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progress. Welcome to the October 9th, 2025 meeting of the Brookline School Committee. We are going to start with the consent agenda. Do I have anybody who would like to move the consent agenda? Sure, I'll move.
Yes. Great. So, just a couple of logistical things. Um, get a second to the Oh, sorry. First, I'd like to get a second to I'll second and I want to comment here. Okay, great. Yeah, I'm gonna comment then Carolyn and then you. Okay. So, just as we get started, Valrius
hopes to join us later. I'm here. Oh, and there we go. And, um, Valrius is online. and Carolyn. Um, I just wanted to say for the public, anyone who might be watching, probably around 8:00, I have to step out
um for a period of time to attend um to an unchangeable meeting for personal business. So, apologies for that break. And Mariah, I just wanted to highlight for the committee that we've changed our practice a little bit around and anyone
else who's interested, the accounts payable for it. Um, so rather than reporting on them occasionally, I was feeling bad because we'd get to the end of the night and then I wouldn't report. And so now we have changed our process. So, it's the reports are being sent to
Betsy and then they will just be as you see them sort of tonight like since our last meeting you've got this many and um and you don't see it yet because you don't have the October one but I've started trying to put in like um
interesting things that I saw. So, when we get to October you'll see. I don't want to ruin the surprise of the next one you're going to see, but let's just say rather than trying to remember stuff now it's written down. So, it's sort of like a an interesting interesting inter. You don't intend it to just be a list
with check marks. It's going to be a little bit of commentary, too. A little bit of commentary is the idea. Yes. Um, and sometimes, like, again, I don't want to ruin it. So, why don't we wait till next time and you can see how exciting it's going to get. Yes. Right. Don't get ahead of yourself.
I know. I really hyped it up now. So, anyway, that's So, that brings us to discussing the consent agenda or going on to the vote. Um, we're going to bring A through D all together. Then I guess I'm going to move on to a vote and I will start over to my
right. Um, Bob, how do you vote on the consent agenda? I vote yes. Carolyn, yes. Andy, yes. Mariah, yes. Suzanne, yes. Jesse, yes. Donna, yes. Val, yes.
And I vote yes. That brings us on to administrative build uh business. So, um are we going to Mariah, am I going to um Mariah or Bella, am I going to rely on you for for these? Are we going to do
any Yeah, we're on um Well, starting with 2A. Are we taking these separate? I think usually as separate. Okay. So, um, before we get started, would anybody like to move a vote on 2A
and then we'll have our conversation? So, moved. Great. Seconded. Seconded. All right. So, is there any conversation for 2A? We're discussing the high school building project. Um, as we saw in our packet, I actually thought season might be
online, but I'm not I can't actually I don't I can't even speak for these I guess my um well, we all read about them, but yeah, just a comment. I mean, it just seems to me um seeing that the select board has already approved it, I'm not I'm not
sure that the um our questions this evening will circle it back to be reconsidered. It just seemed in reading it that um this is money we're spending to fix a problem with a building that we just finished building in which apparently there may have been some um
defects in how it either either was designed or how to maintain its um its temperature equilibration and so um now using funds to remedy the situation. Is is Susan online because I have a
specific question. Um Susan, my question is um who is like is this going to be added to the what I understood was the legal proceedings against the vend the contractor or has that been settled
already? I don't know if I can ask that question. Yeah, I I I'm not sure Mariah if it's going to be added to or not, but it's necessary in order to proceed to address the issues. Okay. Because Jesse, I don't know if you
were aware that this was like an area of contention the between the contractor who built the building or other people might not have been aware too that this was an ongoing issue and then there was an area of contention and it was going to as I understand it court. So okay, thank you Susan.
Yep. Oh, Caroline. So, yeah, it's sort of similar. Not to beat this, but it would be helpful to for those reasons. I think maybe we saw it was going to
mediation. I don't even like I would like to know kind of where it does stand legally. Are we taking the contractor to court? Is it in mediation? and just more about what exactly
these services are um in in that context and who would sorry Jesse you're saying this was already approved by the select board I believe so yes
was it approved by the unanimous vote of the select board on this particular item sorry I don't what do signed yet. Oh, sorry. I moved I put it away. Who is our building commission liaison?
That's you. So, do what do you know, Andy, about this? Um, nothing. I wasn't at the most recent building commission meeting. I don't know whether it came up. Um, so so there's two issues. Um, one is
related that you're discussing is related to um an ongoing uh dispute around uh uh we'll say uh that's that's tied up in a legal um
dispute with the contractor. So at the high school the HVAC system isn't functioning um in the way that uh we had anticipated and so the temperature is not consistent throughout uh the
building. So we need to have some um money uh allocated in order to be able to do some re-engineering there. That's one issue. The other issue is the legal matter which we really can't discuss in
open session. We have a motion on the table, right? We do have a motion on the table and I think the reason why I felt comfortable with that is because I thought that um just the documentation explained it in full and that um
just wondering if we could vote. So we can vote. So that's that's where I was going to go with that. So Bob, how do you vote? I vote yes. Carolyn, yes. Andy, yes. Mariah,
yes. Suzanne, yes. Jesse, abstain. Donna, yes. Val, yes. And I vote yes. So that brings us to 2B of administrative business. And this is
the roofing project of the high school. Um before we see if there are any questions, would anybody like to move that u move this item? So moved. Great. And seconded by Mariah. Thank
you. Okay. We'll bring to this to a vote. Bob, how do you vote? I vote yes. Carolyn, yes. Andy, yes. Mariah, yes. Suzanne, yes. Jesse, yes. Donna, yes. Val,
yes. And I vote yes. So, um 2C is the approval of the grant for Brookline um education foundation. Um we have an explanation here of why it's uh it's being asked of us now.
And is this the one that you're going to speak to? Great. I was just going to say that um when we were at finance two weeks ago or so, this one was not quite ready for consideration by the committee. Um and so it was uh removed at that time and
and so now it's ready. Um and so hopefully with although typically this would go to finance, I think there's some eagerness to proceed with the work and so we are presenting it tonight for um for consideration by the full committee just due to the timeliness.
So I would move approval. I'll second. We have a second from Suzanne. Second. Second. I'll start in reverse order with the vote. Val, yes. Donna,
yes. Jesse, yes. Suzanne, yes. Mariah, yes. Andy, yes. Carolyn, yes. Bob, yes. And I vote yes. That brings us to public comment. And our public comment is going to start
online. I don't know if we're ready with Jennifer Roberts. Hi. Sorry, a little bit futsy. So, hi. Thank you so much. Uh, good evening, Brooklyn school committee members, superintendent Wong, Dr. Given, and school administrators. Thanks so much
for the opportunity to speak tonight. I want to just start and state at the outset that I greatly respect the work you do and appreciate that you are here because you are deeply committed to supporting our students, teachers, and staff. It is precisely because of that commitment that I bring a concern to you tonight regarding bus ridership in South
Brooklyn as a hopeful collaborator with you on this issue. And I want to underscore that just today I re a number of us received um an email from Dr. um given offering a meeting to discuss um this issue and I plan to be a part of that. I just wanted it on everyone's
radar still. At an earlier school committee meeting this year following the issue with missing bus emails, we learned a surprising fact. A large percentage of South Brooklyn families who sign up for the bus service don't actually use it. I was frustrated by the conclusion offered that the service must
not be needed. In my opinion, when a service is being so radically underutilized, it seems to me that the next step is deterine is to determine why it is failing the community it is intended to serve. The most logical assumption is that the current scheduling does not meet the needs of
the students it is intending to serve. My experience and what I've heard directly from other parents points to a number of scheduling mismatches and these are just a few. Morning buses are much too early. Many families cannot get their adolescence on bus that delivers them to school 45 minutes before the day
even begins. The 3pm bus is as I understand it frequently or not infrequently uh overcrowded making it unpleasant and uncomfortable for a number of students. Students schedules and needs vary over the course of the year due to academics or extracurriculars. They may be signed up
for regular arrival but need extra help and need to go in early. They participate in sports too but not three seasons. The need for a 5:30 late bus coinciding with the end of sports practices seems like an absolutely large need whereas the 4:00 bus seems to be at
a time that very few are using and seems inconvenient and maybe unnecessary. So, I want to just really make sure to state that I don't think that there's any parent who wants to drive their children to school, but we're forced to do that because we don't have a feasible or or reasonable bus option. I believe that
it's important that we address this failure to to utilize the school bus. This is not just about convenience. It's about increased traffic around the high school, environmental impacts of what should be unnecessary rides, but most importantly, it is directly related to student wellness. In my opinion,
we are currently, and this is not my opinion, facing a mental health and sleep crisis among adolesccents in this country. Districts like Newton public schools have shifted their high school start time to 9:00 a.m. in recognition of this very real struggle. For 25 years, I've been a high school social worker in a neighboring
community, and I have seen the real impacts of sleep and the mental health crisis. I don't think it's reasonable then to expect high school students to sacrifice sleep to catch a bus that arrives significantly before the start of the school day. And when families can't accommodate their students needs for
additional sleep, of course they will. So I believe our South Brooklyn students and families deserve a bus service that works for us. Therefore, I respectfully request that the school committee and administrators consider firstly shifting the morning bus time, minimally adjusting the school bus
schedule to a time that is reasonably close to the official start of the school day, and to conduct a meaningful assessment to formally assess why ridership is so low and what schedules would make the bus a viable and necessary option for South Brooklyn families. That's all I have. Thank you
so much for your attention to this issue of equity and student well-being. Thank you. With public comment, we um don't respond um in real time as unsatisfying as that feels. So, just to remind everybody,
um we're moving on to um presentations and discussions of current issues. And tonight we have Matt Dubois presenting the youth risk behavior survey results and leading us in a discussion as well.
We're happy to see you tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah, just one comment. Before Before Matt starts, I just wanted to uh publicly commend him and his team for providing these slides in advance. We appreciated getting them and appreciated
being able to peruse them and start circling things and things in advance and it's not always done and we just want to say thank you and we we think that our discussions are better when we're prepared like that. We're just more ready for it. So, thank you. Of course. Um yeah, and I just want to and if you have a hard time hearing me,
uh let me know. I just want to start with expressing my deep appreciation for this group. Um having uh time and space this evening to be be able to talk about this survey is really really important. Um I'm biased but this is really
important information and I think um for me when I think about this survey at a high level I think it answers this question that we worry about a lot that we sort of grapple with a lot as adults and that is how are our kids doing? Uh when I uh presented on the survey two
years ago, um I offered a pretty hopeful uh theme that we were starting to see improvements in our mental health outcomes and we had a lot of work left to do. Um as I uh present uh this evening, I want to offer that this is going to be a lot of information and a
lot of it's going to be really promising. uh we've made some really really meaningful improvements in our in our kids' mental health. And I want to uh make sure I take time to to demonstrate how it is that we've gotten here, not just in work that we've done over the past two years, but really over the last four years um in the amount of
resources and time and just overall investment that we've had. Um because I think it's important just to name how it is that we've gotten to to this place. Um and uh despite this, what we're going to see uh in the data is that we continue to see discrepancies.
And these are discrepancies that mirror much of what we see throughout the country. So we're going to see discrepancies based on LGBTQ status. We're going to see discrepancies based on race, based on disability status. And so when we talk about there's more work to be done, those are particularly the spaces where there's more work to be
done. Um, as I just offered, uh, there's a lot of information in these slides. Uh, and a lot of this information is going to feel really intense. Uh, anytime we're talking about adolescent mental health and we're talking about substance use and suicidality, it's a lot. It's really
important. We have to talk about it, but I just want to name up front that that's likely to evoke some some pretty intense reactions. And so um to to start with I think for us to really appreciate this moment where we are I wanted to start by sort
of taking a couple step back uh steps back and sort of understand this broader context. Um as we just offered in public comment uh when we talk about child and adolescent mental health we frame that within a context of a crisis.
Uh and we do that because of data like I'm I'm showing here uh in this slide. This is um survey data from the youth risk behavior survey. And so as folks are probably are probably familiar with this is the one of the primary mechanisms that the CDC uses to monitor
child and adolescent um mental health. And so as you can see there, you know, beginning in the in the early 90s through about 2009, it wasn't the growth that we wanted to see or the improvements that we wanted to see, but there there was uh some improvements there. And uh I added uh that line. Uh
in 2011 is where we saw something change in a really significant way for our kids. And we're going to talk a little bit about why uh that might be. But if you if you sort of fast forward to 2021, that's where 42% of high school students were reporting the last year they felt
so sad or so hopeless they stopped doing typical activities. That alone is not diagnostic of depression, but it is a core symptom. And so you can look at those other stats. So uh leading into this pandemic, at least one in five children were meeting criteria for a mental health
diagnosis. We saw really meaningful uh increases in kids presenting to the emergency department uh because of mental health and and safety uh concerns. Right? So these are the data that frame what it is what we're describing with youth mental health. Uh and um and in Brooklyn, we were not
immune to that. And so those bottom uh graphs are are sort of challenging uh to read, but those are uh internal surveys that we did with the youth risk uh behavior survey data. And so you see in 2021 uh a third of our high schoolers were saying that they felt so sad or hopeless they stopped doing activities
over a period of time. Uh this is really scary um and it's heartbreaking and it's terrifying that one in five high schoolers were saying in the past year they seriously considered suicide. Um we started our universal screening in the fall of 2020. Um and uh at that uh
time we saw We have to be sensitive to whether those at home can hear you. Well, is that Betsy? While we're evaluating it, And obviously coming out of Hello. Okay, that works. There you go. We're good. Bob, you keep your you keep your mic.
So, so we we ask ourselves this really important question. Why why in 2011 did we see this market decline in our kids' mental health and uh there's likely it's like it is complex. There's m multiple reasons for that. I'm going to talk a little bit more about social media in in
in slides that we have um uh sort of towards the end. Um certainly co exacerbated and worsened many of what we saw. But one thing I want to focus here is that we've known for a very long time is that there's very real barriers to adults, to kids, to people accessing
mental health care. Um what I think is a pretty powerful finding is that the average latency, the average amount of time between a person accesses care and when they first presented with symptoms is a decade. So you have a bunch of young people who were presenting with symptoms as ch as children, as
teenagers, and never got treatment. Uh what's also um one of the leading causes of that of of that as well is that there simply aren't enough mental health providers in our country. Even in Massachusetts, even in Brooklyn, that's oftentimes the case. Um and that's particularly true for children where the
vast majority of people who are trained um as mental health professionals are trained to work with adults. And so a functional consequence of that is that the vast majority of children who access mental health services in our country primarily do so at school. So there's no version of addressing this where schools
aren't a major player, where schools aren't central to doing that. There just isn't a version of of doing it. Um, and so what I what I want to talk about in a second when we think about our our programming is how do we make sure that we're meeting that need both at school and within the within the community.
And so you know what a thing that I am uh very very proud of is we've always been interested in our kids' mental health. That's a thing that we've always prioritized. But I do want to name in 2021 we did uh a lot more in in this space. Um what is
particularly important to to draw out is in 2021 we hired nine additional school social workers and adjustment counselors. We did lose one of those last year through the through the budget cycle. Uh but that was really powerful. What I do want to name is that if we had just hired nine additional clinicians and
said they'll take care of it. They're going to work with the kids who are really struggling. We're okay. that would not have worked. What's really important as we think about and this comes up in medicine a lot is that we have to be just as interested in promotion and prevention. We can't first
become interested in a child's mental health once they're presenting with anxiety and depression. And so what we've really been thoughtful about is is making sure that kids have access to really powerful protective factors. I know you've heard me a lot talk about belonging in so many ways. It's it's our
north star and I want to show some data about what that has offered our children. It has literally been life-saving work that we've engaged in. What's also important is that we are actively teaching kids uh to have really really strong emotional lives. Uh we're helping teach kids how to identify what
you're feeling, why you're feeling it, and perhaps most importantly, when you're feeling a big thing, how do you keep on working? How do you keep on pursuing your goals? Uh that's a massive massive life skill. and and I'll talk in a little bit, but that's always going to be in support of academic rigor. That's always going to be in support of every
single academic goal that we have for children. Um, within uh a more uh concerning space is we do some really focused prevention work on suicidality. And that starts in middle school and the high school. And a big part of that work is making sure kids know that um mental
health symptoms, including thinking about suicide, is very treatable and that there are pathways to get treatment. And when you do, things do get better. What has obviously been powerful in addition to those uh prevention efforts is that we do have incredibly skilled clinicians in our buildings. Um what I
do want to offer here is that many of our clinicians do hold licenses that would allow them to work outside of schools. Uh they just happen to love working in the place where kids show up every single day. The consequence of that is that the quality of care that kids get at school is very comparable to what they get would get in the
community. That said, there are um things that kids are working through. We're working on that in school is going to be hard. So, for example, trauma um doing really intensive trauma work at school isn't really fair to kids. So, we want to make sure that we have really strong community- based partnerships and
we've invested heavily in this area so that when uh children both need school-based care and community based care, that amount of time that they're waiting is is pretty shortened. Uh and then finally, we want to make sure that we're taking uh care of kids adults as well. Uh we want to make sure
their teachers are really well supported, that their clinicians are well supported, and their parents and caretakers as well. Uh it's almost impossible uh to take care of somebody else if you're not feeling well. And so we've invested a lot in this space as well. So, as you can see, there's a lot
that goes into this. Um and we've tried to be really thoughtful. We've tried to be really cohesive and sort of hit all of these angles. Um what I have certainly uh offered in the last four years is that as we engage uh in this work, we have a deep responsibility to certainly to to kids but also to the
community also to all of you is to be able to offer what is this offering our children? What is the impact of this work and so we've embedded a lot of ways to uh in an ongoing way evaluate our programming. Uh what is crucial is is particularly when we're talking about kids mental health, we have to do way
more of what works and none of what doesn't. And so as we as we go through the slides today, I do want to have that lens of of us continuing to lean into the things that are working and then where we continue to have gaps or we continue to have needs, making sure we're being nimble with our with our
programming. And so, um, these are just some of the ways that we go about evaluating it. I know you've, uh, heard me present on our universal screening. Uh, this evening, I'm going to talk about our Brooklyn Youth Health Survey. Uh, we also come at it, um, in other angles. We look at, uh,
our attendance data. We look at referrals for special education. Um, we look at I look at case loads all the time for both individual and group work. Um, and in every single parts of that we are we're continuously evaluating is what we're offering for kids meeting their needs.
Um, so as you see, I'll just sort of start here. So, um, I'm going to try to use um this new uh way we're describing the survey as the Brooklyn Youth Health Survey. oftentimes we'll uh use the youth risk behavior survey. The reason why we're differentiating it is that we actually don't do the youth risk
behavior survey. Uh we do use some of the questions from the survey. Um and that's helpful just to compare national um and state level data to ours. Uh but we partner with the department of of public health to create a tool that's much more responsive to our needs as a community. Um and so I just want to sort
of and I might I might accidentally say youth risk behavior survey, but u we're trying to brand it uh the Brooklyn Youth Health Survey. And uh in terms of what this uh uh looked like, so in April um of last year, we sent out an email to to
families and we uh gave them an opportunity to review the survey and an opportunity to to opt out. Uh the survey is intense and we want to make sure that parents have all the information that they need to be able to make the decision that's best for their family. Uh a relatively small number of of um
children were opted out through there. Uh kids are also told at the point of administration they can also opt out. Um you and what I want to name here is that we never want to course a child to offer information. We never want to make them um offer we want to highlight the benefits for example of us being able to
understand what kids are going through to build out programming. Uh but sometimes people will sort of ask me well can we just make them do the survey? No we never want kids to feel coerced uh to do it. And so then last uh April uh in May is when students in middle school and high school completed
the survey. And so uh you see here uh we had a relatively strong response rate. Uh we had slightly over 2400 kids uh take the survey. Um I I want to uh name here is that um sixth graders at Lincoln and
Pierce were actually selected by the state to complete the state level youth risk behavior survey data. um it would have been unfair to them to both complete that very long survey and our very long survey and so um they were uh not included in in in the survey.
Whenever, as folks are probably appreciate, whenever you engage in survey work, you're anticipating not everybody's going to complete the survey, and that's okay. But one of the first steps you you take a look at is of the kids who took the survey, how similar are they to the full group of kids that we want to generalize to. And
so you can see uh in this table um uh data from Desi in terms of our student demographics and then the demographics of the student who took the surve took the survey. Uh not perfect, not identical. you would never expect it to to be identical. Um, but we're we're
confident that there's enough similarity where we can generalize to the full population of students where there's enough similarity there that sort of gives us this really good understanding about what kids are experiencing. Um, and perhaps most importantly being able to use this to drive what future work is
going to look like. When I presented uh two years ago, folks were just um interested. Uh this is all self-reported uh data from students which sort of um these are are some of the identity sort of markers that kids uh self-described. Um again we're not
pulling any uh information. This is an including anonymous survey but this is what kids are offering. Um we are almost done with our uh summary and trends report. uh we're we're partnering with the Department of Public Health. Uh we've made some pretty good uh progress in that that area, but
there's a couple of sections uh particularly um uh related uh to substance use that are not complete yet. And so we're hopeful that's going to be uh by this fall, by the end of the fall, we'll have it complete. When it is done, it will be on the website. Um it's likely to be a very long report. I think
our last one was about 150 pages. I think this one might be a little bit shorter. Uh, but I hope the committee and and the community is able to take a look because I think this tells a story about why it is that we're doing what we're doing. Um, as I as I uh sit down uh to analyze
uh the survey, I wanted to sort of be transparent on some of the questions that I'm looking at. Um there's way more than this. Uh but these are some of the the foundational questions and these are the questions that I really hope to answer this evening that I want you to come away uh with answers uh to each of
these questions. Uh the top one um I I bolded there um because I think this is is particularly important uh in my thinking is that what we're of course interested in is what percentage of our kids are needing mental health intervention. Um and and Jesse, I know you asked this during the budget cycle,
do we have enough staffing to meet the the needs of our students, right? And so as I go through this, um I really want to be able to comment on this, right? Do we have the capacity to support the mental health needs of all of our kids? Then also what's really important is that we can't stay at 10,000 ft, right?
We have to disagregate the data to understand groups of kids and are we meeting every student's needs? And so as you'll see in just about um every graph that we're disagregating the data, right? And so we'll have trend level data that might look really positive and then there's a lot more work uh still to
do um in those in those spaces. All right. And so um in answering that first question, uh this one is is is pretty important to me. And so kids are asked in the past year um have you had due to mental health symptoms have you had difficulty concentrating focusing or
remembering? Again what we need to appreciate is that our mental health impacts every single aspect of our life. And so we know that um experiencing mental health challenges as a teenager is going to impact your ability to do well in school. Um and this is the first
area where we're seeing a ton of progress and there's more work. Right? So, in 2023, 37% of our high schoolers said, "Yeah, my mental health is making it hard for me to do school." Uh, and that number is down to 21%. Now, one in five is still
too big of a number, but that's moving in an incredibly incredibly positive positive way. Well, we um added uh to and this is this we didn't have uh 2023 data here for middle school students. Uh so we'll we'll replicate this again over time but
but their number is at 16%. So 21% of high schoolers, 16% for middle school. Uh we also uh administer on the survey a tool called the PHQ4. Uh if you've uh had a wellness uh visit recently, you've probably taken the PHQ9
and the GAD 7. Uh those are really common uh screening tools for anxiety and depression. Uh the PHQ uh 4 takes two items from each of those uh tools and and sort of gives you a good understanding of somebody's overall mental health. Um in interpreting this,
what we what we generally think about is that kids who are falling in the moderate concern or significant concern area are likely kids that are going to benefit from mental health support. U if you're in that potential concern, you're probably more in that monitoring and sort of paying attention. But certainly if you're in that moderate concern or significant concern bucket, right? And
so just using these uh data points where my thinking sort of goes to is okay so here at the high school you know it's at least 14% here at the at the middle school it's at least 10%. And so here it's somewhere in the range at middle school that we want to make sure we have capacity for somewhere between 10 to 16%
of students um and at the high school um up to 21% maybe a floor of around 15%. Another and this is um I I think we ask a lot of important questions uh on the survey but this is what I think is one of the most
important questions uh we ask um that says again in the past year have you had a period of two weeks or more where you stopped doing typical activities uh because of um feeling so sad or so hopeless and uh hope uh is a is a main character
in just about every single uh mental health intervention that we're going to provide uh children. Um, one of the first goals that we have with mental health treatment is to engender hope. And the reason for that is going through a hard thing with hope is infinitely better than going through that hard thing without it. And so, as you see
here, when we asked that question in 2023, that number uh was at 28%. And we saw this really meaningful decline. Now, that number is 15%. Again, I think we still have room to grow there, but that's a really significant decline. Um, because we would always rather a kiddo
going through a hard thing in the presence of hope, right? Okay, so that those pairings are are really powerful. And so this is uh trend data over time. Uh that red line um which also happens to be uh the top line is national level
data from the youth risk behavior survey. And then uh below that is our our Brooklyn high school data. And so you can see in 2021 where was one in three we're now down to 15%. And so that's two consecutive measurement cycles where we've seen this pretty
meaningful decrease for for kids. Uh so we are always a year ahead. So they won't produce their report until next year. Yeah, we're a little quicker than they are. Uh and that number uh kids had uh less um in middle school, less area to grow
there. Uh but still some decline. When you compare our 2023 number of 15% at the state level was at 27%. So we had had probably already made some pretty meaningful gains there for our middle school uh students and the number is at 13% now.
Uh this is a very intense side. Um and so here the question is in the past year have you seriously considered suicide? Uh in 2023 the number was at 12% for the high school. That number has now dipped down to 8%. the middle school that's
remained uh lower and relatively flat at 7% in 2023 uh remain at 8% now. And so again, I think what's really powerful here is this uh longitudinal data where when we compare um our rates to national
data for a very long time um it was very similar uh if not sort of more concerns than what we saw nationally. And now over the past two times is where we've seen this really marketked um decline um in this area. And what I think this this
helps frame is um I have opportunities to to speak with um uh folks who are doing this work uh throughout the country. And what I'm really proud of is that our investment is is robust. And I think uh what we see at the national level is that's sort of what it looks
like when we're not investing. When we invest, this is what it looks like. And so this is I think just a a really really powerful demonstration of of what it looks like over time for for kids. Yeah, Jesse in the um well there are no page
numbers. The one that said maybe right before this seriously considering suic uh um yeah so this is the only first time that the slide shows actually a higher number in 2025 than 2023 on the right for middle school. Y so that's a little significant. It
certainly hasn't gone down. My question though, what that led me in reviewing it earlier was what do sixth graders, seventh grade, eighth graders know about suicide as compared to ad, you know, they're just pre-adolescent. Is their conception of what suicide is significantly or
cognitively different for them than 9th to 12th graders? That's a that's a really important question. And um what I what I think is important to name is that sometimes people are afraid that for example in middle school if we start talking about suicide is that going to make kids suddenly think about a thing that they
never thought about before right and what we know is that this isn't the case unfortunately there are kids who are in middle school who are seriously considering suicide and there are devastating examples unfortunately where where plans are made and where kids do die by suicide. Um and so this we start
measuring this we start asking questions in middle school because this is when kids are starting to present with this symptom and again as we talk about this uh for for kids it's really scary but anything that you talk about is treatable particularly with within the mental health space and so in seventh
grade is when um uh from a programming perspective where we start teaching about it but we know you know we're working with kids who are much younger than that who are starting to talk about it. Thanks. Another intent slide. And so here uh we're asking students in the past year,
have you made a plan? Uh the number was at 7% in 2023, 4% in in 2025. And so here are our time series data. What I what um certainly 2021 is probably standing out to you. What I do want to offer is that we changed the way
that we asked the question in 2021. The way we were asking the question before that, it was probably a better measurement of having made an attempt. We've asked the question the same way now since 2021. So that decline is is more representative uh in in that area. But I just want to call that out that
part of the increase could have been the way that we were wording the question, but I think it also reflected increased concern. Yeah. um over several of the past slides there are and maybe you're going to talk about this later in which case and I didn't get the chance to review the slides in
advance like others might have there are some groups that are so desperate and I guess I'm are you going to talk about that later uh no we can yeah in and yeah and that's so part of it for example here's um here's an example um in in the report where we're going to spell this out a
little bit so obviously the N matters right and so in some of these categories we might If you're looking at six students, their experiences still matter, right? And so we want to capture that. But parts um of what you're probably observing is where where ends are are pretty small, right? And so most categories where you might see like 50%
75% it's usually the experience of a couple of students. Sure. But as you say, their experiences still matter. And I guess my my related question is do I can't remember. I think you told us last time you you're able to use the data to follow up with specific students. Oh, you can't. It's anonymous.
Anonymous. But but that's why um our universal screening is so important. That is an anonymous. Yep. Um and also and so here obviously yeah we're concerned right so that that question they have of if kids are giving us really concerning information are we
going to be able to identify who these kids are right and so through this survey no but we have other mechanisms. So for example in the signs of suicide curriculum we do depression and suicide screening in that as well. And then the universal screening is another way to pick that up. And what I would say, you know, what's really important too is
that um there have been many uh examples this year, and this is something I'm really proud of, where kids are being really good friends and telling adults when their friends are saying things that are concerning. Um and so there's more formalized ways that we'll pick up concerning, um issues, and then sort of those less formal but just as powerful
ways that we can pick that up. And so, um we're seeing a lot of improvements here, right? And work to do. So I think what's really important is is for name. So how is it like what are those primary uh active ingredients that are resulting in us having these improved outcomes right and what I I
want to stress here is that when we talk about things like belonging when we talk about things like safe adults we describe those as protective factors when we say that we mean we're trying to protect kids against the very worst outcomes. And so when we think about something for example like suicidality
right there are some things that we know are a part of that. We know feeling hopeless uh feeling like you have thwarted belongingness. So feeling like you don't have a group uh feeling like you're a burden on other people. Those are things that we have actively targeted in our work where we're helping kids understand asking for help is not a
burden. It's a really really important thing. Our work on belonging again we have data here that has literally saved kids lives. We have more work to do but that's the power of this work. And so it's not surprising to me, right, when we saw a peak in mental health symptoms in 2021 that was held against our lowest
number of safe adults. And then here where we're it's the highest number that we've observed. We're seeing improvements in mental health um outcomes. Uh this doesn't come from the youth risk uh from the Brooklyn Youth uh health survey, but this is from our universal screening data. Same pattern here, right? As we've seen increases in
belonging, we can hold that up against improvements that we've seen in kids mental health. And so again, it doesn't it doesn't surprise me. I'm proud of it, right? But it doesn't surprise me that when our mental health data are outpacing what we might see at the state or district uh state or national level, that our belonging data also is
typically outpacing what we see at the state and and national level. And then um again, one last thing here is um as we teach kids about their emotional lives, right? Uh it's really important for us to stress that sometimes you're not going to feel great. Um and that's okay. and we want
kids to have the skills necessary to navigate those skillfully. Um, beginning in really in the fall of 22 is when we have increased the amount of explicit instruction that kids get in this space. And what I want to be clear about is that I when I talk about this I I talk
about us investing time and I use that term very very intentionally is when we invest time in this space it is never at the sacrifice of academic rigor. It's never at the sacrifice of high expectations for kids. It is necessary and important to have high expectations
for kids. The nature of high expectations, they can be stressful. So, we want kids to have the skills to navigate that skill um successfully. And what we know is a big part of kids building out uh their educational program in a way that they want to is
their capacity to manage stress. Right? So, as a life skill, we want kids to have this. So, every goal that they want, they're going to be able to meaningfully pursue. Um, and so this is another uh really important uh data point for me. So we asked kids in the past year, have you accessed mental health care? Uh, at the
high school that number uh was at 23%. Um, at the the middle school, the number is at 21%. Um, I'm I'm pretty confident that kids are probably under reporting the the clinical services that they get at school. Uh, sometimes even even if they're meeting with a psychologist or
social worker at that school, they just don't count it counseling because it happens at school. But it's it it's functionally the the same. And so when I when I look at this number right about 22% also sort of with those those numbers that I started out with and then I look at our case loads where we've been able
to serve kids either in individual or group level work about 15% of our kids which I want to name that's up to a thousand kids in our district right that that's sort of the capacity that we're working with right and so Jesse when you ask me like do we have the staffing to meet the needs of our kids where I say
right now I'm fairly comfortable with that that's sort of where that that comes from right if we were to shift that if we were to divest I'd feel deeply uncomfortable right because that would have have an impact right but right now when I say things like I think we have our arms around it doesn't mean that it's easy it doesn't mean that
there aren't very real needs there right but in terms of our our current um our staffing I think it's generally meeting our kids needs um and then yeah just can I ask a question I mean in going through the slides up to this point I had some questions developed in
my mind and when you when it switched to attendance then the the rest of the slides are talking about um sort of different things. Um, my question had to do with this the segment in every slide that had to do with how kids identify in gender
seem to have I'm sure in your mind as well some question points about the types of identifications kids have that generate more anxiety and more stress. And I guess the question is both in middle school and in I know in high school we
have groupings that allow for for students to um to come together Yeah. and get support and maybe over time we'll see improvements in that or maybe that's a safety area and yet when they fill out the survey they're they're still feeling a lot of stress, right?
And and how does that then work for these same kind of students who are still in the questioning mode let's say in middle school because that that seems to be the area that y has the highest percentages. I'm going to talk about Yeah, I'm going to talk about that in in in a little bit but I think this is a good opportunity as well. Yeah. So one of the what we
know about the experience of kids who are LGBTQ plus is a deep lack of belonging that so many of our kids are feeling alone within that right and so we think about how do we address that and I'll talk a little bit so things like the queer student union for example at the high school is a powerful powerful part of that um we need to be
doing more than just that right um but that's a really good example of the type of supports that we need to be thinking about to address that yeah and so again and what what I want us to always connect is that again there's no version of a child's mental health
that's not going to either advance their academic and functioning or or impact it right and so again I'm not surprised right that as um our mental health symptoms were increasing our attendance was worse and as we've seen improvements in our mental health our attendance um
has improved and so our our chronic aspism number uh for last school year was 10.8% 8%. Uh what I also just want to draw attention to is that 20% number. So DESIE uh because of how rough attendance has been over the past four years actually created a new chronic
absenteeism number uh or statistic where it's 20% or more of school days, right? And so we had a really meaningful decline in that bucket of of absenteeism as well as well as with that that 10% threshold. All right, this is sort of a sort of a hard uh pivot here, but um I want to
talk um have a couple slides here on social media use. Um and I know this is something that we also uh think about and and worry a lot and and it certainly is something that we think has contributed to kids um mental health. And so we ask uh students
um how often are you using social media? Uh this is probably an under reportport. What I would say as adults we actually under report our use as well. Um, but we see a really meaningful number of kids saying at least several times a day. And so when we look at kids who endorsed
uh depression symptoms on the PHQ4, we saw about half of those kids say that they're using it at least once an hour. And so we see a relationship there. And then we take uh the students who saying that they're using it at least once a day. We say how many hours are you using a day?
uh and there is a really meaningful number of kids who are saying at least four hours, six hours or more. Again, if we if we cut those data and look at the kids who are in uh uh endorsing depression based symptoms, over a quarter of those kids are saying six or more hours a day. Can I ask a question?
Um the top of the slide says technology and social media use and then the question on the side is social media and I guess my question is are we really talking about social media? Social media bad. Okay. Yep. Um there there are some other questions we have about technology but this is specifically about social media use.
Yep. Um and so so we ask ourselves so what is uh that that relation so why would there be a relationship between social media use and mental health and and we sort of have uh two primary hypotheses? Um when uh humans when adults when kids
uh use social media it's very uh common to engage in what's called upward social comparison. So you look at somebody's curated life and you can come away with the feeling, is my life as good as this other person's? And so when you're a teenager and you're kind of thinking about that all the time, it's very easy
to come away from that feeling like your life is is worse than your peers. What we also know is that there is an immense opportunity cost to using social media for four hours or six hours a day. And there's no version of that where it's not going to impact other healthpromoting behaviors. And so and
kids are at least some kids are being honest uh with with their use right where kids are saying yeah it's impacting how much sleep I get. Um I don't have a slide here but um I think I think the number was only 8% of high school students were reporting to getting nine or more hours of sleep at
night. Sometimes we'll talk about the eight hours of sleep that's not enough for most teenagers. So the vast majority of our high school students are chronically sleepd deprived. Um kids are describing it's impacting family time that it's again about you know over a quarter of kids are saying their life is
feeling worse and worse. Um one of the best ways to make your life stressful as a teenager is not to do your homework because every adult is going to be on top of you because of that. Now what is interesting is that kids will acknowledge this but then the vast majority of kids will also say but it helps me with my social connections. And
so there likely is a both and to this right we know that social media can be a really helpful facilitator. I think our concern comes when it's totally replacing and or when it's uh impeding on these other healthpromoting behaviors and so we clearly have some some more uh
work to do there. Um but I think this helps draw some of the impact. Yeah, Jesse. So so with the um personal electronic device policy that we approved last year, y the amount of time students can be spending on their devices during the day is very small. Yes.
Even if you add up all the passing minutes. Yeah. So, how much of this is the district pushing back to parents and caregivers in terms of helping adults monitor, manage, and care y for the kids that are living in their homes?
Yeah. At the end of a couple of slides. So, that's one of our um buckets of work. Yeah. You know, and and what's interesting is, you know, some of this technology, right, is is newer in the last 10 years, right? Okay. So, if you're an adult and you didn't grow up with your with your phone, if you didn't grow up with social media, it's really hard to even understand what kids are
doing on the phone. So, we do have some work um and we started some of this work last year to really give parents the information that they need to both understand what are they actually doing when they're on their phones and then understanding some of the some of the impacts of it. Um, and I would say from a intervention standpoint, um, when K
when we notice that it is interfering with sleep, when it's interfering with homework time, when it's interfering with getting to school, that's almost always something that we're talking about with families as as an intervention point. Yeah. Yeah. When the personal electronic policy,
like the timeline of this versus when we implemented the So, this it officially kicked in uh this year, although last year some middle schools were were playing around with it. So this could have been at a time where kids are maybe still using it during during the school day. So yeah, I mean from a program evaluation
standpoint be really interesting to you know next spring when we do this does that number come down a little bit. Yeah, Caroline. Um, and this is not at all to downplay the fact that you're talking about and
the the fact that um that being on electronics um can be depressing and stressful. Um, but I'll just kind of make a plug for like of course if our kids if if we as a district provide
sufficient opportunities for our middle schoolers and high schoolers to um play sports, be in clubs, be in community, they have less time to be on that phone. 100%. Yeah, that's that incredibly well. Well well well um and um you know that's something
uh Kyle Williams who's athletic director at the high school um he's been a really strong partner in this work and just really describing for kids um doing things after school in a community is so powerful. We actually have some pretty powerful data you're not going to see here about the relationship for kids who are playing sports and on their
attendance on their grades on their belonging. Uh huge huge protective factor for for kids. All right. So, this is kind of again another sort of uh hard uh turn here, but I I we we're doing more data work here, but I did want to present on some
substance use uh data. And so, here um I'll offer some data on alcohol use, on marijuana use, and on um students using uh vaping products. Uh here's uh trend data over the past uh 12 years where we're continuing to see sort of the
steady uh decline uh in alcohol use. Um, not a super meaningful difference from 2023, but we still have about one in five students at the high school saying in the past month have used alcohol. Uh, looking at lifetime marijuana use, that number uh was sitting just below
12%. Uh, we find this, and this is true not just in Brooklyn, this is true throughout the country. Every grade level in high school that a student moves through, the likelihood of them having used a substance in a lifetime increases. So in nth grade, the number is under 5%. It's a relatively small number of students and then by the time
you're an upper classman that that number climbs to about one in four. Um this is a question that I'm very interested in. So a bucket of of questions that we ask that the youth risk behavior survey doesn't ask uh centers around uh perception of peer use
and perception of risk. Well, we know from an intro uh vention standpoint that if you are um a student and you're not using and you believe that you're in the majority, the vast majority of your peers are not using, you're likely to keep on not using. If you believe that
everybody around me is using, that actually increases your likelihood, right? So 86% of students were sort of describing, yeah, relatively rare, like it's not a majority of students who are who are using. And so here, and I'll talk about this a little bit um in some of our more responsive work, one of the
um intervention points that we have is to sort of rightsize that perception of having kids really really understand not just sort of overall level of use, but then um sort of related here um the amount of risks associated with with using substances.
Um I know uh students um engaging in vaping is something that I think about, I know a lot of uh community members are are thinking about. Um uh one thing here I want I want to offer and folks might be thinking this is it's not uncommon that people ask me well how
do we know kids are telling the truth? We super don't. Um but what I do know is that whatever variance or whatever number or percentage of kids who may not be telling the truth now that was probably the same back in 2023 probably the same before that right? And so we're sort of holding that variable constant.
And so uh when we ask this question uh now 13% of students reported having used a vape product in the past 30 days. That is up from 9% in 2023. Uh when we asked students uh what the active ingredient is um over half of those students reported uh caffeine and
then there was a mix of nicotine essential oils um nicotine marijuana essential oils were the the three um other ones. there was a concerning number of kids who said they weren't sure and that's really concerning as we think about uh risk for for kids. And
then uh what is um important and I really want to sort this is a thing I'm going to be looking for and sort of tracking how effective our education is is that threequarters of our kids are saying yeah vaping does pose moderate uh to great risk. Um we still have 25% of kids who are maybe doubting the risk.
And so that's another important uh intervention place. All right. Uh that was a lot of information. Um but I what I do want to draw attention to is is what is it that we do with with this information. And so based on progress, we want to continue
to do a lot of the work that we're doing. Um again, in that spirit, we want to continue to do more of of what is working. And so we're going to continue to do a lot of prevention work that's helping kids develop the social emotional skills they need to really uh flourish in in their lives. Um Jesse, we
just talked about this earlier, but when we look at those gaps, right, we have a lot of work that we're thinking about within affinity groups. And what I want to say is that work is always both and is we want kids to be connected to their building at a whole. We want kids to be connected to their classes, right? Also having spaces like the Queer Student
Union are so incredibly powerful, right? sort of a both and for for for kids. Um Carlin, who's the the coordinator of wellness for the district, every summer we take a look at all of our health programming. Um and we had some early analysis and we use that to sort of
think through um interview and review our health programming that we're offering students this year. And so we're continuing to do the science of suicide work. Uh the NAN project is a group that comes into our ninth grade classes and it's really focused on helping kids connect to care if if if they require it. Um, and then we're also
introducing some new lessons from the Stanford Reach Lab. Those are really focused on uh marijuana use and vaping use. And so those will be new lessons that kids will get this year. Uh, one change uh this year is our mental health screening. Uh over the past five years,
we've done uh three times a year. Um uh kids have gotten some survey fatigue and so we are moving to October and March. We're going to be just as nimble, just as responsive uh to kids needs. we're still going to be able to evaluate all of our programming, but it will happen twice this year instead of three times.
Um, and then also in this space, so we know that we need to uh help uh uh parents navigate this world that their teens are in. It is a very very different world. And so uh we partner uh here you're seeing some workshops that are sponsored by the Massachusetts uh partnership for youth. We also work uh
really closely uh with BPEN. And so we actually with BPEN we create uh create a master calendar of events that uh families have um available to them throughout the entirety of of the school year. But those are some um things that uh families will have. Uh and then we uh
work really closely with uh the department of public health. Um I sit on the the steering committee of the Brooklyn Wellness and Prevention uh Coalition. Uh one of the goals that we have this year is a is a townwide anti-Bing campaign. uh the peer leaders at the high school are going to uh carry
some of that work um particularly the work that that touches our buildings and so they're going to do some really nice work uh around education at the high school. We're also going to uh try to leverage them to do some um co-eing with adults in uh middle schools. Uh we know that kids tend to listen to each other
way more than us. So we want to uh leverage that that reality and so we're still planning in that space but we're we're hopeful to use them uh there. Um and then uh then finally in thinking about when kids uh need more support, what does that look like? Um I
highlighted this before, but one uh new thing we want to make available uh to students is something called the I decide curriculum. Uh this was developed by the by MGH. And it's a curriculum that's meant for kids who are presenting with substance use challenges, for kids who are caught using at school, for kids who are caught with substances at
school. And so instead of a place where you just get a consequence, it might be a thing where you get consequence and additional support to sort of address what your needs are. And so uh this is something we wanted to make available in uh middle school. This is pretty similar to some of the diversionary work that's already happening at the high school.
They're likely to use some of this as well uh within that work, but in some ways it's sort of bringing down the high school model into the middle school if that if that's a need. Um we're going to continue to do really good, really robust work in our school when kids uh need it. Uh we've have some really good
uh community partnerships where the amount of time that kids are on weight list is really shrinking so kids can get the care that they need. Um then the last thing I'll just uh sort of offer is and I know we talked about it earlier but we do have really good crisis response protocols. Um uh whenever a kid
is in need, whenever we're concerned about safety, we have our entire clinical team is really well trained to respond to that. And so, uh, when we're aware of a need, we are we're swooping in and kids are absolutely getting the care that they need. All right. So, uh, I know that's a lot and I know it sounds
like folks had some some questions and so or maybe I answer them all. I have a question. Okay. Um, let's start with Mariah, then we'll go on to Bob and Suzanne. So, Mariah, thanks. Um Matt, some of the data points you had like attendance were um you had
goals in the um my brain has also stopped working at this point in the presentation and I'm just sort of curious like if you were to go back to some of your earlier things I don't think you had goals specifically like I if I recall in the strategic plan there was like administer the survey
like or start administering the survey but like at what point do you say like this like at what point do you say 10% of students experiencing X is probably as low as we're going to get and like right what is the threshold for which you say like now we need to maintain as
opposed to improve that kind of across the board all them yeah that's a that's a that's a beautiful question um some of it some of it is is a is a little uh theoretical and part of that is because our mental health outcomes in in the country have
been so poor we don't have a really good model of what the floor could look like if we layer on an MTSS uh lens to that right in a lot of these uh more concerning areas we would hope that we would dip below 10%. Uh I think chronic absenteeism actually is a really good
area where I think our floor if we were doing everything we could get that somewhere around 5% of students right again we would be ambitious and say zero right that'd be great right um but we know that things are coming up uh for for kids and so this is where we should be proud of this and I think there
there's more work that that can be done Bob thank you Matt um that was an extraordinarily professional presentation Um, I deeply appreciate how well it was done and the information that you
gathered and the responses that you've documented. Um, I I remember when I was the head of the high school many many years ago, I was always afraid of the day that the youth risk survey was presented because I wanted the high school to be I wanted the high I wanted
us to demonstrate that the high school was perfect. Um, and this survey obviously was a time when I would look at the data and say, "Oh, we're not perfect." That that was a joke. Um, but, um, I do have a question. Um,
which, you know, maybe not that relevant to what you've gathered, but so over the last two years, we've had the Middle East war, for example. Um does that the war in the Middle East you know the Gaza the Jan you know October 7th plus um
you all know about that? Yeah. Um during all these surveys or um the gathering of data did you notice any anxiety or or depression having to do with the last two years of that? Um, no.
What is um sort of uh interesting I I for example I I'll pull this one. So um when we look this was if you we have a fall measurement period that's done in late fall. Oh, sorry done in late October, right? And so if we look at
Octo October 7th um in 2023, right? Um we can sort of look at we can sort of almost hold that up against it. We didn't see anything as significant. Now for at individual student level for sure, but when we look at that 10,000 foot view, we didn't necessarily see um a challenge of it. But what I would say
is that is also um a really important thing that we think about is in those moments, do we have the things that kids need to navigate their school experience, right? And so going back in that time is that there are a lot of kids who access additional care during that time to be able to continue to to
do school, right? And so that's sort of another consideration is yeah daytoday ongoing but in those in those moments in particular do we have the staffing that we need? Yeah I have one more question if that's possible. Um I'm pretty familiar with the mental health care that's offered at
the high school the the variety of interventions. Um I'm not that familiar with the ones the middle school elementary school. Yeah. What does it look like when um sort of in an ongoing way um teachers, parents report the kids are struggling? Yeah.
What does it look like in the in the K to8 schools? Oh yeah, that's great. And so um you know sometimes we say right uh big kids, big problems, right? Uh but our youngest learners oftentimes will still also have intensive needs. And so um as a as an effectiveness, so uh counseling therapy
is effective for our youngest learners all the way through through our oldest learners. it looks a little bit different, right? So, if you're supporting a kindergartener who's having big feelings and struggle to manage that, you're probably having a lot of floor time. You're probably doing a lot of playtime. You're starting to find ways for kids to identify what they're
feeling and to practice um those coping skills, right? And um oftentimes when we think about counseling, we think about talk therapy. And as kids get older, as kids develop, sort of more of it is moving into that talk therapy space. Whereas younger kids, it's a lot of more sort of play-based techniques, a lot of
sort of skill development. Um, in all aspects of work, um, this is particularly true in the elementary school is that a thing that we talk about a lot is that most kids are with a social worker with a counselor about 30 minutes a week. They're with all other adults way more than that. And so that
that educator training, that parent training is so important so that whatever skill you're learning in the therapy session is being transferred outside of that. And so um almost every student who has counseling also has consultation that's a part of that and
that's a huge huge lever because of course we're working with the kid we're also working with their whole ecosystem. Yeah Suzanne so actually Bob that's what I was going to ask if you would so when I think of the younger grades I I think a lot about
our tier one efforts. Sure. So I wonder if you could just talk about a little bit about that which would be more whole class small group uh within the classroom but I see that as very much a part of our mental health efforts. Oh that that's that's a huge huge and that was one of the buckets I talked
about. Yeah. So what um we teach social emotional skills much like we teach any academic skill. Right. Right. And so we do a lot of very explicit instruction. We give kids lots of opportunities to practice different skills. Uh we have kids uh practice skills with each other. We prompt kids
to use those skills. Um, and so whatever would make a really good academic le lesson makes a really good social emotional lesson as well. And uh that work is really shared between our K to5 uh educators and also our school counselors where there are uh dedicated
times which we'll call blocks where that explicit instruction is happening. Um and just like with academic skills, if you do your lesson and then never come back to it, probably not going to be as effective. And so when we're teaching a lesson, for example, like problem solving, and we go back to that over and over and over again, that's what's
really powerful for for kids. And so we have a lot of uh really good examples where a teacher might do a second step lesson and then come back to it throughout the week to be able to reinforce that skill. And how consistently are we using second step really consistently? We have that in our strategic plan and where we're hitting our goals there, which is what I saw.
Yeah. So if I could just one more, could you just give a little pep talk to parents? not as parents but just as adults struggling in this time. Yeah. I I mean I think that so much of the anxiety that our children are feeling is
is because adults are so anxious. Yeah. And um just put a plug in for adults getting help maybe through our our department of public health. I'm not sure. But just if you wouldn't mind just Well, 100%. Yeah. And um this is going to be a very psychologist thing for for
me to to say. Um but what we know is that uh when we avoid things and we are so good at avoiding things uh never very rarely will ever make things better. Um and so what I what I say to to my children they get annoyed with that um often. But what I say often is that
there wouldn't be such a thing as a psychologist, there wouldn't be such a thing as a social worker if these things weren't treatable. And again, anything that you're able to talk about is going to be treatable. And so we are very privileged um in our community where we have a lot of really good mental health res uh resources. Um and so when you are
putting in that investment into yourself, you're going to be able to get the back of that. I would also say, you know, as a parent being the best version of yourself, you can do it for you, but you're also going to be doing it for for your children as well. And particularly if you want kids to not be stigmatized about accessing mental health services,
if they're seeing a parent access mental health services, they're going to be far more likely to get the help they need as well. Thanks, Andy. Yeah, thank you. Um, I was hoping to follow up on uh your response to Mariah's question earlier when you were
talking about chronic absenteeism. Uh, you seem to be saying that you thought that that's something that we could reduce by more than half uh with uh with things that are within our power to do. Uh so I'm really interested in what you think we might be doing because that's actually a topic that uh the policy
subcommittee has been asked to address through policy. So yeah, your thoughts please. Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, I I wish I could say Andy, I guarantee you in 18 months we're we're going to be there, right? And so this that's sort of, you know, again, a longer longer term work. Um where my hope is if you
look prior to 2016 2017, uh we don't have the data there, but we're we're sitting in around 6%. Right? So we've been there before. The world has changed. That's absolutely true, right? Um but even um one thing I'll sort of draw folks attention to is most
principles through this time have had as part of their school improvement plans attendance right um and uh it's been really um nice to see particularly this year as so many people sort of getting behind it I think this people are sort of getting motivated that oh it's working okay we're actually starting to
see some some improvements here and so um the work of getting kids to school is not easy Um it is uh an every uh day thing for for some um for some families and there isn't sort of a magic thing
here. It's every single day being committed to helping kids get to school. It's from a child lens adults being really annoying is not letting them just sort of sit at home and be okay with sitting home. Uh, and one thing, and I think we've made some nice gains here as well, is framing for parents that if
your child's not able to get to school, that's a really big deal. And oftentimes there is a mental health thing behind that, right? And so instead if you're not able to come to school, that's where we're thinking about higher levels of care. That's where we're thinking about increased school-based support. And so really framing um not coming to school
as a really big deal is something that I think we can continue to to grow in. So you seem to be talking about mainly outreach to families both kind of as background like informing families about the importance of this and just like acutely if your kid is not in school that day like somebody from the school
will will go there and be annoying 100%. Yeah. And we do I mean I was I was talking with a clinician um this morning who they started their day at 7:30 on the phone with a kid that was in their bed that did not want to come to school and that's what that that conver and that conversation helped the kid get to school. Um and and again I think what
what's really I think important for parents is and this is this again it's really really hard but sometimes we'll say okay we'll take care of it tomorrow. Okay they weren't able to get out of bed today we'll take care of it tomorrow. And so another thing that we sort of frame is you coming to school for half a day is infinitely better than you not
coming to school um at all. We know that kids who do even show up late, you're far more likely to come in school the next day even if you did um had difficulty that day beforehand. And again, the underlying thing that made school hard for you to attend today is not going away tomorrow. So today
actually is the good day to to go to school. And so we talk about um with with kids is uh going to school is a have to what your day looks like. That's where we can sort of negotiate. Step one is you have to you have to be in the building. And what's great, and I've seen some really good examples of
parents, even if their kids are are kicking and screaming if they're crying, sort of trusting us enough to then sort of put kids in our care and then entrusting us that we're going to do the rest. I was going to speak next um and then I'll call on you afterwards. Um so last
spring a couple of members of town meeting um showed me the way to sort of understand the risk of um vaping THC or different ways of using pot products now and how they're they've been linked to
psychosis. So I went to read about it and indeed that plays out in the research and um then I was very pleasantly surprised to see after the summer went by and maybe it was you and Carlin um there's now the peer leaders are going
to be addressing vaping. Um can I go back to these uh community members and say that that is part of the ed going to be part of the education? Yeah. is for parents and uh students to learn that there's a connection between the high potency of marijuana now and psychosis.
I can't comment I I don't want to I I'll have to look at if we make that explicit connection. So that's there in the research. Um I don't want to um guarantee that that specific relationship is in it. So I can I can take a look and then I can I can give you that information. Great. Thank you. Yeah, Donna.
actually if it's okay want to go backwards um to what Andy just brought up in the um conversation around um school aversion or chronic absenteeism and if if you were if if
let me start I'll let me slow myself down to what extent does um do attendance policies or what what what to what extent do attendance policies um either support or reduce or impact school aversion or um
they they make a very big deal on the other side in terms of a response. So as an example at the high school a policy where your credit earning is impacted by your attendance is a huge lever for kids right that there's a certain amount of unexcused absences if you cross that
threshold uh your credit is now in jeopardy. I know um in middle school that makes it harder where there isn't that that lever to pull, right? So kids sometimes struggle to understand what's the bad thing that's happening to me. Like we understand it, we see it, but they don't really feel it. And so from a policy perspective, that is really
really important. Again, it might not impact the underlying things that are making school become hard, but in terms of those levers that we can sort of pull to help on the other side of it, very very important. Yeah. Yes.
This is more of a comment but I think in the community there is a lot or there are many people not necessarily the predominant the majority but many people who don't understand the relationship between the kind of work that PSB has invested in in social
emotional learning and mental health support and academic outcomes and I think it's just really important. I'm not sure that you necessarily said that explicitly but I wonder if maybe you could say explicit. So I want to say even more. Yeah. I want to be I want to be extremely extremely explicit that like
that the you sort of mentioned it here a little bit but like not only are they available to learn but there is a positive correlation between academic outcomes and all of the work that you are and it's well there's a huge evidence base for this it's well researched and so this isn't like a
whimsical activity that we're doing and this isn't an experiment this is something that is based in evidence that we are implementing in our school system because we have this strong evidence based you said it okay that's I I just want to make sure it's like said out loud. There there is uh an immense um set of
literature that explicitly makes that connection. And again, what is important is I think we would all agree that the brain is pretty important. That same thing that's that's responsible for your mental health is responsible for your ability to concentrate, your ability to focus, your ability to remember. Right?
And so the reason why that relationship exists that if you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling stressed, if you're feeling depressed, it's going to impact those cognitive processes that allow you to learn. And again, we have countless examples of kids who have tremendous academic skills. But this area that
allows them to consistently access this is underdeveloped, right? We see that certainly as kids move through high school. We see that as kids are going off to college. They have all the academic skills in the world, but navigating that stressful environment is overwhelming, right? And again, I think what I like to draw to is you think
about your own existence. You think about your own work and you think about somebody who's just nailing their job. Of course, they know a lot of stuff, but so so much of that that makes them great at their job are these soft skills. How do they solve problems? How do they talk to to people when they're feeling frustrated? When things are at their
worst, are they at their best? Right? And so when when you think about um these types of skills, of course, they're going to impact kids ability to engage academically. And these are the skills that were setting them up for the rest of their lives. That's why again when you look at just
um subductive experiences of wellness, people who have strong area strong skills in all these areas have amazing relationships are walking through their lives feeling like whatever's coming at me, I'm going to be able to navigate. It might be hard, but I'm going to navigate it. Right. And so there's of course that connection academically then just broadly with the types of lives we want
our kids to have. These skills are essential to it. Yeah. Yep. I just want to say too that I appreciated when you said earlier because I think people there's an again this perception that like we've decided not to do math today so we can do these things and these two things are not
being there it's not a zero sum in that way we are able to offer the academics and also offer these things exactly right example of it of of of what what this sort of instruction will look like is for example if you are taking an AP class and your teacher uh invests 10 minutes in like here's how
you navigate stress when you're going home and you're doing a homework and getting really frustrated, instead of tearing it up, take 10 minutes. Here are some thoughts that you can have. Here are some deep breathing so you can return to it, right? Um, a lot of work that um, and it's a great academic um, support. Uh, it's a
great uh, social emotional is small group work, right? It's a great strategy to keep kids on task. The skills you learn when you're learning in small groups is is is pretty pretty powerful. And so again, uh, uh, what we talk about are these both and moves. incredibly
strong uh academic uh moves, but also really strong social emotional moves. Right. And so I I appreciate you drawing attention to that that again, these are never competing ever. And if we're investing only in one, we're not doing it right. Right. We have to invest in both. And then when we do, that's just
going to result in a better experience for kids. Yeah. Suzanne. Well, I I absolutely agree. And um you know, one of the words we used before was whole child. Yeah. I don't know if we still use that but the idea is that
the child is whole in in all ways and so to only focus on academics or to only focus on a social emotional would not do the child the best that we could do for them and so you know this again it's an and bo both y
and also remembering that leadership skills are developed in the classroom but also in group work in sports work in performance arts so many ways Y that um one of the things I really appreciate is that your department works with everybody
and uh and we really do look at the whole child. So, thank you for that, Bella. Thank you. Um that was really well done. Thank you. And I feel like there's a lot of data that was presented, but also there's probably mountains of data that
you had to go through to figure out like what you wanted um to present. And to um do it with such clarity is just um just really commendable. And I think I think the members of the committee probably appreciate that you have um quite a
unicorn in in this in this field and in this work. And to have Matt um just come present as a treat to hear your thinking about this and um but I I just wanted to maybe I also think it's
really interesting that Brooklyn does their own version and I think that maybe Matt had something to do with that about um that maybe this is you know a model that others should follow but I I've never seen one that was uniquely done by a
town um but I wanted to take a step back too where in in Matt's presentation of discrete items to to connect it um one thing is as you look at the data you know what kids don't actually check one
box they usually check a few boxes so when you look at the data and some of it feels like that's alarming actually some of the kids check a few boxes there's concepts of intersectionality that actually um I
don't I don't know what the word is, but it just kind of accelerates or or or all of that. And so I love the idea of looking at it discreetly and skill building. And so that the data on um attendance
and belonging is really amazing. I don't think any district is seeing data like that. So, but those are if you pick a couple of things and you move them, I think it impacts all the linear data, but it also impacts all the
intersectionality data. Um, this work is very people intensive. And so I'm just going to say as we're building and thinking about the budget for next year that this is probably the
area that's very much um affected by ratios and um and the skill of the people that are delivering it. But it is very people um intensive and it's also can be very
time intensive those conversations. So they're they're often oneonone not whole class. Um it's a combination. Um but it so just just really important to hold on. So in the presentations through the fall just
to think about what what is at the heart and this one is very much educator to to student intensive and um but also just a big appreciation for what you offer the district and in your presentation
tonight. And that appreciation comes from all of us. Thank you. And your team as well. Oh, it's everything. Um, again, if if you if you have some time, um, following around for a day,
it's literally lifeaving, right? they get like um talking like you had dealt with today is so incredibly hard
next day ready to go anything else. So, it's really easy um for me to be inspired every single day and in this work and yeah, Bob, I just want to take this opportunity on
this topic to just shout out the name Bill Grady who was the founder of the opportunity for change program at Brooklyn High School. And one of the things that Bill did every morning early was he would call up he that was a program for kids who struggled to be in
school to be successful in school. Um so early early in the morning he called the kids up and sing to them good morning songs. And then after he was finished with that after communicating with kids in that way he would have a van and he would go around pick up the kids who were struggling to get to school every
day. you know, he reminded me sort of the he's a social emotional uh comparison to Jaime Escalante, that amazing calculus teacher in California. Anyway, Bill passed away not too long ago and I just I'm thinking about him
during this topic. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming to present to us and for leading us. Thank you. Thank you so much, Matt. Well, whether we're ready or not, we're going to move on to um our budget guidelines.
So, I'm looking over to you, Mariah. Thanks. I'm um just getting on the Wi-Fi. I was engrossed in this presentation, so I was not preparing for what was next. Um, and I have a new computer and I'm learning how to navigate
finding the Brookline. Here it is. Um, so in front of you, you have two attach two pieces of paper, two documents. one is um the the revision of the next revision of the guidelines that
um Jesse and I worked on after the group met. Um and we tried to take feedback from what um we were told and um some of the primary changes were shortening some of the wording. We took
um much if not all I can't remember exactly but much of if not all of what Donna had presented and then adjusting the five areas below to match the five areas of the strategic plan. Um, my hope
for tonight and so I might not even need to join the Zoom is that we might have um we might start to have a deeper conversation about the contents within those five sections rather than focusing on the front or the sections look at the some of the like 1A's 1bs etc and decide
if there's things that we um are interested in retaining would like to remove would like to add um etc. And I think it's going to take the basis of people making motions. So, so that's what I'm thinking for the plan. The
other document in front of us is um Donna went and did some found some guidelines from other districts. Thank you, Donna, for doing that. And they have different formats. Um and I think Donna found some fellowship with some of these formats. I
don't know if you want to talk about what you liked about some of them um and just mention it to the group or or not. I don't want to put you on the spot, but they were provided and and so maybe you want to talk to that a little bit before we get into our document. Okay. Thanks.
I'll just talk in um maybe very broad strokes. I um I am still thinking that we need to have a more a for me it makes more sense to have a more zoomed out approach. So when I look I looked at some of these
they resonated for me mainly because um I think they didn't get I mean as far as I can see they didn't get into a lot of the specificity um some of that is left I from my position I want to leave some of that to the administration to come up
with but still maintain what our priorities are what our what our values are um And uh I think the simp simplicity of some of the of of the documents like made sense to me. So that was just I I
really just wanted to see what what other districts were doing, what best practices are, how these um documents can be like optimized so that the administration can use them um and and be able to pivot in a in a in a
in a in a more precise way, I guess. Um, I know I sent them very late and I'm sorry about that, but if it's helpful that I thought it would be maybe good context for some of us to look at and see what's happening elsewhere. I'd really like to hear from Mariah and
Jesse on um a couple of these things that have come up again and again and in this latest revision sort of have you help us see your thinking. So, um, one of the issues that we keep on saying is that we'd like them to be guidelines
simple, um, and short. So, I'd like to hear where your thinking is on this current document, if that's being met. And then the other thing I'm wondering if it's being met is enough um flexibility for the admin team to go
through and do the work that they see needs to be done that maybe is, you know, not our expertise as much as theirs. Um, I would I guess I'm going to push back on that a little bit that the document the length of the document I
guess will depend on what people remove from it during the next process that we're going to have. So that's what you'd like to go on to is what were we removing? I mean I guess it like that's like I mean structurally it there we sort of adhered to what I thought was the guidance of the committee. So what you
see in front of you is basically what the committee told us to do which was shorten up the front, tighten it up a little bit. Again, we used some of Donna's language and then we adjusted things to teaching and learning. Um, two things that we one thing we added that um that we sort of talked about but we
didn't necessarily vote on it but because it had come up we included it was um onee which is funding and supporting educational opportunities for students beyond grade level. That was the wording Jesse and I came up with to capture the gestalt of the conversation.
Um we thought and then just um in in discussing the original in under 6B which is the budget scenarios in discussing this um document with members of advisory who had watched our conversation they thought that the that
we were just basically asking for a bottomline number from the superintendent. And so the only reason this table is here is to sort of make really explicit that we're asking for like each step of your math, like show your math so to speak. But it's not oo I just somehow turned off my computer. Um there we go. It's not um different. But
in general, I think again we haven't touched the guts of this and that's where I'd like our conversation to go is what are we going to remove? I think there's going to be I I don't want to project or predict, but I think that some of these have there's robust conversation. And I keep using the word robust, but robust conversation to be had about some of these whether they
stay or go. And so I think we should just we should start to get into it and have the conversation. I would just add um Sarah that um in most of the sections are only like two items. So we really did pare it down
um to what we thought were the quintessential elements of what the budget should look like for that particular part of the strategic plan. And it leaves it leaves really the administration with a lot of flexibility I think in our opinion in terms of accepting these guidelines but then you
know to go further um in terms of presenting us with you know um well-reasoned um explanations for why something might be added also fits um they're actually quite you know few I mean in other words within each section the teaching and
learning one seems a little bit large because we have four you know three dependent on the override and one dependent on federal funding. So besides that, there only like two or three and we tried to keep just to the essential ones to leave the superintendent with a lot of latitude.
With all respect, I mean not really not trying to um push back on you. We have world language. We have summer programming. We have extended school year. We you know it's it's not
So why don't you propose something that you think should go? That's that's where that's the conversation we're having to have. We're not defending the document. Now is the time to have the conversation. Me? Yep. Oh, okay. So I would propose Mariah
that we um or I'm gonna can you explain to me why or I don't like having FY27, FY28, FY29, FY30. I So I would propose taking that out. Do you mean why do we
stagger this over multiple years? Well, I was going to start that way, but then I remembered we're talking about I propose so I'm proposing that we not do that. So, you're proposing to remove D, E, F, and G from uh that section. I thought she was proposing to just remove that from everywhere we tell them
where we want something to happen. So, well, everything's fiscal 27 except for D, F, and G of section one. Right. Right. Yeah, I would second that, Donna. Thank you. So, a motion. I guess my question is like we've we've
done this. I think it's like that's fine. Whatever the committee wants to vote. The point of some of that was to say that we were this is a multi-year budget guideline and we're sort of trying to forecast where we might want to go. It's fine with me if we remove these things or remove when the year is. But for example, if we're trying to
direct staff who are building a budget, it makes a difference to them whether we're building that in for next year or the year after or the year after. And they need they need to use this as guidance for budget planning. So I does that make sense, Bella? I mean, is I guess I would ask you to comment on if we're giving you guidance, but we don't
tell you when we want something to happen. Is that more or less helpful? I think you have to decide if you're going to have something or not. Actually, I don't makes it more complicated in in an
override year to figure out are we planning for a program that may or may not happen in the future fiscal years. But are so are you saying it would be easier to focus on?
So, so you do for this year alone, you basically don't want anything in a future fiscal year. You would only want unless the committee is saying they absolutely want that thing to happen in in that in that future fiscal year. It's
it's just um it takes capacity to develop and cost it out. Yeah. Right. But that I mean none of these things should be in here if we don't absolutely want them. Right. Otherwise, we're leading you astray. So, um I think that Well, go ahead, Donna.
Sorry. Sarah, are you calling on people? I was about to call on you. Okay. Because I thought you had as Oh, sorry. Excuse me. No, I I'm I'm not I was overstepping. I didn't realize that. Yeah. So, I was I thought Donna was going to continue to comment on her
proposal, which is why I was calling on her. I think that so um for me for me when I'm referring now to the Shrewbury document and on page two it says um one of the bullet points says is to um to
make investments in district-based programming and resources in order to provide highquality cost-effective opportunities to educate students blah blah blah. But I guess I would prefer that type of language under teaching and learning. um
and then allow the administration when they're building the budget to bring specificity to that in in in the form of a budget proposal. When I read their document, it's a particular moment in time in that
they're talking they're doing this in 22 and they're looking forward to strategic planning. So to me it was a little bit different. Okay. It's not to say we can't do this. It's just that again um I interpret but we could reframe these
to be to consider what could be done for whatever that's fine too but I guess then it makes it less about does the school committee want these things or not it's a little more vague I guess again it's like does does staff appreciate vagueness or does staff
appreciate clarity vagueness gives more flexibility clarity is clear do you have any thoughts on that or guidance? Sorry. Um
I think what you tried to do in the conversation before was to to suggest that we use the strategic priorities as guidance. I and it's not mentioned here, but I would suggest maybe the core values as guidance and um the budget
part preparation for the override. That's that's kind of what we said we were going to do. Um the the specific programs either the committee wants them or not.
um otherwise we end up um taking capacity to cost it out and build it. And so we so I would say clarity or we but anyway strategic priorities or core values would be would
be helpful to us to be able give us flexibility. Uh Caroline. Um so in terms of the years and ultimately I defer to what works for Superintendent Wong. Um
and I'm sure there will be other places where it's expressed. I guess one thing I think about is that I I think or would guess that like our corollaries and partners on the town side when we're
talking about an override like want us to be talking about three years because it would be for three years. So I'm not necessarily making the argument, but I think that would be an argument for some sort of recognition. I mean, it
does say FY27 through31, but just throwing that out there that I think um sometimes I've heard like in the in the past maybe prior to you being here like
a um concern that Yeah, just making sure we're looking ahead and ahead. Um, and then now I'm really thinking about what you're saying about programs,
right? Because if we say like we want this and we want we want to make sure we have this or this or restore certain things without knowing the cost and the consequences that you are living with now on the fifth floor of last year's
decisions. That's important. So, um, so I think I if you're I I think I appreciate you saying, you know, if the school committee wants
programs, we should say so. But I also think I appreciate at this point in time um knowing some of the consequences that you're working with on the fifth floor um
of those kind of insistings or desires. So, and that's not really that's not remotely emotion. It's just me sort of thinking out loud and and chewing on what you're saying. Um the the way you laid out the um the
parts of the preparation preparing for the possible override actually allows us flexibility um to to support the literacy program and MTSS also to evaluate the program to determine recommendations to support
educational equity for all there in in a way that there's some clarity in the way that has broken out. Oh, literally I don't know. You put numbers in it. Oh, how funny. Um anyway,
um I I would suggest in an override year um providing a a map might be easiest um for people to follow and the messaging that might come. And I sorry I said
override year. It hasn't been decided, but we're in anticipation of that just to think about the messaging and that everyone guidance that people will find accessible. I think what I'm taking away from that is once we get a little more clarity on other spots, really building that into
this table might be affirming of that sort of messaging throughout. Andy. So, do we in fact have a motion on the floor that that to remove DE, F, and G from section one? I thought that Donna had made the motion and I had seconded,
but I'm not sure whether that's official. You seconded something she didn't make. Well, I I will make it, but can I amend what I'm saying? And wait, hold on. He thinks you're completely deleting out D, E, F, and G. That's what you want to do is delete out 1D F 1D E FG.
Yeah. And potentially I wanted to ask if we does C need to be explicitly in there because if students are eligible for extended school year we have to fund it. So can that be removed as well? Um
okay hold on. Can we get through the first motion that Andy thinks he's saying? Well I think Oh well Donna's suggesting that maybe that she intended a slightly expanded version. Yes. So I'm suggesting if C is essentially superfluous because we have
to fund ESY programming for eligible students that we remove C, D, E, F, and G. I'm going to split the vote on this one. I think if um unless anyone wants to we can take it as a block but I'm I think that there's
going to be so much conversation with each one or at least potentially that it might make sense to not have a big messy blended conversation but to do it one by one. Does that is anyone on the committee opposed to taking those one by one? You mean DEF and G as one block and CS?
No, I mean all of them separately. I mean I think that like if we have a conversation that goes for 10 minutes about world language and then goes to summer programming. I'm just trying to keep the conversation in order. Um yeah I mean can I say why I thought def should be cut out as a block which is
that uh I mean my impression is that even a successful override might leave us in a position where we're still basically struggling to maintain level services. So I really don't want to give anybody the impression that you know our purpose in going for an override would be to return world language to you know
expand um opportunities for students beyond grade level that sort of thing. we may not be in any position to be doing that even with a successful override and I don't want to suggest to the town or to anybody that you know that that's our purpose.
Thank you Mariah. I want to strongly agree with what um Andy just said. I think that we have, you know, we have such constraints on the budget going forward that we have, you know, to me, I look at maintaining reasonable class
sizes at the high school and the elementary school is the most by far the most important component of our budget because that's where the return on the investment is greatest. And then so to to sort of go down the line on the other
items, we have to protect the the basics that we've been struggling to protect in past years. And so I again I strongly agree with Andy and and I want to strongly support communicating to the
community that we will you know we will be responsible for investing in what research demonstrates is all about the development the academic and social emotional development of our kids. And
so to go, you know, to look at 28, 29, say we're going to, you know, create a um we're going to go back and create a robust foreign language program in the midst of, you know, these dramatic constraints makes me very uncomfortable. I would, you know, I'm I'm proposing to
stick with the basics right now and also allow Bella Wong um as she expressed in her interviews for this position to maybe you know move toward taking a look at a zerobased bud budgeting concept like what a you know instead of assuming that everything in the budget is what we
want let's step back and I don't know if I don't know if we can do that yet but um I think that's most important to give us an opportunity to really focus on what absolutely absolutely absolutely impacts the development of our children. Go ahead, Jesse.
Yeah, I was just going to add um Bob the um the motivation for Mariah and I to add to to keep these things in was was uh Bella's um multiple times saying that she wants to or she intended to have
some restoration of programming that had been removed due to prior budget cuts. We're trying to be respectful to her her stated desire or trying to add some restoration at the same time completely agreeing with you that we're going to be um and I think that's something our
entire committee feels along with you that we're going to be fighting um constrained financial resources for the next couple of years especially in a more partnered environment with the town and look you know in in they're watching our finances more carefully and at the
same time um as you say maybe um beginning to work on as the committee that will actually work on the narrative to to create for the overwrite will do to explain what this situation is and what the parameters are and you know where we can really play and not. So we
were trying to be respectful to this idea about um restoration and that's why those were um left in um and and left as for you know as a contingency. But I'm 100% on board with you that you know if we're not going to look if we're not going to promise more than we know we
can do that we should actually it's not a question of scaling back. It's just be realistic. I think yes. Um I just want to modify what you said a little bit about our intentions which is I don't think um this wording was mostly
um legacy wording. I don't think I want to impose that the or I want to we want to imply that these are things that the staff said they definitely want to do and that it was going to be in the restoration. So I just just as a clarity point um in case anyone might think that. Go ahead Bella.
Um so I appreciate that you were thinking about what I said. Um but for me I was thinking restoration of discrete positions because so much so many were eliminated and evaluating because along with the positions went
functions and so it it was said that I might need to revisit that. Um, with respect to a program that the committee deliberated on, I I didn't feel actually it was
my position to to presume that that should be revisited or not, that that was entirely within the body of the school committee decide if they wanted to do that. Um, but I I think that was um something that you that the committee as a whole.
Yeah. Thank you, Suzanne. Um, I agree that we probably do not want to um promise things that we don't know that we can deliver on. And so I I'm not sure that, you know, maybe it's a someplace if we do an override where we
make suggestions of what what's possible with the override money, but that we don't commit to that yet because it's it's really going to be hard to commit to two years out. I think at this point I I am though thinking about if we whether we keep C or get rid of C. I
would like to see the educational equity piece under teaching and learning. Um maybe it could also be under climate and culture, but it's really much of it is about our teaching and learning and how we provide the resources we need to do to make that happen.
I'm ready later when we're done with this conversation to make a um motion for that. that and I have some wording. Okay, great. Um, okay, let's hold on that one. So, uh, go ahead, Caroline. Um, so I think I probably agree with what
Suzanne just said directionally and likewise, um, in terms of one E, which I also appreciated directionally. I didn't love the beyond grade level.
that's wasn't wording that um made total sense for me, but I did appreciate sort of the I think it's important to have and and maybe I don't know if we can have this if it isn't connected to programming,
but we have lots of things that aren't connected to specific programming, but I wouldn't like to lose that sort of reference to um the need to um provide opportunities
at um the the full range of student needs including um accelerated opportunities or whatever the right wording might be. So
um if we were to vote I I G doesn't actually have any financial timeline or impact. It's just something for us to not lose on our mind. or like not lose our eyes our I really am incoherent at this point, not lose sight of. Um, so I I guess I wonder why it needs to be
removed given that there's no financial implications and no one's being asked to cost out anything. But I could see a very plausible thing. And I'm sort of thinking about what people are saying about concern about cost and promises. And I'm also hearing what Bob is saying about um having our staff have the
flexibility to perhaps also see within their priorities of what could sort of provide the greatest return on investment for academics and what you're saying Caroline about not losing this sort of opportunity for accelerated learning. If we could sort of condense this all into like you know maybe it
goes under the evaluating the program. It's just basically under that um budget number 10. And if there is additional funding in there, staff can really say to us, you know, we've heard your conversations and we think we can build in
blah, whatever blah is. And and we're sort of relying on their professional judgment and what they've heard of our conversations and our priorities and our interest in academic rigor and opportunity for all students and all of these things to have them figure out where they could make those investments for the biggest impact. does that sort
of like so to me that would make sense but you know there will be people in the community who will feel quite upset to see some of these things go away. I'm stating the obvious but I'll just say like if they're not a priority for a year that's that's a a loss for some
people. Um, I would just ask that if we are going to vote that we don't include C for now, that we have a conversation just about that for a moment because I think there's a history there we want to talk about and that G be stricken as a friendly amendment since there's no cost, no implication for students. It's
just sort of a long-term goal of ours to not lose track of. But we could I would be I would vote for something that removed DE and F again with this idea of it would it would sort of be probably explicitly stated but with staff flexibility under the budget area. It's
already almost there. It's just like a little bit more under that. Is that Donna? Go ahead. I was just going to say that in my thinking I want this document or I I think that this document very clearly like it's
it's not meant to be an idea tracker. It's really meant to be budget guidelines. So in that sense I don't see why G needs to stay. I mean, if funds become available for universal prek, we're all going to jump at it and it's what we're all going to know. It'll
become a conversation. Um, and so I think it's important that we stick to the purpose of this document. That was my thinking. Can can So, is the motion in front of us D through G or C through G? Hang on one sec. I just want to get
clarity. What what are you and Andy voting in or re I'm happy to do D through G and then take C separately. Yes, that's also what I thought I was seconding. Okay, very good. Go ahead, Bob. And then we're going to take a Yeah, I just want to say that um um the issue of accelerated uh stu accelerating
students to me should be um built into the concept of educational equity. And I know that uh Superintendent Wong has on numerous occasions say I think that our system is about every child, every child. every child and I think that
which one is the acceleration. So, so I would blend that into um a statement on educational equity somewhere in here so that the community is clear that um because there's all sorts of confusion about what educational equity is all about and
actually at some point I would like to have a a long conversation about what educational equity is because there's all sorts of misconceptions and misinformation about it. But my, you know, my understanding of educational equity is whoever's walking in the school schoolhouse door, each one is as
important as the next one and taking care of each of those kids needs, academic, social, emotional needs as best we can. That is educational equity. So I would I would like that to be acknowledged in this document. Bob, how do you vote on removing DF or D
through G, I'm sorry, DG? One DG. I vote yes. Okay, we'll come back to Carol and I vote yes. Uh Sarah, yes. Suzanne, yes. Jesse, yes. Donna, yes. Is Val still online? Yes.
And yes. And yes. Okay. And I guess we will me I vote yes. Um and I guess we will see if Carolyn wants to vote when she comes back. Okay. Let's talk about C. Um so I just want to give a little bit
of the history of C which was um ESY did did not necessarily have as as I'm going to use the word robust again. It's my word of the evening. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. um it was not as per perhaps um there
wasn't as much happening during ESY and so there was um this goal to have it be um a little bit more significant and so I think the day ended up um becoming an hour longer a couple years ago as a result of this and there was some opportunities for and other things that
were happening. Um I think that that's been baked into Karen I don't know if you want to comment but it's been it's now in the idea budget. Um and um I think the intent too was to ensure that we had
stronger participation because a lot of people maybe could not would not were not able to participate or found it a short day and that they did not participate which defeats the purpose of ESY. Um, do you want to comment on whether or not having 1C about funding,
continuing to fund extended school year, do you think it's helpful or not helpful in terms of how you plan for budgeting in future years? Um, do you want me to read it to you again just so you have it? Okay. So it's um
continue for FY27 fund ESY programming for eligible students with disabilities that increases access to ESY by providing coordinated wraparound opportunities including but not limited to social emotional learning therapeutic recreational activities and enrichment and so I guess the question
is if we removed that would you do something differently with ESY? But can I just sorry to reframe my question is more is it even necessary because we're providing that to students who are eligible but we were not providing the wraparound
opportunities before and that was particularly the change that was made. Okay. Go ahead and um I mean what I was going to say is no I mean if you removed that we would still continue and not just at the like the previous previous level but you would sort of
maintain status quo. Yeah. So I don't know what the previous level was. Um you know I think there's definitely some um enhancements that we would like to make to ESY just based on you know my observations this past summer. Um so I
don't you know I can't really speak to what it was. Um but you know I think ESY should always have um all of those components. Okay great. So are you going to make the motion to remove 1C? Hold on. Let me turn on my
mic. I would like to make the motion to remove 1C. Is there a second? Sure. Seconded. Okay. Uh, we'll start at that end of the room. Donna, I vote yes. Jesse, yes. Suzanne,
yes. Sarah, yes. Um, Andy, yes. Bob, yes. Uh, Val, yes. And I am going to vote abstain. Um, and I I guess I realized this was probably when Caroline was stepping away
for her. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So, I won't wait for her to come back. So, we've removed C through G G. Um, do we want to go to the conversation about 3A and the educational equity strategy? Oh, go ahead. Um, Sarah, I see. Oh, is that what you want to do? Okay.
Is that okay to do? Yeah. Before you read your um revision, can we go back to 2A then? Sure. I just they they already brought this up. I want to do this um for 3A. Um I think that there was a history here in
that the office was established and the year after Jana left and there was the letter provided by Jana and we had Claire um in the role um we were at a crossroads with the work of the
office. Jana had provided a letter that um highlighted some of the things that possibly needed to change to make the work of the office and the work of the school district sustainable. And um there was a lot of conversation about and it's alluded to here, you
know, is an office of two people going to do educational equity quote unquote for a district or is this something that really needs to be considered to be decentralized in the building? it goes to some of the conversation that's been going on in the community. So, what we asked for was that the strategy be
articulated by the office, but that it didn't necessarily, and again, this was a budget thing. It said maybe your budget's too small, maybe it's too big, maybe it's in your office, maybe it's not. Um, but that the strategy was going to be articulated by by this by the
office and we were we were going to approve that strategy. Um but it did not this is not about educa whether or not we do educational equity. It was specifically um the way that this office was going to articulate it. I do not believe because
we carried this forward multiple years that we ever necessarily had um this strategy out laid out to us in this way. I think that there is an I think that your perspective Dr. Wong is that we are maybe not doing this sort of in in the
leadership. Obviously we don't have the office now and and as Bob mentioned earlier you know your perspective that you've said to us many times is this idea of um equity as an educational equity strategy is carried out through say a broader way of giving students what they need wherever they are. I
don't want to put words in your mouth, but you know. So, so I guess um I just want to give this history like if we were to delete this, it's not saying we're not doing educational equity, right? It's saying that um that specifically it was the strategy that was going to be developed by this
office. So, um you're shaking your head. No, Suzanne, but that is what happened when we had the conversation when we No, I'm sorry. It's not about what you're saying. I I don't know that we're suggesting we eliminate it. We I was suggesting we move it. It could be. I'm just saying if we change the words or whatever. I guess my
point is that like this this is this statement here was specifically about a budget issue from several years ago. It's not about a district commitment to educational equity. It might be a change in how it's approached. I don't know yet and we're going to have that conversation. I just want to make sure that people realize that if we change
the wording or something else. I mean I see climate and culture more as the work that Matt does and so you know providing adequate res human resources for the social emotional needs of our our children our students and our families. I mean that that to me is more climate
and culture. Okay. Educational equity I think is under teaching and learning. So anyway okay well now I think we can get to Sarah's revised wording if you're ready Sarah unless you want to make a comment on that. Yeah, you in there. I was curious what you had to say.
And then you'll So, um, Betsy, would be okay if I read out wording um and and have you capture it? Does that work? So, the idea is to I I would like to move to move um what is
currently 3A up to join the other um A, B, and C, sorry, A and B under teaching and learning. And I would like it to start with continue for fiscal year 27. And then the wording after that would be
commit to an educational equity strategy with resources directed towards educational equity to align with the systemwide goals. Resources what? with resources directed from the original
towards the educational equity to align with the systemwide goals. Want me to read it in full again? Yes. Commit to an educational equity strategy with resources directed towards
educational equity to align with the systemwide goals. Did you have a committee or no? I didn't. Is that a motion? Oh, is there a second? Okay, Bella, I want
to give you the opportunity to comment now. I think um I think it's I think it's a really important And I your mic isn't on, I don't think, Bella. Oh, yes. Thank you. Sorry.
I think that's it. That um Sarah is described a really important objective and I think it's okay to leave it in there and we will endeavor to do this. Um it's about whether
we have um leadership capacity to develop it. But I think I'm okay to leave it and we will see what we can do if that makes sense. Leave it as it was or or you're saying endorsing um the revised wording provided by Sarah.
Um endorsing the revised wording. Okay. I I think it's a really, as I said, it's a really critical objective and um but in reality too, I'm just saying honestly because if you think about the positions that were eliminated
within the the district level, but I I think you should leave it and we will try. Donna, I think maybe building a little bit on what you're saying, Bella, I wonder if we can consider adjusting
the wording slightly. And I understand that there's a motion on the floor. So that it reads advancing the district's commitment to um I can't remember some of the the last sentence, but advancing the district's
commitment to our core value of equity instead of mandating a sort of like I don't know. I wonder if that sort of allows a little bit more flexibility, but also and your wording goes at the beginning or at the end.
Yes, I think I I didn't write down what you said, so I but it would um that would allow us flexibility to develop a strategy if we could do it, right? But also allow us to do what we can under with under that umbrella. And
I think it opens up um I think it opens us up to thinking about educational equity in the way that Bella has been talking about it for every student and in the way that Suzanne is talking about it where it's it doesn't
belong in one specific place in our schools. It's it it's everywhere throughout our schools. So I don't know that was the suggestion amenable to that modification. So it was advance advance an instead of
commit to an it was advance the district's commitment to educ our core value of educational equity or even taking out core value. Are you going to re rewrite the whole thing then? No I don't I don't remember the last part. That's why it was hard. Okay. So, it's advanced the district's
commitment to educational equity with resources directed towards educational equity to align with the systemwide goals. I don't we don't need to have educational equity twice, right? So, um you would like me to take out educational equity twice. It was there
twice in the original. Just leave it in once. Yeah. Yes. Not so robust there. Exactly. Do you want Betsy to read what she has? Well, in a couple different
Sarah had commit to an education strategy resources directed to education that system goals had advancing the district's commitment to our core value.
And I think you take out the second towards educational equity so it's not redundant. No, but but keep with resources directed. Oh, you guys want to get rid of with
resources directed as well? that I'm not I like the wording that Betsy just used. Advancing the district's commitment to our core value of educational equity to align with systemwide goals. I think we just have a wording problem. I think that I could rewrite it with
some more time keeping in with resources directed and I could eliminate the double, you know, educational equity. I think um the resources thing is important maybe because it's funded so the budget would speak about funding something you're
saying exactly um I think we have more than a wording problem I think that there's um my my struggle with a lot of what has happened over the past 6 to 8 months is
that um we have reduced funding by a significant amount for this area. We now have um we at least had tactics before and most of
those have at least from the as articulated by the office have gone away. I worry that we are patting ourselves on the back for retaining educational equity while having reduced funding, reduced staffing, and just
saying, "Look, we're still doing educational equity." So I think that um I I would like to see something here that is really specific. I guess aligning with the goals. I mean it's
just a lot of platitudes in my opinion. So I it's it's not a criticism of what you're coming up with. It's a criticism of where we are at this point in time and what has happened over the past six to eight months. I'm willing to take away my emotion my motion and to reward
it, but I do want to align with our systemwide goals. And I don't think that that's a platitude that is important to me because we have a commitment to equity that's gone back um and is throughout our our um strategic plan. And I would like there to be reference to that.
So So what's the motion on the floor and was there a second? I've taken the motion away. So, there's no motion on the floor, but I am willing to rewrite this. Do we want to do Do we want to go to a different topic and have you come back to us? Um, when you're
Can we move Bets's language? Sure. Can you read it again, Betsy? And maybe if even if Sarah doesn't want to move it, someone else might whatever it is, I will move it then. Advancing the district's commitment to our core value of educational equity to
align with systemwide goals. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Do we want to have more conversation on that wording or are we going to proceed to a vote? And I presume this is commenurate also
with it moving from 3A to 1 C the new 1 C. Okay. Okay. I just Go ahead, Suzanne. I I just want to make sure that we don't lose some of the details somehow in the big picture. And so, we've talked for
many years about disproportionality, about opportunity gaps, about testing gaps, about whatever they are. There are big gaps in some of our um criteria and and and some of our
data. And I I just don't want to lose that um focus and I don't want to be so general that we don't still attend to that and so I'm not sure how to do that but that's that's my concern.
I am with you. Can we add a sentence after or can we add a word? I I don't know if I'm allowed to do that after I make a motion but you can you can friendly amend yourself. Okay. So what's so that it reads advancing the district's commitment to our core value of educational equity to
align with the systemwide goals of reducing disproportionality. You know that would make me good. Yeah. So what like if that brings more specificity to the goals that that we're trying to address. So this is a statement that doesn't have
any reference to resources and doesn't have any reference to funding. Go ahead, Bob. Thank you for sighing loudly so I could go ahead. I just Oh, God. I just want to
unequivocally unequivocally state my historical and current and future commitment to educational equity. It is it is it is my most deep It's my deepest belief that schools have to demonstrate educational equity. But I push back on
Mariah if you don't mind when you say when you imply that the for example the elimination of the office of educational equity um is backtracking because two things one if you remember Jana Utaro's
letter which I think you do her her powerful statement was that don't expect this office to accomplish what you're wanting us to accomplish we can't do it she said that um and then if you look at the data the
data um over the past many years you know when we had an office of educational equity the data does not support the existence of that office and I think that was part of the conversation that we've had the data shows that the most important investment
that we can make is as I said before in teachers in class size and support both academic and social emotional support. That to me is the is the foundation of educational equity. And so I know I
don't want to go on down the road bemoning the loss of the office of educational equity. I'm sorry. And I'll, you know, I acknowledge that people will say, "Oh, there's a degree of racism or something like that." You know, that it's controversial. But I will I will stand
tall in stating that to accomplish educational equity, there are there are school-based ways to do it when we invest in the people in the system who make the biggest difference in the academic and social emotional development of each of our children.
Um, I'm just going to say that I think that um, we don't need to get into it, but there's, for example, there's a now a gap in some of the coordination that we've had and and not to pick on you, Robin, but we talked
about the equity leads at a recent meeting and the question, you know, was like, who's overseeing the equity leads? And we didn't necessarily have the answer. And I think that there's like, what are they doing? We didn't necessarily have the answer, right? So, what are we doing here? what's happening at the school level on some of these things to the extent I think it's great
that we have a strategy who's going to deploy the strategy how does the strategy work I think all of those things are important I appreciated what Suzanne said about adding some of the specific language back there was a focus there which disappears in the wording and I appreciate Donna your ideas of
bringing some of that wording back as well so go ahead Donna I was just gonna Hold, please. Um, I was just going to ask Suzanne what language she would want to put in at the end. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure. U, I'm
sorry, but I I just will point out that our benchmarks on our goals specifically address specific groups of students and demographics. So we have in our goals that we will measure our success
by looking at uh different criteria that we've set up as benchmarks. And so it doesn't necessarily have to be in here, but I want to I want to make sure that we're not so generic that we're beyond that we we skip over what our what our benchmarks are and goals. So, does that
mean you're saying it's superfluous to it's it's we're just being repetitive by specifying it or are you saying No, I'm I'm saying we we need to say maybe not just systemwide goals but systemwide benchmarks. Oh, okay. Okay. Maybe maybe
can we say benchmarks that are articulated in our strategic plan, Suzanne? Would that work? Yeah, I think so. I just want to make sure we have reference to it because that is our work. We've been very clear about what our work should be. We're not clear on how we're going to get there,
but we're clear about what the work needs to be. Well, just just to add then, um, Suzanne, um, in the first paragraph of the guidelines in a second paragraph that talks about the primary guideline, it already says everything that we just
said. It says number one, there are the activities described in the strategic plan and Ryan and I referenced the link so anyone can get to it. and then clearly identify in budget. Yes. And described in their narrative to be measured against the benchmarks set in the strategic plan. I think Ryan and I
went through the after Donna's presentation last time, uh, we went through the strategic plan in one window while we were looking at the document and tried to make sure we'd have those elements in there. So I think adding in details this sort of I think I'm aligning with what Bob said earlier but
just to say aligning details like disproportionality or historically underserved populations tends to place educational equity in a certain box and there are a lot there's a lot of discussion and feelings about that one rather than to say we have benchmarks and the benchmarks
um that we've agreed upon as a district in the current strategic plan should be the ones we measure our progress against and so I would like on this equity to refer refer to to that same. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was just I was just going to read back where where we are so that we can all keep track. Advancing the district's
commitment to our core values of educational equity to align with systemwide benchmarks. Articulated in our strategic plan. Is that what you meant, Val? Did we lose? Did you value singular? By the way, we lost
core value core core value of educational equity. I think that's what Val meant when she I I was I was typing while she was talking. Yeah, I was talking about the benchmarks that articulate what Suzanne was talking about, right? Like we have metrics and
benchmarks. No, I think I was asking if my sentence captured what the change you did suggested. Okay. Yeah. Can you read it again, please? Yes, I would love to. Thank you. Advancing the district's commitment to our core value of educational equity to align with systemwide benchmarks
articulated in our strategic plan. Bella. Um, so, so that that that's a that's a great statement. I'm just not sure if it's a budget guidance statement. I'm not sure what how I am supposed to address that
statement. in creating the budget. So, um and and I will say again too, if if you look at ultimately
clarity of message in preparation for the override. Um, I think that I think the committee members have a have um are expressing a a commitment to things that are good for the students
that you would want to be reflected in our programs, but I but I I don't know if it's being conflated with what we need for a budget guidance. Well, part of the problem is that we've eliminated the office that um we're
saying to we're trying to say to you as a superintendent and to the district leaders that we would like to see this work continued and it's a little bit confusing because we've eliminated the ability to to be able to do it. So,
um, if we put something in that's general, does that allow you to come back with a solution for us of how we continue with an equity strategy? I think so. It's just when you said when there's a part about metrics and I'm thinking how am I dealing with that in
the budget? M can I can I make one suggestion that might work which is rather than advancing but is it something like identify in the clearly identify in the budget which um elements are contributing to an educational equity
strategy and that way it's really like the the product could be we're spending you know these these are the these are the programs that specifically contribute to the strategy and and whether or not there's a dollar amount I don't know if you know you want to say because at some point everything does but like maybe you're just pointing to
these are the things. I don't I don't know if that works, but it's at least like it's something that we could say check. I've done those. I've done that. Like we're asking you to do this and it's something that's achievable. Whereas the current wording is to your point, it's not it's not a budget
activity. I I we we could do that. Um, and again, I'm I'm going to ask you what you want that documented to look like as you message for an override raised. We need to decide what that looks like
now. We don't do that. Is that what we're asking staff for is to essentially clearly identify the resources that are being which was in the original the original said resources. That's right. The programs and resources
whether they are centralized or decentralized. What are the things that are being done to support this core value? So maybe we go back to some of that. Well, it's not funding the educational strategy. It's um identify the items in
support of an educational strategy. Um and identify the items in support of the ident of the educational equity strategy. By items, do you need do you mean resources? Programs. Resources.
You meant budget items like budget line items. Which budget line items? Yes. Program staffing. Right. Exactly. Repeat the rest again. Identify the budget line items. Um yeah, identify the budget items that
um the the budget the resources that support educational equity. I don't know. I'm just looking at what was written and trying like we spent a lot of time on this wording a while ago. So yes, identify the budget items that support the
educational equity strategy or the educational equity goal. There was a goal. Yes. Yeah. Donna. Okay. I I'm I'm not trying to be difficult or argumentative, but now I I'm a little bit confused because
wouldn't that just wouldn't that then just be like kind of like a question that we ask when the budget is presented and not necessarily a budget guideline? Well, I think we're asking for it not to be something we have to ask a question about. We're asking it to be presented very
clearly. I'm not and I'm I'm I'm just thinking that's you know it's just not something we want to be a question. We want it to be already answered. I think we want it as a guideline. Yeah. What was the first word sentence now? I think it was identify. Maybe you wanted to use include and that way it handles Donna's question because
that way the budget has we we anticipate it being included and identifiable. Oh, that's good. include and identify educational well no then the rest of what is my only concern is like and this is sort
of what Bella is pointing to the budget has a very specific structure now in the beginning there's an overview a superintendent's you know message and so perhaps that could be you know educational I'm not writing it for you on the fly right now but educational equity is important to me and these are
the specific programs that I see as being critical to advance that or you know something like that best you know best meet the needs of all students. Yeah. Or, you know, however that looks like. Um, Susan, I see your hand up. Go ahead. Um, just as a potential way forward, how
about identify the programs funded in the budget that support the educational equity goals outlined in the strategic plan? Thank you, Susan. Does someone wish to move that language? Can you read that again, Susan? Sure.
Identify the programs funded in the budget that support the educational equity goals outlined in the strategic plan. Uh see, once you start talking about programs, what you're losing is the fact that
educational equity happens every day, 180 days a year, in classrooms, in support rooms. you know, once you start saying we're going to have a program here and a program there, which we do have, you know, we have the African-American scholars program, got tutorial, but we have plenty of
programs. But to me, again, I keep coming back to the to the concept of educational equity, you know, and the and the main program that we have to bring about educational equity happens every day in classrooms. If we're doing a really good job of great teaching and
learning, that's where educational equity happens. You know, educational educational equity is all about getting kids to the highest levels that they can get. Every kid, you know, and when and you have to have, you know, to to me, if
you have everybody performing at a very high level, then they feel like they belong because their job is school. And when you are successful at your job, which is school, you feel like you belong in a school. When you're not ex when you're not succeeding, then you
don't feel like you belong. And I just I I want to, you know, push that idea instead of, you know, educational equity. I want us to understand what it is. And I think, you know, we're going to have programs for educational equity. Well, to me, it's very simple. Great
teaching and learning, great support. That's educational equity. you know, we don't, you know, I'm sorry I'm just belaboring this. Can I can I say though, we just had this wonderful presentation by Matt Dubois where social emotional learning happens throughout the day and he could point to
very specific things, programs, cartwheel, the addition of the social workers and and on and on. He gave us two slides of his theory of change and had very specific things that he called out as highly contributing to what was
going on. And so, you know, I wonder like yes, and there's very specific things that can be done and be implemented that um could be pointed to just like he pointed to the nine social workers that were a budget investment
and he thinks made the staffing to do a lot of that work. It's a holistic approach to every child and what you just described is critical, essential for the for the emotional well-being of many many kids. Um, I guess you know, again, what I'm reacting
to is, okay, we're going to have a program for educational equity. The school system is a program for educational equity. Sarah, and then Suzanne, I'd like to move Susan's wording for um, educational equity.
Is there a second? Sure, I'll second. Okay. Then, Suzanne, you had your hand up. Yeah. I just wanted to say it's not that I disagree with you, Bob, and we also know that the data shows that we don't
do as well for some groups of students as others. And we have made a commitment to address the needs of some of those students. All of the students. I understand that. All those are some of the students. I understand that. And we've also been struggling with this issue for decades, forever.
Right. But that doesn't mean we're going to stop struggling with it. We're going to call it out and we're going to see what we can do to do better by some of those students. I agree with you, Suzanne. So, you know, I'm not disagreeing with I'm saying and let's call out where it
is that we are not doing as well as we could be as we are for some of the other students. Is there something we can be doing? Can we rethink things? Can we commit some money? What What is it that we need to do? I mean, it's we need to have that conversation.
Yeah, I agree. But and that's why I want to put it in part of our budgeting guidelines. I think it's that important. Yeah, I I I agree with Gohead. I hear you. Thank you, Maria. I agree with you, Suzanne. But I agree with Bob that it's not it really shouldn't be um narrowed
into programs or narrowed into services. It needs to be articulated within the budget perhaps as a we are an enterprise and I'm sure it'll be in your letter because you've mentioned it a few times, Bella. We are an enterprise focused on
helping every single child that moves through our door achieve their highest potential and then let great teachers and all the support systems help to make that happen. So I that's why a program
unnecessarily limits the scope of what we'd like the budget to do in the district as a whole. Yeah, I'm not so worried about programs, but I just you know do we need to go back to fair is not equal, right? And so if you need an extra step to see over the fence, we're going to give it to
you. I mean, it's that's right. And so I think Val's hand is up. It is. I was just waiting for you to stop talking. Go ahead, Val. I'm just going to push back on on what Jesse said a little bit. I mean, I think it's a both and, right? like yes it's in the classroom but we also know based on
what Suzanne said that there are groups of kids who um need some intervention because we are disproportionately not serving them well or they're disproportionately u performing not as
well on standardized exams and things like that. So I I absolutely think that we should keep our scholars program. I absolutely think we should keep our tutorial. I absolutely think that steps to success is a critical program. So
these are programs, right? And so I I do and they support kids learning. They support those kids getting to school and and being able to be in the classroom and have a sense of belonging. And if you don't get there, then you can't ever
get to what's happening inside the four walls of the classroom. So I I do think that it's a both end. I I you know I and whatever the math program is that we're going to be doing that we're not going to call the calculus project like that math program helps young people of color
and has for a long time. um you know so we don't need to call it out per se but I I do think we need to not throw the baby out with the bathwater and and say you know there no no programs because some of our programs
our MedCo program do wonderful things before I call on you Donna I'm just going to add that it's not just about programs too it's about things like the professional development in implicit bias and differentiated you know classroom instruction and all the things we're doing to support the educators to deliver the education in the classroom
and those are things that are contributing to educational equity and they're not a program but they are and they are supporting all students and they're really important too. Go ahead Donna. So to that end I actually was going to suggest replacing the word program with um
mechanisms. How about resources? Resources. Okay, great. Which was our earlier resources. Okay, so uh Betsy resources. Can you read it again?
We're letting it wash over us. Can somebody with a mic read it? Uh, we've um adjusted um Susan's original motion. Um, identify the resources funded in the budget that support the educational equity goals
outlined in the strategic plan. Susan, I see your hand. Friendly amendment. How about identify uh the resources included in the budget that support the educational equity
goals outlined in the strategic plan. Okay. Right. So, I would move that language if it needs moving. Do we have a second? I second. Okay. Do we need any more talk or are we ready to vote? We read it one more time. Wait, actually, can can I just ask Bella
and Susan, does that give you the direction that you need without sort of mandating or pres being overly prescriptive? I'm gonna assume because Susan proposed a language that she thinks that we could
work with it. Susan, throwing it back to her. I I do. Okay, great. I feel like I have a sense of of how we would um construct a response when we're
preparing the budget uh response to this guideline um based on that language. Can I just clarify? Are we moving this to three? I mean to one 1 C. That's Yeah. 1 C. Yep. So it would move to 1 C and it goes in. I'm ready to start
voting. Oh, Jesse, last word. Just one question. No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Before we read one more time, Susan, can you just clarify what you see included under the word resources? Susan, I would I would say I guess as I'm thinking about it, listening to you,
would would it not be the strategies? I would include programs in that because there are many programs that are uh equity focused, but there are also some strategies um that we fund. And so it's calling those out so that the community as well
as the school committee is clear about the work that we're doing in order to support this important um objective. Donna, sorry. I I just to again to build on what Susan's saying and Jesse to to
add more color to that, I'd say that also um I've forgotten what I was going to say, but basically I think it I think it just strengthens, for example, some of the also the work like in literacy and other some of the um the the multi-ter systems of support, some of
that work as well. Um, you know, and PD Robert. Yes. Yes. Mariah. Yes, sir. Is AP advanced placement a an equity program? I think I'm just No, I I mean I
personally think that there is a strong sense in the community that we are not serving our students who as well as we could be. And I'm not necessarily calling out AP in general, but in general there could be more accelerated learning. I liked the way Caroline rephrased it earlier, accelerated
learning. I would say I don't know if I would I personally would count AP in that bucket, but I think that the idea of offering learning opportunities no matter where a student is, whether it's at AP, whether it's because we're going to start I don't even want to speculate. There's a whole bunch of different
things like the theou with um was it Mass Bay Community College and being able to offer college program at the high school. There's a whole bunch of different ways that equity looks to me and AP is certainly on the spectrum. Okay. You know, I'm not sure that I would call out any of our gened programming the way it is as being particularly under the equity bucket.
That's just I mean, I think that like you have to draw a line somewhere, right? And so, you know, I would call AP an equity program because it serves certain kids, a lot of kids. I I hope that you heard when Mariah said to you, "Yes, and before." I don't think that what we're putting in the budget
right now precludes what you said. I absolutely think that defining what equity is is best practices for having educational equity. So I I don't think that this is a you know like we stand here and you stand there. I I think it's a yes and
no it's a clarifying question that I had. It's it's an important one. I think that when we're dealing with the budget, we don't need to tonight get to this definition, but I do think that we sometime do need to get to the definition. Thank you. Okay, we're going to start voting now. Put down your hands if they're up
because we're done with this one. Bob, how do you vote? I have to hear the motion again. I'm sorry. Betsy, do you mind reading it one final time? Everyone, put your listening ears on. Uh, so again, it's moving to 1 C and it will now read, "Identify the resources included in the budget that
support the educational equity goals outlined in the strategic plan." I vote yes. Andy, yes. Sarah, yes. Suzanne, yes. Um, Jesse, yes. Uh, Madonna, yes. Val, yes.
I'm going to abstain. Um, okay. We have now gone to one through C. 1 A through C. We have 2 A. I think Donna, you wanted to talk about 2 A. Is that correct? Was that okay?
Um, before I talk about that, I just want to say I'm really pleased at how we're moving through this. That's why I was hoping when you were all talking about other things, I was like, "Let's just get to it." Well, I don't mean I don't mean the the speed. I mean, I know you appreciate speed and efficiency, but I just mean
also the conversation and also that we're able to um align and get on the same page. Um can some can you give some background to 2A because it's um
policy that would be helpful for policy two years ago discussed a policy it was started being called life of the school and I think it ended up being called policy on the life outside of school and it had to do with essentially programming that happens in the school building serving only school students of
students of that school or almost exclusively students of that school but is not operated by PSB. So, for example, enrichment programs offered by PTO's or by other vendors or whatever. and um students who needed extra support to
participate in those um in particular um were not because of the funding structure of those programs. There was no funding in the enrichment program that might be run by the PTO on a volunteer basis to for example um fund the participation of the aid that the
student might need to be able to participate in these programs that other students in the school were participating in. And so the question was should we have a policy to basically ensure access of these um students um participation
um beyond I I see Val your hand is up but I think we had an executive session and I and about this policy and I don't want to necessarily get into more of it beyond that but I'll say that that's sort of the history there and Val if you want to add more go ahead.
Um, no. Actually, if Karen is there, I just was hoping that Karen could give us an update on how this is going right now and and our mandates right now. You mean has the law changed? What do
you mean by our mandates? Well, I'm hoping that we're implementing the law, and I just want Karen to reaffirm for me that we are implementing the law. Can you give me a little more context? Yeah. For students to participate fully
in, you know, programs that we have in our schools around our schools, after school programs, things like that that, you know, are colloquially called the life of the of the school.
sports, dances, you know, after school. Um, Val, I think we just need one minute before answering. She can't she can't see what's happening. a little. Yeah, I think this is um so this is about
things that are happening in the school but they're not being run by the school. They're being run by other parties. And so this policy would to ensure because they're in the school that we can I can I make it can I maybe take this a little bit of a different way
which is the question that Karen's being asked to answer right now does not have anything to do with our with our budget situation right now um with this particular budget guideline and so maybe we don't has put Karen on the spot to answer this particular question maybe we
focus on the guideline in front of us which is the policy which is not about our current practice. I just want to put that out there as a way to redirect the conversation a little bit. I understand the way you're trying to redirect it, but I think to redirect it in a way that's too broad and could be and is potentially a budget
buster as opposed to No, I'm just saying let's talk about this if we decide to I think that Donna's goal was maybe to say it's I don't know what your goal was, Donna, but like is the question really should we like eliminate this because it's vague and doesn't have a I mean I'm just
going off of how you've done the rest of how you've approached the rest of this, but that wouldn't necessarily put Karen on the spot to answer a specific questions about how the programs are running in school. I Yeah, I was a little trying to understand why this is here and what the implications are and whether
is it so it sounds like there isn't a policy but there might be a policy. Yes, it's been requested that policy take it up again this year after having not taken it up last year. Yeah, but we didn't intentionally not take it up. Just saying.
Could Could I ask Karen a smaller question? you you'd like to move on? No, we don't have to. I mean, I guess the question is like, Donna, are you proposing were you considering proposing to remove this because there's no year associated and um we don't have a policy
right now either. Okay. So, now having understood some of the context and framing and background, I'm not proposing anything. Well, I'm not proposing anything yet. I'm just I
would like to ask Superintendent Wong and Karen given all the these the sort of like vagueness around this what how is this helpful sitting in budget guidelines for you?
It says if a policy was to be adopted that requires funding to implement it, identify said funding. So I think this means we would have to cost out what it was to identify how much it would be.
But you don't know if the policy is going to pass. So we're going to set aside money for something that we don't a policy such a policy. So would that mean you're setting aside money, you're costing something out and you're setting aside money for that in the budget even
though we don't know that policy is going to pass. I believe this is um would be a policy that is beyond what we are required to do. So because you don't have the policy and
you would be asking us to cost it out. We aren't asking you to cost it out. We're asking that it possibly if it's in a future year that you would have to like we would have to find funding for it. Can I just ask a question? Go ahead. When Val asked her question about whether we're aligning with state
guidelines, are we not providing certain students like the students I need an aid in in an enrichment program today? Are we not providing them the opportunity to participate or are we so what I would would say is anything
that is under the opaces of the PSB we are providing full access to for all students. Sure. So if there's an program that's being run in PSB for students but but not
um funded through PSB. PSB is not really on the hook to provide additional services to specific students in an enrichment program. I'm just trying to understand where this is because I completely agree with what Ella said. Since it's not a policy yet, it should
not be in our guidelines. In a future year, if if a policy is done like let's say policy takes this year to finish this and the guidelines for FY20 next year, the year after then let's include it. You know, there's enough institutional memory we'll remember that
we we had this in here. But to carry it into a year in which we don't have a policy and then take cycles to cost out something that we don't even know is going to be required to me seems uh not not as productive as we could be. And I I think also you the policy when
it does go through needs to be clearly articulated because there are m a myriad of organizations and groups that use our schools after school. Sure. Um and so and that is not there's no clarity in what it is that you're looking at when you say life of the
school. What does that include beyond the school day in terms of what happens in our buildings? I think I think but we do have a policy drafted and so it it does clarify that. Um but it was again before you joined and we have not had the opportunity to
redisuss it. Um, and I think it's in this gray area of the way that programs are delivered in different schools and and the equity around um, how people can participate based on, for example,
it's just it's a really complicated topic and it lives in what is arguably a quite gray area of the law. And so that's the that's why we had an executive session about it. So, I think that if we have a but until we have a policy, I wouldn't I
would I would agree with the sentiment that we don't shouldn't have it in the guidelines. Well, so I'm I'm asking if we have a motion. Let's get beyond sentiment to motion. You're moving to strike it. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Do we need more discussion or are we ready for a vote?
Okay. We're going to start at that side now. Donna, yes. Um Jesse, yes. Suzanne, yes. Sarah, yes. Andy, yes. Bob, yes. Val, abain. I also abstain.
Um, so, um, I just want to be mindful about time, Mariah, and, um, but I understand if this needs to be finished tonight. I understand that we just need to take the time. Um, and it's only because the discussion of the MO the memo of understanding or, um,
Oh, yeah. Okay. You know, is still to come. But I um Val, can I check in with you about that? Why don't we just wrap it up and I'll just tell you next steps. Okay. So, we're going to take what we did tonight um and this finance subcommittee's
meeting next week and this is going to be on the agenda again to take another again. We're just taking every opportunity at full committee and finance subcommittee. We're going to look at it again. Um and hopefully at that point finance can come up with something that we endorse for the full committee. But we'll see where we get
to. So that's the next step for this. And and I just want to thank everybody for the um sparkling conversation and efficient effective um the robust discourse of this evening. So okay, we can keep going and thank you for
pointing out the time. Sarah, can we just check with Betsy on our um executive session at the end? Right. So but the people who are going to be joining us. Okay. Thanks. Thank you Betsy for taking care of that.
So um we are going to move on to the superintendent's report and I don't think I have to introduce it because you're going to explain in full. So Okay, great. Thank you. Um I'm sorry it's at this late time and actually it's timesensitive that I do this
presentation tonight um because it'll be followed by um our town administrator doing the same next week Thursday at the select board. So this has to happen tonight. Um at this juncture you've heard me describe my entry process
several times. An important part of that process has been committing to the oneon-one interview process which allowed me to listen, learn, and ask questions. The process allowed me to deter to determine how best to approach this year to be most helpful to the
district and how best to address what the community determined were of highest priority to resolve. One of those priorities has been to address questions about the monitoring of our financial processes.
In fairness, there is a legitimate reason why such questions exist. And I believe there are two main reasons. The first reason is that the FY26 budget is premised on funding to be received
this fiscal year through our circuit breaker reimbursement, which means it is funding that won't be available for FY27. This deficit is significant enough that the community is actively engaged in a discussion about the need for a possible
override. Um several different committees have been established to help frame those discussions. One has been the revenue and expenditure study committee. It is the task of the revenue and expenditure study committee to reflect on the question of an
override and to make a recommendation to that end. In that process, they have a need to ask questions and we uh so so um to all departments including the school department to um
to answer questions about our budget processes to how we make decisions and what to spend and the implications of the cost of specialized services. So we've received a lot of questions about all of that. The administrative team led by the
senior leadership team worked collaboratively to respond to those questions. We were able to present those responses to those questions to the school committee subcommittee for budget and finance at the end of September and to the members of revenue and
expenditure study committee early last week. So I just want to take you through this has been a big priority to answer questions and where we have um made progress on on the revenue and expenditures. Um the other thing is as we know the
school committee agreed to a review of finances and operations through the CLA um review. The report was completed last spring. Over the summer and fall, the town's audit committee, so this is another committee, continued discussions
about what should be next steps. It was determined that a memorandum of understanding that would clarify established and ongoing cooperative efforts between town and schools would be helpful to assure the community at
large of the practices that are in place to ensure spending against funds allocated to the department were being monitored in a timely manner. So I am pleased to share a draftou
for your consideration. So we've gone through revenue and expenditure study committee. We will respond to additional questions they might have. The other committee we've been working with is um the recommendation by the audit committee
and I am glad that they allowed um us to work with town administrative leadership directly. Um, this MIU has been a working effort between myself, the town administrator, PSB, deputy superintendent of OAF, and
the deputy town administrator. It's been reviewed by the chair of the school committee and the chair of the select board with the input of other senior staff. It has also been reviewed by the chair of the budget and finance subcommittee. The draft is being presented to you tonight. The town
administrator Chaz Kerry will present it to the select board next week on the 14th. It is our hope that the respective boards will authorize us to execute theou for PSD and the town. Thisou will
become our guiding document for next steps. The purpose is to assure that established regular reporting and monitoring of the budget is happening and ongoing. So we have
you received the hard copy of um the memorandum of understanding and we can go go through. So again this is um a memorandum of agreement between the town of Brooklyn and the public schools of Brooklyn.
In number one PSB will continue to provide quarterly budget updates to Brooklyn school committee in public session. Once that's done, we will we will send a copy of the report to the town administrator and to the school subcommittee of the advisory committee
after the meeting. Just to emphasize, the school subcommittee um almost always participates in those um meetings as well. So, but yes, it's a continue to um two that the town and PSB will review their five-year revenue and expenditure projections with the town school
partnership prior to the superintendent town administrator releasing their financial plans for the subsequent fiscal year. So, we're agreeing to look at our five-year plans together before doing um presenting more broadly.
Three is um is is an important step in terms of um our cooperation working together with with um town and schools. We will establish a working group to address business needs of the Munice enterprisewide system including chart of
accounts and reporting cleanup. The group will also address appropriate delegation of functions in the system. Once alignment on the chart of accounts is attained, the town and PSB will review the viability of using the encumbrance feature and the munis universally and implement as
appropriate. So fun but at the core is that there will be a working group together comprised of members of um town and schools to look to to come to an agreement about our mun accounts and how best um we can utilize them again co
cooperatively for this we will continue so this is just assurance we have been we will continue to make certain that we're we're f we're following um basically public procurement requirements. Right?
So, we will continue to do this. And then five, we will continue to send at least one employee to MCPPO training. We do that as a practice. MCPPO training is just to make sure that everyone is adhering to public procurement rules and
they do get updated from time to time. So, that is something that does happen to happen regularly. Six is that we will continue its review of financial policies in the current fiscal year and publicly document any changes there too
as a result of that review by March 1st, 2026. Thank you to Mariah. Um she had already said I had heard her say in a policy um subcommittee meeting that was something that she wanted to do. So it's
a continuum complete that review. Seven. This is something I've been saying that we needed to do is assess all our central office functions as part of its preparation for the FY27 budget process. This is about evaluating the
functions that were eliminated if we need to reorganize or restore. Eight, we will provide a fall report. It's going to be late fall. um the office of student services to the school committee which will include a review of
related expenses as well as an overview of relevant legal requirements and oversight. We've been receiving questions across different committees. We've we've been answering but I just feel that a cohesive presentation at school committee is a good thing because
we do have an audience and we and we would be recorded and then people can um listen to those recordings. Right now we're we're answering those questions in writing and again across different venues and so we are letting everyone
know that there will be um a presentation on in um it'll be late fall and then that this agreement will sunset um a year from it's so we have September 30th because I think we thought we would
be at that point um but it's intended to sunset after a there. Do you have questions? Yes. Um, wait, I don't get Can I Can I just say something at the outset, Bella? I just want to thank you for working on
this. It um did not start off in this shape and I I really like the way that it now is very clear to the community the things that we do as a school committee and as an administration on a regular basis.
um some of the ways in which we'll tweak that to make sure that that um other groups see that work in a timely manner. Um it's very clear and I think it really um is going to be a a guiding document
for us to uh restore trust with the with the community as we move to an override. and again reiterate that the district is doing good work, has good policies, has good procedures, and um under your leadership is really uh following
through on those. So, thank you. Thank you. But I I also want to make sure that you everyone understands it reflects the agreement um and work with the town administrator, deputy town administrator, and of course, our deputy superintendent. So this is what you see
is something that we um we worked together and we were we shared and got some input on it. Thank you. Sarah, you're now back to Oh, I'm raising my hands. Okay. Well, then I guess I'll call in other people
other than myself. Bob, thank you. Sarah, Bella, the um the level of trust between the school system and the town governance reflected that's embedded in
this document is incredibly refreshing and impressive. you know, you've been here for a couple months, a little more than a couple months, and you came into a situation where there was a tremendous lack of trust, um, between the the town,
the town leadership, and the school leadership. And so, in a very, very short amount of time, what you've done here with this memorand memorandum going forward um, is just incredible. And thank you. Thank you, Jesse.
Yeah. Um, in number eight, uh, Bill, I was going to suggest since you rather than leave it open just with fall, maybe just, uh, 4 Q25 and that gives you the last three months of the year to deliver it. You said it just would be fall maybe. It's because it's already scheduled.
It It's scheduled. Yeah, it's already on your anticipated school committee agenda. Okay. So, um, and so Karen knows and her team knows. So, they're preparing to do that presentation. Yeah, that's why we said it because it's already scheduled.
Okay. And then the other question I had is that um is it in number one, is the town agreeable to wait on just quarterly reports and not monthly? Is that something that they've agreed to already? Right. And so it doesn't mean that we're not monitoring monthly more frequently.
It's just when you prepare a public presentation, it takes um takes it takes a certain amount of bandwidth and also it would in it be more it's more comprehensive. It's looking at all the revolving accounts, different special funds.
Thank you. I'm going to make a motion to u what do you need the motion to say to authorize um me to execute this Seconded.
I'd like to start the voting with Bob. Enthusias enthusiastically. Yes. Andy, yes. Mariah, yes. Suzanne, yes. Jesse, yes. Donna,
yes. And I also want to echo the gratitude um to to Bella, to Susan, to Chaz, to the deputy town administrator, to everybody who worked on this. It's really incredible to see. Thank you, Val. Yes.
And I vote yes. Agreed. Okay, more to the report. Okay, so thank you. So earlier I said I believe there were two main reasons why questions remain. one is the fact of our our deficit um but remain about how we
manage school finances and budget following last year's budget cycle. The second main reason is that there were public espersions made in the spring of FY25 about the management of accounts particularly with respect to student
services. And so to that end I am very pleased to share with you the recent findings of the DESIE audit of our idea grant. We yes we as a school district as an institution that utilizes public funds
for its operation are subject to frequent audits. It's it's just part of what happens. As a matter of course our financial accounts are audited each year as a as every other department monitored
by the select board and the town administrator. We're always getting audited. As a school district, we are typically undergoing other audits and other parts of our programs or accounts at any time. So, tonight I am providing you an update on the recent results of
one of those audits. On February 14th, 2025, PSB was noticed of an audit for the IDEA grant. Am I pronouncing that correctly? IDA. Thank you. IDA stands for Individuals with Disabilities Act which
represents a federal funding provided to the district's use for the benefit of students with disabilities. It was a targeted fiscal review to determine whether IDA funds, idea funds provided to PSB were completely,
appropriately, and reasonably expended on students with disabilities pursuant to all related federal and state laws and regulations. Their language, right? So, completely, appropriately, and
reasonably expended. Participation in this review required staff, especially Karen Schmuckler and Susan Given, and a lot of other staff that work in their departments, plus financial and accounting staff in the
town departments to search for and pull documents and be interviewed by DESI staff. It was a lot of work, a lot of documents. They reviewed expenditures, documentation to support those expenditures, procurement processes for
vendors, vendor contracts, fiscal recordkeeping and inventory management. That's a non-exclusive list for the period of FY23 and FY24. And it was it was especially challenging because not everyone that was committed
to provide this information was here in FY23 and FY24. It was an intensive and thorough process. We received notice this week that DESIE had completed its review on what had
been submitted in their final summation. Within the scope of review, the department noted no areas of non-compliance relative to the use of IDA funds for the respective years and review
and no corrective action required. Where no corrective action is required at this time, the department will continue ongoing monitoring activities as part of its general supervision responsibilities.
So no areas of non-compliance, no corrective action. While we always endeavor to do everything we are supposed to be doing, in my experience is quite unusual to not have a single corrective action,
especially for an audit of the idea grant since it is the most complex and highly regulated grant we receive. to be found fully compliant with not a single corrective action for followup is actually super great. It's an excellent
result. So I congratulate and offer kudos to Karen Susan and all of the staff that worked on this in the school and town department. But so when I started off with what I think were two main reasons for having questions about
our financial monitoring or our budgets. One is the fact of the deficit the what happened um and I feel we are working toward that to resolving that through our responses to R&D and also um
hopefully the select board will approve authorize um CHAZ to execute theou we will have that and then I think we move forward and we create a budget. The other were the espersions on on um
honestly the the use of that grant. And so I am very grateful to um the DESIE staff. They provided a very thoughtful road review very thorough and again congratulations to the staff because
that is just a really excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Can I just ask Belle? Is it possible for you to share the um desi letter with us by email? I think so. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Are we sharing that with uh town administration or chess?
I think the results of it. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be great. That brings us to subcommittee and leison on reports. So for curriculum, we haven't met yet. We're meeting September 20th. October 2.
I mean October October 20th. No. I'm still yes meeting about school improvement plans. Yes, Mariah finance and capital projects we're meeting next week. Um in addition
to talking about the guidelines, um other presentation of note will be um the summer uh Charlie Simmons will be joining us to present on the work that happened this summer um budgeting and a third topic that it's too late tonight
for me to remember, but we will you will hear all about it next week or whenever Betsy posts the agenda. Thanks Andy with policy. Um, right. We're now we're meeting not next week but the week after that. And like Mariah, I have no brain left to remember like what exactly we're discussing, but
it's it's Yeah. And Jesse, I think you you were usage and access. Okay. And there was one you were looking at actually. Oh, was there? Okay. Well, that'll be ready for uh for our meeting. And that might just be that um tonight we might not do on reports because it's gotten so late. Um but let's just go
through um government relations. We did meet this week and um we talked about Warren articles coming up for the fall uh town meeting and we picked out three articles that might be relevant and then we will bring them forward the 10, 11 and 18 are the ones that we selected and
we are going to bring that forward which date? October 22nd. October 22nd school committee meeting. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, good. And um I'm going to say that tonight we're not going to do a leazison reports and new business just so that we can
Can I just give us like a 10-second update? We had an expenditures and revenues committee meeting this mon this past Monday I think and the decision was to divide up the committee into work streams and Jesse will be on the town work stream and I will be on the school work stream and we are waiting to hear
scheduling of next steps and I think Val and I will be on future. That's Oh, you're gonna be on future too. Oh, great. Okay. I knew about valid. I don't know that I knew about you. Great. Yeah. Is your hand for me? No. Okay. For the new business. Oh. Oh. So, we are gonna do new business.
I Well, maybe it's not new. I don't know. What did you just do? Oh, liaison. It was just because it was here. I just wanted to um if just um give a shout out to the senior center. Jesse and Bob and I spent some time at the
senior center um just talking to people there and I wanted to thank Emily Williams for having us. It was a really important opportunity to just connect with the community. Um and we really appreciated the chance to be there. Thank you. All right. Could I do a very brief update on the
Pierce building project? So the the steel frame of the building went up in September um as scheduled. So you know we have all the steel stockpiled so no tariff issue there. Um the park across the street is going to start getting dug up in November. So the the basketball and baseball fields will be closed from
that point for the installation of the geothermal. Uh but the park is supposed to be usable again like within one year. So uh and then the uh October 30th school building committee meeting should include a walking tour of the site for anyone who wants to join that. So
and then I think that brings us to the conclusion of the meeting. Thank you. Right. I have to read this again. Do you want to read this? You want me read? You can read it. Motion to meet in executive se session pursuant to Massachusetts General Law
Chapter 3A section 21A for the following purposes. Purpose three, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the Brookline Educators Union A grievance if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the um
bargaining or litigation position of the committee and the chair so declares and purpose two to conduct a collective bargaining sess session with the BUA BEu unit A hearing on grievance. And so this meeting is ajourned. Oh, sorry. We are
voting. I second it. I really want to get going, I guess. All right. So, you second it. Yes, I second it. All right. So, let's um go reverse. Um Val, how do you vote on on adjournment? No. To go into executive session?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Donna. Yes. Jesse. Executive session. Yes. Suzanne. Yes. Mariah. Yeah. Andy? Yes. And Bob. Okay. Yes.
And I vote yes. Thank you and good night. Coming back. Oh, and we will not be returning.