about Dr tuna talked about the literacy materials um and gathered feedback on that as well as hosted an open house uh for feedback there we want to also continue um reviewing our district Partnerships um continuing to look for opportunities to partner uh Sarah and I had a meeting I think last week or two weeks ago now um about possibilities around uh some expanding some Partnerships are creating new but then also how are we maintaining what we currently have and leveraging those resources as well so I think similarly to what sustainability has done where is sort of our Master list of our partners and what service or supports do we get from them and so that's an opportunity there and we certainly have cartwell care cart will care and uh care soless listed here as um two that we uh will frequently report out is is the website survey in the first paragraph there go back second turn the website survey is the same one that's related to the district website redesign uh yes yeah okay are you ready for me to move on good even we went back here we go good evening everybody it's nice to see you all uh I'm addressing goal three climate and culture partnering with families and the community to create safe environments that promote belonging and I just wanted to say a few words about that that partnering with students and families to promote belonging means actively engaging with both students and families in creating a school environment where everyone feels valued and respected and included fostering that sense of community and connection and that this happens through open communication and shared decisionmaking activities that celebrate diversity and individual identities and ultimately our goal is to make sure every student feel like they belong in the school setting in terms of targets and outcomes at the elementary level the Second Step social emotional learning programs are focused on empowering students to build skills for success and at these earlier years this foundation for a positive inclusive culture is developed through those social emotional competencies things like perspective taking uh processing emotions understanding and resolving conflict uh building positive relationships and as of November 25th approximately 75% 70 excuse me percent of K5 classrooms have implemented lessons this year at the middle school level The Advisory programs are using wayfinder which goes beyond those basic social emotional learning competencies to incorporate Future Ready skills in order to connect that classroom learning to the real world things like adaptability teaching students that you can try again if you make a mistake that you're comfortable navigating uncertain situations empathy at this level that you're tuning into the feelings of others and willing to act for a common good collaboration that you're a team Builder who can partner with others agency that you understand the value of your own voice and that you seek opportunities to build community and as of November 25th six middle schools are using wayfinder active in their advisories with more schools uh coming in unfortunately the social emotional learning grant that PSB submitted uh earlier this month was recently declined uh Desi did go out of their way to highlight the Excellence of the grant primarily written by Dr Dubois but explained the need for limited resources to go to uh less affluent schools in the Commonwealth um so the work will continue uh but we had been excited about the additional $100,000 in resources that it would have brought to professional development the policy um subcommittee has worked on the life of the school policy that's the middle bullet and the school committee has not yet voted on this policy and it remains a work in progress uh you see that the equity Cycles which are at the top um piloted by the office of equity uh are rooted in 10 Equity pillars or competencies and focusing on these pillars in the first cycle has been about restorative justice high expectations having courageous conversations um learning high impact strategies for providing access for all students and the second cycle will address internalized biases behavioral support peer observations and partnering with families Claire I didn't know if you wanted to add anything here or whether I summarized the direction that we're going did a great job summarizing it I'm really excited that um the equity cycles that we are piloting at those three schools are are going very very well um Christy Hernandez is doing a fabulous job she has really uh she has boots on the ground and she's doing an awesome job I think if you speak with those um School leaders they'll be able to can um give confirmation on that but we're really excited about the next Cycles to start after the first of the year thank you Claire and the last bullet on this slide um is about attendance student engagement and belonging it continues to be prioritized we presented on attendance rates and patterns um a few weeks ago at the school committee meeting we are establishing a working group group uh this spring to continue this work and in addition we wanted to highlight the work of our building based child study teams that are now called student intervention teams sits and Broad brush as a reminder our sit uh teams are basically a support system for students made up of professionals teachers and Specialists who are aalu ating and supporting students who have potential academic or behavioral challenges a robust collaboration has been in place between OTL OE and OSS and we have been guiding and supporting our pre-referral teams in creating routinized procedures for addressing academic skill gaps issues of attendance and belonging creating strategies for the general education classroom and more and finally we're aware of our tiered focused monitoring review for civil rights which took place last April 2024 in August we received a final report and there were 29 Universal standards that were reviewed and 25 of those standards were found to be fully compliant or exceeding expectations there were four specific areas that required some corrective action the first was about time on learning which Dr Fortuna addressed in a prior slide uh another element is about curriculum review continuing the work of ensuring that all curriculum is free from bias and the third and fourth recommendations really fell under the umbrella of professional development one was about additional training and documentation for for the area of physical restraint and restraint regulations and the other was additional training for both General and special education staff around special education federal and state regulations and to that end our directors of special education have been presenting to faculty meetings to bring that uh handson professional development support for our entire faculties in all of our schools and with that that are you taking uh go four so I'm going to work with um Claire to um Talk About Management and capacity building around developing resource management and capacity Building Systems that will ensure educational and organizational goals are timely and accomplish with transparency unfortunately Dr given who was going to be instrumental in the next two sections had to leave this evening so you're stuck with me and Claire so our first Target here is to develop a budget aligned to district and school Improvement plans that's clear and understandable to St stakeholders as we know the Strategic plan was adopted in February 2024 our principles did an outstanding job this year of really aligning those School Improvement plans to our district strategic plan and our FY 26 budget is currently under development using the Strategic and school Improvement plans as their guideposts um I'm going to let Claire talk a little bit about developing and implementing a human resource model that's designed to recruit retain and sustain talent in all positions um but I do want to highlight some of the great work that was done by our HR staff our onboarding was designed um to go from multiple weeks down to days now um we've reworked job descriptions and um Dr given and her staff did a wonderful job of um budget um training and processes training for all of us so that we're all in line and in sync with what we're doing um and then Claire is actually going to talk about developing and implementing um the human resource model that's designed to recruit retain and sustain talent in all positions all righty thank you Jody um so um go forward these are some of our targets so we have our inperson multilingual on woing options where introduced in May of 2024 um all HR three or4 and payroll 2 or three positions were filled by May of 2024 the HR team attended two career fairs in the spring of 2024 um the results um the hiring process has been reduced um from several months to um four weeks and this is what jod was just speaking to the onboarding process has been reduced from six weeks to um 3 to 10 days the onboarding process has been automated and employee data is um um synced between Talent Ed munice it actively in the directory and Aspen to improve data integrity and reduced um data entry um the staff fill rate um when school opened was 96.55 Claire can I pause for a second so the prior bullet um that was one that we recognized several years ago that our our internal Data Systems weren't talking to one another which was leading to data Integrity challenges and so we've worked really hard to um clear that up so that we can have greater trust in our our data as well as our Data Systems um so that's that's a huge accomplishment and Milestone there for us sorry Claire no problem J would you like me to continue here yes please CLA okay so in this particular Target we have develop and memorialized budgetary processes and procedures that support predictability and transparency so our first bullet we have a site-based model of budgeting was introduced in January of 2024 the accounting system was modified and simplified to reflect a more streamlined chart of accounts that align with the budget model in July of 2024 the quarterly financial report has been revised to present spending activity by site-based cost centers consistent with the budget model September 2024 the budget calendar for FY 26 was revised to include the presentation of school Improvement plans and a fall winter meeting with the advisory committee and our next Target um create a professional development plan designed to build the capacity of all staff to perform their roles in service to the Mission Vision and core values of the organization the professional development plan offered by um oaf this year includes four financial management training sessions August 24 offered to the budget managers and support staff topics included appe management hiring and onboarding position control as well as contract and po management and six budget development workshops and six online dropin sessions for Budget managers aimed at developing skills and Acumen and creating a financial plan aligned to goals goal number five is governance design and Implement an organizational structure and related information systems that will enable the organization to achieve the district Vision so we want to assess and modify our existing systems policies and procedures related to recruiting hiring and onboarding and diversifying staff Claire I think this is more your area of expertise than mine so I'm going to let you take this one too thank you for the lean I greatly appreciate that um we're really excited about some of the work we've been able to do um in regards to um Recruitment and Retention so I'm oee in collaboration with our partner mpde and PSP Human Resources we hosted a career fear this September of 2024 um we are slated to have our second career fair on March 1st 2025 which we advertised today we're really excited I'm actually giving bringing you greetings from the Meco director associations conference where we have a table we've been advertising this conference and people have been signing up and we have an IND District only career fear in May of 2025 um I neglected to indicate that that'll be um that's one of our host for our Bead organization which is an IND District um organization focused on um hiring retention work um we are also in collaboration with mpte in Building Bridges and PSV human resources in developing a HBCU pipeline partnership we're really excited about that work um Building Bridges came to Brookline High in the fall if you remember um did a wonderful session with some of our students and then um I think offered 4.5 scholarships um HBCU offered 4.5 million in scholarships at the largest career feeld that they hold in New England so we're really excited to be attached to them um human resources and collaboration with oee OTL and OSS are in the beginning stages of developing a partnership with the University of Massachusetts Boston teach next year program it's a 13-month teacher preparation program which students can obtain a master's degree in teacher certification um this will be an in-house candidate pipeline program explicitly designed for PSP we're really excited about the beginning um works with that um we're really fortunate to have Alvin Cooper He's got great connections and he reached out to UMass and they just really are very excited to partner with us and finally um oee we are in the process of applying for the fy2 um Desi teacher diversification Grant the grant focuses on um Desi's strategic objective um three the pipeline initiatives Recruitment and Retention okay now I have to live up to what I teased at the beginning so this you're actually missing um two boxes at the bottom too so imagine that there's two more boxes but I'll go through what each of these are the first one is looking at the multiple common assessments that we have mcast star see it yet because we're still working on it it's not for you to see it and critique it at this moment it's only to tease you to let you know that this is what's coming this is the work yeah some of the scales are still off and not exactly what we want to see but that first line looks at our common assessments that we're using right now um our mclass our um star and our mcast assessments the next box has attendance and behavior data including chronic absenteeism so I'm going across with the boxes the next box is um multiple years of our dible score which is our early literacy screening the next box um we just started star this year but we'll have multiple administrations of of the star assessment and then underneath that which you can't see because it didn't fit in the screenshot is um mcast scores from multiple years then we have our Panorama data about student belonging and having a safe adult which are the two measures that we really want to pull out from our Panorama data and then this last piece which really needs more work is on how many teacher evaluations have been conducted so we eventually want to simplify this so it's more of a yes or no like 79 evaluations were supposed to have been conducted by this point how many were actually conducted so um and then underneath that um for future we'll probably launch this before we get this last part we'll really look at curriculum spending and our Trends over time so it'll summarize some of the spending that we're doing in the curriculum areas so this is is really exciting it's an exciting project Helen it's going to be great once it's done and you'll be able to see it I promise it's okay I saw thank you and we'll take we'll take any questions that you have yeah thanks to Jody and Lisa and Claire for this uh excellent overview of the work that's going on in connection with the Strategic plan and any members have comments or questions yes is in yeah I don't want to bring us down so I want to say thank you it feels like we're making a lot of progress I I really feel that way I think it's great I'm just wondering if there's anything we should be aware of that are obstacles that you won't meet some of your goals and that we should be aware of in a way that we could help and maybe it's too early to say since it's just the first quarter no I think for me right now the one thing that I can predict um potentially being an issue is the length of time it's taking us to hire a French teacher to be able to really work on that unified World Language curriculum that we want um especially with Miss Alvarado our curriculum coordinator um you'll recall she's teaching part-time now too in coordinating part-time and so the hiring has really taken up a lot of her coordinator time this year which hasn't allowed us to focus on the World Language piece so we're I don't think we're going to get as far as we had hoped with that back to your comment just to follow up on what um um Suzanne was asking the um you mentioned earlier that there there's an outside firm like a Consulting World language teaching firm if bringing them in right away would solve the problem is there a budget constraint with bringing them in we're hoping not um because we haven't filled that position so there's salary a salary differential there there's some breakage there almost a half year or so correct Mariah and then Steven um I just wanted to say thank you for this it's really really helpful to get these interim reports and and I Echo what Suzanne said about just seeing tremendous progress being made and really having it both at this high level um for area um four goal Vision as well as all the details is is really exciting and seeing this dashboard come together is also exciting so just thank you really appreciative um yep that's what I was going to say as well I really appreciate the detail and and also that it's organized by um the goals um and the targets and outcomes so I was able to compare it to the Strategic plan I do have a request TR uh shockingly um that um I guess whatever you like from this request I think it would be helpful if there was like a green yellow or red or something next to it indicating if how confident you were that the goal was was on was on track because I would I would reference back to the um the Strategic plan and sometimes it wasn't always obvious to me from the report whether you were reporting that it was on track track or not I think that indication to me would help me understand whether for instance going into budget season we should be thinking about allocating more or less less as if that was ever whether we should be thinking about uh the budget ramifications of what progress has or hasn't been made or if there are any policy implications um the other thing is um sometimes I wasn't sure whether we were was reporting progress on an initiative or progress by that Target I I just think like literally organizing it as a grid or something that would just ease my brain just so I could just literally see each of the things in the Strategic plan and and the extent to which progress has been made and your confidence in it that because that's really all I'm looking to do at this point because I know how much is being worked on I just want to know uh what in the Strategic plan needs more or less support that that's really what I'm looking to understand most at this point thank you thank you Stephen and I think I learned a cool lesson from your sustainability report I really like the grids that were in that so thank you Jesse Then Caroline um hi yeah I had a um this might be too detailed a question or Technical and and I apologize but then you can take it back maybe to Susan or something the or Dr Giller can discuss it in goal five um this one about assess and modify systems for onboarding and stuff like that I don't see how that really fits into the governance process seems like it more or less belongs maybe in goal four um a way of keeping employees around and things like that and those processes so I'm not sure like as as CLA was reviewing it um besides the one uh typo that doesn't that you definitely want to fix because of the word that we we actually that one was actually supposed to not be in the packet because we saw that it wasn't connected there so actually the presentation that we put up it wasn't included there this final okay that's thank you all right uh Caroline thanks um and thanks for that presentation I have a bunch of questions because there was so much information um one and now I don't have the slides in front of me on recruitment um I was interested in well I'll skip I was interested in the UMass program 13mon program so is that like connected is that for people who've been in our system I wasn't sure exactly what the connection there was yes there would be an in-house pipeline for our practitioners who are already with us so we have some pair of professionals who are already Bachelor but don't have their master's degree or we have you know early teachers who are still working on the master this would be our own pipeline that's super cool yeah it is it's exciting and I did want to ask and I see you have so many activities that you're doing and you know I think it's interesting talking about sort of recruiting for diversity in Brookline because we have we're so diverse um so if but if we're looking at sort of proportionality to populations and I just did super quick numbers looking at the desie website um while this was happening so for example it looks like our African-American population in Brooklyn is 6.2% and right now our staff is at 7.7% so I guess you've been doing great there um and then obviously we have a really large Asian population desie says 21.8% of our students are Asian and right now I 5.7 by my math so just wondering what what you guys have in the pipeline um in that respect particularly for recruiting Asian teachers yes so um so when we had our launch in the fall we were really fortunate that we had quite a few Asian applicants that were there uh they were actually interns already within the district I think what we're really trying to do now that we have a full-time HR Director just just trying to be really intentional about it um the teacher diversification Grant will allow us to do a lot more with recruiting and being intentional about that but really also partnering with our partners in the community Baff and has been a great um support with us I think we just have to open up those discussions and be intentional about it and really looking at the data and helping the Data Drive the work that we're doing thanks you're welcome all right I don't see any more hands up so thank you again for this presentation all right this takes us to subcommittee and Le on reports and I'm I remain optimistic that we can end the meeting around 8:55 um as the agenda says so we do have some reports to catch up on because we um we didn't do this segment during our last meeting because we had so much public comment um all right Capital Improvements so I will be very quick um we had to cancel unfortunately our Capital subcommittee um Charlie wasn't able to attend to do a report on the REM repair and maintenance budget for next year that we wanted to look at so uh we will be meeting in January and it will be presented along with the discussion about cameras outside of um bookline High School um so those are the two for sure other items I'm not sure about in terms of capital uh the peer School uh documents are out to bid and we expect to have them back by early January in time hopefully to uh go to the um building commission um at their meeting on the second Tuesday in January um if not they will hold a special meeting for it we don't want to delay it uh we are concerned about tariffs that might happen and the the effect of that on our bids oh yeah don't laugh this is serious uh we've already talked about steel and things like that so the the uh the team is well aware of what's happening and is trying to work as you know expeditiously as they can um and uh just a FYI Baldwin will probably be finished um the early January uh we had the first floor is totally occupied but this uh Lower Garden floor I guess you could call it basement I don't know on one side is Garden other side it's basement um that's uh that's being finished now as we speak so there'll be places for meetings for uh professional development um things like that a little Library downstairs so um maybe at some point we'll we'll go visit and I think that's it unless somebody has a question thanks Helen uh Suzanne curriculum sure curriculum met um on uh November 25th we really had two topics one was uh listening to the task force that we just heard tonight on sustainability and uh curriculum and they they presented we gave some feedback and then they presented again tonight so you know all of that and then the second part we looked at uh literacy curriculums and so we looked at three curriculums that were presented or they were there so it was uh Arc core El education and fish tank learning and we had materials there and uh some of the the public was invited people did some people did come and they gave some feedback uh about the different curriculums and at our next meeting um we are going to get the recommendation and we will vote on that curriculum so that will come from OTL I just let you know our next curriculum meeting is Tuesday December 10th at 4 o'clock and for the agenda our two topics are science in the Middle grades and then we're going to talk have a general discussion about how the Middle grades are doing how the scheduling is going and what's happening in our Middle grades we've got a lot of good recognition from desie on our Middle grades program and so we kind of want to celebrate that so if you can join us December 10th and it's hybrid so it's Zoom or in person thank you all right thank you Suzanne um Sarah de yep so our last meeting for Di subcommittee was a case study um we were T it was um from Harvard Ed ethics and um we had a we participated in this case study it was interesting and then um our next meeting is December 9th at 6 PM this Monday and and we'll be having a presentation a time for us to really do some listening about um the organizing of the doors um of the day of um racial reform and solidarity um and we'll also get an update from the office of um educational Equity thank you Sarah Mariah Finance um we haven't met since the last time I um reported out we were meeting next Wednesday okay um me government relations um we have our next meeting um on Thursday uh week from today uh that will be to discuss legislative priorities um that we would be presenting to our legislators when we meet with them in February yeah Suzanne I just want to report that um at the masc mass conference I did attend the um what do they call that the council yeah the delegates Council right anyway did you vote I did vote I voted the way you told me to vote I didn't even go Rogue on you so I vote and every Everything passed I just want you to know but so in case you were curious that's what happened all right thank you Suzanne policy Stephen um thanks uh we met on uh 1118 on it was our second effort at uh coordinating a uh what is now a personal electronic device policy um we got through it after which we sent out the draft policy to principles um uh and the next step on that is to incorporate any of that feedback and take it to the full school committee for their consideration we also reviewed part of section J but a little fruitlessly because I think we decided that what we really need to do when we're doing the nonv value based review of policy sections is just to compare it to masc recommended best practice so in the interim I've I've spoken with our consultant and uh she and I will be meeting uh shortly to to get uh reviewed versions of any policies on our agenda prior to those meetings so sorry that that didn't happen for that last meeting we also had a uh a session of public comment an experiment in that um it was the day after the very difficult public comment we had at school committee so I think there was some run over from that um but we did get some good feedback also about the mobile with the personal electronic device policy our next meeting is December 16th during which we will discuss our attendance policy and TBD on the rest all right thank you Stephen um I do have an update from um the Town School partnership meeting on November 13th that Dr galleri and I attended this was a um a very short meeting it consisted entirely of the Town Administrator giving an update on um the fiscal outlook for fiscal year 26 so the budget cycle that we're now entering um it was not very good um you know the numbers are still coming into focus at this point um but the phrase he used was significant issues um the the group health expenses are coming in way way higher than previously expected and that's contributing to the overall picture we're looking at a deficit in the millions and it um Dr Gill may know more about this but you I think updated numbers are likely to come out in the next week or two uh to be presented to the select board yes so I'm planning to actually attend let's see if I can find what is actually called here the meeting next week on the 10th where um so I'm going to join the select board AC The Joint uh forecast meeting with the administrator um and look U and certainly share ours Dr given has put our Gap our projected Gap or I shouldn't call it a gap um what's the best way to say it uh deficit um around 8 to9 million um so that's and again I don't want to get into the deep dive of it right now but just preluding sort of the Hill that's aad uh in terms of of where we are so when we start looking at our numbers and and as as said um the way Deputy Administrator Goff explained it was when the override projections were built 6% % was utilized for for example for Group Health um this year Group Health is coming in at 10% and next year is projected to come in at 12% um so those are significant numbers as well but Susan and Melissa working tightly we're going to get uh they're going to come up with some joint talking points so that we're consistent with the messaging as well and I'll learn some more uh when I attend the meeting next week um but um um much work ahead of us for FY 26 the finance subcommittee next Wednesday will have this on the agenda because it'll be discussed further at the select board meeting on the Tuesday that you're referring to lonus so members who want to discuss it more we'll have a formal presentation from Susan um as well as discussion Helen did they have any uh com I'm trying to remember I was there at the meeting but I don't remember uh in terms of the state um revenues and town revenues they're up or down or um not at the tsp meeting at my understanding is that the State numbers are they're not any stronger either um but I I don't have all the intimate details because I know several of their meetings are still going on but the Outlook is not overly fa able either thank you all right are there other Leons and updates if not uh we can move on to new business would anyone like to raise new business um I see none which means that we can oh Jesse are you well it's not it's maybe a comment um is that um you made a comment before public tonight about people being more careful in their descriptions and in their presentations and um I think we need to put some more parameters around that so that as people continue to come up we're um somehow I don't know what the right word is I not say protected from but um do a better job of controlling people's ability to um rather than to talk about schools and education we're ending up talking about other groups and plots and uh organized efforts and systematic this and that I think that's not what public comment should be about for our for what we're responsible to be doing yeah I mean I I've been thinking about that too I I haven't come up with really a way to draw those boundaries because we do you know we we don't want to put up walls around people who want to come and and and and speak with us right um and we also can't always anticipate the nature of the comment that we're going to receive um but yeah it's something yeah I mean I I if I knew how to do it right we should just be mindful of it and maybe put some thought into it individually and maybe if we have some ideas share them amongst ourselves Sarah is that a a is that maybe a policy conversation I mean I think that we all agree that um that we don't talk about students by name right so that's in know that's already a practice that we have um but is there a chance that um somebody who's from outside of our community should not with no connection to the schools should maybe not be allowed to speak at public comment yeah I mean the chair can prioritize people from the community you know it it's one doesn't always know and in this case I didn't know where where every speaker was coming from yeah no that was not at all a criticism of you you I thought you handled that very well better than I would have I'm I'm talking about going forward yeah one suggestion you might ask people to State their name and where they live and uh their connection to to the school system that might help and we we could say public comment is only open to community members there is that possibility limiting it that way yeah I think if people have of concrete proposals then you know EV it's something that could go through policy I think and we do have a policy covering public comment yeah no that's right I um I I'd be surprised if we could put limitations on people being from Brooklyn or community members I have a feeling Jesse might be speaking more about comment not last week's comment but the as as I heard him say sort of criticism or commentary that is sounding personal or affiliation in nature rather than uh about school district issues I experienced that tonight I I have a feeling that's what Jesse might have been talking about Andy so those but sorry car ju just uh just to avoid an undocked conversation I I wonder if this could either be taken up as like a community as a Norms conversation or in policy I'm happy to dock at this if it's the preference of the school committee to take this up yeah I mean it does sound like people have ideas and a desire to address this um maybe through policy so um why don't we why don't we take it there I'm happy to dock it it okay great all right thank you um any more new business um seeing none I think we're ready to adjourn so this meeting is adjourned recording stopped