you up. Yes. Okay. So, Chris Rule, you should be able to hear me on my laptop while we're getting the mic going. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate that. Thanks for letting us know. Just give us one second here.
Okay. Um, moving on to commendations. Does anyone have any commendations? Okay. Um, moving on to public Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Um, I just want to make a commendation to um our custodial and maintenance staff. Again,
the outside of the buildings, I don't know if people have noticed, have been cleaned up in the last week or so. Um, and for the spring, it looks quite nice. Um, and they did they did a good job. When you approach the buildings, it's it's a welcome
um, you know, update. So, I just wanted to thank for that. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Uh let's move on to public comment. We have a signup sheet up front. If anyone would like to come up and speak, uh please do. If you don't mind giving your name and
address, come on up. Welcome. And per our um policy, we ask that you keep it to three minutes. And we normally try to keep this to a total of 15 minutes. Yeah, we're still hooking it up and I um
I keep looking to connect him, but the MHTV mics are live, so it will be part of that recording. It's Miss Clark, right? I just want to make sure. Right, Miss Clark? That's okay. Thank you. Not everyone telling your child make no
decision but then saying don't telling you That is not trust. That's control. But not too responsibility for you. Don't blame the lawyer.
You mentioned that you don't want political flags or fix or things that might have seen people out trying to gain public. Those may be controversial in
your note. Our current national administration totally politicized the American flag during you no other flag in our schools. You are politicizing our school supporting that natural administration
and supporting conservation policy. Not everyone needs to see themselves in every committed naturally in the name of our American flag for what it stands. Many students feel American flag. For other students, the prison of
war flag might be a painful reminder of a loved one. That for others, it may mean hope that they could return. The student that plays sports is going to see themselves in sports, but the students
were some students don't see themselves for black lives, but many students. We can't expect every student to see themselves in every black but we can expect every student to understand that someone else and that's
what I find with an educational opportunity even if understand that truly all are welcome here stand up from others and not the flags and two of them.
Thank you, ML clerk. Um, Chris Brule online did have his hand up earlier. Chris, I don't see your hand, but I did promote you to speak. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if it automatically lowered. I appreciate it. Um, I was not
here at the Oh, it's the s your sound's off and the bar is not on yet. Oh, right. Hang on one second, Chris. We're not hearing you. So, okay. If I are we You know what, Chris, if you don't mind because we're having a little trouble with the audio here, so we can't hear you. If you don't mind, if
you wouldn't mind waiting. I think we've got a one or two other people here. I'll let them go. Sure. Then we'll come back to you. I apologize. I just wanted No, that's fine. Thanks. They can't right now. No problem. Um Oh, let me grab Oh, thanks.
Um, Jen, if I may, can I just ask how long it will be till the bar is up and running? Sure. Frank, no, I'm not pressuring or rushing, but do you know how long it will be till you have the power up and running? Is it still a tech issue? Okay. Okay. Because I just want if it's
only three minutes, do you mind if we pause until we have audio? No. Okay. Well, so folks online can hear these folks, I believe, right? Yes. It's that we can't hear in the room the folks that are online. That's why I asked
Chris here. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So, I have uh Margaret. We had Margaret. Um uh Angus. Hi, welcome. I think what this committee's experience good lesson in what happens
when you try to take on the authority on yourself engage in thought to others society two things invariably happen one is that you amplify the voices of the people you're attempting to censor so that their message becomes even louder
the other is you discover that censorship is very complicated and I think the increasing complexity of the policy I've seen the latest graph which is increasingly complex each time it's reddrafted reflects that fact. It's complicated to try to censor free
expression by particularly when you hit the point where you're now at where you're saying but we don't mean this and we don't mean that. We're going to accept this and we're going to accept that. So I think that the voters will have their say in about five weeks as to whether this committee's role should be to engage in censorship or free
speech marble head. We'll see what the voters have to say about that. It continues to be my view that we don't need a policy. We never did. We didn't need a policy 18 months ago. We don't need a policy now. There is no law requiring us to have one. Uh and it is
creating a lot more complication than is needed. It has created more friction than is needed and it's going to create more risk to our school district. Um and all of that is unnecessary. But to the extent you intend to move forward with the policy, which I hope you will not,
there are important things to point out about how why the draft of a political night is fundamentally wrong and needs to be fixed if you're going to move forward. First off, why only these heritage months? You've designated six
heritage months. What about Greek American Heritage Month in the month of March? What about Jewish American Heritage Month in the month of May? What about ArabAmerican Heritage Month in the month of April? Are we going to have a policy for our school district that
elevates certain ethnicities over others? And do you think for a second that that is going to stand up to constitutional scrutiny? Why are we not recognizing second issue federal holiday? We're going to recognize heritage months. What
about Junth? Junth is a federal holiday in the United States of America that recognized the end of slavery and there is a flag associated with it. Why does this policy not recognize federal holidays? This policy speaks to
exempting things that students may want to bring to schools. I certainly want to see students maintain the right free expression. You know who else has a right to free expression? Teachers and staff. This policy doesn't say a word about the right of teachers and staff to
bring things to school that express their view, express their point of view. They have rights, too. Lastly, who decides? Who decides what flags and banners are affiliated with a political
activist organization? What does that mean? How is that to be defined? What constitutes such affiliation? spend three minutes. Mr. McLens of which is the reason why the founders
of this nation determine it is not the role of government officials to sense the speech of citizens in a free society. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Um,
Okay. Yes. Okay. Great. I'm going to go back to Chris Ru because I he very kindly. Thank you. Hi Chris. Welcome. Good. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, as I started to say, um, I was not able to make the last meeting, but I want to
refer back to, uh, comments that were made a couple meetings ago, uh, by a community member who talked about, um, how she was offended, uh, based upon some of the comments that were made, uh, by a committee member related to
religious traditional family values. Um, my wife and I are both cisgendered, heterosexual, we're married. Uh we both were offended by that statement as well. And I want to make it clear that I've had conversations with other folks in
the community who are also cisgendered heterosexual offended by that statement specifically. It's not just queer folks who are affected by this flag policy. It's not just queer families who are affected by your interpretation of
traditional reli or religious traditional family values. According to my religion and according to trai traditions in my family, our values are that we accept people for who they are. Our values and our traditions in our
family teach us that we shouldn't disagree with people because of who they are and try to force them to be others, but instead we should vigorously support them and welcome them for who they are. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna flip-flop back and forth. So, Cindy, I see your hands up. I'm going to go to the next one here and then I'll come back to you. Um, oh, it's still not clear. Renee,
welcome. Oh, it's still not clear. All right. So, they're not hearing us. Well, Frank, let's go. One second. Renee, sorry. Who needs to mute? Sorry. Oh, there you are. Okay. So, we should be broadcast and the answer will be heard. Okay. Thank you.
Thanks. Sorry for that. Welcome. No, no problem. They need textbooks. Guys, good evening. Thank you. Do you mind speaking up just a little? There's a fan over here, so I'm sorry. No, no.
Um, thank you. Good evening. Um, and uh I I did uh want to ask a point of clarification when you get to it. Um about the flag policy. I was wondering uh what the definition of viewpoint uh
neutral position is, how you would clarify that. Um for example, uh when Mr. uh Oda expressed concern that some individuals might be morally offended by a pride flag because it didn't represent their family
values. Is that judgment considered a neutral viewpoint? Does viewpoint neutral mean making a decision that no one can take offense at? And is that possible
today? If the Black Lives Matter banner were to instead add or say Black Lives Matter as white lives, would that make it an affirmative statement? though it's no longer seen as a political
organization which some found offensive. Black students, however, might find that offensive or laughable because it's a white school with no clue twisting itself so as to sanitize their ambivalent welcome to black
students. That could be the way it is seen. Now that you have taken on for yourselves in this policy to be the sole arbittors of approved thought and we we
may have moved closer to group think in sort of an anti- education environment. I believe you politicize the school committee. Every voter now needs to make sure they
understand the political bias of every candidate to the school committee to ensure that they can be neutral in their viewpoint. We have to ask how will each candidate interpret the mission, vision and values of the
schools. Before this, I don't think we really thought about it because we trusted you to hire, evaluate, and fire staff, faculty, and
superintendent, and they determined what was appropriate. No one gave it another thought. But going forward, I think we have to really delve into what we're signing up to with school committee candidates because the
superintendent, they're train and faculty and and principles that they're to train professionals that you hired. You trust their judgment and we trusted you to make those judgments. So I I think this is a
dangerous road we're going down. Lastly, I think I would really like to see us make it part of our mission, vision, values that students come out of their learning, critical thinking, you know, being able to appreciate and understand,
you know, various uh diverse uh viewpoints and uh and graduate, you know, um to live in the in the very diverse world that we're living in. But thank you. Just point of clarification. I think um we only hire
fire and evaluate the superintendent. Not our policy is the same as the select board. So I guess that would be us too. I just meant by chain of commission. We have nothing to do with anything else. But
I have hand raised and it's 620. Want me to go? What is the committee as you move forward? Yeah. How many people are there? I have one hand raised. Are there more? Oh, that was the last then I have two more people.
Yeah, three nine minutes. Oops. Oh, sorry. My Yeah. Keep letting me speak. Three people. Go ahead. Right. So, anybody signed up at this point? I think. Yeah. Honor. Okay. Great. Um, Cindy Tower
should be able to She was having trouble hearing. So, oh, can So, can you hear me now? Can you hear you, Cindy? Can you hear us? I can. So, I was So, in terms of anybody that's speaking that's there outside of the school committee is where
the issue is in terms of the hearing. So, I don't know. Um, it's muffled. It's not clear. So, I don't know if anything can be done going forward. That'd be great. Anyway, um Cindy Tower Loen, I am
12 Trinity Road. I am a longtime resident, um an active person and many of you know who I am. Um, so I'm not always at the meetings or
I don't always speak at the meetings like I had in the past, but um I have some concerns regarding the policy as I read it um in terms of the most recent one and I know that you
can't answer or you choose not to answer some of the questions but I do want this committee to think about these things. Okay. Um during your process of um this policy work, did anybody on the um subcommittee
or the other members of the school committee reach out and have a conversation with the MECO headquarters CEO um as well as the Boston students and their families in terms of asking them
about the policy um and in particular How would they feel if the Black Lives Matter banner was permanently removed from the high school cafeteria wall? I think that is something that specifically needed to um be
um checked into because this impacts the families and students from Boston. And I don't know if you ever even reached out to Millie The next part
is um and it ties into Mechco in terms of a district. Did you investigate the policies of the flags with the other Mechco districts? There are 33 districts and um Marbleheads won. So did was there
a reach out at all for any of those districts um including school committee members, administration, host families, anyone MECO directors, etc. from the other districts? And if so, what kind of
policies um are did they have? And how does that um how is that reflective to the current policy that um you guys ha have on um the agenda tonight?
The other thing is the other thing is I wanted to um one of the things here is you want to promote a welcoming environment for students. Um permanently removing a Black Lives
Matter banner because I think that's the just of some of this policy here without actually coming out and saying it. um is that really welcoming to these students and we have over 50 students
um from Boston and you know their viewpoint matters and how they feel and whether or not they will feel welcomed if this is permanently removed. The other thing that's just so you know pardon how much it's been three minutes.
Okay. All right. Um the other thing is the legal status okay in terms of the uh flags that are allowed. Okay. So legal status today in this country can be changed tomorrow and that's scary in
itself. Okay. And so I'd like to know what legal status, how you define legal status here because to me um there's a lot of things going on in this country and it's actually scary
just like the American flag. Some of some people find the American flag today as an unwelcoming environment. And so where do we go from here? I mean, I actually think that you um it would behoove the school committee
to do more homework on this, have those conversations with the MECO districts, with the um current CEO, and further investigate um how those towns are versus relying on
other towns that have nothing to do with the MECO um piece. And I could say a lot more, but um I know my time limit is up, so I will um thank you for your time and I appreciate it.
Um thank you. I have um Mary Garrison, welcome. First of all, I'd like to give kudos to Mrs. Bella and Mr. Hela's team. They did an amazing job and the kids were just right on point on their passion
projects. I'd like to thank John and Julia for coming because wasn't it amazing what these kids did was truly amazing. I want to thank Al and Allison for the puppy time down on the Muppet.
One good thing I didn't get gathered. So I got to, you know, talk with somebody else, you know, for two hours without getting it gled. Um, you still didn't get really the answers you wanted to know. So I'm going to bring these up and I know I can't
give you the answers, but I'd like to know what is your stance about the policy of um, books and Allison said that you guys were looking it over. Now, from what I made, literally not what I
said. Please do not what you said that they What I said was what I said was, Mary, and I'm sorry, guys. I'm not allowing this. What I said was we absolutely have no purview in banning books. That that is monitored by our policy, which is already in place, which
was put into place when Tom Mats and Sarah Gold were the policy committee. My first year on this committee, we all agreed, well, not all because not everybody's here. Sarah and I were on the committee and we agreed to the 6 to seven page procedure to to for a parent,
not for us, but for a parent to be able to ask for a resource to be reviewed. We all agreed on that at that committee. It's literally what I said. And then what I shared also what I shared also was that part of what our goals are are
to review the policies. This year when we set our goals as school committee were to review our policies and make sure that they matched with MASC. The MASC policy for resource review is a paragraph long. It provides no detail really no anything on how to do how to
manage any of that. And we had created that policy. And what Jen and I agreed to in our policy meeting that happened the day before we had coffee was to keep ours to not update it to the MASC policy which is just a simple paragraph but to
maintain our 6 to7 page procedure if a parent wants to have a resource reviewed. There is no purview of anyone sitting at this committee to be able to remove a book ever unless they're a parent that detail because absolutely Al you were there. Did I go into that
detail? Going into that detail. Okay. Elsa, let's just go into that detail. You said you were there as well. All right. So, I called Boston. You know, you had said that it was just a small um few
sentences from um compared to what is in place in Marble Head. My question is, are you going to change that at all? Because No, we're not. And I shared that with you yesterday. No, you didn't. You did not could you please chime in here? Al, she was saying that you're going to
end up over looking it over and that was it. Then I also brought up recess asking where you going to get that time? Are you going to be taking it out of the wind block? And we didn't we didn't get an answer. You didn't ask that question. And never did was recess being removed
from the wind block. I asked where are you going to get the time? Is the time going to come from the wind block? Miss McGarrison, I'm gonna ask that we stop this as a dialogue until you can make your statement. We I stop I'm stopping in every time Alison talks. So you're about a minute almost a minute and a
half into this. Um if you could finish and then I think this is probably something we could have discussion offline so that you can get your question. All right. So I want to know is there going to be any changes to the policy and from what I heard my phone calls I made it's very comprehensive and
that at um and I believe that has been used as an example in some other communities. Another thing with the recess because that's what you ran on and where is that extra time going to come from because we did discuss um the
wind law in detail because I feel as though it helps the older kids. Then we also discussed it briefly about the um grading system. So I call you know like the report cards and that kind of stuff. So I call some communities today and
they have changed it. So like from first grade to third grade it's kind of like what we have that goes up to the six sixth grade. They go back to ABCD F in the fifth and sixth grade. No fourth,
fifth and sixth. And any parent that I've spoke to, they don't like the the grading system. Why don't we look at maybe putting it back to ABD, ABC abc or whatever. And those were, you know, because you already know my stance on
the flag. Okay? It's not going to change. And you know what? You know that this is going to go in court. You end up taking the flags down. You have glad you have the NAACP. you know that will get right on.
So again, I want to thank the teachers because they do amazing job and it was really nice to see somebody and you know what, maybe somebody from the school committee could maybe show up at some of these um projects that they put out um
the kids put out. Thank I think we'd love to if we were invited. That would be great. Thank you. You have one second. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Um we have one other name. I think it was Jeanie. Genie. Yeah. Genie. Welcome.
Welcome. Should I talk to I decided to come after that. Um I'll prelo what I'm going to say and mention that I discovered that National Civility Month is in August. Thank you. think we should make a town commitment so we all get there. Um, so my name is Jeannie
Lampin um from uh Deon Street and I wanted to hit on a couple of different topics and I will try to get quickly into it um because the three minutes I respect where this needs to go. One, when I um I had a chance to see the
latest iteration of the policy and maybe I'm just a writing nerd. What struck me as really odd when I first read it is that it sort of like reads like things get on get a fixed to the walls magically and that the school committee
is going to determine that flags a fix reflects our values and so just as a nerd writer if you're going to have a policy like action words and own it and say the school committee approves what goes on the walls I know we're very concerned that we didn't understand what
a fix meant and we'll all get there but it sort of in past tense and passive voice and it sounded like we'll just come in and look and I later on some things get more interesting but um I would just ask after all this time like
be out loud crowd with whatever it is that you are saying so that we don't skirmish around with like how to get up there and like do we do we like it up there so minor but important um people have talked about the positive affirmation um is welcome versus the um
act political activism etc. And I wanted to just call attention to um a couple of weeks ago, I think it was Mary McCarristen, and I apologize if it was, gave a gift of a welcome mat, which I think was warmly received and um has
been displayed. And in fact, I stepped over it because Renee cheekily said, "You shouldn't really dirty that up because it's lovely. It has nice symbols on it." But if you look closely at those symbols, they are all politically active, motivated. There's a symbol that
really reflects and I support this, don't get this wrong, this there are shades of brown which if you look in other imagery that imagery is used to speak about the the skin tone of black and brown people and how much that matters. There's a trans heart there's a
pride heart there. There's an earth heart there that I fairly well would interpret as being in favor of mother earth and taking care of it. And there's an American flag there. So I offer that as an exhibit into what are we doing
with that? If in our in our deeds we accepted it and we saw that as affirmative and it was spoken of at the last meeting by some of you all in a very welcome warm way. And if I take rapidly as being some form of universal adherent it is a fix to the building
because it's laying out there on the floor. So if you cast your eyes on that is it in or is it out? Are those things in the activist political realm or are they affirmative and it can say and if a trans flag and a heart on the floor can
say can we put one on the wall without a lot of chaos. So I'm concerned about that. Um it was already mentioned that in this write up there is thoughtful and caring view of all the ways students want to wear their things where the
teachers where are the staff who gets to say things and in shortage of time I'm going to tell you two things and I will leave this as a gift for you. Um, I couldn't even get through everything, but when I saw there were six days, me old internet served up 40 other months
that we could equally value and some of them are just very anodine. There is uh autism month and mental health month and bullying prevention month and national disability month and developmental disabilities awareness. So, I am going to share this with you and not read it
because wow, they all matter. And I cannot sit here as the daughter of Irish immigrants married to a Greek American and say March has a lot going on because it's Irish American Heritage Month and Greek American Heritage Month. And I have both of those flags and I hang them
out my house and my commercial for myself. The last two things that I saw that the Marblehead Housing Authority passed a flag policy last year and I thought that might be something and I know Jen, you're close to that in it and I you should reread it yourself. You
drew a big bright line between the flag poles we're saying it's this and then you said everything else inside the building is on you and we're just going to tell you the maximum size of what you can stick in the window. Can you not see this building as a place of tenency and
say you do you and your building, we'll talk about the flag holes because the flag poles are an obvious thing and that was that Supreme Court did anyway. And then because it's flag holes and I actually saw this last time we were here, I don't mean this to be petty. It's going to sound petty no matter
what. But after all this time, that core flag, which has been sort of the subject of everything and ignored brutally, if you look up the flag code, which is an etiquette code, it's not a legal code. Item K says, "Do not hang your flags
when they are in disarray and they are shambles." That flag is shambol. Yes, it is. And please, if we're going to do this, can we agree that flag should for all irony is dead here tonight. For all we have talked for two
years, the only saving grace is the trees have come out to hug that poor thing because you can't see this. My pet peeve for a long time. So I had asked and I saw it is a tradition in this country that people use flag day as a day to retire flags that needs to be
sent to the beyond. You can bring them to the DFW. You can bring them to the veterans. Could you make a motion tonight to it a positive? I am sure there will be no one here to argue that flag should get replaced. Thank you. Thank you, Genie. And I will take it
because that has been give you one of these. And that list, Genie, it came from I was all over the internet with all these things. Originally, we had said federally recognized and then we decided we wanted to take off the fally. I was here. I heard it all. Okay. No, I'm just saying that's
weird. And then there's and other people mentioned I also gave you all the holidays and I gave you the legal ones and I gave you all the other I would be happy to I'll leave that here as well. Okay, great. We're going to move on to our student representative.
Um, no, because we it was the committee I promise. Y Well, no, actually it's the committee. goals. We We had said we were going to cut it yet. The people that work. It's really unfortunate that parents 30 seconds. She
works. I work too. I get how hard it is. Well, go ahead. I promise I'll be 30 seconds. Great. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. I'm Melissa. Um I Oh, sorry. Ferris and I'm here tonight um on behalf
of all of the um collective PCO presidents um with permission from all the PCO presidents. PCO presidents would like to acknowledge the passing of a former PCO president who was a president of the Glover School. Miraki suddenly passed away
unexpectedly. Mera spent countless hours as president, sle president of the Glover School at the time. She was responsible for bringing lots of um enrichment to the Glover School and enriching the Glover School community. I
know she was valued by the staff and the students at the time and we just felt it was really important that we acknowledge her. Thank you very much. I'll follow up with you afterwards. Thank you. We'll have a moment of silence for our everybody.
We'll have a moment of silence for Thank you. Um appreciate that. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Um soon welcome. Thank you. Um hi everybody. Hey, I just have a few updates about the Marblin High School
tonight. So, Marblin High School held a chalk style cooking competition on April 11th led by the culinary teacher M. Delaney. 15 teams competed to make dishes with mystery ingredients in 30 minutes and explain their choices to a panel of judges. An article about the competition can be found in the current
fall cheerleading triyouts will be June 9th, 11th, and 12th from 5 to 7:30. Senior college signing day will be Thursday, May 29th. So, be sure to show up to show support to our student athletes who are committed to college. You can find the spring sports game
schedules on the athletic website. The Marble High School AC capella groups, the Jewel Tones, Luminescence, and the Grizzlies are having their spring concert, AA Palooa, next Friday, May 9th, at the Marble Veterans Middle School Pack at 7 p.m. Junior Prom is coming up. It will be held Friday, May
16th. Senior lawn signs are available. Parents can order them through the Google form in the weekly update sent out by Dr. Carlson. And AP exams are coming up. Good luck to everyone taking them starting next week. Thank you. Question for you. You may or may not have the answer to this Melissa here.
She may be the one that answer. Um for the student lawn signs um when when parent is there a fee to that? And if there is a fee to that, if someone for whatever reason can't cover that, is do we make I guess my question is do we make sure that those are available to?
They they're $25 per um signed. If families cannot afford them, have them made. I just want to make sure that we're being inclusive and that everybody No, any senior wants them, we'll definitely take care. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry.
Thank you. Um all set. Okay. I'm going to move on to district updates for um from Superintendent John Robish. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Um so I'll be quick tonight. We have a lot of stuff on the agenda. So, uh, today is National School Principal's Day and I want I don't have a banner for that. Oh, well,
I'm just going to mention and I want to I want to take a moment to thank and recognize each of our principles. They work hard and tirelessly to make sure our staff and students are supported and educated within safe and inclusive learning environments. Our team works well together and I feel so lucky to be
superintendent in a district with such a great group of administrators. Get them all mushy. Well, it's 16 hours and I get a little thank you all. I just want to thank you. We had a great team here. Um we had two international trips recently. One to Ireland, one to that went really
well. Um I love these types of experiential learning um opportunities. They can um when they can transpire and I was glad to hear that um everything went overall in positive way. Um, as I mentioned at last meeting, Earth Day was April 22nd among other districtwide activities. Um, I wanted to point out
the Glover and Brown students did mulching, mulching and planting for Earth Day, which is a great hands-on learning for our students while teaching the importance of taking care of our natural resources. Um, which is really good stuff. So, I just want to share that. Julia and I went to village Thursday, as Nap had mentioned, to view
uh grade six uh students passion book project gallery and Mr. Helen, Mr. B, Miss Bali's classes. Uh we're very impressed with the level of knowledge from the students um regarding the books that they read and especially with their projects. They had to create projects that um like represented parts of the books or themes or characters and there
was some really cool um projects that were just really impressive. Um so I just want to say thank you to the teachers and thank you to the students for their hard work. It was really a highlight of my week. Um, I can definitely say today events our town moderator Jack Patridge moderated a mock
town meeting which is great. We not going to get enough of that next week. We figured we'd get a little view. Um, our students debated one of the actual articles on the war. It was really neat um to see that the students did a fantastic job sharing did they uh the one sustainability sustainability 34
I've heard the argument for the last four days. Yeah. So, so yeah, it was kind of cool as a sustainability one. Um, I anyway, uh, they did a great job sharing their views, both pros and cons. Uh, they finished up by voting on their article. So, I think, um, I'd be very
happy if the students voted because they voted to keep it. Yeah, it was great. It was it was awesome. Um, it's a great display of how town government works. Um, Julia worked to get this in place last year. It's a great way for the town to collaborate with the schools and provide experiential learning um, um,
for for our staff, students. Um so thank you Mr. Atridge and our teachers Noah um Pascow and Bill Schaw who brought learning to life today. It was really really cool to see. Culture feast will be held on May 30th beginning at 5:00 here at the high school. Celebration is one that embraces the different cultures
represented by our students and it is way a great way for students and our educational community to come together. I can send the fly out. Um stay tuned to the news newsletters and correspondents from the principles as we have a very busy spring ahead. activities and events probably
fast and furious. I won't um share all that Ella so eloquently shared so we don't have to be repetitive but that's all. Okay, thank you. All right. Um moving on to schedule of bills. Um I am looking for a motion to approve the
schedule of bills for $595,88.79. So moved by second by Allison. Any questions, discussion? Okay, I'll do a vote by L. Williams in favor. Right on. Over 16 hours of spoken the stuff this
weekend I this week I couldn't I couldn't get to it in a meaningful way. So between myself and Caitlyn we will um start working for the assuming for the next meeting to get a batch of them out and get them on. Another option we could do if it's the will of the committee is
if they're we can get them drafted. I can post draft minutes um at least to get them out there and then we would approve them. I don't have a problem with a watermark drafted version going as long as it's watermark draft. I think that spirit of giving people information quicker than fine. Okay. Um Alice,
secretary, can you Oh, get some of the minutes done as well. Sure. That's we I can just I'm working with Kaitlin. My responsib But but if there is a way I can help in this Yeah. No, I'm just going to between and I we're going to
just get them banged out. But if that's okay, then at least I can get them posted as draft. doesn't mean you there may be tweaks if we'll approve it at a future meeting but still get in there. Right. John, before I forget, just attached your district update about the M town
meeting. Um you if you may want to coordinate with Rob Misho, our um town clerk, my understanding is that seventh grade class that did the mock trial is being encouraged to attend. I neglect to
say that that's what happened. want to add some seats on this because they have a sitting stage. So, I just don't want to there would be a scramble. So, if you can just rewind up with a few students there. I want to make sure there's room for them. Yeah, that's one of their homework assignments just to go watch it. I would
um that just send an email to both Jack and Robin because that's another 100 people to spotlight me. Now, we have Marble Pad High School. Welcome. We want them to We don't have them. So, what's worked with the other spotlights
is we've kind of shared the wealth with the end of the table here. And um I think we got to do one at a time anyway, right? I was going to say how is are they speaking individ you speaking individual? Yeah. So maybe Yeah. if um so we'll line up and and then sit sit
and either stand or speak in front of that microphone because that's the key mic right there. Okay. So the folks online can hear you. All right. So I'm gonna really really quick because she's got to go babysitting. Okay. So we're running late. Um so this is the spotlight. We're um spotlighting senior
project. These are eight seniors that are participating in senior project. So they're going to sort of introduce themselves, talk briefly about it. Going to get up to babysitting, right? Okay. So go ahead. I don't want to take any more time. Time. You're welcome. Good afternoon. Thank
you for having me. My name is Ava Salem and through my senior project, I am working with the Essex Pediatric Neurosychology in Mon. Their mission is to pro provide high quality assessments in a welcoming and inclusive environment. These assessments are
developmentally and culturally informed and bridge the gap between assessment and intervention planning to help pay your child thrive. Daytoday I work at home through a social media post for their Instagram page. But currently I am
working on an in a template for g.org which is a website that communicates the school's commitment for a child centered. I find topic of neurosychology fascinating and it is a field of which I wish to pursue in. As I have been
working on this project, I learned many things such as stigma around neurodedevelopmental disorders and ways to help children thrive in their educational careers. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Carlson, I wonder if it might be helpful
to get a quick just blur of what senior project is. I mean, not everybody may know that. Sure. Just kind of Sorry. I just want to get her baby. Is she on set? Yeah. Yeah. Tremendous respect for people on the other end of the babysitter.
So, Senior Project um is uh Do you want to come over here? Yeah, that would be helpful. So, I built it over here. So senior project is um offered to seniors in the fourth quarter of high school and it's um an opportunity for seniors to either find an internship opportunity for themselves or they could work on
some sort of a project or service project. So they really develop their project or their internship around what their interests are and you'll see there's a wide variety of things that that the kids are doing. We have about 165 seniors out on senior project
right now. Are there prerequisites to particip? Yes. So they have to have a minimum GPA. They have to have no discipline shoes. Um they have to have good attendance uh because they need to make sure that they're going to their
internships. Um and they need to have a mentor and a supervisor. They do check-ins and they write some reflections and then it will col culminate. I can't sleep tonight. Um on May 30th, we will do um kind of like a
little gout walk here where they'll all have tables and presenters and projects and welcome to come and do that. Thank you. Question on that. Um my understanding I believe it was Yson who shared this with us a few years back is
I just don't want people to think oh if you're not doing a senior project you maybe want to have one of these disqualifiers if some for some students are taking multiple APs it also just is not something that works correct that's why it's optional some kids really have
a pretty hard course loader when they're still preparing for AP tests that are starting for two weeks and some of them opt not to do There's a lot. Thank you, Dr. Welcome. Hi. Hi. How are you? Thank you so much
for your time tonight. Thank you. My name is Jacob Hersfield. Um, and my senior project is I am doing professional golf management at Kerwood Country Club. My plans are to attend Methodist University to do golf management and marketing. So, golf
management can come in different aspects. you can either go into the golf maintenance on course maintenance and kind of keeping the course in a perfect shape whether the greens and fairways and then there's also an aspect which I'm going into is becoming like a golf
teaching professional. So, there are only 16 schools in the country that um have the golf management as a major. And my goal is to take those four years to become a teaching professional. And what I'm doing right now at Turnwood on a
day-to-day basis is the pros are showing me certain things around the course that I can do. Last Friday, there was a company, Tailor Made, which is Types of Club Brands. They came in. There was a couple of guys who did fittings for a bunch of people. And what I did is I
would help people who were getting new clubs kind of look at what they were trying to improve in their golf game, whether that's their driving distance or their accuracy. And based on the new technology coming out, we would fit them on the best, you know, shafts or clubs that would fit best for their game. And
then I work with other people up in the clubhouse. Um, we make sure that the golf course is in top shape. There's a big tournament coming up this Monday for a qualifying for the US Open and I'm going up at 6:00 am and we are gonna roll the greens and spray them and make
sure everything's in top shape and then I'm actually patting for my stepmother later in the day. And it's a good experience for me to kind of get going on the golf management. My passion is golf and it's a good idea that I get to know what these professionals or these golf coaches are doing when people come
in and they email them and they need lessons. So, I'm I'm very grateful I got to do this senior project and I got to learn a lot and it'll be a good experience for me in college in my future. Thanks very much. Hi, my name is Shar Cap. I'm another senior out on senior projects. For my
senior project, I'm working for a boat detailing company. So, I'm doing a lot of commercial boat detailing, working with a lot of local boatyards. So, anywhere from Marvel to Boston to Manchester. Uh, my dayto-day is different every day. Some days I'm not like physically on the job site. Other days I'm making work orders, doing estimates. Um,
uh, being right there next to guys actually detailing boats, supplies, and inventory, ordering supplies. Um, um, boats have always been an interest of mine and I've learned, you know, a lot throughout my life on boats. I'm learning more and each that I step foot
in. So, it's a fun s project. Your family. Yeah, perfect. Good evening everyone. My name is Jeremy. I'm also on senior project. Um, for my senior project, I'm interning at Metro Credit Greg Union. Um, we have 18
branches in Massachusetts. Um, and I always finance was always a passion of mine. Um, throughout high school, I kind of found a knack for it. Um, and so I was chosen to be the high school intern that they've had um, ever in the company. So, um, really excited about
that. Uh my day also changes uh but I'm I'm on the teller line most of the time doing anywhere from basic withdrawals uh and deposits the loan payments the car payments um and anything that arises um within the financial world. Um and I think my project is very beneficial for
me um moving out of high school and into a college uh level um because um it's going to really help me in college especially the business skills I've learned. I work with the uh financial uh financial and crime teams a lot of the times fraud and I get to learn back
office and have conversations with people and kind of the um sort of the networking that goes along. Um there's a lot more than just the retail side of things that goes a lot deeper um especially in financial institutions. So that's what I've been doing for my
senior project and I think it's been really beneficial for me as Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Lover. Um, for my senior project, I chose to focus on therapy dogs. I have two amazing dogs, Selfie, who's five and R who's eight. I trained both of them about two years ago
through an organization called Dog Bones. My mom actually introduced me to therapy dogs. She used to work with kids with special needs and would often bring them into school with her. Now she teaches at police a preschool and still brings them in, which the kids love. Over the past few years, I've been bringing Salty and Rudder to the village
a few times a week because they absolutely adore them. One time, the school news them and it was the cutest thing. Soon, I'll also be visiting the Mariner a few times a week, which I'm very excited about. I'm hoping to start visiting Glover in the high school soon as well. When I go on visits, I usually
sit with the dogs and wait for kids or adults come over and pet them. It honestly makes me so happy to see how something so small as a dog can brighten someone's entire day. That's what makes me so passionate about this. It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone feels stressed or overwhelmed sometimes.
Seeing people smile or relax just because they got to spend a few minutes with the dogs makes my day better, too. This experience also has taught me a lot about responsibility. Caring for therapy dogs means staying on top of things like feeding, exercise, and training. It's a daily commitment. It's helped me become more organized and accountable. I've
also gained leadership and communication skills because I have to guide the dogs and work alongside teachers, administrators, and professionals. It's shown me how important teamwork is and helped me grow in so many ways. I definitely plan on doing this in college. If you have a dog that think could be a good therapy dog, I highly
recommend looking into it. It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done and it's amazing way to bring joy others while learning a lot about yourself, too. Oh, I was dropping something off to at at Village one day and and seeing everyone's reaction when they came in the front door and how excited everyone
gets. Our district has used therapy dogs whether you know it's it's for different reasons in different buildings over the years and the it's really improving for students. So, thank you. I'd love to see them in all of our schools.
uh building a lot. They do improve outcomes. So, thank you. That's awesome. Welcome. Hi, good afternoon. Um my name is Ava H and for my senior project, I'm an intern at RN Law. RN Law specializes in medical
malpractice, wrongful death, and personal injury. Specifically, I'm interning with the attorney Kimberly Rich, who is one of the few medical practices parties that hold a nursing degree in the entire country. So, she's really also important for her. Um for my
day-to-day activities, I mainly observed her in how she deals with uh clients and cases um including including deposition and litigation. Uh and this internship is really um helpful for me as I'm considering the new laws of computer
career and it's really um helpful to see how it can be a real world, how it is in the real world and how it actually looks in the hands-on experience of it. Um I've learned a lot through this internship. Um I've learned a lot about how um to
deal with clients especially when they are some subjects as well practice. Um cases often claims on expert witnesses and I learned their impact. Um and I also learned how compensation is handled
through non-economic and economic images. Um sharing should have been very helpful for me as I also can study law in college and it's awesome to learn from LA students in professional life. Thank you.
Welcome. Hello. Thank you guys. All right. So my name is John Bender and for my senior projects I'm I'm interning with the Marlike current. So, so, so far we've been meeting to discuss our story ideas and how our personal stories are
going and we also plan visits. So, we're going to places like the state house to meet with representative Jenny Aru to discuss like issues like MBTA oration and more. Uh, we're also seeing the Marble Museum to see old Marble Hood political cartoons.
And for my article that I'm currently working on, I'm highlighting a handful of senior projects from my grade that I found interesting. So far, I've been interested in journalism since before starting. Uh I had my first interview today and with one of my story
highlighted students, they went in. Uh journalism is a combination of many of my own interests like writing, photography, uh and my own curiosity about things. Um, I've been interested in journalism since middle school and I want to
improve my skills with writing general. However, I'm approaching my project with returning interest in journalism. So, it's a way to explore the field again if I want to pursue journalism in my future. And so far, I've learned about how to frame an interview, how journalists conduct their professions,
and what the field is all about outside and inside the story writing slice in the field. Thank you. Absolutely. Thanks everybody. Welcome. My name is for my senior project. I am working with McDonald and helping her
through dementia programs which occur at memory club facilities and science. So the types of programs are the measuring cafe opening mind street art which is also known as arts and culture. So I'm just going to provide a brief
description of what each program is. So the first program I want to highlight is the member gap. Both the caregiver and the individual with dementia attend this program for empowerment which allows for positive disruption in their schedule. Individuals do fun activities
that range from cleaning some edible flower decay. I will attend some of these programs. The second program is an art program for the individual with dementia. The individual with
dementia gets to complete art projects following a set of instructions for the intended project that day with the aid of a volunteer and then they would get to create a fun piece of art. In this program heavily emphasized such
as being able to choose between color of pain because when people are diagnosed with dementia having a choice and symptoms. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend web smoke because of conflicts with my a courses and
u um but I hope to visit um one over the summer. However, I am helping out with choosing the projects and completing the arts which is really fun. The last program is arts and culture and this is a themed interactive lecture style that
combines art history with other local bits. I'm actually helping out to create one of these lectures right now on the life of Massachusetts and bio and as a period of both students and arts. I know that I wrote that I include a really fast rundown of different points in my
sim projects, but I usually want to touch on why this project is so important to me. I'm studying Simmons University, and I'm planning on majoring in nursing. I also hope to minor in art through the consortium that Simmons has with mass art. I love how this combines my love for caring for an individual
with something that brings me, something that brings me joy, and I hope to be able to bring the love I have for art to my patients in the future. Thank you. So, as you can see, there's a lot of different varieties and there's a lot
more than this, but this is just a little little highlighter. We'll look forward to Is it May 30? When is the May 30th? May 30th show. Historically, you invited in the past, we've been invited to to do it. So, we're Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys for I know you're
it's a busy time of year. So, thank everybody for coming. Oh, you're good. Melissa, take a picture. One more. You want to take a picture? Hold on. One more guy. One
more. Oh, congratulations. I'm going to ask the committee if it gives the whole committee to take one item out of order. We have a request um that we're being asked to to consider and to vote on um
regarding the Piper Field. We do have some folks here that have come in and they've been very patient and I just thought maybe if you'd be willing to No, I'd like to get that out of order. Um because I thank you for your patience. That is that working? No. Go. Uh John, do you mind moving on to that? You have
a write up in the uh packet and John will I shared I shared a write up in the packet just to kind of outline. So um this is this is the piper piper field on the usage of the lights and the PA system. Uh there's a lot of discussion about um how uh there's a need for us in
this community to one collaborate between the schools in the community and provide um opportunities for our leagues in the school uh the town and our school um athletics to be able to share the fields and to utilize the fields and maximize the resources we have here in
Marblehead. To that end, um we need to seek relief from the planning board of a decision that was made in 2013 in regard to the usage of the lights here at Piper Field. Uh that decision indicates that we have 12 nights out of the year to use the lights and that we're allowed to use
the PA system for the football games here at Piper Field. We're looking to um expand that so we can um rep one replicate some of the uh light usage at the other fields in town. um would allow us to have our sub varsity teams play here on the field. Thus opening up other
fields in town for a lot of the uh youth youth sports leagues and other um men's uh men's and women's leagues that are in town uh to be able to maximize the the fields. Obviously Piper Field we um you know it's fully turfed, new lighting and we feel that uh it would be great if we
were able to extend the extend the practice times and the game times at night here. Um and and by doing that we would allow uh have need the lights on to be to be on a little bit later. So we're seeking a relief from the initial decision to go from 12 nights in the PAS for the football games to 12 nights um
until 10:00 and 9:00 um for the other nights in the in the year and to be able to use the PA system for all applicable um athletic contests here in Piper Field. By doing that it will free up the other fields and I think u meet a lot more needs. right now there's uh there's
just the field stays vacant after after the lights you know after it's dark and uh I think it's a it's a it's a resource that we need to maximize to the greatest extent. So with the um committee's approval tonight um that would trigger if the if the committee so chooses to
approve this it would trigger an application to the planning board and that application be heard by the planning board and the decision would be made in regard to um relief from that 2013 decision. Um, and that's what we're hoping to do. I think that planning board meeting is hopefully the uh June
June meeting June meeting um get this off off the ground and and in the works. So, I've had conversations with the planning board uh the plan at town planner already um and folks from uh the uh youth athletics been very um collaborative with us as well. So,
anything I missed? I don't think so. And that our athletic director we met with the athletic director as well as the young ones. I think what I'll do if it's the will of the committee to ask for the motion second discuss or would you prefer my motion? All right. So, I'm gonna ask for a motion.
Um, well, I guess I'm asking for a motion to move forward with an application um for the school city uh to go before the planning board for one of the use of field. Second move by Sarah, second by Alison.
Okay. Discussion, questions, concerns. Um, I always have a lot of questions, so I'll get to my questions, but I first want to start off by saying, uh, Marvelhead is is very unique and wonderful in their generosity of how our community comes together really to
support quite bond schools and specifically uh, the generosity around athletics and our athletic fields. So I think for me it's important to look at our our outdoor space and our fields not just as school fields obviously they are school fields but as
community spaces as well. Um it it could seem hypocritical to me to say you know can can we ask the community to come and fund the Turk and fund lives lights but you know let's stop it there. So, you know, it's really the generosity of
those community groups that that make our students able to have the experiences they're having. So, I think in being a good partner that I I fully support this. Um, so I think I gave away my vote a little bit there. But that being said, I
I do have some questions because pl, you know, I understand very clearly the legal aspects of asking to reopen um an order of conditions. So, I want to make sure that when we ask them to order open the order of conditions, we don't
perhaps wind up in a worse pickle. Um, you know, are we asking them to open up the order of conditions just very narrowly to this area, not the entire order of conditions for the the planning permit for the property. Um, I don't, you know, we're not going to start
looking at parking and other areas. I want to make sure it's very narrow to the use of the lights in the field because, again, we don't want to wind up with the butters and people coming out to oppose other areas of our our approvals that we have no issues with.
So I want to make sure we're making it narrow. So So that absolutely the So there's a whole planning um decision that was revolving around the whole field. So um it would just be for the lights and the use of the PA as I indicated. Okay. Um and the other thing I I failed to mention through the
generosity of the the field getting you know um lights and everything getting remade um the LED lights that are out there now are vastly different than the lights that were there when the field was first you know the last set of lights were put in there. So as my understanding is the spray of the lights
is nowhere near as intrusive as the spray that was there before. Um so the impact to um you know light pollution so to speak would be very minimal. Um, so I I think that it's time I mean 2013 we're in 2025. It's time to take a look at it
and to maximize our resources for all the all the reasons I mentioned that you reiterated Sarah around you this is community and we need to collaborate cooperate with the veterans of the youth fields the students adult um leagues
that play in the fields as well. Okay. And then my next question is, and this may be a question you've already discussed with these folks and and gotten feedback. Um, I will not even pretend to be an athletic family, so this is not necessarily my wheelhouse,
but I I'm completely under the lights and I really don't know that we'll get a lot of push back from the letters and the lights. I am concerned some of the push back could come with the AV because that because of our position up on the hill, how far it carries. I can tell you, you know, you can hear what music they're practicing to over in Gulf and
on Beach Street clearly enough to sing along with it. So I I just if that's the field we wind up potentially having to die on, has there been a discussion that the lights is really the important part? If we have to have a discussion about scaling back potentially the AV I'm
looking to we're like nodding heads if there's a potential if we're if we're starting to feel like there could be more a butter objection because of the AV is that something that's pardon the pun not a field we want to die on and maybe just fight for the light. So, so I
think I think that's part of the discussion that will come out of the application process in the in the planning discussion depending upon what what um what a buyers may have concerns with. Uh I think the lights first and foremost I I in my humble opinion I think I uh uh speak for the group um
would be more important piece um because that that that's what allows the field to be used. The PA just seems very um you know there four games that it's used for. We have a whole PA system that we don't use for that. graduation. No, I I also think you've got a title N. I was just going to say it also has a clear title N. If it says
it can only be used for football, like to me that that screams title N. And I don't know how this actually hasn't been an issue before. That's exactly I didn't say public. Well, it's to introduce the issue of um rightfully so. I want to make sure we have equity there. But I'm
just saying like if that starts to feel like we're getting the p where we're getting the push back, maybe we can do some discussion about timing and and but I want to make sure if that is the area of push back we pull away from any title n it's gets there's equity in the use of
y my question. Any other concerns? Then I'm going to call for a vote. Al Williams favors in favor. Will we see the application you weren't submitted? Uh yes, I can share that. Um I've already
worked with I've have worked with um Neagle a little bit just around I've spoken to the planners to to get a draft kind of what the language will look like how long they're planning what to up uh right now. Yeah, we'll follow that
after I'm gonna finish the vote. Alison in favor Jen, can we just talk about that please? I want to make sure there's no conflicts. Yeah, sure. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks folks for for coming. Appreciate it. We'll see you on
the side. Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. Dennis was here. Dennis Dennis. Oh, there you guys. Thank you. Um I was going to ask about the school playgrounds, but I think it's really Sally and Frank. Do you want me to take
the playground out of order or are you guys here for a while? Yeah, this will approve. I think we're okay. As long as you're not that you're not trying to get um Okay, so we will go back to our um agenda. School improvement plans. You
want to just high school first or matter? It's listed as high school, high school first. Welcome, Dr. C. So, we're here to hear the school improvement plan which I believe is a requirement. Yes. So um
just just by way of discussion um yes every school every year has to has to create a school improvement plan that's developed in conjunction with you know school council the um CC um in each of the schools. So, what I I'm going to preface the conversation by
saying that all the school improvement plans that the committee is going to see this year are in alignment with our current um plan for district's plan for success, which is something that we're re we're in the process of revamping into a much more comprehensive district improvement plan as indicated by one of
my one of my evaluation goals. So, when um when we have those discussions, you'll see how much uh broader the um conversations are. So, right now um you'll hear from Dr. Carlson and Mr. Kowalsski this evening about their school improvement plans and it's and it's aligned with our current um student
plans for I mean school plans for success. So I think um I just want to make that you know that announcement because it's going to have massive less movement. Take it away. So this is um pretty much we the same format we've done the past several years when we had
planning for success which is the last year as um do we know did we does Frank have this or are we doing a bunch? It's in the it's in the box or was it was shared. Sorry. Um so I have four school plan goals for Marblehead High School. The
first one is that we I'll just Marblehead High School will prepare for the NEAS collaborative visit. Marblehead High School will create a team consisting of educators and administrators who will oversee the process of fulfilling the requirements of continuing NEAS graduation. We we're
supposed to have our new visits this spring right now. Um but um with the amount of time that we lost in the fall um we lost professional development days that were that going to be dedicated to writing um a report that had to go in
MIA and it has to be created by faculty. It can't be something that I just write. It has to be really and written by them. Um so spoke with me and they pushed us off to next year. So which is great. So we have been working on that and we still have some more to work to do on
that. Um but this goals addresses that report that will do in the um for their visit and another few um other things we need to do and create in the dates for their visit as well in the I don't have the dates yet. I will get those probably
um October next year or when they'll actually be out. Um the second survey's goal is that we're going to create and update a written curriculum document for all courses that will include soas. We have some of this done already. We need to do some work on those curriculum
documents. We have um sequence done um and we need to sort of add to it and make sure that we have it for all of our forces. This is another thing that Newcast will be looking at and is one of the elements
that they will rate us on which is a simple yet don't you have it. Um but we're progressing towards it in three years when they come out for the denial visit. This will definitely be something that they will be looking forward to. So we will be working on it starting next
year so you get it in great shape for when we come out for another. Um the next schoolbased goal is that we will offer professional learning opportunities to support educator development, promote the implementation of best instructional practices and
include training in social emotional learning strategies. So this is aligning with some of the things we started this year and continuing with them including wayfinder for this for the SEAL support. We did roll it out this year, but we are going to be incorporating it into more
and more of the courses and um the magic blocks next year as well. Um so it sort of um speaks to the training that we need to do for staff around that as as well as other training that the staff could use to support instructional practices for students. Um and then the
final um schoolbased goal is to increase opportunities for student voice at Model Head High School to strengthen students sense of belonging. Again, we've done a couple things this year with that. This is looking to really expand it. Um starting off with kind of the student
survey. Um and then, you know, I do some of this now. I want to expand it celebrating and highlight contributions that students do at Marblehead High School. Um and then creating more and more opportunities for students to come together um and create opportunities for
students to be able to meet with faculty administration listening sessions and really um partake in some of the um decisions that are made in the high school if if we move to liquid change. So
um that is month four goals I'm happy to answer any questions. I just want to as far as the NIA ask certification goes um I should have done this accommodation at some point throughout this process. I know there's
many many people working on this. The person who happens to reach out to us when they need questions answered. I think I got a couple emails about facilities things. Um Mike Lavender, his attention to detail has been great. His his work that he's brought, you know, to
bounce off us for our parts has been wonderful. And like I said, I know there's many many people, many staff working on this. Um, so I don't need to say he's, you know, but he just happens to be the one we're having the experience I've had the experience with. It's been he's been great. So I know there's a lot of hard work going into So
thank you, please. Any questions for Dr. Yes. Yes. Um, so we'll do them both. We'll do them both. As long as you name them separately, we do the vote. Yeah. Um Frank, welcome.
Oh, no. No, not you, Frank. Frank will be presenting in your place. We having technical difficulties. While we're waiting, Frank, someone was singing your praises. A former administrator who worked with you um somewhere else. I'll give you the
details later, but just so hap they live in town. So happy that you're now a permanent member of our administration at the principal level and just singing your praises. Just want to let you know how good does it feel not to be interim good
subtlety is not your thing. Come on. You know, I just I to lighten the mood. You're as I am. And that says a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, actually, did she recess us? No. But
no, she just No, she's just We're just waiting for that. She's But if I leave, we don't have soaps. We're welcome and thank you for having me. Thank you for all this important help. Thank you to all the other teachers for watching on Zoom tonight
and for Sally and D. My hands l and the service dogs. Will he come? I love to last night. Did I mention I think they should be at all of our Yeah, my son is obsessed with salty. Did I mention it had been built? Yes. So, u
the plant I want to thank Brian for his input uh for the plan and for the whole the whole excuse me the whole year. Um Brian and I started talking last week. Not a very helpful thing and a member of the community that part of the plan. So similar to what Michelle did, I'm I
broke into three three areas. Um again, I'll go through my three areas and if you got any questions at the end, feel free for teaching and learn. Um the Glover School was uh went to increase overall student achievement,
develop student accountability and acceptance to increase the value of school's importance, the value of being part of a school community. I've always thought that, you know, we tell students that school's importance and say it enough that it starts to resonate and at a young age, I think it's really
important to really put that with our students that come to school those importance. We like to arrange for more common planning time. um for teachers to accommodate MTSS work when needed. For example, dating meetings,
uh, central focus on tier one instruction like we we want have a little focus on a foundational approach back to the groundwork of where school begin, right? We want to teach teachers how to teach all students in tier one instruction. We want to implement best
practices, craft components, rethink a foundation approach and collaborate on celebrating celebrating inclusive model instruction. And we also talked about developing a a do now a schoolwide do now approach which might incorporate
silent reading uh for the whole entire school population for the course of a school day. Same time every day students can bring in a book from home that that interest them and teachers as well. We'll all read together at the same time every single day. Um that will definitely be a a process that try to
get rolling sometime in the fall. professional culture which is very important to me throughout my career. The Glover staff will engage in multiple opportunities throughout the year to develop a strengthen a positive engaging unified professional culture
where staff members feel a sense of belonging and they thrive educators. We want to develop a celebratory staff and achievements. We want to celebrate and we also want to have shared accountability for all the staff and we want to increase public
Fridays. Sometimes they get lost in the shuffle because it is a lot of work lot work to have a c day on Fridays but we'd like to try to come up with some way to celebrate uh together as a school. And another thing that's very
important to us in Glover is diversity, equity, inclusion. Uh the Glover staff members will work to ensure an inclusive environment as it relates to all students with an added focus on Metro community. Develop plan to collaborate
to ensure we offer inclusive practices throughout the school. Develop a plan to meet with the MECO director bi-weekly to ensure shared alignment. It's like everything else, we want to continue to collaborate and ensure we offering inclus as as a school
community questions. I do have one question to ask that earlier. Yes. And your very first bullet on the strategies you had done right after schooling guidance, what's that? Uh, well that that'd be optional. We try to find teachers that want to be after school to
kind of kind of collaborate on on the day. Like I I'm a big person that believes in reflection, right? So we have things going on course of the day that might have few people ask questions about it. We'll gather people before 3:00 to reflect on that as I say the last year we live well need
to say this. you had said we're asking teachers to volunteer that we're they're not that's not uncompensated. That would be legal. Um any Yeah, I just that was hammered into our heads a little bit. I want to make sure we're making we're compensating our our
staff. Um one question I had and I only think of this because I happen to be um at the SACE meeting at Brown. I know we do a lot of parody and and there is a lot of parody in spoiler alert in this which is nice. For one thing I had um brought up yesterday on this for this
arranging common planning time for a resource needed. Uh so I'm a big believer if it's not documented it's easy to forget we need this thing coverage isn't resource that we need if we're looking for extra this um so you
know looking forward the budget set for this year but we're going to start planning budgets moving on if you're finding through your year that coverage isn't give you don't maybe have the coverage you need documenting that in some way so that there's we know you know it just makes
it easier when you would have the danger trails. That's a great question and one thing when you talk about professional culture in a school, we also have a help each other out culture and we also know its importance. So sometimes we have, you know, all our instructional assistants
are very qualified. So by have having them fill in for a teacher for a 20-m minute half hour meeting, I think is very doable and I think they've been very open to that idea. But I think if we could increase that and increase the the the the daily meetings um find ways
to meet more often it helps more kids. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is Frank's first year doing one of these. Very appreciate it. Thank you, Frank. Um, okay. So, I'm going to um ask for a motion to approve
the school improvement plan for Bravo High School and the door for school. So, that's um discussions. Um I think these are great. I think they're aligned with the current plan we have, which is what you're supposed to do. I think when we
move towards our new plan, we see some shifts. One shift I would like to see and again not in this one because it's appropriate for what we have something we used to do going back you know six seven years is there would be a a facilities component of a school
improvement plant too we talk about capital planning we we're talking about big ticket items you know whether it's a roof or um the painting at the pack those bigger ticket items but there's also some medium level that need to happen in each school I
know Mike has been doing an excellent job. He did a walk through um and made we saw at the facilities meeting yesterday lists and lists and lists that he he got and we're working on that. But I think you know those medium level I'll give an example that goes to a building that doesn't even exist. Way back in the
day when we one of our facilities goals for a school improvement plan at the Bell School was new library car carpet. It didn't rise to a capital but it was bigger than just patching a hole. you know that we're looking at those when we're moving forward. Again, not this year, but when we talk about where we're
going in the picture. Yeah. So, I think when you see when you see the as as the de the district recruitment plan unfolds, you'll see a lot of those things within. There's a lot um they intend to have a lot more categories. The financial uh all those things. And the other thing that Mike and I have
started to talk about, we haven't gotten too far down the road, just a little bit busy lately, but um creating like a like a I know we have like a 10-year plan. I think like a like a five-year capital improvement plan is really helpful. So it hones those um conversations in so we can see that you know the ongoing things
that need to be done the immediate things that need to be done the you know one to three and you know five to eight years time frame it gives us a little bit more flexibility to address those things as we go forward. So that would be maybe separate from but integrated
into Oh perfect I love it. All right, I'm going to call for vote. El Williams in favor in favor in favor. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Um the ground request for the So now
we'll move on to the request of the navy and school. Yes. So there was a request um that was put before um uh principal Kowalsski and then to me as is the as is the uh the chain of events that's supposed to happen. Um so there's a request to uh
name a playground structure at Glover School uh for Brookana in commemory and uh so right now the structure they're looking at the what the structure will be how much the structure will cost. um there's some donation from PTO money uh
that may be part of that. So um we don't have all those specifics yet. So I I ask that we brought um this request forward to the committee to vote and approve so that they can continue to do the work that they need to do. And then once they determine the structure, the cost uh
plaque or whatever that's going to go with it, they'll um the school will bring that back to the committee for their approval like similar to what we do at the um school of science. So we know what the how big it is, what it looks like, what it costs, um who's donated what they're going to see the donation, you know, as we work with anything else from the school committee
and what the plaque will look like, etc. So I think this will be the initial step. So hopefully the the um committee will agree to vote um that in memory of Brook to name a playground structure and what we're uh the playground itself is already named. So that was the the
second thought that we would do a structure of sorts. Um there you know so we're going there once we mature some ideas but you know until it solidifies where we're at there that's what we are in the process. Um do you
want to say some words we want to wait until you have we're really in the preliminary and I don't want to over overstep and then not be able to deliver you have some good ideas. Okay. Um I got to go Mike and figure out the costs and
everything else. I just want to mention this for everyone's edification that that Missiana was a a beloved kindergarten teacher at I know her Evelyn. I don't know whether she had also moved to Glover um till 20 or 22, right? And
she um No, she was earlier. Yeah. No, she was years. No, she was much earlier. She was my age. No, I I was much beloved and she and she passed away and she was very very attached. So this is and this has been a
long time coming. Um but I'm just putting it in, you know, sort of into perspective. So we'll hear more and we'll hear more about Brooke. Um I think when maybe when that time and that's actually what I was going to ask and it's to I don't want to put you on a spot. It's totally fair that you want a little more prep time, but one of the great things about when we went through
um the naming of the athletic facility was hearing how much Alex impacted and and and so if and again we'll put her on the spot right now, but if we could so the community knows um the legacy and that there be some type of
Yeah. And I think that's that's I think that's that's the plan, you know. So be like a little bit more fanfare for for that fan. Maybe not right, but you know what I mean. um when we get to that point. So I think it'll be more impactful. Yeah, that's probably the right word. I'll be able to just so folks know and press know little
background because she was an employee right up until right there quite a bit. Um well hopefully yeah I don't there's no one here that's opposing this is there. No, no, no. No, no. I was just trying to
just for the for the community to put a little bit of context knowing that it will it's nice to honor these folks by by talking more about their feedback. Right now we're at the stage where we're sort of we want to move forward but we can't move forward unless we know that it's going to be
in a lot of space right now that in order to raise the funds to do we want to make sure so I'll make a motion to at the main playground right the main um I'll make a motion to uh name a play I
keep looking tell me if I'm doing it wrong play name a play structure at the Glover our main playground after um Brooklyn in the name of Brooklyn. So moved. So moved by Allison second. You're saying that you're only going to
name a piece of equipment after the whole playground. The playground seemed interested. Huh? Yes. We'll share more about that because the actual playground already is so
No one told me that. It was actually older. Yes, it was. Oh, the old building before they Yes. I think they're gonna The idea is they're going to work together to make sure that it feels impactful. So, um I have a motion and I have a first from Alison.
Do I have a second? I need She was the motion. I was second. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. So, I'm going to call for Can I just chairman release? Sure. I I just want to let you know that I've had discussions with principal Kowalsski as well as some staff at Glover. We also know that
there's been some funds allocated for new surface and we're asking for some funds at town meeting for some playground structures also. So I think we're meeting as a group bringing the community together, the staff, the students, the um administration to kind of plan a an entire playground and not
this will be part of that I believe. So, it's it's a it's a bigger process and I don't believe we're just picking out one structure and naming it. I think we're picking out a bunch of structures or multiple structures. I won't say a bunch, but multiple structures and yes, and potentially one of them would be named after I think the intention of
saying it that way is to still honor the previous individual as well. Oh, okay. Great. Great. I'm going to call the vote then. Also, Sarah Fox in favor. Alison Taylor in favor in favor. Great, great news. Thank you everybody.
Um, okay. I'm looking for I guess a financial update, but it's all good news. Okay. Uh, financial update from my assistant superintendent with business and outreach. Hi, good evening. Um, two quick updates before I get to that. First one is I
understand the flag up front is being replaced as we speak. So, we're on it. Um, the second thing is, uh, Frank, did you hear that? Well, it also might I think it's the one up above which a little more to it than that. That's the
one that we need people with special. Both of them need to be replaced. All right. I told one out front, but okay. Um the other thing is before we get into letting people volunteer with an open checkbook, all things need to be approved and we need to find budget
funds before we say that we pay for volunteers. Yeah, that was I had a little question about that too and I was going to follow up offline. Thank you. Okay. We were told really not to use the word volunteer because that is a big problem. I understand that. I just want to say that it's not an open checkbook
that we need to identify budget funds and set set hours and and budget money. I just don't want there understanding that we expect people to volunteer. I think when people volunteer, they don't get paid. When we ask them to do work, they do get paid. Right. So I
think we need to really the administration will clarify volunteers all day long in our buildings with community members who come in and supervise our cafeterias. Oops. We will have this discussion with the administration and then set administrators offline. That's an
operational issue. So point well taken. Thank you. Uh so the financial update uh as of yesterday afternoon we had expended 31.8 8 million of our budget with 12.5 million encumbered leaving a
current balance of 2.46 million uh in comparison to last month at this time. That's $253,000 less than what we had available at the end of last month. So again, we're we're in a really good position right now. I think it's time for us to start looking at projects that we want
to look at um allocating money towards prepaying tuitions uh for special education tuitions um similar to what we do at at the end of every year. Um our projections are are holding kind of where we've been all for the last four months. Uh salaries are still encumbered
at a very nice pace. And um just on the budget, as you know, school committee voted unanimously on on our budget. Uh the finance committee on March 3rd 1st voted unanimously on our budget on the superintendent's proposed
budget. And um we will be headed to town meeting on May 5th or let's hopefully or 6 or 7. So hopefully our budget's on. I I'm going
to very good. Um on Monday night 5:30 6 o'clock at night we were notified that the projections for free cash were reduced by about $2.5 million. To my knowledge, free cash has still not been
certified. It has been. Okay. Because I was gonna say the last I checked in on this has been about 24 hours ago certification. And was the certification at the 2.5 million lines? Like do you know where it was certified? Uh I do not. I last I had
heard it they were still waiting when I talked to Leicia earlier today. So you Okay. So we know I could be wrong actually. No, it was early this morning. They were they were expecting it yesterday afternoon. Yeah. I sure so it may or may not but anyway they were my understanding was the way that they were
going to do it is 1.5 million was going to be reduced kind of through different mechanisms on the town side that would directly affect us and then a million of it was going to be not in our operating budget but was going to be reduced through capital asks across
different departments not just us the details of which had not been worked out yet. We we talked about this facilities meeting because we talked about capital asses in the facilities committee meeting. Uh I'm not going to put you on a spot for the answer yet because this is a moving target. We don't know what
the final number is yet town meeting. I know FINCOM has booked 6 pm meeting to literally vote on the floor prior town meeting on what the recommendation for capital asks are. we're in the context of we're close enough to the end of the year to know any potential surplus. And
again, surpluses in a $46 million budget are the norm. Um, if you're coming in on a $46 million budget with with not a dollar, you know, extra, you're not budgeting properly. So, us having a surplus is is ex is with the financial
goal is what you you would expect. My question is we will we would normally do some prepayments of special education to stabilize that area because uh that is our most volatile area.
In addition to that, I would like to look at any potential reductions to our capital asks on the school side, whatever me because there are mechanisms available to us for onetime fees prior to that andor prepaying more in tuitions
and then do the offset later on. My point being if there's the availability to make the school capital ask school if you will um through the offset of any any surplus at the end of the year which
will cost taxpayers more money. Um I would like to make us whole. That's just me one person. We'll have to you know discuss that as a a committee. Um I don't anticipate there being push back from the town on that. again like these are funds that have been allocated for
use by the school. We had the legal mechanism to use them like working out all those details. Um but I I understand why they have they have to make those cups because we legally have
to come in balanced. But if we have available funding to make the schools who hold still, I would like to talk about one of the items, you know, we'll talk about is the playground structure that there were some playground funds. There were some HVAC funds at Glover. There was the um pack. If we can make
ourselves whole, I I think that it is our duty as a committee to, you know, work to do that. So I think that's Shouldn't we be doing those items regardless? It sounds like Yeah, we're trying to make ourselves That's what I'm saying,
but we're but we're grabbing funds that we should be we should be if there's HBAC funds that we don't think are going to be spent on that and are available for something else. Yeah, I think I think the point is is that the HBA funds that we asked for potentially could be
now cut and we may not be I thought you were saying so we might be cut from the we might be asked to make some reductions from the town. We have been you're saying we can make ourselves full. We will do that but we will get you know so let's say we we give a
$50,000 reduction to the town but you want to try and find that $50,000 elsewhere. Is that what you mean by making Yes. in our budget for budget because we will have next year this year's so we have a surplus that is Sean. So I was just going to say so
typically what would happen in a day regardless of whether the town comes back and says maybe we need you to reduce something right going with the town meeting they have asked us to reduce our capital so Mike and I would talk about that we talked a little bit about it um what's the number they're asking us to reduce um what can we
reasonably do we have to prioritize rep prioritize which we do all the time anyway we would always look at hey we have this set this money that we've feel it's got to end going back to the town because it's a you know surplus so to speak. Um, instead of turning back to
town, do we use that to offset the, you know, they've asked us to reduce? So, by matter of course, we would do that anyway. So, I appreciate Sarah like saying that upon because it's something that I think as we move forward and we could say, hey, the town asks us to take cut this much money out of the capital
asks and we say, "Sure, we'll do that." And these are things we can still reasonably do that we asked for like the painting of the pack was in there, the reholstering of the seats, uh special ed van, um rubber playground, etc., HVAC system. We have to look at. So, we're
looking at all that. We're saying what can we reasonably still do and make sure that we balance our budget and make sure the town we reduce, you know, what we need to for the town side. So, uh, it's a numbers game right now, but I think, uh, that's always how we would, that's how I've always operated just, you know,
um, if there's that money there, then we would turn back, we use that to offset so that we don't have to just add it to a capital improvement plan next year and just kick in the road. So, we would have to vote that. Yeah, we'd have to again, I'm not being eloquent enough. I just
want to make sure like so we were going to have you know these fund and we have these funds to paint something right but wait a minute now we may not have those funds we don't we don't right so all right but somehow we paint the building anyway right making us whole where did
that money come from right so that's that's what any potential surplus you so okay so it will come from surplus of 25 so what I'm asking is FY FY26 capital
just got cut. Mhm. At the end of FY25, we hand back surplus. I can only speak for myself. I do not support handing back any FY25 surplus until we have been made whole on the cuts on FY26 if there's enough money
to do. Yes. I mean, you can't get blood from the surgeon. I just say I just want to make sure that people and that's why I say handing back surplus like if once the surplus is gone it's gone you know that is what it goes better. So that would be taking that into this
year's budget and if we do that I mean Mike does make sure that does that um in the way that we're allowed to take this year's budget turn next year. Thank you. Yeah. I mean the one thing is I will say and then I have a question for John Mike is the idea for
CAC I understand it's coming out case may come out of the school budget you know it's really a town asset because a lot of that you know usage is not school but on the other hand it is rented out when you get the rental so I mean it's again those are things we look at for
sure and and maybe be able to make that public out so I have a question and this is you but for the committee to consider. So, right now, we voted a capital um a list of capital items that we were
that was going to go go to town meeting on the on the warrant to request town meeting that appears to have been changed or may is or will be changed on we've been asked to reduce that by the finance committee. We've been asked to reduce it that they're going to go to
town meeting with a different number than what we voted. What I'm unsure of is do we need to vote a different number or if we don't it will just unless us or somebody else holds it'll go based on the finance. I think it's my
understanding that we stay with what we asked um because it could change. We don't know there's so many variables right now. I would hate to say they've asked us to reduce by X amount. know we kind of have an idea what that number is but I would say we've we we went to the town and said we need this money extra
to do the things we need to do in our capital I would say till less um we know that that number hasn't changed I would I would be so when I asked that yesterday um just from a procedural point of view it sounds like and I I
would agree and I'm thinking until we know what the number is we don't know what the number is um that Monday night just from a procedural point of view we may to the vote to amend our original motion of the original amount to the new amount that the town's saying that they
can fund. It's just it's literally just procedural minutia. I don't even know why we would have to. Nobody's going to argue with it. Finance committee will go to town because they have to vote on the number we sent. We don't according to what?
So point just let's move this on move this forward. Um I have posted us for uh 6 pm. No, you had. I just checked. I 6. No, I for I got I got a confirmation that they did it. I was on the agenda and I checked 20 seconds ago about 6:45.
She definitely she didn't send me back. All right. Well, I guess I had not. Yeah, it's too late now. So, we're posted for 6:45. You can do a quick motion. Yeah. Okay. I had sent her one to post for six o'clock and for Tuesday and Wednesday. Um4. I I
will follow up with the clerk because if she actually happened to hang hang out a ball still work so I will check on um so we have so we we will convene as a committee at town meetings so we can vote
okay and we'll we'll have a plan to go okay good Mike any thank you all right um okay moving on to the flag and banner policy. Third reading comments like Would you mind just I mean
I keep unpacking it too, but if you hear these certified first, will you just let me know? I'm kind of stalking to find out. Check right now. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um I will read this into the record. Uh the marble policy I am policy regarding display of flags and
banners. Marble school committee as a governing and policy making body. The marble public schools has the sole authority to determine that flags and banners are fixed on school district property and reflect vision without a school district and past school district's government speech. This policy does not apply to athletic team
banners, student artwork, locker decorations, notebook covers, or any personal items students may bring to class reunions during transportation tool and from school or school events. Additionally, the policy allows the display of positive affirmations such as encouraging school values, promoting welcoming environment for students or
recognizing school community members provided they are not affiliated with or contributing to a political act or activist organization. My school committee affirms that all government speech to express the flags and banners on school army shall be presented in a viewpoint neutral manner. The district shall not use such displays to promote,
endorse or propose any particular political, religious, ideological or private viewpoint. All such speech shall be limited to content as directly related to mission public service announcements or messages of general civic community that do not favor one viewpoint over another. Committee has
therefore adopted this policy subject to the following links. One, flags that have official legal status, the US flag, the Massachusetts flag, and WNIA flag shall be displayed on school property. Two, in addition, flags, banners that reflect school districts vision and values shall be displayed at such times
and additions on school district property as determined by the school superintendent acting in their sole discretion and pursuit of their responsibilities operations in the district and schools may recommend the adopted flag or banner as the school district's government's initiative.
Three, Marvel schools had has determined that the mission, vision, and values of the school district are reflected by flags representing the following six heritage months and may be displayed during may be displayed during the specified month. African-American History Month February, Women's History
Month, March, Asian Pacific American History Month, May, Pride Month, June, Hispanic Heritage Month, midsepptember to mid October, and Native American Heritage Month November. Four, school committee will not accept any third writing questions. So that was the change based
on the last movement that we had in my discussion here. I will open this up for discussion. I'm not going to call for the vote because we should have said no sorry. All right. First, um, I'd like to
acknowledge all those who have helped to make this draft much more palatable than the original version was. And I think it's mostly for me at least because this version allows students to participate in the process and we trust our administration to manage it appropriately. Um, second, I think
there's been ample evidence that flags and symbols can enhance inclusivity for some students and I think to take that away from them is unreasonable. Um and and I think third we have to realize that there is no solution that will satisfy everyone. Restricting most flags
and symbols is the perceived easy black and white solution. But I think we we all realize we live in a great world and students who know how to live and help us manage this will be better because of that. So to the bottom line for me uh all the input I've heard today has not
moved me from questioning whether we need this policy to begin with. In fact, I think this policy creation creates more questions of legal uncertainty. Uh so, for example, um I don't want to go against our general counsel. I know many
of us, you know, have talked about that, but we've heard different opinions from different legal entities and there's enough that makes me a little uncertain about any, you know, I don't know if I trust any of any of those recommendations. To be quite honest, I'm
skeptical of any policy that prohibits a portion of our community from petitioning something from a publicly elected board. Um, I think there's still a lot of confusion around this policy. You know, what is a policy versus a procedure? We talked a lot about government speech versus free speech.
Um, I think we've had difficulty deciding what's more strategic that should be in a policy and what's more operational and shouldn't be. Um and you know we've talked about heritage months and you know adding you know while I agree that makes sense I
think managing that is a little more complex than we might have envisioned right u I think when you have a policy that has you know needs to maintain allow and deny lists you have a pretty unmanageable solution um I'm also I I know other people have
asked this but how do we manage anyone who violates this policy what happens Is it a fireable uh offense? Is a you know, can a student be suspended because of something like this? I think these are questions that should be answered before
a policy like this is enacted. So for all these reasons, I will not vote for this policy is written because again I don't believe that um we need one. I still firmly support that flags and simple should be allowed and that the process for selection should be managed by the administration with the
involvement of students and faculty. And what's interesting, I'd like to point out that that's kind of current state. Many of the flags that we've all mentioned are hanging right now in this building, right? And I don't think I've heard a lot of issues this school year as a result of that. So, I'm not exactly
sure what we're fixing. And then I'd like to just continue the managing it as we are without a formal policy makes sense to me. And of course, this could be amended if situation, you know, something changes.
Thank you. So it is against general counsel. So you are voting against what our general counsel said. I don't know if it's ruling against. So I don't have 100% certainty behind what I'm being told. I think that's a better way to Did you see this direct they issued us that we were
given? Yeah. I felt I needed to be a lawyer to fully understand quite honest. Um, but there's been other, you know, and again, I didn't go out and check the veracity of all these things, but there's been attorneys sitting in that
chair there arguing against the findings of our general counsel. And to me, when that happens enough, it just raises a certain level of uncertainty with it in my mind. That's what I'm saying. Did you reach out to our council
to talk to them about that? Because I didn't talk to them directly. No. Oh, slightly off topic, but I just want to clarify what you just said so that right I'm I I want to make sure that I am giving you an opportunity to
um to to that we're respecting your full ability to weigh in on this topic. So are if you're if what you're So if what you're saying is you're really unsure of our general counsel, are you saying that like on a future agenda you'd like to revisit general?
I think it's one of many factors that that I believe that that makes this creation of this policy worrisome. Okay. It's not if it was the factor I would have reached out directly to legal and done that. Okay.
Um so this has not been an easy policy and I'm like and we've only really lived through the the teeth of it for like the last you know month or two. So, I I do appreciate, you know, you guys haven't gone through this for the last 18 months because it has not been um easy, I'm
sure. Um for me, particularly having, you know, been the chair last year and having received the phone calls from administration, then having to to go through um the pieces when you say it
hasn't been a problem. I I can't remember the exact figure, but I'm pretty sure we just spent $38,000 on an investigation that was launched simply because of the discussion on the flag. $38,000, just for context, would have fun more than funded in an entire tutor
for a full year. So, to me, that is significant that if we're in a position of of um going through a six-month investigation and and putting out that much money simply that was launched
because of a conflict of what flag should be here and should not be here. So, I don't want to minimize that. that that is that that I think should be um but since we're going person to person here, you know, how many of the original folks involved in that are still around,
including our superintendent, some of the people involved, things have changed, right? If we want to look back and freeze time 18 months ago about what happened, I I think your your logic makes more sense, but that's not I don't believe that's the case. Okay. I will
let me just make one comment because I was going to wait till the end. Just to to what you were talking about into your comment earlier, we actually have had recently I had a member of the community uh bring a flag to the central office to
me um sensibly I think to hang it um it was a um flag for country. So it's, you know, that's a request um to come to the school committee and I, you know, or to the school committee chair. Um the Jewish flag, don't say it's something
else that the meeting, they come with the um the flag and ask it to be um come back up. So something else. It was the Israeli and so I'm gonna ask you to please Right. We've had our public and we are
deliberating here that so my point is that it is still going on. We have a request not aware of that. I'm speaking from my own personal understanding. I did not know that something was sent to you. You know the last right
it's sent to the school committee chair I believe. No the whole on the school committee. Ah, you didn't. Yeah. No, I saw it. Was it all? I thought it was to the chair. It was the chair. There was a whole list. So, I am
I was incorrect. I'm sorry. You people have Okay, thank you. As much as you want. Let him have his say. He doesn't agree with you. Ask you to please. You know what? Thank you. Honestly, so I just
wanted to let you know that but what I'm speaking about I didn't know and I believe there have been a number of flags that have been delivered to the super um without I don't think that there are other there was I received flags but there was no new note and there was no
note on this flag even just so you know there was no note it was just it just arrived at my office shelf there was no please hang me nothing just arrived anonymously All right. So, um I'm sorry. I don't want to
No, I was finished while a little while ago. Yes. Um so, you know that I just wanted to that's how we got here. I don't want anybody to think we just one morning woke up and thought let's do this. You should be fine. No, Sarah. And I don't I didn't mean any of my comments
to be judgmental on others. this these are my opinions and that just gonna okay kind of hold firm and this is my time um so and again the shirtlift case is a very
important case it's very clear it is crystal clear about government speech versus first amendment if it's first amendment all means all and the issue with that and the issue I've had continually with hearing from people is
that for some reason people and and it's good people assume the best of our community. I hear people saying, "Yeah, all means all then put everybody's up. Who's going to ask you to put something up that's offensive?" And and to a certain extent, it is really great that people are assuming that there are not members of our community that will ask
us if we go all means all to put up a flag. um that would be really really hard for some groups just just for the simple point of proving a point. I have been doing this long enough that I don't
have that money. I do believe if we go the all meets all way, we will that's why I I I got sidetracked to ask John what what flags are being sent to you. I think we could find ourselves, you know, I'll go to the extreme. I think if we go all means all, we could wind up in a
situation where someone sends something like a Nazi flag or something and asks us to hang it. And I and I do think that and I say that because I do think unfortunately there are people in the community that are looking to make a point at any expense. And my concern is
if we go all means all, we legally don't have a right to turn that down. I don't think you would find any person who would be okay with that plan going up and I use that as the most extreme case and I understand that but that is my
concern. If we go all meets all, we could wind up in a very precarious situation. That is why I had recommended putting um the superintendent in here as our agent because again I agree he's the
he is the head of the educational um operational portion of our of our system. Um the recommend he should be making recommendations by saying he's the one that makes the recommendations and we vote it. that that puts us in
line with shirtlift but also hands it off in many many many ways to John. But I I would assume that um if our superintendent comes to us with a recommendation, I can speak for myself. I would have a hard time if a
superintendent presents to me this is important for our to hang in our building. These are the reasons why, just like with the budget, when I ask I ask a lot of clarifying questions, but with the exception of defunding freshman sports, I have never
voted against a a recommendation because school calendar we did. Yeah. No, I did. There you go. I vote against a school calendar. Um but you I would
um was asking me on mute. Sorry. Um so that's to me that addition of putting the superintendent in the role. One of his goals is student voice. I everything he's talked about is student
voice. I would assume he's using student voice and staff voice. Um, I do want to potentially look at if there is a legal way to limit this to students and staff making these appeals. I'm not sure that random members of the community should be able
if it would be appropriate. I think students and staff are attending school here are are um this is their I think if there's a legal way to limit them as the individuals making the appeals versus you know what's Joe Mo that may live in
Springfield you know what I mean like I I I think to a certain and I think that's probably what was no third party um well no no third party can make them directly to us but any third party can make them to to John so and the reason but legal didn't originally say that.
Sarah did not say that in the original their original policy did not say anything about using John as an agent. proves this is okay because we asked we brought it up in a meeting and said can John I think it was me who said can John be our agent and if we hadn't pushed
back so I'm just saying that just because legal say something doesn't mean it's psychosent and that's a good example him having our interim superintendent as an agent has made this palatable but it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't pushed back on legal's
original policy on this so again I was going to make one comment about that. I wouldn't call it push back. I think what happen just in working with council is go to council and say the genesis of this was how many
months ago you know we have this situation we need we we're being asked to develop a policy which we were asked to develop policy and then we were given a recommendation and then as this has evolved which is the case in many times with policies and we say well our
community either you know our community or our staff our our students are are looking for their you know a way for the policy to be um compliant but with other iterations and that's so I wouldn't necessarily say
it was push I was asking the eagle to say can you word this in a way that will meet these needs and that was what I that was my request the I agree with S what in terms of putting
English current policy that's great doesn't mention staff law not one time is a disability so if you going to include students then you need to include staff following the policy so that was my ad and to be fair I didn't
mean it I was talking about anybody that walks in the building can walk in whatever wearing whatever they want. I think that was just a a mis if that's the word that I used. I did actually meet anybody. I also I agree with that. Jonathan, what I
also told him we go back and said within the contract you have language too. We do cover that. You're right. Y yeah. so that we could um potentially add staff. Uh, we could do that. We'll
certainly talk to legal about that. get the word in line with you don't want to counteract this which is pretty broad and clear with your attorneys to look
CBA which would be best what not include staff policy because we are it is students and staff our schools and those voices along with
administration that you really should govern the white school. Thank you. Thank you. But again, like I keep saying that we went we go back to John because student particularly staff should not be coming to to us that would
be violation of a lot of different elements. So that's why John's in that role. And as far as what would be you know we hear theoretically would this one get fired? Would this one get suspended? any policy in our policy book breaking any of those policies does not
come back to us and it in it wouldn't in this either it would be the same way mass general law is explicitly clear through the ed reformat of chap in chapter 17 of what is operational is under John and all of those questions in
minutia is clear as day is operational if if someone if an employee if a student breaks makes a policy that's operational that doesn't come back to us. So I I do have trouble with when you say well what would be those steps and
because we have to remember when we talk about concerns about this policy I know this one feels very strong it's right in front of us right now but that's throwing shade on every policy we have in our policy manual and I want to be crystal clear if people are breaking a policy that doesn't come to the school
committee that's operational that's you know there's a hierarchy it goes to a principal it goes to a director it goes to John, but the school committee is not we're not operationalizing um so documenting problems. So the a
perfect example of that is one of the questions that was asked you'll remember this part of in our in our in our that's law was not sitting out for me. Um, you were there. So, I was following the
rules. I thought about who I was supporting, who I was not supporting, right? That was public comment. It's not a rule. What's the cause that people don't like? So, when we sat down, the question was asked. Someone actually walked in.
They didn't I I don't know what their name was, so I I can't give them credit or attribute it to them. They walked in and asked what happened to the person that took down the flight and I specifically pointed that to Michelle Brooks because that was not something
that came back to the committee. That's not something that would ever come back to the committee or be our purview. Um and so that that's a perfect example of if there whatever did happen is not our perview to decide or address. Yeah. And I have given a clear example that you
know we have a policy against um substance use in our schools. We every school and every place in the world probably comes up against that policy at some time being broken. We don't know when it's broken nor should we. We don't
know who broke it. We don't weigh in on what their ramifications are. Our our administrators do that. this this would be no different and to imply it would be I I I I just think it's a slippery slope because
the administration we're still um so you know the we format and they have operational
power we don't period there there's no ambiguity until they stand right turn. You have operational power. So, we set policies that he then operationalizes. Um, we'll give, you know, the library policy because I was
going to get to this anyway, just for context. When we set that library new policy, school committees didn't write it. the the librarians that work hard in our district went to the administration and said this limited policy we have that's one sentence isn't good enough
because we are getting you know there's this is something that's a hot topic in our country right now can we draft our librarians I don't know if this is well known our librarians actually are the ones that drafted they worked for quite some time on this drafted the library materials
and review yeah I'm not the name right but the the review policy because they were worried in their subject matter expertise what they were seeing as a trend across the country and they wanted to make sure we were prepared and weren't the situation we're in right now folks where we're someone
came to us and said I need the policy where is it on XYZ oh shoot we don't have one give me one thank you to the librarians who proactively said we're up against this issue let's be proactive and that's why ours is so long because our subject matter experts did it ahead
of time so I this I I unfortunately need this I think. Right. Well, I Well, back to how this all began. Somebody removed the flag from the cafeteria. They said, "What do we do about that?" And there's no policy that
govern it. That's how this came up. The principal asked I understand we were asked. Yeah. But are you all saying if we're asked for a policy, we have to make a policy? Well, if it That's That's my only I understand we were asked. I didn't know. I didn't know one thing. It's my understanding that that someone
asked if there was a policy not to create policy. That's a very big question. I'm going to correct you because as the person who was asked, the acting superintendent at the time got on the phone with me as the chair and said, "I just got a phone call from the high school principal asking what the the
policy was." I call legal. Their recommendation is if you don't have one and you were asked is it's to make it. I'm just I'm just I just I need to since the high school principal is still here. Yeah. When I spoke to the high school principal, so the superintendent that was here
isn't here. This high school principal was here. And what I was told was she asked if there was a policy. She wasn't sure what to refer to. She did. She told me straight up that she did not ask for as is appropriate. She goes to the superintendent. The superintendent comes to like the the Yeah. I just want to be
clear. That is Y. So go ahead. Fine. Well, all I'm saying is it started off with an innocent question and it became we became embroiled in 18 months worth of discussions. And the reason why it's taking so long is every time we try to fix one part of the policy we're trying
to create creates a whole slew of other problems like we added this paragraph with all these national holidays on it. Well, to be fair, we also took a a short recess from it when they were doing bargaining because they were bargaining
constantly and there wasn't time to do that. So, that that that is part of the delay as well. Yeah. What I'm saying is every time we try to address something, it ends up creating more problems which why we're not getting anywhere with us. So, I don't know what the right answer is. I mean, I I'd be just as happy to go
back to no policy if that no matter what we throw out, it's just continuous to create more controversy and instead of resolving the problem, it's just exasperating it. It's taking 18 months to get us here and we're still stuck. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I I
I do think I and I I appreciate that. I appreciate Al what you're saying. I do I feel having gone through this um on the policy sub commmittee and and the forums know that that it's a bit of the two faces out of two point in that if we
were to go forward without a policy to not go forward policy that has its own inherent risk. Absolutely. Because there are going to be requests that be made and then we don't have a policy. That also puts us out in doubt in the risk which is why
when the request was made council council guided policy again in this case our have this discussion but case of our council their advice was within the you know the guidelines that they gave us that would
protect us and and and keep us adhering to the law which we have responsibility to do. Um so I it is a little bit concerning at this point with here we are in this um we would have not go
forward with policy or you know um we're putting I potent we are putting ourselves at the same that we are we don't have there's risks in both I tell you I don't think that there's any that the word potential should be the
the cannot emphasize enough how clear it wasn't all means all without a policy It's free speech. If there's not a policy declaring that I'm going to interrupt there for a second without a policy, there's no policy. So it would therefore to administration to decide
what to do. So the administration could choose to have nothing. They could choose to have big interest and that in and of itself is potential risk without a doubt. My understanding if you if unless it's the
only loophole here is government speech. The only government speech is through a vote of this body. If we say we're abdicating that that we're not doing this then we're not doing it. It's not government speech. If John's the yay and nay if you stand the way we are every single flag I'm almost scared to ask
what they are that was mailed anonymously. Keep that in mind to him in sitting in his office. If it doesn't go up tomorrow, next week the person is so if so if a district doesn't have a flag policy, you say that they're
in violation. Say no. No. It would that's what I hear you saying. And no, if you asking me what I'm saying and I with all due respect be want to answer it. My understanding on this is crystal clear. The shirt lift wasn't a problem for the first 281 requests because the
answer was yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. The first no became the problem. So my understanding is it's not a problem if someone brings you to court, right? If no one brings you to court, nothing's a problem. If someone's driving down the street recklessly and they're not caught, it's not legal. It's a problem,
but it's not legally it's not it's not until they're charged doesn't become a legal entity. So that's what I'm saying is when you're when it gets into the courts, when the courts decide. Before you quote me on that, I see you. I'm not saying driving recklessly is not a problem.
I don't think um so so my point is if someone makes a request for any flip anything and John says no they have case law very strong Supreme Court case agree with the
court's decisions of the last five years or not anybody driving past my lawn probably knows where I see it but but uh The court, the case law is the case. If someone applies for a flag and is
told no, and it's not through a vote of the governing body as governance speech and they choose to sue, they have very strong case law that we shut down the first amendment right that we now own. And that is not that is not
dimminimist in any way, shape or form. I would quite honestly as an individual love to I'm not going to be interrupted again. I s I'm going to ask you to but I I would love to avoid this flag policy. I would love to advocate
advocate our our need to deal with this situation because quite frankly I have a lot of issues. But part of sitting at this table and being serving this role is is doing what we need to to to do to
protect the legal standing even when it puts us in the line of Go ahead. Go ahead. So if there's no policy and the interim superintendent doesn't want a particular
flag flown and he comes to us as a school committee and we agree and vote no are we okay from a legal perspective I don't believe first of all the school superintendent will do that it's not it's not it's not a policy racially
something that wouldn't be our burden nothing unless it's false are we want to own this which is why it didn't happen in BAS never did come to was at the at the level it's a question so we I mean we could argue whether it's
within purview or not but it could that have like so the interim superintendent said listen I can't make this decision on my own his escalation point is the school committee it's it's it's on we always talk government speech or it's all it wouldn't be appropriate for the
superintendent to come and ask the school committee make a decision on the operation of the school. It's not it's not a policy. You oversee the policy. Yeah. We're so far. It's not government speech unless it's all government speech. You can't My favorite saying, you can't ride two horses with one rear
end. Like either either write that down. You vote for it. Yes, please. It was the most censored either the either the flag for government speech or the not. If he starts saying, well, all these are free speech, but this one I don't feel good about is government speech. That in and
of itself is a censoring of free speech. I also just want to say you you mentioned the swastika and we you know swat flag and unfortunately we have had a number of cases where swastikas were you spray painted on buildings. We we talk
about that being you know an outlier and unfortunately we have had a number of cases where they were found you know in school or on school buildings. So my my fear is that's not as much of a you know
extreme case at all as we need to worry as we think. So that I just wanted to make sure to point that out. So we had you know I get what you're saying from an you know extreme case perspective but we have had a lot of that here with tech is being
drawn on buildings desks wherever it may be. It doesn't matter where it is. Shouldn't happen. But that means someone could just want that flag. I guess that's that's where I really um get
concerned with that particular specific instance. Never mind. Yes, the lawyers say yes, we don't have a policy. We should have a policy because that is the only way in this instance that we could support the superintendent if he ever did have an operational question. If we
don't have a policy, he the buck stops there. No offense, but we couldn't help him because it's operational. But if there's a policy and he has question or concern or anything, uh then it could bring
that's not a chain of operational stuff doesn't become a house. I think the other thing to note too is that this is happening throughout municipalities every you know not everyone has but many do. Our town does, our housing board does and many
towns doing in fact many towns, no not many. Okay, bottom by that some municipalities in the Commonwealth that have taken this on have included the schools. Our town specifically excluded the schools. So but have samples. Can
can we say that again louder? Well, they excluded us. This could void if when the town passed a flag policy that not one person wrote a letter to the editor or made a public comment
about if they hadn't had the line in there that excluded the schools. It would have automatically included us. This whole thing would have been avoided and their policy is the same as ours with with Thatcher going to Thatcher and then Thatcher goes to the select.
No, it doesn't. But the town administrators, but does he have to bring to the board? My understanding is no. Okay. The integration, but that's it's a different either way. It's the same thing. It's I think we can all agree that it's a different it's just a different situation given the the cohort
and the constituency. You know, people feel very strongly and passionate about it, which I I respect. I I totally respect that. And through this 18 months, not one person has well the select board guessers less than 18 months ago. Say I think number 10 don't
like a year ago a year ago. Not one person in all of this debate has petitioned the select board to amend their policy and remove the line that excludes the schools. That that I also don't understand that that's but it is I don't
know what their reasoning was for doing that. I don't think they I think they had like a 45second conversation about it. It wasn't there wasn't even this much conversation about it. And I don't think they were doing I I want to be clear. I don't think they were doing anything nefarious. Their council came to them and said this is the new case
law. We think you should do that. Sounds great. We'll listen to legal counsel. Done. For some reason it went sideways here. And so again, as I say, the tooth is out of the tube. So it doesn't if you pass this or any policies um that we are
still potentially at risk that someone could come forward. Um but at that point we have a policy which is part of the case law need to have a policy and then obviously there could be arguments that that our policy is not in whatever
whatever the case law describes and our council has it does. So that's that's where we are right now. Um so I'm going to ask to follow vote I think unless to discuss this. Yeah. I don't have a motion yet and do you have anything else? The only
thing I want to ask the committee and elsewhere is do you want to add something about staff? Yes, I would make a motion to add staff and students. Students and staff because I think it's the staff and students that should be making these appeals, not like I said,
no any Oh, well the line I'm talking about adding to Jonathan's point and I think Angus mentioned it as well. It explicitly says on line six in the first paragraph students. It wasn't meant when I suggested it was meant to
mean students and staff. So changing that students and staff. The only other issue is it's got student artwork, locker decorations and is there an inherent there is except that we heard a lot of put the reason do we want to add that staff artwork as it may be staff? Yes.
So then or we could just I think that's fine. Students and staff because again they're they're also covered by the by the um CBA which is pretty broad in terms of we can we can we just write references
to polic the the CVA change that all right are you okay Jonathan if we change that that line in that first paragraph I think that that's what you were referencing it says any personal items students can it say any personal items student staff,
right? Yeah. So, I think Yep. I think I just have the work. Yeah, it's great. Um, so why don't we add that? I will if we if it is such that we pass necessary, I will So, I know everybody's going to hate me. I did just want to mention one
other thing. um that no it's okay cuz it's been a long time and it's but I don't and so first of all when I was talking about bargaining I was talking about since April you guys were you have been bargaining with the union very consistently since April and so there were some things just kind of you know
from a priority perspective had to take a backseat um from the delay perspective that's why I mean months um the my other so when I went to uh when we went to with Miss Fion to learn high school. Um
they had in their cafeteria small flags that that can be strung, you know, it was like from one part of the ceiling to the other with the smaller flags on. Um there were, I don't know, maybe 65 70 flags. They weren't all. So the kids
were like, "Oh, what are these flags? What do they represent?" Because you could tell it wasn't all of the countries in the world. Uh and what they shared. So I went to investigate to find out and what they shared is that they were the flags of so they had obviously
the American flag and the the state flag they have all six of the armed forces flags hanging in their foyer which were beautiful. Um and in the cafeteria those flags all represent the home country of anybody that attended that school. So I
know I'm opening a can of worms by mentioning that they are um but the can of worms is open. I don't I don't you know um that was just something because we were just there for the chorus concert um that I thought was really a
beautiful tribute also and certainly from a welcoming perspective more and I have no problem with that. What I'm saying is the more layers on this I would think that's something John would bring to us and say I make this recommendation and we can say we approve
that like if we start making if we start making this yada yada yada this list and you're going to ultimately exclude someone because I think someone made the point about what heritage was all you're always going to miss someone like oh why
didn't you celebrate epilepsy awareness month when you talked about autism you're always going to miss my question is if we do something similar to what you just mentioned Allison isn't there and I don't have a policy for isn't there something in the policy that states no other
like law that is not in the policy right that's because I you know I I feel there is state law no the state law says you cannot fly the flag of another nation outside your so that's okay I was just confused now I think there's there's you know
opportunity for like in social studies classrooms that's currently in place. Your recommendation bring them on like we when we make sure I'm noting a motion to add staff but I I also I I think that the request should
be coming from students and staff. I don't think that that I wanted to add in students and we add staff to students and staff and then I'm going to ask for a motion. Where are you adding it? Because any personal. No, no, that's not what
she's talking about. She's talking about who can go to John and request that is going to be up to John to listen. Okay. So, wait again the official legal status. It says the flags I have officially the status the United States flag, Massachusett state flag shall be displayed. That's the that's the one I
was talking about. But that doesn't preclude me from recommending other because this is that we must fly the US. I just I just want to be clear before like even if this gets voted in, I want to make sure I know. I would hope that you will. My assumption in the way this is
written is that when people are uh asking you to fly a flag, you are are hearing those from staff and students, not just right people that don't spend their day within our walls. Correct.
That will be up to the superintendent. So if we add staff and to any personal items staff or students y and then reference the seats you want to reference what child I don't think we need to reference the collective bar I
don't think that's you wouldn't normally reference that policy no I just want to make sure we're going against I'm going to run this we approve this this initial um so can I have a motion to approve draft policy
IM. So second second with the the motion would be with the edits. With the edits with the edits. Yeah. So the edit includes um adding staff students staff or students.
So have a first and a second. Um going to call for vote at the against Brian with that edit in Sarah Allison in Jen Sher in favor. Okay. Going to move on to C um on
the agenda to increase the inter mural hourly rate in accordance with June 22nd stipened agreement. This is something that was presented to us during the process of finalizing the um 180 contract. We discussed this in uh in executive session. I am asking for us to
codify this vote um in open session. And what this is, just so folks know, is we had a site get an agreement with um the uh unit A teachers department education association in June of 22 to have stipen
positions automatically have collet increases in accordance with with the um contract with the teachers. We happen to have um some intram intramural coaches and staff who are actually hourly not stipended. So this is 78 and that was
mistakenly somehow omitted or not included. So we um are looking to go forward to um add those hourly worker hourly staff into the stipen agreement that will give them the annual holy increase. So I'm looking for a motion. I just made this
a second. And just for anybody with questions about budget, how this will affect it just the public of this privately or executive session. Uh this is like two people like so this is not going to change the budget to a point where this is literally just yeah it's
encompassing the intent of the original it's more than two people but it also gets comes out of us fees so it's not out of our budget and this was the intent original intent which was I'm going to call for the vote in favor in
favor and can you just know for the record that we did invite Um we did invite that legally we have to give um temp administrator vote in collective bargaining matters as well. Um so this means this um is
now I think she said no. Well that's my understanding we can talk offline but this was the final um issue around the contract so offline but hopefully that'll be good news. Um okay moving on to the recess policy. Um Elsa, do you
want to read this or do you want this? We drafted this in our policy subcommittee this week um that Elsa brought forward and I'm going to have read it and discuss. Yeah. So just to give a little backstory, we've always had two
recesses for elementary here to read our I was like wait a second. I was gonna excuse myself for a minute to let cry in the hallway. I thought when you said Yeah. I didn't know anything.
Okay. Well, let me go through it after. Yeah. Um so just um so everybody understands the genesis we've always had two uh two recesses. A previous administration one year decided to
remove one of our recesses. There was pandemonium, teachers and community members, parents alike over that. Um and it was put back. It was put back in committee together and I believe uh Mr. Oda, you were on that two. So it Yeah, I
knew Sally was too. I was going to mention her. Um I wasn't 100%. I thought you were, but I know that Mr. and Sally were um I can call him I know sorry it's fine he's I'm talking to him in his in
his professional status as principal then um he was the principal of govern and there was a committee put together uh by the previous administration to review this give their thoughts it was administrators parents and um teachers
alike from the district my understanding if Please, if either of you have more to add to this cuz I was not on it. I was just a squawky parent in the meetings. They agreed that the second recess was
so I would go as far as to say was you guys going to look at salad. It was unanimous. I wasn't going to use that word. I teachers myself. I think I was the only committee rep. Um administrators on it. It was unanimous
that a second recess benefits children and was talked about in nauseium visual studies and why it was important. It was unanimous. We voted to make the recommendation that it go back permanently. Um the then assistant superintendent
oversaw that committee and ultimately the recommendation of the committee was never welcome back. I'm looking Did I get anything wrong? Okay. Vit Kola, Sarah Vagazine, I think those were our two parents.
Um, and so that's that's how that committee shook it. Um, so it was removed. And uh, if it's the last thing I do, I want to get it back in. One of the things that for a myriad of reasons,
anybody that has children, works with children um can understand that um what sorry um so we drafted this again it's a draft right um and just the first
reading of it in alignment with the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics policy affirms the district's commitment to the physical, social, and emotional well-being of elementary school students. This policy establishes a minimum requirement for recess time in grades K through six.
Regular recess supports physical activity, social development. Why going to cry? Someone else might have to read this. Cognitive performance and emotional well-being, contributing to a whole child approach to education, supporting overall student wellness. Maybe I don't know why
I'm I'm No, I don't know why. Sorry. Effective. I'm gonna try. Uh, school year 2526, all elementary stu students in grade K through six shall be provided with no fewer than two scheduled recess periods per school day totaling a minimum of 35 minutes of recess time.
This policy is in accordance with the CDC's strategies for recess in schools. AAP policy statement, crucial role of recess in schools and mass school wellness advisory committee guidelines on physical activity and student wellness. From a scheduling perspective, recess should be scheduled in addition
to physical education classes and lunch periods. Recess periods will be divided into two blocks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, allowing students multiple opportunities for movement and wellness throughout the day. Duration uh each recess period would be a minimum of
15 minutes with the total recess time adding up to no less than 35. Uh school may exceed this minimum if scheduling and instructional needs allow. Recess will take place outdoors when weather permits. Outdoor recess is not possible. Indoor recess shall still provide
opportunities for free play, social interaction, and physical activity. All students shall have equitable access to recess and recess shall not be withheld as form of punishment for behavioral or academic reasons in alignment with the best practices recommended by the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Recess will be supervised by school staff to ensure a safe inclusive environment and staff will encourage cooperative play and positive social interactions. Question. Go ahead. The whole reason why previous administration refused to give us back to recesses if they said time on
learning from the state required every minute be spent at this weight. Does this at all violate? So go ahead, John. You want to jump on time on learning at this point? Okay. Um, so time on learning. So we have to meet 900
minutes of 900 minutes um at the elementary school. Um current our current recess is 20 minutes. Lunch is 20 minutes and at the lower elementary that leaves us with um we can meet the 948.4 hours. So we're good right now. If
we do, I'm just going to give you a couple scenarios because we there's a there's a process that we utilize to find out time on learning to meet the requirements from Desi. So there's a whole there's a whole way to to and I'll share this with you, but um project with projected with 25-minute recess and a
25m minute lunch. We just we did that as one of the iterations that also allows us we slept 925 hours. So we'd be good there. projected with an AM recess at 15 minutes and a PM recess at 20 minutes with the minimum with a 20 minute lunch.
Um, which I think is pretty much in line with Y talking about um that would not get us 900 minutes. We would be at 892.6. So, we would we would be below the required Let Can I just go through the rest? It'll be it'll be important.
Oh, hours. I'm sorry. Can I 900 hours? I apologize. I was responsible. Okay. Sorry. Um um projected with AM recess at 15 minutes and PM recess at 20 minutes, which were equal to 35 minutes before in the policy for the 20-minute lunch with
the five minutes added that we talked about in the in the contract um added to the start time. That would get us back to 99 hours. Sorry, it says hours. Um so we'd be okay there. Projected with two recesses at 20 minutes each with a 20-minute lunch, we'd be well below at
876.4. before. So we really do need to look at like five minutes is is is equals like a lot of time. So actually add it in. Right. Right. So I I so we have a six we will have a 6 hour
and 20 minute school day. What is the numbers? I I you know I know how to subract 2020 2020. What do we use for I'll share passing time? So um obviously recess isn't counted towards time on learning. Yeah, passing in the hall
isn't time on learning. So, how much time I think we calculated that six minutes? Yeah, I did an estimate of six minutes to and from recess. Um, and the four minutes to and from the classes that they definitely changed was the
arts. So, within I was Yeah, hang on one second agreement. She was doing her um may I inorate those five minutes brought it up for bargaining. It was denied. This now has to be that five minutes. Yeah, there's a specific language around
that and I can I can read it. Um the language, let me find that. I had the other I had other language about recess because it's in article 10 section B that's always existed. But the five minutes was that there would be um a
a meeting to implement it and how it is implemented. The language meeting for a joint favor was not to be implemented. We had this discussion at offered for five minutes for that and
it was turned out by your side. That is not actually we had plenty of parents there at that time. That was the truth. All right. Then I'll need to get back because our understanding of what was according to our attorney what would be well our talked about committee first so
we haven't talked about yeah but my understanding is that the joint committee was for the discussion for um of the implementation you know I I went I will go to that before I I don't want to lose this page our this is always this isn't new to this
bargaining piece this piece always existed. Article 10, section B. Elementary teachers at a time they deem appropriate during the morning session, whether permitting, will take their class to the school playground for a period of play and or relaxation. This
activity is in li multiclass morning recess. So that section has always existed. It existed when it was removed. And I I brought this up then. I've referenced this multiple times. Also, I I not what this is. This is not
and saying that it's x number of minutes in order to meet the minutes. So that doesn't pertain. We've also had a lot of of people committee members and parents that were members of that committee reach out to Desi themselves and w with
all all the pieces and what has come back is that this actually is is not a minutes problem. I I feel particularly at the elementary level where we if we're counting wayfinder we're counting all the social
emotional learning as time on learning the time that we are teaching children to be respectful in the hallway respectful responsible and safe that's what we say in our schools right and we talk about the PBIS and all of those pieces I would argue that well I'm I'm
in those schools I with you know as a parent I see teachers reminding students, Johnny, is that responsible, respectful, and safe to poke Sally in front of you. And I didn't mean to use your two names. It's just the two names I always go to. Um
uh that I would argue, and I would hope our educators are arguing this as as well, that that is our we're utilizing our social emotional learning during those periods. That's not it's not the same as when you're in a high school and
bio ends at 10:05 and civics starts at 10:08. Those three minutes are unstructured and I wouldn't go back to that time in the hallways for all the you know for all the money in the world. That is clearly free time. But that time
where children are still our our elementary students are not you know Sally's not a door and standing on their own. still under the supervision of the of their staff and the teachers. They're still under the instruction of the teachers. They're giving instructions.
There's definite there's definite reasoning there, right? But two things and I and then Julie's going to jump in. Um, two things. One, Desi is very clear that passing time regardless of how we how we determine or what's happening during the past time is not time I'm learning. Not that I disagree with what
you're saying. And I know what in that instance, but but wait and then so there's that and then the other piece is Desi is silent on recess to begin with. Silent. So we we talk about C CDC and everything which is great and I and I agree with all that and I and I don't want anybody to get it. I don't think
that movement breaks are are just want to make sure that Desi is silent on recess. There's a reason that they haven't created um ways ways for recess to be part of policies. One, two, but they are clear of what is considered time on learning and it's in C C 603 CMR
27.4. It will tell you exactly what is common and what's not regardless of what any of us say. So it does say passing between classes, right? So I and I'm right. So when I spoke, I think I fully agree with what what Sarah said. That's what I have said for
four years now. When I spoke to MASC directly about this, we talked about this particular thing because it is, you're right, whatever 2704 C 603 CMR um for MGL uh which is
what it does, it does say passing between classes. it and in home room it is clearly talking about passing between classes in like if you're going from science to social studies which our K
through six don't they have connected classrooms they go to allied arts yes it says passing between classes if you call MASC and again it's fine and I just think we need to own the decision it's not MASC yeah I understand but they specifically
will say that it's an administrative decision that they aren't our government. I understand. Am I allowed to weren't I didn't say they were the governing body. Uh in my opinion, this
is critical. So, and I just I disagreeing with you. I I'm not disagreeing with you that I think the second recess is important. I just want to say that in order to operationalize it, we need to consider these things that whether every single person in this room and the whole school thinks that
right. Yeah. I mean, I guess my frustration is ultimately this never should have happened in the first place. We never should have been in this position because we had never ever been in trouble for it. I heard from Well, I see Diane shaking your head. I don't mean to call you up. I just appreciate the support. Um I heard from countless teachers way back when when I first
addressed this with the previous administration and again wasn't you guys, so it's not not at all there. Um it's kind of like the flag that now it's here and now you have to deal with it, right? Um so I and I get that. I fully get that. Um we never should have been
in this position. We had never had a problem with time on learning before. We had always had the same I mean start and end times and everything and and our scores were better. So, you can't tell me that a six, seven, eight, 10 year old kid is not going to be able to stay in
class longer and listen in the afternoon if they have an extra recess or listen better in in the morning. So, so all all I will say is I can't speak to previous. I don't know how they calculated the numbers. All I can say is as superintendent, it is my ultimate role to make sure as the education leader
that we're beating those minutes and however we need to do that, that's fine. And if it if we can get the second recess in there, I think that's great. I don't disagree with that. I just want to make sure we're going to do it in a way that is meeting it. It's matching. It's it's allowing for it's allowed for in the CBA and that we're and that we're
doing it. Um so get kids suggestion. This is the first reading of their readings. Perhaps we now is we go offline. We will work with the attorney. We'll talk to the union. We'll get the clarification on the joint labors committee and then we'll and we'll work with the superintendent in the policy
subcommittee to to plow through this and determine what our options are from the day um what our options are in terms of the ones you gave us. Oh, sorry. So, is there you know I went out to the
AAP and CDC sites and a lot of good stuff. Uh but their recommend you know so they were re their recommendations were K through 12. Is there a reason ours is just K through six or is it because of that takeaway or is there should it be K through 12? I mean I I
don't think we have 7 through 12 they have recess. Okay. So it doesn't apply 7 through and I was just curious why they didn't have it before. I'm not so I would never be in disagreement of giving children some unstructured time because
I think it ultimately does make everything better particularly when they get older and you're not seeing your friends in class. You're only seeing them when you go out to recess because the fifth grade goes together. Um I would be against it for the older grades but I think it's just not something they ever had. So what's nor do we have the
for time on learning there's greater hours for the 7th to 12th. will really be up against that. We've been talking about a longer school day, which is another So, next year when you did the M. Yes. Did you include the half days? I did. Half
days. I think we have not. So, we added more half days next year and we're short by how many hours in next year's schedule? We only added one more half day than we had this year. Um, and it's on the Well, why don't we So, I'm going to suggest we come back.
should continue my thought. Yeah. Is that it? I continue. Oh. Um, okay. Sarah, I'm Yes, you keep going and then we're going to wrap this up. This is the first reading. It's 9:00 and we're and my suggestion was that we go offline and we work with the superintendent. We get some clarification from the attorney and
the and the regarding the CDA. So, go ahead. So I if if we're short, you know, 12 hours, 13 hours and we have these staff days, I would also like to enter into the conversation of possibly amending the calendar to allow for the
hours on learning to accommodate recess because I think it it everything I heard from the subject matter experts that we have in house here in that committee, everything I hear from what I read, it makes a profound difference um on children's students ability to access
the curriculum as well as self monitor and regulate themselves and I'm prepared to okay so we will do some work offline and then we'll come back for seven days that was that okay I'm going to move on to okay
so the next two I'm sorry I think this says update so we work this offline offline Um the next two items we have um which are the operating protocols code of ethics um is a little bit detailed. It's 9:00. I happy to go forward or
folks want to consider moving this to next meeting. Yeah. Um because there's there's some a little bit of work to be done. We're we're Alice and I have worked on this. This is one of our school committee goals for the year was to draft school committee um operating protocols. Um I also found in my um
hours of research that there was a school committee code of ethics out there as well uh that MA had. So I was presenting or we were presenting that to school committee but we were looking for some input um to try to you know massage this a little bit. So you know we can plot forward if you'd like or move it to
the next meeting. I think that's going to be a big conversation. But yeah, I'm I can stay and yeah, I don't have an issue staying later, but I'm fine with you want to push you to the next meeting. I mean, I did review it. I didn't see anything terribly
controversial about it, but maybe I just need to Don't say that last words to I I would like to push this off of the next thing. Fine. All right. So, let's move let's move that to the 15th and I promise
we'll make it we'll we'll get it we'll get it done. It also frankly will allow me I got the last minute um I had asked Alicia to review our draft. She got it back to me um late last night or yesterday afternoon. So, this will allow me and Allison actually to combine that
too. So, be one less document. So I think we'll be able to massage it a bit more and hopefully we can bring this out with the next meeting. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Um so the next item is superintendent evaluation discussion and schedule. I should have all got the email from me. We are looking at May 6th
at 10:00 a.m. at which you wrote to be doing a compilation of the student's evaluation. You all should have received the docs that Sarah had drafted in our workshop and put it into a formatted man put it into a formatted form. you should be able to go and check it off, type in
your comments. Um, I've asked John and he's agreed to come forward with um some backup documentation which is appropriate for him um to give us in regards to those committee goals um that we can use towards making our filling that form out. Um we have the survey
results and then sorry I just want to make sure I'm using the right document because I know Sarah sent one. Did you send it an amended one based on hers? I told I'm using the right one. No, it should be the same form. The form that I made, she made it fillable. I just made it fillable. You couldn't You had to
print it manually. So now you can type in That's all I just made. I don't have those texts. Neither do I. A fillable PDF. When will we get the the documentation just so we have some ample time so we come prepared on Tuesday morning?
Um I was Yeah, I was just asked to prepare that. So I I was started working on it today. I'll try to finish up tomorrow, get it out to you. Um, yeah, I'll do I'll do my best to I'll scan it into like one day. See if that makes sense. I think be the 8th, but also I thought that's fine. I'll get it
done between between I'll try to get it done tomorrow. Been crazy last day. I think tomorrow I actually have a good chunk of time. I can work on that. I started working on today. Um, yeah, I I did the narrative for the dip and I'll attach that to the dip. That was the bigger one. I just had to
find what what makes sense for evidence for the other two. Yeah. So that would give you the weekend and run my best and also the point is that we're going to work on this together, right? So, you know, we're going to be together. Um then the plan was so that would be the sixth that we would compile the
evaluation and then at our business next business meeting on the 15th we would be presenting this in open session but it would be a presentation you know the work compilation work. All right. Okay. Great. Um, all
right. Subcommittee updates. False. Same things we've been doing all along. Newsletter, the the two person coffee. Coffee that went out. Oh, I guess. Huh. And then where did two hours come from? I originally had thought we were
only We were there for three and a half. Yeah, we were there for three and a half. I was there. Would it be better? I was there for the two hours. That was But that's what was planned for. What do you do you think that even the two hours is too much? Should it be less than that?
It depends on the if there were more participants, I think maybe the two hours would have been a little more appropriate. Uh I would make it a maximal. Yeah. Yeah. I think time goes on they'll get
shorter because the interest will have doubled up. Who knows? Maybe it'll get better. I was surprised stated to all those. Well, I think it depends if you're in the midst of good. So, Al, I would love Why don't you go first for me about what your thoughts on the concept
of coffee hours and the experience of the one we had. It wasn't hugely attended, but there were people there. I mean, I I think my kind of what you just said. I think the concept is good. Uh, obviously I would have liked more
participation. Um, well, we also the first I think it's a good I think it's a good start. You know, I think it's a good start and let's build on it and continue to do it and we'll just edit it as we feel fit or something. I just can I
just share there's just um I think what I've seen in other districts too maybe for for consideration is you know I think you did 10 to 12 maybe look at different times. Yeah, we had talked about so yeah I think one of my frustrations that is when people leap to to con conclusions about why we picked
that time that was just what we said and what happened for the first one that's not when every single one is going to be and we shared that with them as well we talked about that in our in our last meeting about it but we it would be different pairings and different times of the day to be able to accommodate
parents that have little kids that don't want to drag them along in the evening bed of course parents that um doing it in the evening and um you know PTO and SACE meetings are all during the work day too. So um trying to make sure we meet all them. Yes. Are
there going to be some kind of votes from the people before you so that the next group going in the next month will have some idea. This was a hot topic that occurred in May. So when you're doing one in June, you have an idea what Yeah. I mean I don't know if you want to
consider recording it then. I'm not bogged, but at least I kind of notic that said, you know, topic was recess, you know, so that we could pass some ideas. Well, I think that's what's happened would happen here because otherwise it's an open meeting
violation. So, was there common topics? I mean, there there was um so it was it was actually a really really I'm super like beyond saddened and disappointed for what um how it how it was expressed
by someone that attended because I thought it was a really really cordial commun like very open communication. There wasn't contention. There wasn't
animosity. I didn't feel um it was I I thought both sides everything was really wellreceived. We were absolutely able to provide answers for everything that was asked. Um except for the woman that came in and asked uh what happened to the
individual with the flag down because that wasn't us to answer. Um but that is the answer, right? Um, I think we did discuss, um, there's a woman there who's a cookie maker in town and, um, she used to be a teacher in a different district and she
had a ton of great ideas, um, that were really, really thoughtful, I thought. All again, I don't want to speak for you um on how to improve some more communications schools and what's happening um with older children because
as as you go from, you know, Brown or Glover to village, there's a significant drop in the amount of communication because they're getting older and we're expecting them to remember a little more, right? That we need to be teaching them those things. Um, and I think maybe even a little bit more of um, explaining
the parents how to go on Google Classroom because I think there are parents that don't necessarily know that they can go to Google Classroom and get a lot of information um, for village anyways. And um, we did talk about the flags. We talked about the reason why we need the flag policy. We talked about
how we or I shouldn't say we and I apologize. I don't want to speak for anything that Al said I was very clear that it was disheartening to see people think that it was performative to meet with community or meet with the students
regarding the flag policy. Um I think this this school committee over the last few years has been more transparent and more clear and more involving the community um than than we have been in the past ever. And just because the, you know, the
caveat there being we can have these conversations, they're very beneficial. It's so important to understand different people's lenses, that doesn't mean we're going to go and and make the changes um or or follow a specific set of instructions by a certain subset. Um
but it it's still super important to me anyways and I know my fellow committee members to hear those differing opinions. Um we did it did then evolve into a question about um book banning. So Jen and I had met as a policy
subcommittee just the day before and um we had talked we had it just so happens that one of the policies that we had reviewed um is the resource review policy and that's what was being called the book ban. Um that policy again was
created a few years back like Sarah said already walked through all that. That policy was created and it's a six or seven page procedure. It's very very lengthy. But even to take a step back from that I made it very clear it is not the school committee's purview to ban
books. So I'm not going to wake up one morning and say I don't like this book and we're going to take it off the shelves. That's not how it works. We have a policy and a procedure in place in order to do that. It has to be a parent that wants to come in and request that. They have to fill out the form and it goes through the chain of command. It
is not doesn't start with us. Um, and what Jen and I had done just the day before and Lee was at that meeting as well. We discussed that policy. She's already on. Um, we discussed that particular policy and how it matches up to MASC MASC's policy on research
resource review. And again, I think it has instructional instructor. I was instructional material review is a paragraph long. It's very broad. They're really there's not a whole lot to it. Certainly not compared to our six seven page procedure. Um and so what I shared
with the the three um community members and plus so there's four um I mean I'm not sure if we was there to report or there as a community member also of course. Um so there were four people there. Um, and I made it very clear that
Jen and I had just gone through the review of that I section for our policies and that that was one of the policies that came up to review to make sure it matched with MASC. And what I shared was that Jen and I had discussed that particular policy and agreed and again we're going to bring to the whole
committee agreed that we wanted to keep our longer more detailed policy with the procedure because so much time, effort and energy had been spent on it and it really made it clear to folks how that policy how that procedure would work if someone wanted to question a resource.
Um, I shared that then and we didn't, we're not getting to it now because it's late now. I'm making this be later, but we did were very clear on that and I'm really proud of Jen and I for having gone through that and keeping that policy. Um, I do think it's really important to make something like that
very clear given, you know, how contentious that discussion um can be similar to flags. Um, but again, more importantly, it's not the purview of the school committee to say I don't want this book. I didn't want this book. there. We talked about bullying, um, which is something I think that probably
will come up a little bit more. Um, and we shared some stories and some experiences there. I did talk about recess, uh, and how we had, you know, just gone through a draft policy for that because again, Jen and I had done that today before. Um, we did talk about adding the five minutes, but that's
someone else's discussion. I wasn't involved in bargaining. Um and then we talked about the wind block um and how it works for some folks doesn't necessarily work their classrooms and what I had shared in regards to win is
that I think it's a wonderful idea um you know what I need the wind block I think where there were some missteps again absolutely nothing to do with this group here want to make make sure you see me when I say that be very clear um it has to be implemented properly you
can't just simply say you have 45 minute wood block and walk away. And um not having more consistency across grades on how that's done. Um the experience from the parents that were there that shared the three parents that were there that
shared the their experiences with one block were dramatically different. Um and so that was again not perview of the school committee. I sorry I'm the one being accused of being a liar. I'm just I can't let that stand.
I'm sorry. Um, so my concern is that how can we rectify this type of thing? Not happen. My one concern for the next group of people, I loved doing it. I would do it every single time if I could, but how do we rectify what is
said, who, what, why of what is said. I know we we got an email from another parent that had attended thanking us for answering all the questions. So, I don't know how we rectify that. not running into that concern, I guess. Or maybe no one has that concern and that's fine
too. It's just me then. No, I I so Sarah to your question, I was kind of surprised by some of the topics, right? Because they really some are very operational and that's fine. you know, we're not trying to, you know, limit
things, but um, you know, wind block we haven't discussed a lot as a school committee because we haven't needed to at least, you know, so when someone asked a question about that, it was good that someone is there who has, you know, I was on the committee when it was on the committee
and also your experience as a parent, right? Y um, which I don't have. Um, so it was kind of nice that there was that that blend. Now around, you know, how people walked away from that meeting and and what their take and their
perception outside of like making it a formal meeting with notes or, you know, I I that's difficult. Maybe unless maybe I'm just kind of thinking out loud. Maybe that's just maybe some ground rules or we could just talk at the beginning of the meeting around our expectations. Uh, and I don't know
exactly what that might look like, but you know, this is some of the risks associated with just having a more free form. You know, you really can't prepare for a meeting. And I think that adds to the value of it, too. You know, it's it's meant to be
a bit more. You'll learn from it. Yeah. You learn from that and we'll learn. It was the very first one, right? And I think I think it was good. There's one other um question here. Um, I hadn't been paying attention. I tried to pay attention to the Q&A and I hadn't been.
Um, there's a couple uh anonymous questions um asking if we had asked lawyer specific questions. So, you may want to look that Sarah just mentions your name. Um, and then um someone else asked um Miss House asked, "If you're transparent, why did you fire Dr.
Bucky?" Um, we didn't fire Dr. Bucky. Dr. Bucky and the district separated. Um I don't know what SC members are continuously blowing off meetings. So again I would rather than kind of
blanket um I think one other thing that came up Al um was that we need to be more transparent and I asked for specific examples and I was told that there were none. Um I asked twice for specific examples around transparency because I totally get it and I think that this team wants to be more
transparent. Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not trying to speak for you, but if we're not provided with a specific like when you did this, Brian, you were not transparent. When you did this, Allison, you were not transparent. So that we can learn and and kind of explain um with regards to So just just to add on to
budget, we move on. Yep. Yeah. And it's good to ask for examples, right? Um, but you know, Allison just discussed, well, look, you know, here's where I think we've improved our transparency and discussed specifically the budget process around that. And I think that was accepted and everyone thought that
was yeah, was good. Um, the the around Dr. Brady, anything personnel happens in executive session, but none of that um can ever be discussed in open session. Um in addition, part of that separation
agreement included his um demand that we have uh a non-disparagement clause and an NDA there. So we cannot speak to any of that. That's that's that's legal right there. And so I going to border I appreciate what I have good intentions
right now um to try to interact and answer people's questions and and I want to applaud that at the same time that I call going to border because we got way off on going to the borders tonight. We don't. This is not a meeting with the public. It's a meeting in the public. So if we keep interacting with this um then
you're certainly entitled. Okay. So I'll just say you're entitled to your own opinion, Miss House. You should come try and come to one of the additional sessions um and speak to some. So can I just move on from this and say that um do you both think that it's a good idea
to keep doing this? I'm sorry. Do you think it's a good idea to continue with it? Oh, absolutely. Okay. And that's why I thought, you know, sorry point, but I think the conversation is helpful around do we continue doing No, we were answering comments on the Q&A. I just want to make you want
to move forward, but not I had one thought of something and I thought of it today and I was like playground a great resource and there's tons of young parents. I like that we did one at a coffee house. We'll do one in the evening. I thought of a big one, you know, in the afternoon or a nice day,
somewhere like that, so parents with young kids can have a chance to speak to you while their kids are amused. You know what I mean? Like, I think being creative in how we offer a multitude of options to the community and to to um
people would be great. So, who would like to be the next set of officers? Sarah, anybody else? I'm happy to do it. Brian, do you want to do it? Sure. Brian. Okay. So, I will uh welcome you to No,
because I'm a facilities. Yeah, I can't do it without or else this is in the subject. You can, but you can't talk about wouldn't be able to talk about do it and I will um I'll work with you offline to set it up and we'll we'll advertise it and all that. Wait, how did
you get the block? You ask No, but we're I'm there all I we're there all the time. Yeah. showed up. There's always there's always different groups. I'll work with you two days of people there every day. Okay. Um so that was the um office hours communication.
Um um the only other thing I want to talk about, but I don't want to do it tonight. Facebook. Yeah, let's do, you know, let's put that on the next agenda. And let's do this as an agenda. Um we had a facilities meeting yesterday. There was more information on the roof projects. I actually had to
send the recording to get uploaded. Um we then you know it was presented again last night at the townwide um capital planning committee. Same presentation or or truncated presentation in the evening.
Um, one thing that came out of the facilities meeting yesterday is um, Mike as well as Todd um, apologize if other administrators were there and I wasn't aware did walkthroughs of every school with the building principal at that
school. Um, they interacted with staff I think when appropriate students going through um, really giving them a chance to say you know what do you have any needs here? Mike had pages and pages and pages that he um zoomed through and
showed us, sent us later. Few examples, you know, a teacher may have said my doorsticks or a teacher may have said I need a cabinet repainted. Mike made a bulleted list. He I was amazed to see he'd already started checking off a lot of those
um issues already. I saw the flag pullet vets getting painted. That was one of your issues. You said that was on the list. That was being okay. that was being done today. So, um, so these things are work reaching out directly to the staff, getting those lists and
checking them off for facilities at the the you know, in the leads level, I would call it. I'm just I'm just asking the questions and making a list. The hard work's getting done by other Yes. Yes. Yes. Um, and explaining explaining the process for how you how you ask for those things because a lot of things we talked about a lot Yeah. didn't know
what like how for like gets fixed. So yeah, one of those things. So yes, the work's getting done is the okay policy subcommittee met. We already talked about our items um the two policies as well as the um protocols and
the ethics. Um and we will come forward next time for discussion on updated policies that we need to work on. I think that's it. All right. Uh new business quickly. Um John is looking to put together a yeah the interview committee. So we're putting together interview committee for Matt Matt Fox's
uh you know departure and uh obviously we have a school committee member on that committee. So I had individually asked folks if they were interested just to see if you know and the proponents for you guys said yes I'd love to be a part of it. So I think tonight we just
need to kind of decide either amongst yourselves who who's going to be in it would be the representative or we who has who has asked I expressed interest and I would love to do it but if if there's other you know we just need one correct I put myself at the bottom of the list just because I have a lot of
travel coming up and that's not something I can zoom in you know we want to do this in person so I have no problem several meetings so there is a there is how many meetings you have set up so far four setup so far four set up so So this they all in May or did they get weeks? Okay. Well, I I sent you Yes.
Yes, we did. But I'm just worried if things get a little bit delayed or so many, you know, I I' I'd be a little more difficult to work with schedule-wise over the next couple of months. I would like to be on I believe my experience is principal and knowing
vets as well as I do and be a good asset on I said I'm interested but also I got the opportunity to serve on two last year. Um, so I'm I'm happy to see that if if that's
Yeah, I mean I would definitely love to be on it, but I Yeah, and I understand not discounting Brian's experience, of course. So, we're down to Brian and Elsa. You So, either work this out amongst
ourselves, that's great. Thank you. Please keep asking me though. Yeah, we just won't have to, but yes, there is business I'd like to talk about. Sure. We broke a big protocol tonight by
having a back and forth with the audience. That's a big no no. And I think we're setting a precedent now. This will start to happen more often. We have to stop that. I agree. I apologize point. This is not a public school committee public's invited to. And the
other thing is I'd like us to go back to the office in a little order. When somebody's speaking, they need to have the hand raised if they want to talk. She should recognize that person. We have a habit now of cutting in to each other constantly and I can't fall in
these conversations because things are going back and forth left and right. We need to go back to Robert's rules of order. Somebody speaking and finish their thought. The next person that wants to speak should not criticize or ostracize whatever that other person said. should just state their own point of view. That's the way the committee
should work. But as far as I'm concerned, you have to discuss that in another meeting. But I'm really beginning to get frustrated because I can't get a word in that either. So we need to go back to certain formats and we don't want to use Robin's rules of
work. Fine. I'll drop that one. Well, that would make sense with the protocols. We're going to do fresh fresh eyes and fresh brains at our next meeting. So, um, so that we could do that on the 15th. That makes sense. Okay. So, that I know you're talking
about me because I I talk back. I'm never not going to do that if someone is is stating a lie about you. I'm never not going to But that breaks the I I understand. I'm I'm just telling you right. I'm never not going to do that. You're okay with Why don't we It's fine.
Discuss that at our next meeting when we talk about the phone calls and roll that. Um we are meeting the 6th to do the evaluation for the superintendent. We are meeting I'm sorry the 5th for town meetings morning of the 6th the evaluation possibly town meeting on the night of the 6th and the 15th is our
next um school board committee meeting. Any other items? All right I'm jouring us at 9:20 for time meeting I assume we'll sit where we normally sit there. So we're down