##VIDEO ID:QvhsFiMLtXU## [Music] okay welcome to the Monday September 23rd 2024 meeting of the policy subcommittee of the Brookline school committee our docket today will cover three items one will be a discussion of our work process for the 20242 school year the second will be a discussion or discussion and in coordination of the PSP mobile device policy and the third will be a discussion of section J specifically sections of section J 1 and two four and five and 9 through 11 um I think that's what it said in the docket if I got it slightly wrong then I'll correct myself when that when that docket item comes up for the first item of the work process I want to I want to frame that as twofold one is to talk about masc and one is to talk about how we could work on reviewing the actual policies so um I spoke with masc President Glenn coocher last week and the week before that about identifying a consultant who can work with us for the next three years on helping us uh review our policy manual with an eye towards UR uring that we're fully compliant with Massachusetts statute and regulation he recommended to us um consultant named Alicia Malin who I spoke with and who subsequently sent us a proposal for us to consider which I forwarded to you Andy and to Vice chair Suzanne federspiel um I specifically requested that they that they offer us a process by which we can go through the entire policy manual over as as our consultant over the summer said a three-year period um which is their core fee based service um with two main objectives one to ensure our compliance with state law and two to advise us where we might be brought into alignment with what the masc considers to be good policy practice so that is the proposal that Alisha has sent to us for our consideration I wanted to start by asking Andy and Suzanne who is not here so just you Andy um what how the school committee to my knowledge we haven't considered something like that I don't know how we consider fee Based Services from ASC um so what process we might use to consider such a proposal uh oh did we lose you Andy oh you're on mute I think he's dealing with something sorry about that um had to deal with um and somebody asking a question about something completely different um sorry sorry about that Stephen you were asking what's the process by which there's a process by which we might consider an masc consultant's proposal a service for these Services yeah so I haven't had a chance to look at the proposal yet I've been at work all day but um it probably depends on how costly it is right if it's well within our budget for leftover funds for that's budgeted for like school committee expenses then it probably shouldn't be an issue but if it's going to exceed that or even sort of get get close to U topping it up then uh we might want to discuss it maybe at the workshop I would think okay at the workshop next summer you mean no no we have one coming up in October oh great okay yeah it's my hope I think it would cost something like $3,000 a year for each year for three years so it's my hope we can Outsource a lot of that work to masc to advise us so that we don't spend all of our time figuring out how to update our policy manual um on those issues and we could spend our time delving into more value based issues so ident specifically working on uh policies where principles have asked us to focus our attention or where the community has asked us to focus our attention so we can spend a BRC of our time there AMC can make make recommendations essentially redlining our policy manual saying here is where you can refer to a more updated policy or here is a specific masc policy that we practice or good practice that you may want to consider in you of this policy or to supplement your policy or something like that yeah sounds like potentially something super useful um how about um Suzanne and I can like take a look at the school committee finances with Betsy sure figure out how you know whether we can do this without uh having to cut back on other things okay I just wanted to get the rest of the subcommittee's thoughts on whether this seemed like a good move for the policy subcommittee yeah I would say it's an excellent move I would strongly support it and because we'll be paying someone who will be working on it and not relying on a volunteer and people who know the process and the content already it's a huge win for us um we learned I think two meetings ago that the policy manual for PSP is woful out of date and so this will help jump us you know decades forward to catch up and pretend and I believe uh the the um MBC rep who met with us um like in May or something said that this would this might also include I think their housing or policy manual online in their system which would make it like searchable and um really up to dat a digital archive it'll be listed along all the the other I don't know 80 or 90 other town cities and districts that have already gone gone that route and I think it's just a wise move for us thanks Jesse Carolyn your thoughts on this agree okay okay so then I'll leave it to you Andy and to suzan to consider whether this fits within our budget okay okay so part two about work process is um so in the past I think the work process of generating or revising a policy has started with if it's generating I think usually David had would draft a would have a first draft for us to consider or someone would submit a first draft or a revision for us to start with um just knowing David's work habits versus my work habits I think I don't think I'm going to be nearly as productive as David at generating first drafts um so I wanted to propose and here I'm really open to feedback I would love to hear what you all think we have a pretty pretty packed proposed Master docket for the year so I wanted to propose work groups on specific policies I've proposed breaking up the um the calendar so we have multiple sessions on on every policy and ideally spread out over time so we have so every uh every policy has some time to gestate um um I think I think I'd like to start by considering that every policy be assigned a lead member or members to work on an initial draft or revision and that that group be responsible for generating a first draft to bring to the committee by the by the time when it's docketed so for instance just bringing up the the at the 1021 meeting we're going to consider the attendance policy which is uh section j3 number one um this was at the request of School principles if you'll remember from August and we have some notes in our from Betsy about what were some of the items they wish to consider um I think one thing we could do is we could assign the that first review to a member or members of this committee for that first pass to prepare prior to that meeting what do you think of that suggestion for a working process are you asking us uh Stephen yeah yeah so I'm I'm totally behind that in fact you know as you know for the cell phone one I went ahead and did sort of that but I didn't meet with I just told you I was doing it and then wrote one and then put it into the um PS you wrote one I didn't even see that you wrote One Jesse I'm sorry yeah actually um I think I um I see it now it should be somewhere PSV mobile device policy uh one of them there's some something in there that I that okay yeah so I it was sort of that idea that I mean that but you know that had had we read I mean we'll get the process cleaned up a little better I like your idea of the work group thing then you know um and at the time I didn't know that all the schools have come up with their own so yeah so I had sort of assigned this one to myself and my head since I hadn't had the chance to talk this through with you but um but this would be a bit of a departure from how the policy subcomittee had operated in the past so I thought I would take this chance to talk it through the with three of you yeah sure so I like that idea I mean that way there's some going on between meetings which is important so when we come to the meeting we've got a draft that's already been uh reviewed by two or three of us and others and then we can discuss and proceed at the at these meetings okay Andy Carolyn Andy um seems to me so we have a month between meetings so it might make sense that at each meeting we can look ahead to the next meetings docket figure out which policies there would require you know drafting a new or whether you know there's an existing masc model or it's it would be a compilation of existing you know school um school policies or if there's one from like some other District that we would take as as a model right and then so there'd be a month to figure that out but somebody would take the lead on kind of understanding and organizing right so we could we could sort of keep it one meeting in advance right we can look ahead and yeah so I agree with that so for anyone who didn't listen anyone who could possibly be listening and who also listened didn't listen to the previous school committee meeting the way that I propose breaking up the policy subcommittee meetings this year is into three blocks one a 20-minute block which is more of a discussion block that deals with matters that need to be disc discuss and two work blocks of 40 minutes a piece and for most of the the year I've proposed for the 20-minute block focusing or at least including the upcoming one of the upcoming work blocks so that we have a chance to review the upcoming work and decide how we want to proceed with that upcoming work so I've taken that suggestion into consideration by essentially previewing the upcoming work in the discussion block so I want to take that suggestion Carolyn what do you think yeah that sounds fine um I like the idea of working ahead of time in between meetings and coming in making the most of the time um I find it a little intimidating to imagine having to be responsible for bringing something in but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it I don't think you're any l Le qualify than the rest of us um okay okay that's all I wanted to cover in this discussion block the only other thing is I just wanted to mention again Betsy I I think I I would like to publish that Master docket of uh of what we would like to take on this year and I'd like to do it as a Google doc so that it can remain Dynamic so it's not so with with the understanding that we still have to publish in advance a finalized docket on schedule that's right there is a a more flexible loose docket that we can maintain so that we can interest um other stakeholder groups well in advance of the policy discussions so that they can mobilize bring their expertise uh share their opinions with us and so I'll follow up as we um you know went back and forth in our emails so my ideas were to work on an announcement with you that will go in um superintendent gillary's newsletter sort of as a start um work with Neil to then embed that live Google sheet in uh section of our um website um do a blast email to my distribution list when I send out dockets for school committee meetings I have sort of a broad group of um all the schools and PTO leaders and send it to that group um every time we have a policy agenda also including the link to the year-long docket I think also maybe putting it on the school committee docket under the policy reports you know another link there and then from time to time um you know every once in a while just working with Neil to include another update in in Linus's Weekly Newsletter kind of reminding people that it's there so um I think we'll be in good shape in terms of getting it out there that's great thank you Bessie I really appreciate it yeah and just one feature of that is I really tried to stagger the policies so that they generally aren't in consecutive meetings so we have a little time between meetings for whoever is leading to take some time between that to uh to take some time to work at the Kings yeah Carolyn um I like the idea of communication honestly I think it would be a mistake to publish a Year's worth of potential agenda items that are entirely likely to change shift um I'm not comfortable with that like I'm all for publishing you know widely when we have public meetings um but that feels like like an overpromise an overpromise putting the cart before the horse and just like um I'm not sure what you mean about mobilized and again like you I'm super into I want more communication I want to do lots of Outreach um I just would I would rather see us just kind of like get going and maybe we could revisit that idea once we see how we're doing what about just like necessity and I see more downsides than upsides I hear you what about just publishing like the next two months worth the next two meetings just to give uh when I say mobilizing I just I I guess I really value Community participation um and so I would like to see Community participation um especially if what would Community participation look like so that sort of a ra and again I love conversation but is community like we are the school committee we are elected this is the subcommittee are you saying like every meeting is going to be involving people who aren't on the committee having so and that's not something that we discussed and agreed on um and that sounds unusual to me as a practice I don't see that happening in any other subcommittee and certainly not in the school committee so like a I'd be need to be convinced and B we haven't discussed that as a practice so I would think we would need to agree on that as a practice Andy yeah I mean in addition to coming up through subcommittee right every um every proposed policy goes through three readings I think at the full school committee um which should give I mean that's that's widely noticed right and um public comment can happen there as well I think it's two readings typically but I'll check that okay but we do widely announce it when they do have their public readings I guess my thinking was that if there was an organized Civil Society group I'd be interested in their comment on a policy if they had expertise in the area if it's interested um if it's interested Brookline community members then I agree with you Carolyn I don't want it to turn into a free-for-all of everybody with strong opinions but I think to be honest any opinion like I'm all for public comment Andy and I have been having conversations about public comment I'd love you know I I I like public comment and I welcome public comment and I often wonder why there aren't public comment periods on every um subcommittee agenda and I'm certainly open to that but you it sounds like you're talking more about inviting full participation and I'm I I don't see how that fits um I like the idea of having public comment as part of subcommittee meetings what do you think Jesse I um been trying to get the policy that I was supposed to send you loaded up into the folder that you created which I just did as you asked me okay thought about the conversation so I added that PSP version in there um I have no issue sending it out in advance to people the more information people have to be thinking about for those people that want to be engaged the better and I like even the fact that you had a whole year is worth of meetings out there um I have you know I I I think I have some um opinion about what the order of how we address them are but I think some of that was covered in the minutes so we'll get to that but I think having a years worth out is very structured and it allows people to schedule and those people that want to be involved at certain times can come in uh and and work with us if you're talking if I understood you correctly are we talking about even having members outside the subcommittee work with us in the work groups if their interest so disposed I I hadn't considered that I had only thought about school committee memb members and administration members who are interested okay um so I think that you know as as as transparent and as open as we can be with an open schedule to allow uh members from the public to work in those work groups with us so that we can work efficiently and get things done and a in a in an efficient way is great I I have no problem with that I strongly disagree with having work groups where we're working with people who are not elected to school committee and I ad having people who are not elected to school committee work with us even in in subcommittee unless specifically invited for example this cell phone policy and we have principles that's super useful and we had that conversation beforehand I just think you're sort of and I still disagree with I think you're really gonna you're GNA publish a Year's worth of meetings and it's going to change and then you're going to have to deal with why did it change so so why do it why publish something in October that you think you might talk about in March so I'm happy to back off this proposal proposal I didn't think it would be controversial and I don't want to do something that's divided right away and I didn't allocate more than 20 minutes for the discussion period so I'm going to not do this and if we maybe we'll pick it up again next time if there's time but I would like to not do this as a result so I just want to move if that's all right with everybody unless everyone feels strongly that I should um so otherwise I'd like to move forward with the mobile device policy yeah the only thing I would say Stephen is that this principles did ask for I think four topics to be our top ones and I think we should just make sure that we're smartly moving ahead and addressing those so that it's not like a year to get those four done over the next like you know nine or 10 months where we should be able to knock them off and hopefully not get in the same situation perhaps that you know we want to do attendance and we find out that nine schools already have nine policies on attendance then we have to go try to fit them all together because we're coming in behind like cell phones if we can get ahead of it that' even be better so you know doing them sooner would be great I agree with I see Carolyn's point that putting them up you know in a uh in a way in a way I'd say like why are some of the important ones that the principles had uh being pushed out to April or May so yeah let's let's not schedule it and then then just be successful by surprising them with getting them done quickly okay yeah I'm happy to just say right off the bat that all of the proposed uh Topics by the principles are are areas that we will consider this year okay can we move on to the the mobile device pilot the mobile device policies yeah I was just going to ask you also that there is some review of the minutes that should happen at some point during the meeting Stephen we didn't do it at the beginning yeah I thought we would just do that at the end um okay so first of all thank you to the principles who contributed their schools mobile device pilot policies I actually hadn't realized that there were so many we received eight um there were fortunately a lot of overlap because clearly principles worked together on it Bessie do you want to promote any principles who are who are here attending the meeting um I think everyone is now a co-host um great Donna David um y they should be able to turn their cameras on now hi Jamie okay so I'll just start by saying I I think I'd like to make it the objective of the school committee to pass to to coordinate and eventually pass a single District mobile device policy I think just reading through these a bunch of times there was a lot of consensus there are a few areas where there was a bunch of different ideas but that they were mostly in the weeds it seemed to me so in those areas I thought we could have discussion or we might even take time to see how the these these uh policies are implemented and what kind of feedback they get at the school level or what even even what kind of data uh these policies result in but um at at least at the Preamble and values and general concept level I thought there was a lot of consensus and it shouldn't be maybe I'm naive too difficult to to turn this into a district-wide policy I don't know what were your reactions Carolyn Jesse Andy anyone else similar I saw I I admit I didn't read them all I read a few it looked like there was tons of overlap I'd love to hear from principles about how things are going you know if there's things that they would do differently and then um um I guess eventually some conversation about like how we can support them Beyond if we adopt this as a districtwide policy kind of some structures around that to make sure that that serves the purpose that is helpful um I see this as us sort of taking the hit for the principles if if that's what they need and I'm certainly willing to do that as a school committee member um and then yeah I think we'd want to talk about communication but later and that's it talk about I can talk about rle just because I think I've been I think I brought the hammer down before any of the other schools um at the beginning of last school year or was it the year before might have been two years ago um we started in the fall with um you know like expecting students to keep them off in away and it became a huge battle between teach teachers and students in terms of trying to police the cell phones and it was ruining the relationship between teachers and students right from the GetGo so I believe it was in by the end of September I just I unilaterally just sent an email to parents in Middle School 6 to 8 and said that we would be collecting cell phones at the beginning of every school day in home room and just for the reasons I shared with you I did not get anything but thank you from my families nobody complained um we don't have any special device um box to put them in at rle teachers either keep them in a tupperware box or hang them in their closets in like shoe containers um and they collect them at home room and and we moved to collecting smart watches as well this year because they were just as much of a distraction um and then the students come back at the end of the school day and pick them up um and sometimes they forget them and go home without them and have to get them the next morning it it has we've never lost a device knock on wood um um and we've always made exceptions if there's a family that's worried about their student um we've had students with some you know significant mental health needs or that may need to have that phone on them um for a security reason just for their own um well-being and we always make exceptions if that's the case um and then this year we just moved to the um third to fifth grade doing the off and away like you see in everybody else's um descriptions I think we were all on the same page the principles with that policy because it's trickled down so kids are younger having these devices sorry go on just making some notes David Jamie anything you want to add to that Hey Stephen yeah actually I emailed I just emailed your my policy to you um oh thanks DAV plus our um you know our steps that we take when uh students are caught with a phone out um our you know our Middle School is it's the same as Donna and J is it's off and Away during the day uh our except our students uh keep them in their lockers and we we don't um allow our students to our middle schoolers to carry backpacks um and because it's we use an organizational system which we then this year have moved down to uh them carrying around a Chromebook and a binder so there's really no place to put their uh their phones if they were to um have it somewhere but we do have um conf consequences that you'll see um we have different steps and stages for those consequences like the first step is basically um a call home you know we we take we take it um um there's like a one one steps two two steps and three steps to the consequences and um you know each each step is you know is a little bit of an escalation so it's like a call to home a meeting with the parents um detention um so um right so so a number of policies had that they had there's level one two three offense here in Pierce Lawrence had a similar thing there were um some of them some of them were the same and then some of them had slight differences I think I think uh what was it was it f that had it and now I'm forgetting but but yeah so that was there were slight variations there but that was another feature was the three strikes right right and I I think um you know and um I mean ideally what I would like like to move to I think and is similar to what Donna has implemented and I think some other schools are going towards us um is taking them in the and you know and just locking them up or having kids have them locked up in the morning I think it just it allows for uh fewer um possibilities that they would come out in any form or fashion if we know that they're away and we have them uh right now again we're just relying on our the kids kids putting them in their their lockers and our code of so our Middle School team meets on a weekly basis to go over the code of conduct they log everything every in um instance so we're relying on the code of conduct to uh track whether students are not following the cell phone policy so um again I you know we're we're our team is really uh unified in this and I I second what Donna was saying you know when cell phones came in it was a it was a real battle and and I think not only with staff but parents would appreciate uh having a consistent response to this thanks David Andy yeah thanks I've got a question for the principles so if um if the main purpose of having the school committee write a policy is to sort of provide backup um to to building leaders on this um do we need to actually say anything about consequences and that sort of thing in the policy or is that something you feel like you know the buildings could determine on a you know each on their own on their own feed whereas the policy would just um be more General about like basically off and away for for k through eight and then at the high school it would probably be different because most high schools I think have it off during classes but you can have them back during passing time but if if we stay on that level but don't spell out oh first offense this happens second offense that happens is that something that um you feel could be left to the buildings or would you prefer that the school committee address it personally I would prefer a language that included you know consequences up to including having to turn your phone in on arrival right like for for me the vast majority of our parents and and students understand why we're doing this and support this right like we have the pendulum has swung far enough that I think people are seeing the harm that the technology is doing to their children and they transparently don't know how to roll it back right it's like the horses out of the barn and they're desperate for anything that helps get the horse back in the barn and this is doing that so that's awesome and there are still going to be occasional families who really push back hard against this and so if we think about this policy as really for those unusual occasions to name that school committee is in favor of if necessary those phones needing to be turned in on arrival at school um you know my hope is I would never ever need that and like in my current Community right now in this moment I don't think we have anybody here who who needs that but can I promise you that somebody isn't going to come in from another District or another place in the world and have very different feelings and Ethos about cell phone access no and the the fewer fights we have to fight because there's a policy behind us the more we can keep our focus on instructional leadership which is where I think you want to be spending money on us and so we can have some kind of up to an including language about consequences but not necessarily have to spell out each intermediate step okay that would that would keep it cleaner great yeah that that was my question as well so when I was looking at other districts policies that they rarely do spell out the specifics of the consequences so so both Newton and lynfield passed uh mobile device policies in the last month and um so and they have very different reaction a very different uh consequences so lynfield has a lot of specificity about the consequence Newton is very short and sweet just three paragraphs a piece one for K8 one for 9 to2 so then I went to uh masc to learn a little bit more about the description of consequences as so typically the policy subcommittee has tried to stay away from describing consequences and protocols as a matter of course preferring to leave it to schools um but masc is actually very ambivalent about that it says that it's not outside of the policy subcommittee's purview to do that so I think I I really support Andy the way you phrased that question as would it be useful to principles for the school Community to spell out consequences so I'm curious to know if other principles feel the way that Jamie does that that that some level of description of consequences would be helpful but not diving too deeply into the weeds that that seems to be just the kind of information we we could use here I I it's a very good question I I think my my my initial response to that is um as a policy you know that that school committee's writing obviously we want to just let everybody know that um cell phones should be off and Away during the day now if the only thing is if a school uh imposes a different consequence than another school then you get the school shopping then you get you know anytime you see a divide um it becomes challenging um I think in this case we could be very simple I think we all have like three steps that we can almost meld into you know the same three steps that we all follow I don't think that's too challenging but I think that's that's my only concern that um if you have something general um I what I don't want to do is get into a battle U and and hear from somebody well this school does it this way why don't you do it that way so that's the only thing Donna you have any opinion on this one about how specific you would find it helpful for the policy to be in terms of describing consequences no I feel the same as Jamie I think just a general out like I I was just reading on one of those pages that just said a three a three tiered consequence or something I think we're all on the same page with that I don't think you have to be specific okay that each school would have a tiered three tiered policy for consequences all right um okay okay any other basic um Concepts that you think need to be in the policies or anything else from the school committee members that you that struck you on these policies um only because somebody raised the issue of of not losing one is there liability that we should talk about like is that something that we could just I don't know run by did Jamie write in I think in our handbooks it says we're not responsible for lost items or something like that I don't know if it covers all of us but is it is that what you rely on Jamie yeah I mean this is part of why we don't take them that's part of why I raised my hand is that um my teachers do not feel comfortable taking on that responsibility um and so our policy is often a way if we see it we take it and then it goes to the office and an administrator locks it up so that that's out of the teacher's hands um I think that's an important thing for this committee to consider like like what is the level of liability that the district is willing to explicitly State they don't have around this because I think that is a a point of order as it were on this particular policy I also think it will be helpful for parents to understand that this is actually a policy that supports school safety I think a lot of parents have an illusion that in a school crisis their child having their Smartwatch or their phone helps you know I I don't run a high school so I would defer to Anthony about his thoughts about the high school but I can tell you from experience with non-emergency emergencies here AKA like sprinkler malfunctions that trigger a fire alarm which means the fire trucks come that smartphones and watches were definitely a distraction and a detraction from school safety and made it harder for students to be present and listening to their adults um I think that framing is going to matter to some families because the the the very real fear that our families have when they send our children to school every day is that children get shot in school every day and so we need to acknowledge that this is a policy that's crafted with the intent of helping Keep Kids Safe And I also think that the two schools that just um I know F frr and Lawrence purchased um their one their PTO or through a donation got lock boxes for each home room so that the kids can slide them into a box that locks in the classrooms we've never had that at rle I've never teachers have not asked for that that we have a lock box in the office are the ones that we collect but we haven't had a problem with it should that be standardized across schools I don't know that's what I'm wondering it's not Equitable in that you know I I'm sure if I asked my PTO they'd buy them but it just is we I just have not felt the need for that but someone tells me I should I will well and there's an equity issue in terms of the time it takes to have everybody lock those phones up in a school with 400 kids that's going to take a lot less time than in a school with a thousand kids and that time is lost instructional time right why would it take longer if it's done in the classroom well because there's more kids in classes and more teachers and more subs and more things that happen in any given day that require redirection so as somebody who has operated in a three section four section and Five Section school and line I can tell you that you lose more instructional minutes in a five-section school to all the things than you do in a three-section school so we have a home room that runs for literally six minutes in the morning there they take attendance they literally collect phones and we only collect them 600 to 8 so just to be clear I only collect them in Middle School um so the kids literally are so they walk in they put their phone in a box and they sit down that's how and they take attendance it it's it's just what they it's just part of their routine now and then at the end of the day someone said well how do they get them they all come back to The Home Room teacher and get them at the end of the day because they want their phones and so yes we don't we we haven't put time into the schedule for them to get their phones they come after school and the teachers have them out for them and they take them yeah but Donna some schools have first period Conservatory that's me right so there is no time in the morning before Conservatory for Homam Conservatory starts at 8 so my Conservatory starts at 8:05 so so I that's an interesting fact I did not know um mine starts at 8 on both um mornings a week with our middle school but also at the end of the day what happens if you have a middle school teacher with a last period prep they're in their classroom usually at their prep right right so what if they're at the copy machine or what if they're in an IEP meeting the phones are on the they leave the phones on the desk and the kids come and take them can we do that if they're locked up though I don't know ours aren't locked so I don't know I I'm just saying like that's why we don't lock them the kids have never the the I've had one instance in two and a half years where there was a missing phone last year and it was because two girls thought it would be funny to put their friends phone in the sink and we found it within 40 minutes that's it in two and a half years that's my point is the devil's in the details with all this stuff though and like whether or not the school committee wants us to lock them up or not lock them up or feels like there should be Equity across schools like that that level of weeds we're going to need everybody in the room to weigh in because each of us has our very unique specific situation and as Donna said 68 different than 35 is different than K2 and so just just lots to consider in the the details end of it Tessy then Andy um going circling back to the um loss of the cell phone that Donna referred to so the Philadelphia policy that I had uploaded in there and I also sort of embedded in the PSV draft was that the district shall not be liable for the Lost damage or misuse of any cell phone unless it is lost or damaged while in the custody of the district um so that is if it has been confiscated and so I would suggest that we want to have some sends in our districtwide policy that says that so it's clear so there's no wishy-washy about what happens if a phone happens to become lost I would just say as a matter of course any any policy that we're generating we would run by our Council before we we look for a vote to approve it so that we that we shouldn't spend our time worrying about liability in these particular meetings Andy um yeah this was just um I had my hand raised when we were talking about the boxes I mean I teach in a school where every classroom has just been supplied with a box and most of them go unused uh they're just not needed although some classrooms um find them useful so I I just don't think we should be specifying you know how things are put away as long as as long as they are I agree it seems to be just listening to this that level of specificity isn't required of this policy just that because because why what's the what's the value of requiring a spec what's the value of requiring that how Jamie says Jamie's point is if there's an equity issue but as long as that as long as each school has a has a way of storing the the mobile devices right then that that's what's required I agree yep okay okay I'm just thinking if there's any other major elements of policies when I was looking them through that I wanted to bring out the only other thing that I'm thinking of right now is that I I think we we definitely want to have a K8 and a 9th through 12 section of this policy because I think the BHS policy had um had a different had different had a different discourse than the K8 and I would want to get bhs's input on what they think is critical to this policy and also when I was looking Newton did the same thing a bunch of other districts had done the same thing I just put a few in there but but it seemed to be standard practice to have something separate for K8 and 9 through 12 Andy do you disagree with that okay no the uh it's very standard I think for high schools to you know not take the phone away all day you just have them away during class and you can have them back during passing time lunch and sometimes study hall depending on the school okay okay any further thoughts on on this policy okay okay I want to assign this one to myself and then propose having a draft of it coordinated from the text of the existing policies because I think it's going to be kind of easy and I want to start myself out with an easy one am I crazy to think this is easy does it seem harder to you all all right so I'm going to start with that and then I'll have a draft for you all next time i' also like to circulate it to the principles for their feedback but it's optional I think you already have your policies so if you'd like to contribute great if not I don't think there's any requirement to any further comments on this part of the docket I sorry I do have a quick question and apologies if this is in some of the policies that were shared with us in terms of exceptions principles do you note the possibility of SE of exceptions in your policies or do you just wait for that to come to you and deal with it on an ad hoc basis mine my policy identifies that there um can be exceptions made for medical need okay are there any other categories of exception that you would call out I mean medical meeting mental health as well it could include that yeah if there's documented medical need absolutely we will make an exception are there ever um kids with IEPs that need an electronic device personal device well they have the Chromebook so oh they already have the Chrome okay exactly sometimes like access to music or something like that there are other devices that they can use for that right that aren't okay yeah that's good okay I don't know if mine is spelled out in my policy in my in my protocol but we certainly could add it but I've always just handled on a Case by case basis would seem better not to invite it yeah I think I think medical is the only one uh that we've uh medical meeting I think there there I believe if somebody has like a glucose monitor I think we had things like that okay all right thank you principles for joining us for this so we can now move on a little early to the last section of our agenda for today which is a discussion of section J so I'm proposing for this year that we review okay so just to back up one step again it was my understanding that uh that Jim Hardy proposed um an entire review of the policy manual that we turn the entire thing over um so I'm starting I'm suggesting we start with sections B and J because they're of high relevance to the school committee and to um and they contain a lot of issues that I think come up over and over again and I think it's a good place for us to start if we're really going to dive into the the policy manual so I'm going to bring up section J to start with and I'm going to share it with you section J contains a number of um subsections hang on that we've already talked about can you all can you all see it yes okay once I do this I can't see your faces anymore so just interrupt me if you want to say something um has a number of subsections that we're going to talk about specifically which is why I'm proposing only pieces of it for the review right now so what I'd like to what I'd like to do in this section is just review the sections of SE the subsections of section J and what it means to review all of section J does that sound good to everybody yeah y okay so first of all um section J contains the student code of conduct oops which is something that we're proposing to review specifically later the in the year and it also contains the attendance policy which we're also proposing to review later in the year so I've taken that out of this of this review item it also contains sections six and seven policy against discrimination harassment sexual harassment and retaliation and our bullying prevention policy including our prohibition of hazing I've taken that out as well because we reviewed these last year and I think if we're going to review them again I would like to get the input of um the administration as well I just want to get your feedback on that first I I I'm saying that because I think for masc review everything purposes it's less needed to re six and 7 we would only do that if there's a value based purpose to re-reviewing section 6 and 7 does that make sense how how does um the review or non-review have to do with the um draft policy on hate speech that was drafted by the committee before Carolyn and I joined so I think if we want to take that up again we could take that up but that um that I'm happy to docket that if that's what we decide should be docket it because we want to take up the topic of hate speech but for the purpose of getting through the entire policy manual I just want to get through stuff that hasn't been reviewed in like 30 40 years okay so so that's what's drawing my attention to this does that make sense Jesse Yeah I'm not I'm not trying to push out stuff just because um I want to I just want to look at what we haven't looked at for a long while that's that's what I'm using to structure this session yeah Andy um so are you drawing a distinction Stephen between sort of values based revisions of certain policies and ones that are more just housekeeping um I guess that's a better way to put it I'm saying since we were reviewed those policies last year I don't know why we should review them again if the purpose of this is just to bring everything up to date so I see I I guess help me out because I'm inventing this as we're going and I see this this part of the docket as working with the masc consultant to go through all of section J to make sure that we're not referencing any regulations statutes and law that don't exist anymore or that have been superseded by something that's been passed since the policy was drafted and also looking through it for references to something that may no longer exist in Brooklyn for instance there's there's parts of section J that refer to student res uh school resource officers which we currently no longer have maybe we'll restore them maybe we won't but currently we don't have them so maybe there are other institutions or individuals or positions that are referenced in section J that we need to take out um maybe similarly there're also um ideas Concepts um something else that's value based that we want to reconsider in section J it's with that in mind that I think we should review all of section J since we already looked at a couple of subsections last year I think we don't need to do that again right now it's all the other sections that I think we should take a look at that's the purpose I think of this review and with the goal of saying at the end of this year 2024 all of section J re reviewed or you you know how every section has a last checked April 23rd 1979 so with the idea that all of it will have said 2023 or four or five by the end of this calendar year does that seem like a reasonable goal it does and I don't want to sort of get whay sections I'm looking at section six students which I think you said was one that sort of like was done last year and maybe it's heftier so harder to do I don't see this noted as it says 01721 which I'm not advocating for jumping right back into it I just didn't see that it was done last year it also says a workplace and educational environment even then I agree with you I agree with you Carolyn let's put that back in then please but I don't know I don't want to make it no I put that in there because I thought both sections were 2024 and then if I got that wrong wait a minute but don't say you agree with me because I'm not necessarily advocating I'm just noting that looking agree with the idea of I guess what you're saying is let's do the easy ones first yeah wait hold on neither section says that and now I'm confused Betsy do you happen to know I know I saw something that said that we did something in these sections am I crazy uh I am going to start pulling up while you're talking here let me just pull up um what I have in my files on Section J okay um okay if I'm if I'm crazy I'd like to put those sections back on the table because I the only reason that I had pulled them was because I thought that we had just reviewed them so maybe if I show you what I have in my file um if you want to stop sharing for just a moment and I will pull up uh which was dated April 2024 so let's go to um sorry move one thing aside so what's wrong you're it's okay sorry I'm going through this so slowly it's okay sorry my husband went uh but he said it was only because he's old there's nothing wrong so I definitely don't have anything updated on bullying prevention but let me go back to section six yeah it was 21 yep so I'll have to compare it um in terms of what was the change that was made in April of 24 I'll look back at our school committee records to see what was updated then that caused me to update section J okay um thanks Betsy if those weren't in fact updated then I'd like to reconsider them as well so that we have everything recently updated I think um this policy underwent a very thorough review back in 21 um I think it may have been prompted by updated regulations from from above um and then the most recent revisions were just tweaking a few words again in response to new regulations from above okay so I I would not have this high on the list of things that we need to review again now okay yeah 21 is pretty recent and and there was a huge amount of staff input in fact it was staff driven it was not really a values driven revision at that point it was that we had new uh new regulations that we had to comply with okay thanks Andy I knew there was a reason why I was proposing to take that out so let me share my screen I just like to go through it section by section with you all just so that we all see what's in there what this what this includes can you all see my screen yes okay so first section J includes our admissions policy this was last dated in 96 um it includes Meco um that's J1 then J2 is placement um that was last updated in 1986 um so that should be excitingly creaky um then we have section three which is tenant which we're going to skip for now section four is uh is the disclosure of discipline oh no no no that's too much that's just a subsection right that's a subsection that's right for is records rights responsibilities and involvement so that includes a lot that's that's right that's Student Records that's confidentiality of Records that's disclosure of disciplinary records that's cumulative records and that's non-custodial parents rights policy so those were all updated um last in '06 but those were updated at different times actually but they're all pretty old so that's j4 okay five is searches and Caesar that's pretty short but um last checked in 89 91 no 89 to 91 six and seven is uh discrimination harassment and retaliation and seven is bullying [Music] prevention section8 we're going to skip for now is the student code of contact that's enormous is the student code of conduct an overlay on the um the individual School codes of conduct like you know Hayes sent us there as when we ask no that that is what they use for their code of conduct it should be the other way around I believe we believe that the schools should be aligned with the district okay right I think that's what the principal said though is that they they pull that in so which is why though that I want to dock at that separately because um I think we heard that they would like to hear would they'd like to see that refreshed right um next we have student fees fines and charges under under nine that was last looked at eight years ago but that was before we our recent conversation about Equity at all um then we have student financial assistance also from 2016 um and then student book policy Caroline you were right for some reason I said this went up to 12 it only goes up to 11 so those are the sections of section J um going back to all of you so I can see you again yeah go ahead Andy um so the yearbook policy was also um revised pretty recently I don't know if you want to take that off the list of things to um to review um that one was values driven actually that revision right you're right yeah so why don't we remove that one as well um I had a sort of broader question about this level of review the sort of housekeeping level I me what masc could provide is of course you know comparison with other districts and sort of whether we're up to date with regulations and such they won't have necessarily the local knowledge um you know another way a policy goes out of date is it gets way out of line with the way we actually do things right and and it just doesn't doesn't this kind of becomes a dead letter um and so do are be proposing to do another layer review that kind of makes sure that things are actually aligned with um with our current practice um do you mean by invol example of that oh sorry Stephen go ahead what do you can you give an example what you're thinking about Andy um not off the top of my head it's just in such a big um you know in such a big manual right for example the mentions of Sr right like that's that might be a case where an masc reviewer wouldn't notice that oh this is out of line with our current practice because they may not know that we don't have SRO anymore um you know that's maybe an extreme example but I bet there are hundreds of other cases where just somehow you know we refer to a position that no longer exists things like that and I'm not sure masc review will catch that um I'm asking whether we need to do that or whether we're satisfied at this point with just having the the masc type of review right I think we need both so I think what I imagine happening is that the masc review will will um make suggested edits based on what's out of compliance and where it can be improved with reference to other neighboring policies or specific masc policies that we might consider and we will also review these policy subsections with our own contextual knowledge to Brookline and make suggestions of where it doesn't it's not right anymore or where we might where we might suggest values based revisions and by bringing those two reviews together is how we would update a section right so hiring masc does not absolve us of the need to actually comb through the whole thing ourselves independently with a through a different lens right but it's my hope that not every section will require deep contextual review and values based updating perhaps will and perhaps some won't just like perhaps some will require legal updating and some won't I I guess I don't really know until we've done a section and seen what has been the heavier lift and and even Andy if they gave us a policy about sro's and we don't currently have them as long as it was a standard policy that we could agree with if we were to have them and it may come back uh it having it in the policy manual is is that really a problem it just makes statements about how to address manage protocols approaches for SRO even if say you know we don't tempor we don't have them now but might in the future would still apply it's not it's not like against anything it'll just be sort of uh it would be like uh in Cold Storage as as it were wouldn't spend a lot of time on it of course but so so what Alicia said to me was that she would make a suggestion about where our policy might be better served by an masc policy or point us to a policy that's in their online database or where a section of a subsection might be better replaced by a section of an masc or another policy in their online database so so again essentially a Redline version of our existing policies so um so I think we would essentially sit with our marked up version and their marked up version to see which edits we want to integrate and which we want to leave alone and also incidentally which if any um policies or policy subsections we want to get rid of all together I think it's my sense that we have more policies than the average District yeah um or longer policies the average District so so I think that's the that's the task for us here so this all sounds fine to me I don't want to overt talk on process I do have two things I'll say when is when I skimmed through the first section of sections that you said you wanted to cover Stephen I wondered and this I suppose will be answered as we go whether some of this is really even up for discussion like some of it just seemed like kind of legal stuff or that we would not that would feel like beyond my authority as a lowly School Committee Member but I suppose we'll sort of address that as we go and the other thing maybe we don't need to Super debate this for me there's a little bit of like a mathematical approach to like aren't you supposed to do the harder things first maybe we could intersperse some of the more challenging um middle stuff along the way um because it might be more urgent or more important um but not a hill to die on just sort of a um a thought yeah I hear you I I'm not averse to doing something really hard next I just wanted to start with something agree that we could all just get our hands into through and see how we do yeah totally sorry I think my connection just dipped out for a second I might have missed what you just last said no I totally agree I mean I'm not saying like let's start with the hard stuff but I'm also saying maybe not let's not put it off until necessarily the end of the whole shebang I hear that but also let's just see how it feels as we start okay okay I'm I'm happy to do that and I'm not that's not like a strong that's just a like put it in your pipe and smoke it kind of thought okay um I don't smoke we'll add a section on that the smoking habits of school committee members and what's allowed um okay so let's talk about how we want to do this for for Section J I think we can all just Betsy do we have a a a document version of section J yes we do yeah do you think um we can all access it online the whole thing onl it's all pdf online that's PDF yeah but I have a word version um I can put it into a Google sheet you know a Google doc if oh yeah is that what you're thinking or well I feel like putting it in and out of Google docs can sometimes mess up formatting definitely but I feel like maybe well this is not is this the discussion we want to have in the policy subcommittee I guess so um yeah go ahead Andy is the purpose of putting it in a Google doc so that we can all work on it offline because I'm not sure we can do that outside the context of a meeting oh right collaborating on a document um you're right so what what if what if for this thank you what if we all received a copy of the word document we marked it up and for this one we all sent it to one of us who integrated all the comments into one word doc and that's what we reviewed in the next session of this and the 40-minute work session is the process of integrating those those um those marks I mean is that is that acceptable Andy I think so that's the Hub and spokes um version where you know as long as the people the various people on the spokes don't aren't communicating with each other only really okay and sorry I have to say this makes me wonder now if we can do this idea of working groups because if it if it's two of us is that a quorum uh you have a four member group is to aquarum just putting it out there I don't think two is a quorum right so so so if if for example stevenh were the lead we could all communicate with him give him our suggestions he would coate them and I believe that would be okay I'm talking about what we talked about in the beginning of like with all of the work doing work in between right like working groups well I think three of us shouldn't be meeting outside of the context of a subcommittee meeting but my question is whether it's okay for two it's not aity four of us yeah so two should be okay so um would someone like to volunteer to be the the coater of comments for one policy or for for Section J so all of us will send our marked up version by a certain date to the cator the section J cator I can do it okay okay um or or should we just send it to you Betsy no you have enough do actually so so let's send all send it to Carolyn um and that and then we'll review Carolyn's version with all of the comments in it and we'll decide what to um a new version of section J to present to the school committee for a possible vote okay okay hopefully also before then we can also propose Andy to school committee the the the the contract with masc so we can commission a a Redline version of section J as well and I apologize because I didn't share it with everyone but um the subcommittee did move to school commit and it did have two readings but then it was sent back to the subcommittee last spring um one of the sections J uh two assignment of students to schools where there was talk of um having a a request to remain policy allowing students um so I have a draft of that um again it went to the school committee twice but then there were some questions and discussion and it was sent back to subcommittee for continued discussion so thank you Betsy so so let's send that to let's send that to Carolyn as well for replacement of the current section two for or for for replacement in the relevant sections yes it's section j1f assignment of students to schools okay and then we can discuss that in our next meeting of section J so the 40-minute block for Section J next time thanks for your patience with me everyone this is fine you're doing awesome see even I'm figuring it out as I go the the next 40 minute BL this is what policy subcommittee is supposed to do so we're not we're just not used to doing it so we have to work out how Okay the next 40-minute block will be the review of a new draft of of the sections of subsections of section J that we' that we've agreed will be in there which is everything with sections 6 7 11 and three three six 7 and 11 and that send us an email that sort of says do this by this date yeah thank you and that will be inclusive of a draft of part of section two that had been previously considered by the school by the policy subcommittee and that that we will all mark up with an eye to Brookline context and possible values based changes and send to Carolyn for the integration of all of our comments let's try not to make like unless we really have to like stylistic or grammatical changes and just make those contextual or values based comments because the fewer changes I think the better like the only the ones be really mean and then we'll also try to see if we can move forward with contract MC for their version and the goal for the next 40-minute block on J will be the integration of those comments for a new draft version of those subsections of section J to put before the school committee okay I think that's clear to me does that work for everybody yes this feels really bureaucratic well we'll make progress yeah at least the this the uh mobile phone policy feels like substantive and think about actual okay anything else on this part of the docket excuse me bless and again bless you again okay let's um let's just take a vote on the minutes from I'm G to pull this up what was the date of those minutes again Bessie August 19th it was the meeting we had uh in person with the princip principal that's right um can I have a motion for those minutes and Carolyn seconds Andy how do you vote Yes Jesse uh yes there was one grammatical change I wanted to suggest but other than that okay do you want to send that to to Betsy yeah I mention it or seply thank you okay Caroline how do you vote yes and I also vote Yes um that's it we finished 20 minutes early have a great night