Can you hear me, Liz? >> Yes, I can hear you now. >> I don't know if they turned their mics on. I assume they didn't when they were talking. >> Okay. >> They went to executive session is what they wanted to go to do.
>> Okay. Thank you. Can you um can Chloe remind them to turn their microphones on when they come out? >> Yeah, I will have to go tell them they're not in here. >> Oh, okay. All right. Thanks. >> Yep. I can remind them. No worries.
>> Thank you. Oh boy. First, I hear There you go. that there'll be a million parts. 560. There's no
Awesome. Okay. Let me see what you must be. >> Business manager number. Thank you. >> Would you like to announce it? >> Oh, that's very good. >> Yeah. >> Did you have this resume?
>> I did. Okay. I thought that I sent it to you. >> Oh, you did? Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, this is my phone. >> Oh my gosh. to be a number of >> my kids are like where are you going to
>> I was like I'm going to >> I'm like for you. >> All right. So we're gonna you guys this time I turned them off. >> Oh, thank you Jordan. Okay. So we are back in regular session and I would like
to say welcome. We have decided to hire Chris McNamera as our finance director. Is that the official title? business um >> as our business business administrator >> as our business administrator for Lunberg schools. So, >> welcome aboard. Thank you.
>> Chris is uh new to this this kind of position but is eager to learn and will be mentored and uh I think you're going to get up to speed pretty fast. You have a good history and I love the fact that you have teaching
here. >> Oh, do you want to come? Yeah. So, uh, currently I'm the fiscal director for the Monusa Regional Planning Commission. Um, it's actually a state agency. It's in Lemonster. We serve the Monusa region, um, for economic development and transportation
planning. Um I actually worked in schools for about three years as a tutor um working with students in special ed and um credit recovery for um Ingenuity which is a credit recovery program. Um I worked in public accounting for about
three years um in Lemonster. Um then I also worked at it's probably the largest credit union in the country now since it merged recently at DCU for about a year in the finance office. >> That is fantastic and we are very
excited of you coming aboard and um yeah thank you. All right so congratulations and thank you and welcome. >> Thank you for having me. >> Excuse myself in just a minute. >> No problem. Yeah go ahead. No, that doesn't work. >> Okay. And um Oh, it's a revised agenda.
Oh, you're right. Executive session was first. This is the It's a revised agenda. Um so, first up under new business is Oh, we skipped the pledge. >> Okay, we're going to do pledge flag. Oh, no. We're new.
>> Pledge of Executive. All right. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> We're getting much better about
remembering them. Um, okay. So, first item is donations. Um, it is a donation gift acceptance to the Lunberg High School Athletics from the Kevin T. Zozek Memorial
Scholarship for Financial Trust in the amount of $895. Um, so can I, Dr. Fortuna, is there more we need to know about this donation? >> Okay. All right. All right. Well, that is it is for the intended purpose is the
Lunberg Middle School athletic department. Thank you. And uh Mr. Sozek was a student athlete. >> Yes. He was a um victim of 911 and uh there is an memorial scholarship in his name. Uh
so thank you for that. Uh can I get a motion to accept that? >> Um I make a motion to accept the gift. >> Okay. All in favor? Tonyy's not on, right? >> No, he's going to join us. do a regular vote. Uh, all in favor? >> I >> I >> I Okay, approved. Excellent. Motion
passes. Uh, business administrator contract approval. Um, do we vote to officially approve the contract outside of ex? Let's do that executive session. >> Sure. >> Um, so we discussed the uh contract for
Mr. McNamera. Um, do you want to make a motion to >> Yes, I'll make a motion to accept the contract. Ed, Mr. McNamera right now. Literally right now. Okay. Uh, all in favor? >> I >> I >> Okay. And now the last item on our
agenda is a workshop from Tracy Novok of MASC on the roles and responsibilities of the school committee and superintendent evaluation. Two topics which are going to come up a lot uh that we should probably familiarize ourselves with. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. It's
good to be here. Um I actually I grew up in Sterling, so Lunenburgg is like, you know, right in the neighborhood here. Um in fact, my orthodontist was in Lunberg when I was growing up, so we came back and forth a lot. Um so yes, you're So let me just say, let's note, by the way,
that you're in um really good company. Um all of the field directors are out doing roles and responsibilities with lots of committees this time of year. um really and we really appreciate that because we'd like in this point where you're sort of kind of taking a breath for you to say, "Okay, now what what
part is our job? What part is the administration's job? How do we make sure that we're sort of, you know, clearer in our mind before we start the school year?" Um, and then the other thing that we always really appreciate is, um, when you're talking about evaluating the superintendent on this part of the year rather than on the
other part of the school year, um, the emergency phone calls that we get in May where you know, suddenly we're getting a wait, we have to evaluate the superintendent. Um, as you'll see when we get to that part, it is a cycle. And so getting the beginning part right then makes the actual evaluation part much
more something that is um achievable and thoughtful and puts everybody on the same page. Um so we're going to take it in that order because obviously one of your roles is actually evaluating the superintendent. So I thought that made a little bit better deal. Um, now for those of you who have been through rules and respons who have been through rules and responsibilities in charting the
course, which is the training that's mandatory for all new school committee members, you've heard us potentially mention in passing um the state code of ethics. And by that in this particular case, I'm not talking about Mass General Law Chapter 268A, which is the the state
ethics law, but I'm talking about the one that was actually developed by MASC very early in our history. um and is for many school districts actually part of their adopted policies. Um it's in section B. And what that recognizes is
that um a school committee member really sits at the center of um three areas of responsibility and um relationship really um which is the one that we talk about all the time which is the one to your constituents to your community and
so forth. But there are two others which is the relationship that you have with the other members of your committee. Um and also the relationship that you have with your administration. Um and of course you're in a a really good place to actually be think rethinking and thinking again about your relationship with your administration given the cycle
that you're in at this point. So I'm not going to read each of these. This is you know document that we have online. You may well actually have it in your policy manual. Um something that's very common and very familiar. Um but first of all the one you know the relationship to your community. Um, one of the things that that we always think is important
to stress is that your first responsibility is actually to the students of the school district, um, to the children in the in the town. Um, as much as there are lots of other sort of pleas and pulls for your loyalties and other directions. Um, we'll get more into that sort of where is the line in
terms of administration versus policy as we go through here. One that sometime can be tricky is um, that you work as a team and the decision is made as a team. Um, your responsibility then is to work together to positively carry out the decisions of the committee once they're
made. Making yourself well informed is actually part of your job. Um, and you do represent the entire community. Again, the community whether they agree with you or not, whether they voted for you or not at all times. Um, and committee work is really a means of unselfish service rather than something
that you are to benefit personally from. So, just a couple of general notes. Obviously, first responsibility to the students. Something that um was pointed out to me a number of years ago uh in my work was that um for a lot of other elected offices there's a term for it, right? You're a senator, you're the
president, you're the governor. There isn't any such term for someone who serves on a school committee or a school board. You are a member of the board or the committee. Um you have no authority apart from your sitting at the table in a posted meeting talking about something
under your purview. Um and that isn't always something that the community rep like understands something something that has to be um sort of emphasized to them but um it is something that's important to remember also as an individual on the committee.
Contrary-wise because um coercive influence does actually exist. As much as that is the case, there is a hat that you have that you don't take off that is always going to be perceived particularly by those who work for the district. Um, which is that you are a
school committee member. And so, you know, for example, when you go in to meet with your child's teacher at a parent teacher conference that you're coming in as so and so's mom and that's why you're there. Um, the teacher, depending on your relationship, may be first seeing you as a school committee member. Um, and that is an important
thing to sort of continue to have in your mind as you're having conversations in the community. Um, any resp administrative responsibility or decision must be redirected to the administration. Um, one of the things that committee members often discover, it's not written down anywhere. Um, but
an assignment that you kind of have is that you're one of the people who knows who people are supposed to call next. Um, so when you get that, you know, concern from a parent about X, Y, and Z, part of your job is the redirect of that parent to who the phone call goes to next. Um, and the answer rarely is the
superintendent, of course. Now, these two next ones are maybe less something we talk about. What is your responsibility to the administration? um doing the parts of your job that are assigned to you under Mass General Law
is actually part of what you can do to um ensure that you have a good working relationship with the superintendent and the administration and you've supported them. Um for example, making sure that your policies are clear, they're ongoingly updated as necessary. Um because that's actually the framework
within which the administration operates. That recognition of the chain of command is actually a way that you support the administration, right? When the phone call that comes in that's complaining about the third grade teacher doesn't immediately get redirected to the superintendent, but then goes to the teacher, then goes to
the principal and so forth is important. Um, also, you know, I'm going to solve this is not actually ever a thing for school committee, right? Even if it's under your purview, it might be something that goes on an agenda, but largely the complaints and concerns are going to be directed to appropriate
administrators. Um, as we we we're going to talk about later, evaluation is part of your job, but um you can really only evaluate appropriately if you allow the administration to do their job. So giving them full responsibility then allows you to response to responsibly
evaluate how they are conducting that. Um and really complaints should really only be coming to the school committee if solutions that have been redirected to the administration have failed. um if efforts to sort of bring things to the administration's attention and to have things solved as they're supposed to be
appropriately fail. Um so a couple thoughts on that is you only act as a member of the committee. That is the only thing you have. Um something that we recommend it's a best practice is to have agreed upon protocols. Um so something you might consider particularly if you know new
relationships here is um you know things like can every member of the committee contact the superintendent individually? Does it have to go through the chair? Depends on the committee. Um, can every member of the committee contact, you know, other members of the administration if you have, say, for example, a finance question or do those
go through the superintendent? It's good to have a generally agreed upon practice. Um, among other reasons, so that the administration isn't spending undue amounts of their time responding to the school committee because that isn't actually their first job. Um, it's part of their job, but but it's not the
primary one. Um, similarly, um, sometimes we have people get on school committees who are very excited because they can now have all of their questions that they ever had about the school district answered. Um, that's actually not why you're on the committee. And as much as you know,
you're I'm sure very beneficial curiosity being satisfied would be lovely. um asking for creation of reports, investigation into areas on your own is not a power you as an individual school committee member have. Now, if you're asking for something
that's a one-off of, you know, did we have a title one allocation last year and how much was it? Um if that's something you can't already look up on your own, that's one thing. Um, but if you're asking for, you know, what was the what's the enrollment pattern been like for elementary schools in the district and in the surrounding
districts for the past 10 years, that's one that needs to come on an agenda and the committee needs to decide if that's actually how you want to allocate your time. Um the other thing by the way that that does is frequently a question you have may be something that's coming up on a later agenda that the administration is planning on doing
a presentation on enrollment once you say for example submit the October one report to the department. Um there are logical places that questions can fall and it's good to have those conversations at the same time making sure that you stay within your purview.
um you have an important purview and one thing that we find is when committees start sort of running off to do the administration's job they end up not doing their own job um which is a problem um so it isn't just that you shouldn't do the administration's job you want to make sure that you're not distracted I should note by the way that
I'm I'm happy to send this to you so I mean take what notes you want to but I will absolutely absolutely share it with you >> um and then as I said sometimes your job is just okay that's one where you would call the special education director as the answer to the parent or here is the
person you call when you have a concern about the school bus or whatever it is. Um and and that is, you know, a useful um role that you fulfill for your constituents. Um I also say if you have questions along the way or you want to sort of flag something or ask for further
clarification, let me know. Uh with your fellow committee members, um actions at official meetings are binding even if you didn't vote for it. um you do meet in public, you do vote in public, so it isn't as if your opposition to a decision that was made
is a secret. Um so you shouldn't feel like you then have to spend, you know, forever after reiterating that this wasn't a vote that you took. That's actually already on the public record. Um the second part of that statement is a very good reminder for the very now
classic um question that comes up on the town Facebook page and somebody tags in the entire school committee and asks how they're going to vote on that which yes happens in just about every town in Massachusetts and probably not just here. Um don't answer those. Um that
doesn't mean don't respond but that does mean don't answer the question. um among other things, you could very easily commit an open beating law violation. Um but also committee decisions are made at the table through deliberation and pre and sort of coming in with I'm actually
already going to vote this way. Um let alone attempting to say the committee is going to because you actually have no idea um as much as you may think you do. So be careful about that. The second one is is again a correlary of of the first. Um, this used to also sometimes happen
less so unfortunately now we have less local press, but you'd have the reporter call up all the individual members of the school committee and say, "This is on the agenda for next week. How are you all going to vote?" And you'd essentially commit serial deliberation by reporter, which is also not a good idea. Um, executive sessions exist to
preserve the interest of the district. Um, so if you violate executive session, you're actually violating that. If you have pertinent information, share it. Um, and this is also a good thing to establish through protocol. Does it go through the chair? Does it go through the superintendent, superintendent's
office? Um, but if you know you've found something that's relevant for your colleagues to know or for the administration to know, it's a good thing to know. Um, and then make sure that you make decisions only after all the facts have been presented. So, you know, even if you're in the minority position, you're still a member
of the committee. Um the second sort of part is is we often will find if commi if uh committee meetings are kind of running off the rails. You know it yes the chair is the servant of the assembly. So it is up to the chair to ensure that the business of the comm of the committee gets done and gets done in
good order but there is a shared responsibility of the rest of the committee as well um to you know Mr. Chair we've all actually now spoken on this item. It doesn't sound as if we have anything further to say. Um, you know, I call the question. It's a parliamentary procedure to say that you,
you know, that's the end of discussion and you're going to vote. Um, we seem to be, you know, moving off of the item that's actually before us. We should make sure we bring ourselves back so that we're not, um, falling a foul of the agenda. Those things are actually a shared responsibility of the rest of the
committee. It's something that anyone can do. Um, decisions are made in committee meetings. Uh, they're not made ahead of time. I mean, otherwise the superintendent could just send out like a little survey and like we could just skip all the meetings. Um, it doesn't work that way and with good reason. Um, there's information that comes forward
during meetings. If you have information or knowledge or something that's a strength of yours, you know, sharing that is actually very useful and helpful. Um, only make decisions after all the information is shared and the matters are deliberated. And I should say so before we go on to sort of
another sort of just reminder of what your roles are and where the lines are. Anything on that that section any questions or comments or clarification? >> Can I just ask that? >> You sure can. >> Um is this all like all of this information
you're presenting to us is this in statute or how like why? >> Nope. So the so the first part of this in terms of the roles and responsibilities was something that was developed based on statutes and regulations. um everything from uh master law chapter
71 which is what spells out what the responsibilities of the school committee are um as well as things like master journal law 3A which is the open meeting law and the other things uh to put into a more of an operational framework
>> how you then function as both a committee as a body and also as individual members within that framework. >> Okay. >> Yep. And that tends to be also why committees then have actually adopted it as policy because policies of course are then sort of what you have create as
ancillary or adopt as ancillary to laws and to regulations. >> That was a good >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Uh so this again is a way of of attempting to imagine or to put into words the the piece that is what is the
superintendence versus what is the school committees. Um and we've phrased this a bunch of different ways um because people may have different ways of sort of coming to the understanding. Um school committees are about governance about sort of that general view of that big picture perspective. The superintendent, the administration
is about the day-to-day management of the district. The administration um is about the means, the strategies, action plans, procedures, and so forth. um that ends where you're getting to the vision, the mission um as well as policy, goals,
budget belong to the school committee in general. And these are very general because there always are exceptions. If it is the answer to what, why, or how much, it probably is the school committees. Probably the how much is very big picture. By the way, for the superintendent, it's how, who, when, or
where. Generally again um in terms of that bringing to the table together for deliberation the com the committee is operating as a bridge between the community to the superintendent and the superintendent is the bridge between the staff and the work that you do on the
committee and then down here at the bottom is really tends to be the cycle or represent the cycle of mo much of the work that you do on the committee. So a lot of things you do are going to start with a recommendation from administration whether it's the budget a lot of policies start there goal setting
tends to start there that will come over to the school committee for a deliberation and authorization or voting it goes back to administration for implementation and then it's go being monitored um by the committee and that's again true of the budget it's true of the goals it's true of policy and so forth and then of course what happens is
that all of those things are cyclical so your monitoring then will kick off potentially a new recommendation certainly is how that happens s with budget and with goals. Um now ideally this is undergurtded um or really uh strained through trust
and respect between the two parties. Okay. And not just the superintendent as an individual but also the administration in general. Um sometimes we get asked well how do I know or how can I be sure or that kind of thing. There is a point at which some of this is also about professional like
respecting the professionalism of those who were involved. Um that you know we there's lots of checks and balances. There's also places where that's only going to go so far. One of the things that can bring one up short you of course are are being recorded here is um
that for many members of your community there's really three main places that they ever see the schools. Um they see your school buses on the road. They see you at town meeting when you show up and ask for millions of dollars and they if they're flipping through the local cable
channel may come across your meetings which means that in terms of the act the sort of day-to-day action of the schools you're kind of it you're kind of the face of it and that's a very different kind of realization um when they sort of you know wonder how well are the schools being run and is this done
professionally and are we meeting what we should be if they're sort of sitting on their couch and flipping through the channels and come across whatever it is that's going on the committee meeting. Um that's you know that can bring one up short depending on how things are going at the committee. So it's a good thing to keep in mind um because ideally the
work that you're doing together is actually going to then lead further to community to trust in the work that you're doing. Now again with that sort of what is your job as an individual versus what is the job of the committee. Um a committee
member as we said has no individual authority. Um has exactly the same power as any other qualified voter. It's when you're, you know, walking around town or into the schools. That is exactly the role that you fill. You do have a responsibility to contribute to anything that you're doing. Vision, goals,
budget, um asking critical questions is actually part of your job. Um once you've made decisions, a you know, supporting those decisions and then always focusing again on the work in on behalf of the students that that's actually what this is about. As a
committee, you exercise power through official action at your properly posted meetings on things under your purview. Govern through policy and through the budget. Um engaging the community. Again, as we said, often you're kind of the public face of the community, the committee of the district. So that's, you know, part of your job. Obviously,
there's at least one place where you're required to have a public hearing on the, you know, the the budget. So there are places where the comm the community is essentially required to be invited to the table. um sustaining that relationship between the school committee and the superintendent and then of course you're the employer of record for the purposes of collective
bargaining. Now I'm just going to run through kind of the the what we think of as kind of the big ones in terms of your responsibilities. Um your goal setting is that bottom piece and also some of that second piece. Now we think of this
in terms of a pyramid um because these do actually build on each other. the administration's goals, the goals of the teachers, the school improvement plans, all should be building on what you've set as the district goals. Now, as I note here on the bottom though, there
should also be interaction. So, if there's a reason why you need to have a whole bunch of, you know, particular things in the school improvement plans that you're seeing, that's something that should clearly be influencing the goals that you set for the district often is also going to be influencing the goals that are set for the superintendent.
um goal teacher goals then also should be building off of that and all of this at the end is actually focused on student achievement. Now student achievement here unfortunately in Massachusetts we tend to lapse into always that being MCCAST scores. It really isn't. Um this is really the the
the goal of the the direction should be about what the experience is of the students who are in your school building. Um how they're being supported, how they're being uh their education is being furthered, how they're being furthered as people and so forth. policy of course is yours. So a policy
statement is any clear statement of the purposes and prescribing direction. Um to go back to what you were just asking in terms of you know where did this come from? That's really why you potentially like why that's sort of set out for some districts as sort of we intend to act this way right as a policy statement.
They are um for the parts that apply outside of the parts that you apply to yourself. So everything largely outside of section B um are for the administration to give direction and they're formal statements that are adopted by the committee. Now there is of course a policy manual that you have
that every school district in Massachusetts has. Um there also are lots of other places where policy lives, right? So it lives in the student handbook that you review annually. Um it there's policy statements that are in grants that you accept that are in your collective bargaining agreement. Um, and
of course the big one that you adopt every year is you're making policy decisions through your budget when you're allocating things. So keep in mind that those are not separate. They actually are part of the same thing. You're frowning. >> I figured No, I figured I figured the frowning was was leading to a question.
No. Okay. >> I um No, I liked the way it was framed as uh contracts. Carl, so >> yeah. No, any you're like you're allocating you're allocating staff time. you're making decisions about priorities, um, all of those things
>> that way. So, I like to be >> absolutely good. Yeah, I'm glad that's helpful. >> Um, so budget of course is yours. Um, and not just the adoption of the budget that you take sometime in the spring for the next fiscal year. Um, you do have
fiscal policy. So there's policies that are in your policy manual in section D and elsewhere that actually are setting out um you know how money is allocated and making sure that you align with purchasing laws and all those kinds of things. Um then there is monitoring that takes place over the year and whether
you decide to whether you do quarterly budget reporting which is um something that Masbo recommends as a best practice. um when you work through transfers that have taken place between call centers um the signing of warrants all of those things are actually fall under yours. Again, you're part of a
larger check and balance system, right? So, this doesn't only fall to you. The day-to-day part is always under the administration. Um, but the financial piece, and this is also one, by the way, that's good. Although I rarely have to tell school committee members this that they're not already doing it. Um, is the
sort of, you know, okay, and what happens next part, right? So, yes, we we are just we're just a month in on implementing fis fiscal year 26. We're already starting to get questions about fiscal year 27. Um, so you know that kind of thing can be a useful role of the school committee as well of sort of
what is going on at the national level, what's going on at the state level and so forth. And then in terms of personnel, the hiring and contracting the superintendent as you well know it's obviously yours. Um, you also are the ones who hire and retain legal counsel. Legal counsel works for the school
committee, not for the administration. The administration obviously is going to be consulting with your legal counsel. You have as you just have very well op functioned advice and consent on assistant superintendent positions, school business manager positions, uh director of special education and all of
these cases or whatever it's called here, right? So this may not be the term used um physicians, nurses and attendance officers. And then of course there are pieces that also are yours, right? So employer record for the purposes of collective bargaining, the personnel policies that you establish
both in and outside of the contract. Um, and then establishment of compensation, which simply means that for things like principles or administrators, you're not having that contract brought to you with the exception of those that are here. Um but you the general sort of we pay
people within this realm and this realm and they have x number of vacation days and they have this kind of setup for sick days and so forth is for the school committee to work out with the superintendent and then it is up to the superintendent to actually have those individual contracts with those individuals
and those are the things that have to do with your roles and responsibilities. Any questions on that before we talk about aval? Okay. Um, so can we talk a little bit about the role of school committee versus town
departments when it comes to management of things? We're current >> Sure. >> in discussions in town with with uh the finance committee and the select board about what >> about cost savings and combining departments.
>> Yes. So, can we talk a little bit about what the school committee is responsible for um versus the town side of things? >> Sure. >> So, I think what Laura's saying, right, is if the town would recommend that we collapse, for example, our
um departments that take care of facilities, right? >> What sort of responsibility would you see us having in that conversation? Right. Is that sort of what you're >> Yeah. I want I wanted to talk about what
Yeah. where our purview is versus the town, >> right? And like what would happen then? I mean, I think one of the conversations that we had in our last meeting um with all the boards was, you know, when the town manager and superintendent, if they had someone working under both of them,
how would that work? Yep. And then >> how would we have a goal? >> Yeah. And are we giving up >> our budget power if we hand over maintenance, but we're still >> paying the maintenance salaries out of our budget? Yes. >> But they're no longer our employees.
>> Are are there clear delineations of responsibility? >> Um so not offhand, however. um you have or should have a um an agreement with the with the town about sort of what
what they get to sort of char charge you right as kind of inind services already. So my first thing for the first thing I would say is that you know make sure that you're all familiar with what it currently says. You would want to make sure that anything you change goes into
that and goes into that in clear detail about all of those kinds of things. who's paying for what, um, how much of it, lines of who gets to ask for what. Um, I I guess I I would have two observ There are a couple places in Massachusetts that have done it
successfully. Um, I guess I would have two observations. Um, one is that not infrequently, um, the schools employ more people than the town does. Not just overall, but often within departments even, right? Um, leading to more than
one. I mean, often it's the CFOs joking, well, maybe we should be the ones who are running the department rather than you, but yeah, and that's a joke, by the way, for any town person who's listening and lines up later. >> I'm not saying you can't do it. >> Um, but that is something to keep in
mind because I mean, we often will hear, well, you know, the town could just handle all HR or could handle all whatever, and the the answer is that you essentially have an ant trying to swallow the elephant or or something of the equivalent, right? That's probably a slightly outsized analogy, but something
of that nature. Um the other thing is um the thing the what happens of course is that how responsive are they going to be? Yes. >> Um and particularly because we're talking about the buildings and the
facilities that people are sending their children to every day. And so it's, you know, it's one thing if you're getting the phone call and you can then deflect that to the superintendent who's talking to somebody who works directly for the superintendent. Um, and you are talking
about a section of your budget that you not only allocate but you oversee and you can have a conversation about are we spending enough money on custodial staff or on cleaning supplies or what have you, right? Do we need new equipment for
snowblowing? that kind of thing. Um I would I would my recommendation would be that you're very very clear on how that part is going to work because um I mean generally the answer is that that then gets it gets offloaded to the town. I'm
not really sure you'd want to talk with legal counsel about the notion of sort of dual reporting for a facilities director. Um but generally speaking it sort of gets offloaded to the town and the bad case is that then the schools don't feel like they're being responded
to. I mean I was actually just having this conversation with colleagues earlier because there's a a city where the city is attempting to take over the IT department and one of our conversations was okay the the city's IT department is like the guys who are running the DPW comm computers and like
the city treasurer. Do they realize that this now puts them in like if they did that they're now responsible for every single kid's Chromebook in the entirety of the city, you know, school department? I think that sometimes like what exactly does this mean and what does it entail? Like if they're going to take over facilities that they taking
over custodial, do they understand this means that when a fourth grader throws up in a classroom like that's theirs? Like that I think having some very real conversations maybe about that would probably be wise. >> Okay. Um, is it recommended generally to
especially we've talked a lot about how it probably wouldn't save money because it's not like it would lower our >> Well, that always is also the thing is that unless you're going to potentially fire an administrator of some kind, somebody who's an overseer, um, there there usually isn't a lot of cost savings. Um, is the Yes. The other
challenge. >> Okay. Are there places you know of that have combined and then uncombbined? We did that several years ago with it. Um, that would be a good question for the MASC listerve. Um, also the superintendents may have experiences,
right? The the superintendents list serve may have questions. Um, I know I saw a presentation at a Mazbo conference a couple years ago from two towns that had done it and had done it successfully. Um, I don't know. I wouldn't at all surprise me if there were ones where they had
done it and then had to undo it, but I don't know offhand. >> Okay. Yeah, it's easy to find. the places that have but yes I'm curious about places that have >> what is the yes where did it fall apart >> and what were the issues that
>> right no that would be a good conversation then to have right of of and is there a way of potentially fending that off >> okay yeah no I'm I'm glad you brought that up relevant conversation to have >> you want to share all right so talking then about
superintendent evaluation um this is directly state regulation, right? 603 CMR35, which is the educator evaluation system um in general, right? So, part of what happened as a result of the 2011 act relative to the achievement gap is
that superintendent evaluation was standardized across the state. It didn't used to be, you used to be able to kind of do your own thing. Um part of what the state recognized in that law and then the ensuing regulation was that superintendents are educators. we need to have a way of of you know ensuring
that we are evaluating them in a standard fashion and so they are part of the same evaluation system that is done through every teacher for every principal for every assistant superintendent for school business officials um in the commonwealth there are some pieces that are identical and then there are parts that you'll be
developing locally for yourself um the intent here is that this remember we talked about things being a cycle and this is really another one where um this is intended to be a cycle of continuous improvement for the the superintendent where the evaluation is not you did this
terribly, you did this well, but you can certainly do some of that, but some of it is also here are things you seem to be doing better at. Here are things I see you being able to get stronger at. Those kinds of things uh does have to be tied to should be tied to your district goals or what improvement goals you
have. Um and there are multiple criteria for educator success again which are common across the state and then also are related to the others. Yes. >> Um I wouldn't want to have that convers well the my question would be whether or
not the superintendent might lose her license. >> So our decision not to evaluate her >> and I'm that this is me guessing. I have never asked the department that question. It's part you're required to I mean every educator is required to be evaluated they all go to the department.
So >> what would be the legal basis that extend her license >> and she's requ as an educator in Massachusetts she's required to be evaluated either annually or by annually >> right but like >> it's in the state evaluation >> specifically give them the ability to
>> because the department has the ability grants the license and the department has the ability to take it away like that's just it's state law >> the gr the lensure provision just like that's >> what's the >> um I would have your mic on. By the way,
>> since you're off hand, I also I wouldn't I mean, >> yeah. I mean, I also I there you're also setting a terrible example for the rest of the district because every teacher has to be evaluated. So, >> sure. But what I'm saying is like when
we do this, the process is so ownorous and so complicated and the forms are just voluminous. At the end of the day, I feel like we're not getting anything out of it because it's just like we check this box, then we give her a score between one and four. And like the things that I found more insightful are
comments that are included in the evaluation as opposed to going through this rubric. And so the question is why do we have to do this rubric instead of just providing comments? Um well you should you aren't only doing the rubric you're also setting goals and you're also evaluating based on those goals which have to be aligned with the rubric
and also aligned with the goals that you've set for the district which is ex which is entirely local district kind of purview and things that you should be doing. So if you're not getting anything out of that, that's sort of you need to then talk about what goals you're setting and how you're tying them into the rest of the
standards because the other thing is that the standards the indicators under the standards should be tied directly into your goals and if they're not then you are you are choosing to isolate that rather than actually tying it into the part that you've decided locally. So the
the 3503 says that they shall establish evaluation systems of performance standards for the evaluation of all teachers that include all principles of evaluation. Is that same general statement true for the superintendent
>> in terms that's directing the department to do that? So yes, >> it's a school committee shall not the department >> is what J same this the state has said that this is a mandated process. >> Sure. But what I'm saying is what about the process is mandated?
>> That's exactly the presentation we're doing right now. >> All right. >> Um so as we said at the beginning part of what the is smart about what you're doing right now is you're doing this at the beginning rather than at the end. um because doing at the end means that
you're playing catch-up rather than starting from a strong place. Um in your case, because you're talking about a relationship that's as new it is, you will be required to do annual evaluations. Um long- serving superintendents who have been in their position for some time and are have a a length of experience can if the
committee chooses move to buy in to every other year. Uh you are required to use a standard format. you do have a flexibility in terms of adaptation um in terms of the pieces of the standards that you're using and also the goals that you write locally and also when you
choose to do it. So as we said this like so much else that you do is a cycle starts with a self assessment of the superintendent which moves to goal setting. Generally, as we talked about with um some of the other things that you do, goals are being brought forward
for the superintendent for your discussion and potential approval. Um you do have the authority to to change them or adapt them as you wish. Um as a committee, the superintendent then moves forward with implementation of those goals and there is then a midcycle review which is a formative process. Um
that is not something that involves your individually scoring the superintendent. That's usually more of a conversation that happens at a school committee meeting and then there's obviously then another round of implementation and then an end of cycle review which is the summit of assessment that also by the way then should be kicking off the next
cycle um which would then be leading to the next round of goal set. >> So as someone who's very new to this I find all of this very >> abstract. Sure. >> Um I find everything that Desi does incredibly abstract. Um I tried to be on a committee with our last superintendent. I found everything we
talked about as very abstract as someone who is not an educator who just has children and has worked in other fields. >> So, can we talk about this in an actual >> That's what I'm trying to get at. >> Yeah. Like an actual like what's the goal look like, right? Like you tell me a goal. What you know, what are we
actually evaluating on? >> What the next slides are. We're on slide two, guys. So, let's let's make sure that we're actually talking like getting to the places that there are. Um, so as we said, you're talking we're talking the evaluation is the end of the process, but you need to make sure that you're thinking of evaluation as a year-long process, not just something
that happens at the end. Um, the rubric itself or what you may think of as the rubric itself has two parts, which is evaluation based on the goals that you have set as well as the standard rubric. Um, and then within that rubric, you're rating on the goals, you're rating on the standards, and then you're
evaluating as a summitative process. So, as we already said, you've already saw this presentation, this part of the presentation. Um, your goals that you set for the superintendent, which are here, should be based on the goals that you set for the district. Again, this is uh school committeebased, right? So,
school committee is actually doing this part of the job. Um, we the requirement is that goals Whoops. that goals be smart goals. Um, questions that we recommend that you ask. So, how do you make sure
>> that's on the next slide. >> Um, questions that we recommend as you're developing them are essentially what are we about? So, part of the the the the conversation to have is, you know, if the district already has a strategic plan or already has set five year goals or threeear goals or
something of that nature, then that's as it is and you're basing it on that. Um, if instead what you're doing though is starting from scratch, an evaluation of where the district is and what it is that you're working on is really the first step because you need to be thinking about the district before
you then move on to what about the the superintendent as the executive of the district. Um, these are some things we recommend that you consider as you're doing that. So, smart goals are specific and strategic, right? The specific part is
actually and this is and honestly not just smart this specific part but also the measured part. One of the things that you should ask yourself when you're setting a goal for the superintendent is when we get to the end of the school year what am I going to see that is different so that I know that it has
been achieved. Okay frequently an easy one right is that we're going to achieve a particular ch percentage change on some standard of measurement that we actually assess students based on. So there's been a lot, for example, on early literacy. A lot of school districts have been setting um
assessments based on their their internal literacy rather than MCCAST because MCCAST comes in so late. Um that over the course of the year a particular percentage of third graders are going to move from here to here within their particular thing. Um that's a pretty straightforward student centered goal.
And how as a school committee do we know what the standard >> because the self assessment of the superintendent is going to be coming forward with recommendations as to potentially what the goals are and what you're going to be working at over the course of the year. >> Okay. >> Yep. That's why it starts with that. Um
now that's but then that's well and that's one that well to your point that's one that's actually very sort of technical and very academic based. There also though are committees that do things like say you know we had a really rough budget year last year. We need to
actually change we need to change some part of our budget process. Now the the trick here is to balance out which part is ours versus the administrations, right? Because maybe you're setting a school committee goal as part of that too. Um but your goal can be you know we are going the superintendent is responsible for ensuring that we have
quarterly budget reports. The goal can be we're going to have X set up by particular date or we're going to have these particular we're going to beat these particular benchmarks in terms of when we have what ready for the budget because we think we need to do on a different timeline. Those are things that are that are reasonable and also
are again it's one of those where you don't want to just say we want a better budget process or we want something of that nature. You want to make sure that you can say yes we've actually gotten there at the end of the year or we got close or here's the pieces we got and here's the pieces we didn't. You need you're required well we'll have
that on a later slide but you're required to have at least three. We always recommend that you not go it's very easy to sort of say okay but we also want this and we want that and that is leads essentially to not only a distracted school committee it can lead to a distracted administration >> and Kate suggested one at our last meeting. She
>> well you have to have them in three realms. So >> okay I remember she just said yes. Right. So there's a lot of documentation. There's a the superintendent when it comes time to the evaluation later. There's it's a lot of work to get together all of the
documentation. Um so the less goals we have, the more specific we can be and focused on those things and it it it it makes for less work in the end for us evaluating and for the superintendent to put together. Um but I mean the goals can be related
to each other. They have to they do have to be in the different >> in the three realms. Yeah. But they can be related to each other. They can also be related potentially to other work that either you're doing as a district or the school committee is doing. Um and you'll see when we get a little later on to your point um because the last thing we want to have is the committee sort of
um only looking at the documentation at the end of the year. So, one of the things that's recommended is not only the question of the formative assessment, but that the reports that you're getting from the superintendent over the course of the year are tied back into the goals and you actually explicitly essentially express that as
part of the of the reports that are at your school committee meetings. >> And we only evaluate on the goals. So, it makes it if we don't have as a as a goal something, then we can't evaluate on that. So we do have to pick a wider
thing a wider scope uh instead of just one thing. >> I mean I I want to say this like the process set forth in the regulation is not this. This is something different. The way that the packet comes to us is there are
four areas. instructional leadership standards, the management operations standards, the family and community engagement standards, the professional culture standards, and we go through and they're like laid out based on the regulation,
and then we say like the superintendent will say like here's evidence that I've done these things that met these goals, >> whatever they are. But we're not limited to that. Like obviously if something happened where and it's not going to happen but like if the superintendent like came to work drunk and crashed the
building crash it's not like we can't be like oh wow we're going to have to it wasn't one of her goals to avoid coming to work drunk. So like we can do things outside this what this presentation is. I also want to say it might be more helpful if instead of having a presentation we have a dialogue. We've
said four times already that you're going to get there. Like I think that given the >> because you're actually we because we're actually building upon the things that we've already had. >> And you all are at different levels in terms of the experiences that you've had. >> Sure. >> So this is based on our experience of
people who aren't familiar with the evaluation system and making sure that we lead you there and that you've actually gotten the information that you need in the order in which you need it for it to build upon itself. I'm gonna I'm just gonna >> So, MC needs to be aware that we have certain
needs. I'm asking you to have a conversation with us. >> You're asking to have a conversation and what I've been asked to do is actually teach you how to do the evaluation, which is what I'm doing. >> I'm getting PowerPoint. And I think we can have a conversation after we get the
information. I >> I also asked that it be a half hour. >> Yep. And that's why I called you this morning that said that it was not actually possible to do roles and responsibilities and superintendent evaluation in that amount of time. >> Yep. >> I don't really like we need to have some
responsivity from MASC. This happened when we were doing this. >> So I called you back >> now. I understand you called me back. I we are the people that you are presenting the information to asking questions and you're saying I'm not going to answer that until later. like
you got to be able to mix it up a little and answer questions. >> I'm actually going to answer the questions in the order in which they are going to legally logically make sense. >> Answer the question in the order they're asked >> because we're actually going to be putting them into the context so that rather than jump ahead and talk to you
about what smart goals are, we're actually going to talk about what makes for a good goal, which is what we just did before we talk about a smart goal, which is actually how you'd write decide whether or not it's a good goal. >> I understand that you have the power, but we have a question. >> Yes. And you should ask them when we get to the part that has to do with it.
>> That's why we do that. And that's why I'm telling you. >> So have a discussion. >> No, that's why I'm telling you when things are going to be coming up so that you actually can reference the information as we get there. So one of the things that uh you want to make sure that you're
doing as you do part of this, remember we talked about the fact that you actually have a timeline in which you're doing this, right? So you're going to have an annual evaluation. um when is it that the particular things are going to be achieved is actually part of this present that um decision-making process that you want to
be making. Setting that potentially as even part of the goal. Um making sure that they're both realistic and also that they're rigorous and that is actually a balance in terms of making sure that they both um are something that is achievable but also is setting a
high standard isn't something that you're going to necessarily sort of fall backwards into. So again, as we said, you want to make sure that you're starting at the beginning, which then makes things easier as you go through things. Um, so the drafting of the goals, as you've
been already outlining, ends up making a making a great deal of difference as to then where you end up at the end, making sure that they're actually relevant, that they're based on local data, local priorities, um, other priorities that you've set. Um, you are allowed if you
wish um, and by this I by allowed here I mean in terms of an open meeting law perspective to use a subcommittee. Just realize that this this deliberation would have to happen in public session if you choose to actually appoint a subcommittee to work on drafting goals. Um, final approval of the goals is done by the full committee and is under your
purview. What you should be doing as part of the same thing. So you would you would create the goals and then look at the four standards and look at the indicators under those standards. Right? So if you're talking about instructional
leadership, there's a number of different categories under instructional leadership. If, as we talked about before, part of what we were talking about was what would be a good goal. You could ask, you could set a goal that had to do with third grade literacy levels. If you were doing that as part of, for example, the high dosage tutoring that
the department is actually not funding. If you were doing that potentially as part of the um the efforts around uh adopting different kinds of curricula, you might actually take one a which is the curriculum indicator and say we're going to do that one >> and that's a document we're going to get
that you that already has all these >> that already has all of the indicators under each of the four standards. Yes. >> And that's the what the desi has >> and that's the part that you're Yes. That's so that's the piece that you're required to do is to hit the four standards that are already existing. You can, you do not have to, I'm going to
say this more than once because it's actually a it's a newer development. You do not have to evaluate based on all of the indicators that are under each of the four standards. You have to know four, but then each of them has sub subsections. Pick each of the subsections that have to do with the
goals because then it's actually all tied together in terms of it becoming part of one evaluation. Liz, she ask Liz to drop into their folders because they don't the other three Tony and I have it the old the old rubric from the previous superintendent
um and how that works and the old schools >> just so you guys can see what it looks like. >> Yeah, I'd like to see what >> Yeah, it it was very helpful for me to see. >> Yeah, I just older one. >> And the other thing that's also ops have I ever had to do anything like that and honestly I hate process. Well, and one of the things that's actually pretty
important to keep in mind is that everybody else who does the evaluations under these standards does it as part of their full-time professional job. Only school committees are doing it as their >> that's why it's not out of this seems out of out of the ordinary for us. It's
probably not you. Um but it's still our administrators also go through this process with the same smart goals and the same setting and then the administrators do that right for the teachers and it and so we're we're not being asked to do anything. We're not asking our admins and teachers >> which is fine. I just want to do a good
job at it and I hate when I don't I don't like >> it's really amorphous at first. >> I was on this committee last year with Kate and two years ago with Kate and it was the worst experience of my life. The Desi people are not you. The people at Desi had all these like I and I'll tell you this Dr. Fortuna like they talk in a
language I don't understand and I've been pretty educated on some of this stuff. I have little kids like you know and you're like what is this? What is the actual core of what we're trying to do here? It was about family engagement and I was like oh you were on the I was >> Yeah. So like the core of what we're
talking about is the regulation 3504 and like I think like this presentation it's helpful but like what we should focus on when we're doing the evaluations is what the regulation said. What you probably want to do is not take
the regulation in um isolation because the the department is al has issued um governance documents around that which is what this >> the thing that we're doing is we're evaluating based on regulation right >> and the regulation says here are these four things here's how you find them
>> so >> so and Dr. fortunate will give us some examples of things that and then we will evaluate that. >> Absolutely. >> Part of it like part of the question is always like as a lay person, right? How am I >> and I'll come to you with some draft goals based on what I'm
>> getting out of my entry planning >> budget. >> Well, and that's and that's part of what will be great with having a new superintendent is she's already sort of having the conversations as part of our intake process of sort of where are we at, what do we need to do, where do we need to move next. So that's very useful. One of the things that you are
allowed to do um is as far as I know has never been done by any school committee, but you can certainly do is you can choose to um not evaluate the four standards equally if you want to. You can weigh them differently. If you're going to do that, you have to decide at the beginning and have the committee agree that that's how you're going to do
it. To also decide what the waiting actually is. Um and then this is the part and this is in bold for a reason. Um because this is what influences the rest of your year. How are you going to know to your point? How are you going to know that you actually got to the goal? What do you need to see? What actually
needs to be shown to you? What evidence is going to be brought forward for you to know that the goal has been achieved or not? Right? Um and again, that's not something that should only be happening at the end of the year. That's not something that you should be getting only access to when you're actually also
then getting, you know, here's the document. you should be seeing that over the course of the year as part of the work of the district because that's that is the work of the district. That's what's happening. Um, one of the things that's that we recommend, by the way, is it's helpful to potentially establish a
year-long agenda as part of that. Even if you're not deciding what you're going to talk about at every single school committee meeting at the beginning of the year, there obviously are things that happen on a regular basis as part of the cycle of the school that you know you're going to get. if those have to do
with the goals that you've set. You all know come October, we're going to talk about enrollment. Come this month, we're going to talk about this. Those are useful things as well in terms of check-in. They're useful generally, but they're certainly useful in terms of the evaluation. Um, making sure that you not
only agree on the goals, but you have an idea of how you're going to know that you got there. You've decided ahead of time which indicators under the standards you're going to use. Right? You hit all four standards, but you're not using all of the indicators. as we said, not too many. If you're going to
be weighing, um, make sure that you've agreed ahead of time as to what that looks like and make sure everybody understands the weighing. Um, discuss what the evidence is. So, how are you going to know that this this work has happened? Um, and the phrasing here is deliberate because to your point, the
part of the reason that the evaluation instrument and the implementation was tweaked a couple of years ago was that the superintendent is the only educator who is evaluated um not really on what you are seeing in her daytoday work because it's not like you're following
her around, right? So that question of how do you how are you going to be brought to understand the work that she is doing is actually a really important way of sort of framing the question potentially create a year-long agenda in terms of how you're going to be getting
progress over the course of the year rather than just at the end. You're not doing a document document. So here's your three areas, right? You need to have three at least three goals. One that's a district improvement goal, one that's a professional practice goal, one that's a student learning goal. You do have to have each of those. And then um
they should meet as all the things that we've already mentioned in terms of being smart goals. Um and you do need to be getting you're not only evaluating at the end of the year, but you should be getting an update on each of the goals at the summitive port as well, right? Which is usually kind of a mid-year point. Um that's another reason, by the
way, to have a year-long agenda because we often find committees getting kind of a little bit more than halfway through the year and realizing that they haven't done a summit of evaluation. So rather than scramble like start the year knowing where you're going to get. So here's the four standards, right? Instructional leadership, operations and
management, family and community engagement, professional culture. Um three of these are shared by every educator. The professional culture is something for the superintendent to establish. And as you've seen in the rubric, the four standards, those are the highest level. Um and then they're broken out
into indicators which are really subcategories under each of those. Right? So things like operations and management has everything from budget to um facilities to um you know adhering to law and regulation and so forth. And then the descriptors going across um are
how you actually establish what the levels are. So this is A1 right curriculum as we were mentioning which is this is what it looks like. Um the entirety of the rubric is available online. Um and it is really one where
when you're talking about the goals then having the list of the um indicators open in front of you to say okay well this then is supported by this indicator this indicator and that indicator that then also allows you to make sure that you're hitting all four standards that you're being thorough in how you're
evaluating the goal. And again that makes it a cohesive process rather than a we have to do these over here and we have to do these over here. you're when you're evaluating the goals, you're also evaluating the the standards by evaluating the um the indicators.
Um to keep in mind, by the way, um the the the high high degree of um achievement here is is considered proficiency. It is intentionally phrased that way. Exemplary literally is that you would put your superintendent forward as someone who could teach other
people across the state how to do this. Um so this isn't like this is very much not a grading system in terms of ABCD. Um it's very much not it's intend intentionally one that works um through language rather than through for example
numbers. Um I always get nervous when I see you know reports of the superintendent got a this in terms of an A or you know a four or that. It doesn't actually it's not actually um designed to work that way intentionally. So in terms of which parts you have to do and which parts do you not have to do um the
three goals right at least covering the three areas for sure regardless you have to rate on all four standards um and then you do have to take those three and those four and create an overall summitive rating. Um now >> goals are not attached to the four standard. >> So that's that's the one where you're
picking the indicators under each of the four standards that are actually supporting the goals. So, like we were talking about, if we took that third grade reading level as one of the goals, if you made that your student learning goal for the year, then you might take pieces under instructional leadership
that have to do with implementation of curriculum as the indicators that you're also evaluating. And then you do the same thing with your district improvement goal. If you were going to have one that was on budget, you might then take the indicator under management operations that has to do with budget
and you'd pick that one. So that way you're actually then taking both halves and you're evaluating the two things together. >> Can I just clarify? >> Yes. >> So you have to rate all four standards for each of the three goals. Correct. >> Nope. Think of them as sep think of
right. So you have to rate all four standards in together. Okay. >> You have to rate all three goals. >> You should be making sure that the way that you've set yourself up to evaluate to take those four standards has to do with the goals. So, so are you doing seven numbers or are you >> You're not doing So, you shouldn't be
doing numbers at all. Um, how many indicators you choose under the standards is up to you, right? So, you could choose you could choose three. That's what this was. >> Sorry, I jargon. Don't use the language
that >> No, because that way you're actually gonna be able to find it on the chart. Right. So, this is this is an indicator. It's in >> it's about 30. >> Yes. >> So this is the but think about it like this. We're going to evaluate
>> I'm sorry I have >> we're going to evaluate Dr. Porta on instructional leadership standards. >> Under that we're going to be looking at whether or not the curriculum was done well, instruction was done well, assessment was done well, evaluation, those kind of things. So like this is
the this is the genus and these are the species underneath. >> Okay. But what is the three goals, >> right? So that's for you to separate that's for you to establish that's for you to establish >> and it could be part of they could be things that we want her to accomplish in any one of those four domains.
>> And it can be things that's the kind of thing you might put like a a data point. >> Yeah. like how do you like how your goal was to develop a new curriculum then that would >> correct that would fall under this first one >> right >> so then if that was your goal >> right so if that was your goal then you
would say and we're going to make sure we're going to evaluate instructional leadership based on 1A curriculum and you know whatever other ones under instructional leadership you choose based on those three goals >> also the goals are not completely designed by us Dr. is going to
>> she's going to come forward with you. Yes. >> She feels like the district is going to work on them. We're going to approve those goals. So, >> and then we're going to >> and we're going to work on them together and then evaluate >> culture. How do you evaluate superintendent on having a good culture? >> So, like one of the things that we did
>> like judging >> like here's an example when we did the bus form. >> Yeah. >> We we had a measurable goal of getting 100%. And then we were able to evaluate her based on the percentage of bus one.
And then the the things that we did was we looked at how did she get those and then the results of those out, right? So she, you know, sent home parent communications. She put up the sign they borrowed from the cops. She like created like a a procedure to call people who
were >> traditionally not involved with the school. And that was the way that we were able to evaluate. She like said, "This is what my goal is. Here's what I plan to do." And then we went back and said, "Okay." She did A, B, and C. And she, you know, like I think, didn't we
get 100% one year? I thought we got either like all but 100% or like 99.98. That was one of our goals, but yeah, >> but like that was%. >> Yeah. So like that would be an example of how we would do >> and that could be we did. So we did barely community engagement and that was
also um one of the one of the goals that we had um two years ago >> because it reset or both yeah we did the evaluation two years ago >> um and it was family community engagement and then it was it informed
some of the area I don't have it in front of me but it was informed by some of the curricul >> they tie into each other it's a very >> uh That's why it's important that you don't have to do all the indicators anymore because that wasn't true in 2011.
>> Um, so you know community engagement night and then things and then okay this is great. We've improved community engagement and this is exemplary because we should be giving this example to
other people or you can say that's why it should be okay. Definitely because you have to be able to have documentation to support it. Kind of like an IEP for child. >> Yeah. You have to have a documentation to support that you are implementing the
next step. >> Yes. >> And you asked about professional culture. That's another one where sort of what are the what are the things the superintendent either did or enable to have happen within the school district. Right. >> Yeah. >> So if you survey the staff, remember
that it's actually all of your evidence has to come through the superintendent. So it's a superintendent you know that but it could be that you know there are people who are doing book studies or you've actually had brought in particular kinds of professional development or that you've um you know rearranged the schedule to allow for
learning communities or like those are kinds of things you could potentially be doing >> where say that the evidence has to come in through the >> um all evidence for every educator has to come in through the educator. It's part of the governance documents. >> Okay. awareness to the regulation.
>> I do not I'm not going to do the regulation by regulation, but I'm also going to tell you that you're not only bound to the regulation, you're also bound to the governance of the department. >> Where what are you when you say it must be done this way? Like you're you're giving evasive answer that I want to
>> No, I'm not giving evasive answers. I'm telling you that it's from the department. >> Give me the answer. Where does it say that? >> I'll I will look it up and I will email it back to you. >> Okay. So, in terms of the >> go where it says >> Yeah. I'm not going to actually stop the
presentation to actually go look this up. >> Yep. And so, I'll look it up and I'll get back to you on that. Yep. You ask me a question and I will look it up and get back to you, but I do not have that in on the tip of my finger and I will look it up and get back to you. Um, so as we
mentioned, not all indicators have to be used. Um and in fact the reason that we had a revision on process was to have everybody recommend including MASS that you not use all the indicators. You do have the evalu ability to weigh the
standards differently. Um the timing of the evaluation cycle is up to you and I'm going to come back to that because it's related it can be related to a number of different things particularly if you're going to talk about things like budget. Um you may want to think about that. Also things like town
elections can be useful um in considering that how you use the evaluation is up to you, right? If you have something in the superintendent's contract that has to do with evaluation cycles or if you choose to say we've had an evaluation that does X and so that is
up to you. Um and then the process for completing the evaluation and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Yep. Sorry. Absolutely. >> Can you go back? >> Yeah. >> How many indicators do you recommend? Um, so you want, generally speaking, you
want to have kind of more than one per goal. I mean, first of all, that's just math, right? Because you've got four standards to to make sure you cover. Um, but it also tends to allow for a more kind of full evaluation of the goal. And by that I mean you're not only thinking
of the implementation of curriculum in terms of for example if you're if that's what you're doing in terms of the instructional leadership but you might also be thinking of it in terms of the family and community engagement right like think a little bit cross standard in terms of the indicators that you use
so I mean if you're doing that you're probably doing at least six but you know that's that's also a really good conversation for the committee to have superintendent's probably going to be coming to you with these are the indicators I recommend for each goal, but for the committee then to say, you know, are you fully supporting the
goals? Do you feel like you've actually and also do you feel like you're fully um hitting the diff the four standards in the way that you're choosing to use the indicators? >> Let me ask you a question. Suppose that we're evaluating professional culture. >> Yep. >> And we have and I don't think this will
happen here. Suppose we have 15 grievances with the union and all 15 are sustained against us. We could not use that to evaluate professional culture. >> Not provided by the superintendent.
>> Um the superintendent actually is presumably bringing forward grievances to the school committee. That's part of the process. >> No, but what I'm saying is you could not take the ruling from the PLB against us. We would have to say, well, the superintendent said, here's what we
were doing, and I think we should have been found right, but we weren't. And that's it. We couldn't use for example, the PLRB's written order saying that the grievances were sustained as a mechanism to evaluate professional culture >> as the the point that you made earlier.
I I would expect that that would come up in the comments that you would be making on your evaluation. >> Okay. >> I think he's asking is >> if it's not provided in the self evaluation part and the documentation provided by the superintendent during the evaluation process,
>> can we take it into account because she did not provide it? It's just knowledge we have from outside of that self-contained evaluation self evaluation. >> I think here is where you would want to step
cautiously and this is one where depending on where you're going to go with it, getting district legal counsel involved is useful because these things can rebound. Um, if what you're talking about is something that was brought to you as
information that you as a school committee would naturally have anyway, um, it wouldn't at all, I think, be out of order for you to actually make that part of what you're talking about. Um, what we end up in trouble with is when we end up with school committees saying out, we're going to go out and collect
information and then bring that part back for the evaluation. that when starts to get shaky in terms of whether or not you're grounding yourselves based on the evaluation processes set up by the department. >> Let's go back to the game. They've written they've issued a written order.
It is legally binding on the school district, but it has not been provided. >> Are we barred from using? Yes or no? >> I wouldn't say so. >> We could use it as part of the professional roster even though it was not provided by the school. And I think
that you probably depending on what kind of imple um what kind of impact that potentially is going to have on your uh total evaluation, you may well want to have a conversation with legal counsel about it. But it
so but it would be inappropriate for us to do something like send out a survey to all the teachers about professional culture on our own, not with the superintendent that says they should do a good job. And then that would not be something not should be doing any but
that would not be something you would be able to consider an evaluation and mostly water not. >> Yes. >> So I think that's what you're saying. >> Yeah. >> I mean as you already sort of have fleshed out in a couple of the other
things you're talking about in terms of response rates surveys get shaky on those kinds of things too of who chooses to respond versus who doesn't and that kind of thing. So yeah, >> people who yes, >> such a good response rate and I swear if
I've ever seen them. >> Um, so so far what we've been talking about is each of you is going to complete this, right? But then the evaluation of the superintendent is actually composite evaluation. It's the committee that evaluates the superintendent, not individuals. Um so
it is the job of someone and this is one where you can appoint a subcommittee to do it. Um sometimes people appoint a com a compiler to do it. It can be the chair who does it. It's up to the committee to decide who it is that's going to do the compilation. Um again like we talked
about before with the goals of the subcommittee. If you choose to appoint a subcommittee and remember this is actually not a reason for executive session. So you'd have to do it in public session. Keep that in mind. Um so once you've collected all of the individual evaluations um they go to the
compiler um it's compiled by whoever the designate is and then that composite evaluation is what then goes to the full committee at a public meeting. You discuss it at a at a committee meeting. It is a document that is under your purview. So it is for you as a committee
to choose if you wish to accept it as presented to amend it to add things to it again through vote of the committee. It's not an individual decision. Um, and then that is the that composite that is agreed upon and voted at at the committee meeting is actually the evaluation of the superintendent. Um,
keep in mind that this does need to be a document where everyone's voice can be heard. That does mean both minority and majority votes. Um, it shouldn't just be a anyone sort of trying to convert this to numerous numbers that you can actually somehow average or turn into
digits. Um it's again entire intended to be um a a language-based evaluation and do talk about how comments will be handled. Um I know there are committees that you know do a lot of cut and paste. It's really better again in terms of
creating a composite document that you instead actually create comments that are the composite of the comments that are put forward by the committee. Um so things you can actually uh to to finish up and to give you sort of more things to look at right there's things that are on our website about
superintendent evaluation um there including among other things the PDF of the of the actual document and then the other thing that's um that the department has is not only the rubrics they also have the implementation guidance that actually came out in terms of how you actually go through this and
do this um what the requirements are and then a couple of years ago uh the when they did the sort of overhaul of the implementation um they worked with uh MASS with MASC um and they actually
jointly did it with the department which actually did some videos that are actually about the parts of the process and again making it a meaningful process that isn't just a we evaluated the superintendent because that's what we had to do but how are we using this to
improve the district to improve the superintendent as an educator um to actually improve communication about what we're doing in the district and so forth. So those are those are other um things that you can use and that's it. So what is the traditional timeline?
>> Fine. What is the traditional timeline like for this? Like when will we be getting these folds etc. So that's up to you for you to discuss with the superintendent because in part what she's presumably going to do is be creating the goals as a result of her intake process as a new superintendent.
Um school committees tend to like to operate on school years just because we all kind of get in that zone. The one sort of wrinkle that you run into um as a school committee is particularly for towns is that that also tends to run you
into town elections. So, something that is good to sus out ahead of time is also the if someone leaves the committee before you get there, if a new member comes on, who's actually doing the evaluation? Um, it is the sitting committee that evaluates the
superintendent. However, you evaluate the superintendent based on your experience of the superintendent as a committee member, which in, you know, depending on timelines can be pretty short. Um that is why we we ask you to think about the data you're using too because it depending like for a long
time people were trying to evaluate based on MCCAST data but if you're trying to evaluate the superintendent in like May or even July you're not going to have MCCAST data until October right so um that's why you know tying things to internal evaluations can be better if you're going to use anything like that
um but yeah the the there isn't there the the the thing that required to do is annual. When you do it is up to you. Um and you may since what you're doing with a new superintendent is giving her time and space to actually do some of the
intake presumably before she comes up with goals, you want to then actually sort of offset your calendar accordingly. And you're not tied to one eternal calendar forever either. >> So annual just mean the school year. >> Annual just means sometime during like from the Yeah. From during the year.
>> You did it in May right before the election. two years. That was two years ago. Um, which was strange because I had only been on for a year. So, >> and Dr. Frickman didn't take office until July. So, would it be July? July. >> We talked with her about it. And did you
have thoughts on that already or did you want to >> I was thinking >> Okay. Yeah. And then we can do June this year and then um see what happens. >> Yeah. Yeah, I got
>> Yeah, because our so town elections are the first uh second week or third week in May >> usually. Um and that's that's when terms start. So that might be something to consider. Instead of June, we might want to do
May. Uh so you're being evaluated by people who've been reading or maybe not. Um yeah, cuz it's a strange you can only consider things that you'll have to get. >> We're going to get your ear.
>> You have to run again. >> My year too. Yeah, my year too. Yeah. So if we >> weren't back in June, you'll be back. And >> no, just something that sometimes towns choose to do and this is again your
choice is if you have a member who is leaving and the evaluation is going to happen um sort of after they've left you can actually choose to if the committee wants to the leaving member can complete a rubric and essentially submit it to the committee >> to be incorporated um and then again
it's the sitting committee that does the evaluation. So again, your choice. >> I think we I mean maybe we could put on a agenda as a future action item. Yeah. >> But given that you were the only it would be really silly for us if you didn't get reelected to not listen to
your July. I would >> But you got to run. >> I would strongly be in favor of taking the members that they >> Yes. Agreed. >> Um and we also have to >> negotiate that with this collaborative process with her because this is her
evaluation. Got to be strange. >> I don't want to like >> it's not normal for us like it seemed to. >> Yes. >> Um is this expected to change at all? Because I know these things change.
>> Nope. >> Okay. >> I would I would be surprised you to promise not. >> No. the the the overdraft of the educator evaluation system in 2011 came through as part of race to the top um which as you might know is was a national effort was Massachusetts
responding to that um and the evaluation system was actually sort of like a subcategory of what was under Race to the Top. Um it was a pretty big lift by both the legislature and the department. So I would be surprised. >> I also don't think we're going to have any federal changes given that they're
going to disband starting legislation. Right. >> This the documents are from 2009. >> Yep. >> The um that I was just on the website. >> Wanted to know if there's something we need to sometimes things change in. >> So that wasn't that long. >> Prepared. >> Desi land. >> Yeah. In terms of uh you know storm
clouds on the horizon or things that are over the Yeah. That that wouldn't make my list >> of of things I you know keeping an eye on. >> Okay. >> We're more likely to be defunded than >> Exactly. Oh. >> Oh yeah. No.
>> Um, okay. Yeah. So, I think we should probably have a discussion very soon at like a subsequent meeting >> and put into place. Uh, so >> intermediate plan, >> well, how we're how we're going to approach this in a calendar.
Uh, so traditionally, well, not traditionally, the time I did it, Dr. Bernham met individually or with groups of two school committee members to discuss school settings and and where we are and kind of go over things. I don't know if you wanted to do it in meeting or if you wanted to do smaller
groups. Um, but that's that's kind of up to you because you're the one who comes to us with it. >> Um, uh, so yeah, we can look to you for how you'd like to shape that if I think if it
>> I mean the way that they did it the last three times that I did it was I did one like I took over for somebody who designed. Oh yeah. So like I did one like the first two months I was here. It made no sense. Uh so she just met with
each of like I called her. >> She's like here's what I was thinking about my goals. I was like okay. >> So it wasn't like conflict >> and I don't think we did it this year. >> No. >> Cuz she didn't have >> because she was leaving. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So this year >> very common that didn't happen
>> and there was a lot of other things to focus on. Uh Mhm. But yeah, you we'll let you drive on that and you can let us know you want to meet or if you wanted to have a discussion in a meeting about it.
>> What is it? >> Thank you. >> Can I ask Tracy a question that's not related to this? Um I um am very interested in legislative advocacy. Y um I used to work in the state legislature for a while. So, um I wanted to know how
I can get involved at M um MASC with legislative advocacy. Um I was lobbyist for a while and I really that's the reason I'm on this committee is because I want us to get more money. So, um >> whether you have meetings, whether you have a, you know, call-in, I I've been very I've been trying to be involved
with the MTA. They have a very big um I'm not a teacher, but they're just letting anyone get involved if they want help. So, we went and testified, a whole group of us. Um, and I think we have a decent relationship with our legislators. So, I guess partially I'm pitching to you. Please use us. And
also, um, busing is terrible and there needs to be some solution on the busing. I have some ideas. Um, but I think the busing company should be regulated like the uh, special ed schools are. I think it should be a >> we submitted testimony. we had submitted some different testimony and stuff, but
um please >> so there's a leg there is a leg MC does have a legislative committee made up by members across it. So if you go on to the website and look under >> um there and there's directions on how you actually would put submit your name for that. Okay. >> And my understanding is that tends to be pretty like open in terms of if you want
to be on it, please go be part of it. >> Yeah. If you want to be on it. >> Yep. And I mean the other thing is that the the current president of the association actually was the chair of the legislative committee and before he became president. So Jason's pretty pretty on top of that kind of thing to
him. >> Yeah. Yeah. Or you can I mean you can also send him an email directly off the website. Yeah. Okay. >> Yep. About us then has the the board members and Okay. He'll be on the top of the list somewhere there. >> Okay. >> Good. I'm glad. By the way, that's great.
Oh, Brandon Robbins is on the committee. I know him. There you go. From Lemonster. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, I think that's Does anyone any more questions about >> We're back to roles and responsibilities?
Okay. Do you know when you guys are opening up more charting the course options? There's only two calendar. >> I actually saw there's two on the calendar. >> There's two on the calendar, but they're >> like September, right? All right, the September, October ones are on the calendar. Um, we will talk as we get closer about whether or not we do a
December one, um, which largely is going to be targeted at people who got elected in November for the cities and are starting in January. And then there's always a January one. Yeah. So, we tend to we tend to schedule by calendar year. Um, we I think we'll probably have we'll probably have our conversation in
September about when we're scheduling for the next year. >> Yeah, Saturdays in the summer are tough. I can't believe you. Staff, too. I mean, because that wasn't scheduled. I looked at them. There was three Saturdays in the summer. >> No. Yeah. Charting the course is always on Saturday because our assumption is that school committee members work full-time.
>> No, no, I know. But the summer Saturdays are just hard. I'm saying I'm just curious if you have a lot of turnout because I was like not >> No, the big the the right. So the the um the the bunch of them that happened April, May, June is because most of the
towns have their elections there. >> See, we don't get elected till the end of May. So we >> So you just had the two in May and then I only had June and July. >> You had the two in June. >> Yeah, it just June was recital and July was some ahead of plans. So yes, we do have we've got the September October
which I know are in different parts of the state but um >> one's in Franklin. That's actually not >> Yeah, Tri County >> better than >> and Smith folks a nice ride and they it's also a vocational agricultural school. So if you like animals it's a nice perk.
>> Okay. Yep. increment let you know. >> Right. Exactly. Yeah. >> Good. >> Well, thank you. >> Thank you for your time. >> Excellent. >> Tony, you want to adjourn us or you want me to do? >> Yeah. Make a motion. >> Uh motion to adjourn at whatever time is
5:41. >> All right. All in favor? Let's go. >> All right. Thank you. When is our next