I struggled. >> Recording in progress. share question. >> I'm getting a message on YouTube that says that video is restricted. >> Um that means but we can just go ahead and
record it and then post it after >> should be good. Is this um >> is it visible to you? Yes. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to call the July 8th, 2026 school meeting to order
at 10:04 p.m. begin um with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which stand indivisible with liberty and justice
ver. >> So, we're here for our retreat, but we do have a couple of communication and discussion items to do um before we move into that portion of the agenda. Just mute your Um, so first is reporting out a June
2026 MOA that we reached with the MEA. Um, in November 2025, the school committee and the MEA reached an agreement on school start times and related scheduling issues in order to facilitate a second recess at the elementary school level. That agreement
covered the 2526 school year. The school committee and the NEA have reached a new agreement addressing school start times and related scheduling issues that will apply beginning with the 2627 school year. And a copy of that agreement is in the packet for today's meeting.
And then next on the agenda is a discussion of the lease related to servers and wireless access points. Mike or John. >> Yeah. So I think um we have Mike here to kind of explain where we are with that, what the thought process was. And I think Michael will explain a little bit
more, but it's really the committee's charge with making sure that we have the authority Mike or myself has the authority to enter into a three-year lease situation regardless of whether it's technology or bus or it's a you know 36 months. Um we just need the um
committee's blessing. But Mike can kind of explain where we are with the the technology piece what that looks like at this point. >> So this all this all came around happy new year. >> Yeah. Uh this all came around uh because Mr. Squire Techch and I were looking at potential lease options for some
technology equipment that's needed. Uh I reached out to four leasing companies, got some quotes and uh we were talking to one of them and they were going through paperwork and they just said so who would be the signer of the lease and I said I would and they said who would authorize you to be the signer of the
lease and they said well not typically either to be the superintendent or the school committee. They said well we'll need a letter from them saying that you are authorized to enter into a binding purchase. Um so that's where this came from. Um we are still researching the
technology purchase that's really outside of this purview. Um my recommendation is that um maybe the the school committee um update their policy that says leases, you know, up to 36
months. Uh have the authority of the superintendent with the assistant superintendent financing operations to execute those leases and anything over 12 months would be brought to the attention of the school committee whether it be approved or not. you know, you know, something along those lines.
Similar to how when we did the copy release last year, we brought it to your attention. It wasn't something that you needed to be, you know, approved. I think they did ultimately, you know, vote to support it, but it wasn't uh a requirement of the community to approve it before we do that. But I think it's good to have something more. Our policy,
I think, is a little a little vague in in what's allowed. So, I think maybe they give permissions to who can execute the lease, that would be great. and um you know and then anything over 12 months would be at least not the committee would be notifying that would be going to that type of
>> what's the current policy state in terms of the timeline >> um I didn't I >> does anybody know what the current policy is and what we're proposing we would I guess change the policy to so we have a policy DJA that gives authority
for purchase of materials equipment supplies and services to the superintendent through CO cost center appropriation as part of the district budget process. And then it provides that no further committee approval is required except
when law or policy wise requires. Contracts may be entered into for a period of up to 3 years. Contracts of longer duration may only be entered into by a duly called town meeting. Um, but I think particularly
when we're talking about contracts that are going to span multiple budget years, I agree that they should sort of be specifically at least >> called to the school committee's attention. Um, >> yeah, from a budget planning standpoint
that, you know, we are committing funds for future budget. It happens frequently. It happens with copier contracts, >> transportation contracts. agree that they should sort of be specifically at least >> called to the school committee's
attention. Um >> you work here or something. >> I'm good now. So it's good. >> Okay. >> Should be good. >> Okay. So that was that was just the point of this. Um since that point in
time we we're still working on exactly what technology we need without the additive dial and we we're just reversing course a little not reversing just uh dialing a little closer getting some additional votes. So we are not executing all these we
find out by uh within the next two weeks. somewhere. Oh, okay. >> So, as as the policy now stands, like I have the authority to do that based upon, you know, the fact that um you know, you've approved the budget stuff, but the multiple year lease piece is the is the part where I think we rub up
against a little bit. So, we just want to make sure that once we know what the the least copier will look like, I mean, technology lease will look like, we can just share that out. say, you know, the first year it's going to be this second or you just like to give it a copy at least because um it's generally, you
know, a cost savings measure. I know there's some conversation like we're getting equipment now but not paying for it till later. Does that mean they're going to have to pay more money because it's pushing off the doubling off? >> It's really not. >> Yeah, once we have once we have the
specific numbers and information, it'll be a lot clearer then and we'll share that out that point. But this was just conversation about making sure we had the authority to enter into a lease. >> I think the only time you really wouldn't is if you were trying to
procure something that was not in the budget that the school committee. So like theoretically you get a grant for an electric school bus. You know, I think that needs to come before the committee because we didn't approve that as part of a cost and appropriations for
the budget. >> But other than that >> Yeah. And that I mean that that may may not be the best example because it was a grant. It's grant funding so it's not local money. But um but yeah, I understand what you're saying. It's something like you know all of a sudden we need oh we didn't realize we needed a whole new playground and that's going to
cost full of $400,000. We didn't budget for that but we fund it this way someplace. Exactly. >> I think something like that. We we Yeah. I mean, we're we're I think Mike and I are very in tune to making sure that um we're sharing what we're spending and how and why and um especially in in the
um you know, obviously Julia and curriculum and everything um because you know everything we've been through and we certainly don't want to be seen as not not transparent. So that's okay. We don't want to be okay. It's okay. >> I was second.
>> So no just general. >> Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just kind of covered by the policy and I think if if the leasing company needs a letter or something from the committee, you know, once we get to that point saying, you know, there is
authorization. >> I think that's probably where we can. >> So, I had actually already provided them with your contact information. So, they were going to forward you with some type of consent that you would electronically sign, you know, when we get to that stage. >> Yeah, I already g that. I told them
earlier this week to pump the race. So we will do some other >> problems right now. >> Mike just did a quick question. Jesse used to have a program I think it was called that offered discounts to districts >> part of the problem right now. So, uh, we can use our e-ate funding for, sorry,
-ate is, um, I look at it as part of that communication charge you pay on your cable bill, all the other thing. That money goes into an e-wait fund that then is filtered back to schools. Um, so it used to be able, you could use telephone lines, you could use internet
access, you use all kinds of things. Uh, they've narrowed the scope quite a bit just because, you know, we used to hate our fact lines with where they don't want us wasting money on fact lines anymore. So um we are looking to purchase wireless access points once we have are at the end of their life. They
uh the support on it ends this year and although they will continue to work we will not be able to get support on them. We may need some ability to program a functionality but program them ourselves to heat or whatever. uh that was part of
this conversation that we're having. E- rate is covering 40% of that and we will cover the other systems. So yes, we do use funds uh and those funds will be available to us in August. So that's why I said the brace because we do have a little bit of time. Unfortunately,
the access points are already I believe out of out of service terms and they're working. They will continue to work. If one breaks down, it just means that we may need to do something in that one. It's the area of low building. We have probably hundreds hundreds and hundreds
seven or 800 access points across the district. So there is coverage everywhere. Um so it's not a huge concern that one goes down as long as the entire district doesn't go down and that should not be the case. >> And just the other quick question, I'm sure it's been looked at, but the whole
lease versus buy analysis, I know there's a lot of factors that can go into that. has that already been done for this or we know we want to lease them. >> Well, this is kind of playing into the um conversations we've been having for two years now that I've been here. Um especially with the finance committee and the budget subcommittee around um
infusing money into the budget over three years, a set amount and we started with $150,000 override fiscal 28 and another 150,000 for fiscal 29. Theoretically, we would need $150,000 more in fiscal 30 and that
would be fiscal 30. Um, but the idea is that in year one, you probably lease about $400,000 worth of equipment and your first payment is $150,000. In year two, you would then lease again an additional $400,000 worth of
equipment. Then you have your initial $150,000 that was originally in the budget plus 150 was added to the budget and then you get 30. And by the time you get through the three, they're all three-year leases. Now you're on a cycle. No more additional funding added into the budget. You know, funding would
then be at theoretically $450,000 and we would expend $450,000 every year, but we'd be buying probably close to $1.3 million. >> No, 400,000 $400,000 equipment every year. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> You're welcome. >> Any other questions? I'm going to go back to the office. Thank you all. >> So, that brings us to our treat agenda. >> Alicia. Um before we get to Alicia,
Julia is going to lead us through a team building activity. Um that comes from Wayfair Wayfinder, the district's CL. >> Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me to um I'm standing up because we're going to do a little activity together. So, thank you so much
for this opportunity. Um, uh, so Wayfinder is our social emotional learning curriculum and within Wayfinder, we have both lessons and activities. Lessons take about 30 minutes. So, for the sake of time today, what we're going to do is an activity together. Um, and then following the
activity, we're going to talk about kind of the science behind why we do our social emotional learning curriculum. Um, and then get some of your feedback on the exercise as well. All right. So, I'm going to pass out. you have the slides on the screen, but I'm going to make sure everybody has a copy as well. So, if you wouldn't mind, actually, why
don't you if you want to just take it around? Sure. >> And this is this activity today is called the interview game. It is a fan favorite. We um I've done this before with our mentor program. Um so, it is
geared for older students and then I've uh adjusted it a little bit for the adult level. Um, and again, we've done it with our um, mentor program the last couple years, and it's been really nice. Our mentors and mentees get to know each other a little bit better. So, the the core skill we're working on today is
collaboration, which I think is really appropriate and perfect for a school committee retreat. And what we're going to do today is we're going to work together to get to know u another person. And how we're going to do that is by asking them questions. So, what we'll do in a moment is we're going to
divide into pairs. and I'll have you pick your partner. Um, and somebody will have to be with John. >> She wants to recite it. >> Um, >> unless she wants to throw you in the good.
>> And so what we'll do then, um, within the pair, one person will start with the interview questions. And the point of the interview questions, um, basically you're going to try to ask as many questions as you can in that fourm minute time frame. and you're getting
information from your partner. They're just kind of rapid fire answering the questions. Um, and you're you're as the person asking the questions, you're listening. You're getting all this information about your partner. Then after four minutes, we're going to switch and we're going to repeat the process. The other person um can ask in
the same the the second partner can ask in the same order. They can ask different ones, maybe questions you didn't get to or they want to know what you think. They answered the question. and they might want to hear what your answer is so they can ask the same questions as well. All right, so we'll do four minutes and then four minutes.
Once you have asked a question, all I ask is that you're going to place a check mark um because there is a gain element to this. So you're going to check which questions you do and then we're going to tally those up at the end. So um you'll just go through and as you're listening and after you just check that you know you ask that
question and again the partner can ask the same question again. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask for you now to partner up and then I will bring the questions and we'll get started. So, if you want to pick a partner, >> I'm going to put you
I think that's great. Just wanted to give options. All right. So, I'm gonna bring then So, Henry, do you want to ask first? Sure. >> Okay, great. Who wants to ask first? I will ask first. Okay. Okay. And then
Melissa. Okay. So Melissa, Al, and Henry, if you can just have a pen or pencil. >> And the game element to this is once you get the questions, you're going to see that there's some questions that are worth more points than others. So >> you will see once you have that, you have the questions right now. So your
partner doesn't have them yet. So you will get to they will have to see which questions have a little bit more point value. All right. So, are there any questions? >> Yes. >> So, if I'm asking the questions, do I have to remember the other person's answers? >> No. Okay. No, you're just listening and
taking in on learning about questions. >> I'm not going to have you share. Henry is simply learning more about you in this moment. Right. And generally, the only reason for checking the questions is just because the fun kind of game to him. All right. >> All right. Four minutes. Let's begin. >> Sorry. So you said there were somewhere
worth >> if you could have more power, what would it be? >> What's your favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon? >> What's the most adventurous weather? >> Uh, >> what's the most adventurous thing you've ever done? >> Fishing. >> What is this?
Um, what's your favorite hobby or >> must expert on trail? >> Oh, no. >> Describe your life. work. >> All right. >> What's your favorite outdoor activity?
>> Favorite outdoor activity is what's >> Okay. Um >> starting the school year last. >> What's the most adventurous thing you've ever done? >> What's your favorite thing I've ever done on the fever that happened? >> What's your favorite childhood thing?
Well, for saying that >> um many type of Green chicken. >> What's your favorite dragon? >> Is it too much?
>> Um, I have no What's your favorite type of interesting living? >> All right. So, what are you looking forward to in the next three months? Uh, I am looking forward to going to Canada's
great. Um, what's your favorite? What's your favorite siblings? >> Favorite holiday. >> What's your favorite girl? um any musical >> um you could be
>> all right so I love this question if you could have any >> and why what's your dream vacation >> like animal. >> All right. >> What's your favorite thing? >> I hate All right. Let's see what else.
What's your favorite music? >> I can go back to my >> Okay. >> What's your favorite ice cream? >> All right. One minute left. One minute. >> Um, do you like to call or tell? >> Oh, if you could choose a different name for yourself. Where do you go to steer
your >> um >> what's the furthest person? >> Um you like what's your favorite ones? >> What's the furthest they see?
Jesus sounds good. >> Taylor Swift, two. >> All right. Thank you. of you asked the questions if you could tally up how many remember what the yellow represents three the others are one
>> your constituents are getting to know you all very well I realized that after but that's great that's great you're all wonderful people so it's good that they get to know a little bit more about you as well so for John and Marie and Kate you'll get the paper same thing you can repeat
the questions And some have more of a point value than others. Feel free to ask any of the ones. And maybe there's some that you don't that haven't been asked. So you want to do that in a couple of minutes. All right. >> Ready to switch. >> All right. Let's begin.
>> What's your most interesting you've ever done? >> Beach. Um, I told my >> hiking up to the top of >> mountains. and why this lighter system couldn't refuse to tell it was like
how's it going with asking what >> your favorite always like starting a different Do you have favorite Fabio?
>> What's your favorite place? >> What's your favorite? Um, >> sitting on my desk and I'm on the same side. Um, choose German
couples or it' be nice to speak to them in their native language. favorite Spanish. I almost like started to >> strang distinguish everything about >> I traveled in a house.
>> I celebrated. Well, >> a lot of >> someone else in that celebrity where >> I'm a Swifty too. to understand
>> but also to go back >> halfway. Okay. I always wanted to random >> maybe like the world. >> And what's your favorite type of cuisine? Oh, I thought you just need to read Italian.
>> Yeah, I think that is >> actually another piece of sushi was also >> symbol if you were to be there just um or publishing something lately
>> which I forgot where you're like Okay. >> One. All right. Thank you so much. Go ahead. Tally those up and then add them with your partner's number and let's see. >> Do you won this competition?
>> Uhhuh. Let's see. how competitive a group we are right now. Did anyone else ask all the yellow questions first? >> Oh, wait. >> I was Oh my gosh. I'm good at this
marker or something. >> You're on type a yellow with the yellows. >> Okay. I have to multiply my HBA question. with whatever needs help. >> How many points? >> How do we go?
>> And we got 42. I have 37. >> Excellent. Wow. >> Excellent team. us down. 37 for Al, 25 for me. >> Excellent. Very good. >> Both got 43. So 86. >> All right. All right. Winner winner.
>> So the game element is really for the students, right? A gamified kind of gives them like, you know, something that they have to buy in because they want to win. So that's like the fun part of that for the students. But I also saw a lot of smiles. So what did you guys think of the activity? >> I liked it. >> Good. Good. I like the questions. They
were interesting interesting ones to learn things about another person. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Like I know Emry a whole lot more before I you know you know relative to before I ask the question. So it's kind of cool. >> Yeah. >> And the time element you don't have a lot of time to think about what your answer is. So it's kind of like that.
Don't overthink it. >> Exactly. >> And that's what it's all about. Right. The activity today was um remember the core skill is working on collaboration, building relationships because when you know somebody right and thinking about just adults, right? Then we we have a
deeper appreciation or we know them in a different way or we can maybe connect with them in a way that we didn't know maybe something from the surface, right? And so for our students, we also see this as they're building relationships with one another. Then they're going to have more positive relationships with each other. hopefully reduce the incidence of any of the bullying or the
teasing that we you know we don't want to have in our schools. So this is really helpful uh for that and it's a part of a continuum. So when we think about you know K12 in the school an activity like this you know we want our kids to be having fun and hopefully you guys had fun doing it and the but there
is actually the science behind you know in this case was the relationship building. We want our students when they build those relationships to feel like they belong. They feel a sense of belonging. they've made connections with other people and then as they get older they start to think about how they fit into this world with a sense of purpose
and it's part of the wayfinder theory of change. So when our students feel that they belong and they know what their values are and what's important to them and they know that um they're in a community that cares about them and they care about the world themselves and they're going to learn how to act with purpose and that's what we hope for for
all of our students in all of our schools. So, as part of our Wayfinder curriculum, you can see kind of the continuum. And this is just one activity. Of course, there's lessons upon lessons with all those um the core skills, the six core skills. Um but you can see the continuum and kind of the
foundation that we lay in K5 with um building connections and understanding ourselves. And then as they start to get older, right, more sense of belonging and then finally in high school with a sense of purpose and where they're going to be as they leave high school. So, thank you for participating in the
activity. Congratulations to our winners. Um, but thank you for the opportunity and if there's any questions, just let me know. Um, but really appreciate it. >> Thank you so much. >> I thought about non highlighted. I thought there was a trick and I'm cynical so I was trying to ask more of
the non highlighted what? >> No, just random that the president of chair and vice chair moment. Thank you so much. Julia people, right? >> Thank you. >> Will you make me a presenter so that I
can share my slides? >> Yes. >> Oh, nice. Okay. Sorry about that. panel without anybody. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you. Thank you, Julia. Oh, there you go. Thanks. There I am.
Okay, perfect. >> There we go. >> Okay. I don't have super fun. get to know you quite but I'm still at that. So that was fun. So um hello everyone. If we have not
met, this is a taken past. Um my name is Alicia Min. I am a one of the four field directors for the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. Um, and if we have met, you've heard this before, but one of the great things about working for MASC, is that almost
everyone on staff, save I think one person, either has been or currently is a school committee member. So, we have sat and do sit where you do. So, we understand the job from both sides of the table. Um, I personally I was on my
town school committee for five years and then I became my town's representative to our regional vocational technical. Um, and I just started my fifth year there and I'm the secretary there. One of my kiddos just graduated and the other one is a rising junior so near and
dear to my heart. Um, and a lot of what brought me to school committee work was CPAC work. I started volunteering some PTO things like that but it was really CPAC work and the policies around that that really brought me to what I am doing today. So just very quickly um
I've been asked to present in a couple of days some roles and responsibilities um effective subcommittees and Robert's rules very quickly who here has not yet taken chart in the course is not a trick question. There's no chart in the course jail. So has anyone not taken chart in
the course yet? Okay, so this won't be a repeat for you, but when you take chart in the course, it will be a repeat. We like to start out with when we do roles and responsibilities just understanding a little bit of what school committee members are supposed to do and not supposed to do, etc. Um, I tend to be a
very fast talker and I stood up because I move around a lot. If I'm moving too fast, stop me. If you have a question, stop me. Um, if my Boston accent pops out, no one can stop it. Nice try. So, what we're going to cover today, again, I was asked to present on um Oh,
that went too far. That was a preview. Roles and responsibilities as a school committee member um your responsibilities as the municipal legislature for the schools, some uh best practices on subcommittees, um and
Robert's rules. So, first up, are we going to do this? Really? There we go. All right. So, when we start this, we like to start starting out with the committee versus the superintendent. So, I've given you guys printouts. Um,
and I will send them electronically. Sometimes it's a little bit hard to see. When we start over here on the left hand side, that's the committee. That's you guys. So, the committee is always governance. You are the mission, the vision, goals, policy, budget. You are
the what, the why, and the how much. So the example I like to give when we do chart in the course is you know that your students need to be able to communicate through the written word. That's your what your why is well to stay commensurate with their peers.
How much that's your budget. Keep that in mind. You are the bridge between the community and the superintendent which does not be the community does not reach out to the superintendent but in this room where the decisions are made at the table you are the community's representatives
and you authorize by a vote and then you monitor. So over here on the other side excuse me with a superintendent. Your superintendent is management to your governance. Your superintendent is your everyday kids on buses, into the
buildings, learning safely, having lunch, back on buses, home safely. They are the day-to-day management of your district. They are strategies, action plans, regulations, and procedures. We're going to get into policy versus procedure in a little bit. They are the
how, the who, the when, and the where. So, back to our example about the written word. You know, your your students need to communicate through the written word. you know it's important to keep them commensurate with your peers and you gave the superintendent a budget. So then the superintendent says,
"Okay, how this is the curriculum we're going to choose who?" Second graders think second graders is a good place to start here. When we'd like to kick it off in September and we'd like to make sure that these teachers are the ones who are teaching the curriculum and
where this classroom, this classroom, this school. Halfway through the year, the superintendent says, "We bought pens." Oh boy, we probably should have bought pencils so that we can erase things. The superintendent then changes that. So the superintendent takes what
you have given them for the what, the why, and how much and they turn it into what happens every day in our buildings. They are the bridge between the staff and the committee. And again, that doesn't mean that the committee is not going to interact with the staff, but it means that the primary focal point
between the committee and the staff is the superintendent superintendent. And this is sort of it should go the super uh superintendent recommends you authorize by a vo by a vote superintendent implements and you monitor question.
>> So around communication yes which I think is an interesting one I a little more nuance if you look on the left bridge between community and superintendent I think it's easy to imply that the school committee should be doing communication to the community and I don't know if
that's necessarily the case. So the school committee speaks for the school committee, the superintendent speaks for the district, and actually if you have really effective operating protocols, the chair of the school committee speaks for the school committee to the community and the
superintendent speaks for the district. Yes, you are communicating things out to the public. And frankly, one of the major roles, it's a teaser, but one of the major roles of school committee, we talk about policy, budget, hiring and evaluating the superintendent. The
secret fourth role of a school committee member is knowing where to send someone when it's not you. 80% of the time it's not you. And like maybe 50% of the time it's not the same. So knowing where to send someone to get their problem solved, having a chain of command that you can reference, you are there mostly
to hear from the community and be the community's voice in a vote. You're not necessarily taking every online comment. You're not necessarily taking every email and forwarding it to say the transportation director knowing where to send someone. So if someone comes to you
and says, I have this question about transportation, knowing that that's where you send them, that is a primary function of your communication with the community. That make sense? Awesome. Awesome. Um, so hopefully if we do this right, we get trust and respect and community trust.
Um, we have several studies that show that if you live somewhere and you don't have a kid in the school district, the way you know whether or not the district is functioning as a taxpayer who's paying into it is whether or not the school committee superintendent relationship is an effective relationship. That does not mean
everyone agrees on absolutely everything. But if you are constantly at odds, if we're playing gotcha at the meetings, if you don't have a functioning relationship, the community doesn't support you. And when you go to ask for their taxes, you're not going to
have their support. So when we're talking about a committee member, did you have a question? >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. >> Sorry. I didn't mean to call you like that, though. So, when we're talking about committee versus individual member, we're actually going to start on
the right here because as an individual member of this committee, you don't have any power. Sorry. Um, every individual member has no authority outside of the body itself. You have no greater power than any other qualified voter unless
you're sitting at this table. Um, you are supposed to contribute to and communicate the mission, the vision, the goals, things like that. you are as an individual placed in this room by your community to ask the critical questions. But we at MASC like
to advocate for something we call the no surprises rule. That does not mean you don't ask the critical questions. What it means is if I'm coming to a budget meeting and I know I want to ask something very specific about a specific transportation thing, I let the
administration know, hey, Monday night, I'm going to ask you this question because then they can get you the answer. It does nobody any good if you come to the meeting asking questions and all you hear back is, "I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you." Whenever possible, communicate those questions
ahead of time. Um, you are also supposed to, as an individual member, support the committee decisions. This does not mean everyone gets to the end of budget season and they're like, "Woohoo! We have all the money we needed. Everything's great." It means that when you are in the
minority and you don't win the vote, the decision of the committee is still what carries the day and the functioning of the district is what rules everything. School committee members are the only elected officials anywhere whose actual
constituency can't vote for you because your actual constituency, you're responsible to the taxpayers. You're responsible to your community. Your primary concern when you sit at this table is the students. 100% the students. So you should, even if you
disagree, support the committee's decisions. That does not mean that you don't keep advocating for things. That doesn't mean that the question does not come back around. What it means is you don't try and um keep doing a reconsideration vote. What you it doesn't mean you know not showing up to
avoid having a quorum. You keep the committee functioning and keep advocating for the things that you want to advocate for. Um and again dedicated to the work on behalf of the students. On the other side, the committee can only exercise their power through
properly posted meetings. Um that's that OML 48 hours exclusive of Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. Um properly posted meetings, they have to be properly posted. And you govern through policy. We're going to get a little bit deeper into policy in a minute, but most
of what you do is policy. Your budget is also policy. Your budget is the largest policy document you put out because you fund what you value. And if your budget doesn't reflect your policies and your vision and goals, it doesn't reflect the district. Um, you are the steward of the
financial resources. One of the most overwhelming things for a first time uh committee member is to come in and that first time that warrant comes through and they're like warrant number xyz and the amount of and you start seeing zeros add up. It's overwhelming. Nobody
expects you to be an accountant. That's why you hire a superintendent who hires a business official. But you are the steward of the financial resources. So you do have some oversight through warrant process, through reports. Um if there are audits that are happening, you have those critical questions that you
should be asking during budget season. You also sustain the superintendent school committee relationship. Again, you want to make sure it's functional. You don't all have to. Um, a superintendent I was on a policy call with this morning said to me, she used to tell students when she was in the classroom, you don't have to go on
vacation with each other, but you're going to be appropriate and respectful in this setting. Um, you don't have to go on vacation with each other, but you should sustain your relationships. And you are the employer of record on all collective bargaining agreements. You're also the employer of record for a couple
of um other things, advice and consent outside of the superintendent. So before we go any further, education loves names for things. The only thing we love more than names is acronyms, but we love names. So when
we're talking about your mission, that's why we exist. Your mission statement is why we exist. It should say students first. The future you seek is your vision. The broad objectives, overarching goals, um strategic goals,
strategic objectives that comes from that's the next step down. And then your short range objectives are things like your smart goals, your strategic initiatives and action plans. All of these things should flow from your mission. I will do a little brag on my
district. Um, they were doing this way before me, so I take zero credit for this, but Nova Techch has a portrait of a graduate that is five words. Not just five words, but it's five words. Responsible, resourceful, resilient, respectful, ready.
All of those four things surround ready. That is who we want to send out into the world. Be it continuing education, the workforce, wherever they're going. We then align the superintendent's goals to those five words. We align the school committee goals to those five words. Our
operating protocols are aligned to those five words. So the through line for everything we do is that portrait of a graduate, those five words that we want for our kids when they leave our building. And it is super effective. Again, >> typically you do these things top down.
>> Yes. >> So I'm surprised the vision isn't first. >> Yeah. >> Right. The vision is first then your mission towards that vision becomes more seems more logical that way at least in private. >> I hear you. Yeah.
>> Absolutely. No, I hear you. Okay. So, when we talk about the school committee being the municipal legislature for the school district, we all had to take the no cookie basket training, right? The the ethics training, I call it no cookie basket training because every time I take it, they're like, "You can have the cookie
basket up to $15." And I'm like, "No cookie baskets ever." Um, we are because we are elected or appointed members of a school committee, we are municipal employees, special municipal employees. As such, this body is your municipal
legislature for the school district. Like any other legislature, you have those roles that include determining your operating protocols, um establishing the rules for the municipal legislature, which for you guys is your policy manual. You hire the
chief executive, the superintendent. You originate slash set the budget. More on the budget later, but the budget originates with you, but in conjunction with the administration. You're a public figure legally and publicly.
Even if you shop in another town, another grocery store, when you are out in public, when you are in the buildings, you can come in and say, "I am just here as you know, my kid's mom, but you are a public figure and everyone will see you as such." So keep that in
mind when you're communicating. Um, I skipped over other special duties set by state law. Other duties as assigned pop up all the time. Uh meetings and actions are usually in public with very few exceptions. For you all, that's executive session. And I handed out a little um pamphlet with the
10 reasons for executive session. I found out uh two weeks ago that two of the trainers, myself and another field director were in Idaho with other people from other states who do what we do. Um and Illinois has 40 exceptions to open meeting law.
I can't even 10. We're good. We have 10. Um, and then you maintain the balance of power between the executive and the municipality. That's your superintendent and the district. I keep pointing at that, but it's not there. So, when we talk about other
duties, including but not limited to, you serve your constituents, obviously, and a lot of your communication with your constituents will be absorbing information to bring back to the body. You should not be promising actions. Um, we try to encourage school committee
members to make your decisions in this room. Yes, you should come to the table prepared, but you should make your final decision in the room because there's many times we've all sat at the table and we've heard something that we may not have known or realized. And it might not change your vote that night, but it
will inform something that happens down the road. So, always make sure you're listening more than you're talking when you're talking to your constituents and you're bringing the information back to the body. You have limited additional hiring responsibilities. Um the legal council because they work for you. They
the legal counsel works for the school committee. Um the business d off official, the school business official, director, whatever you want to call it. The assistant superintendent, the director of student services, the head nurse, which we think is a holdover from
when they did ED reform, but also they have a separate certification, so that might be why they're there. and the um district position. Now those are advice and consent positions. They are not you're running the interviews, you're doing generally what happens is the
superintendent will post the opening. There will be a hiring committee. The hiring committee will go through the steps. Great superintendents keep you informed the whole time. excellent superintendent might put a school committee member on the hiring committee but they have a nice you know swath of
your um stakeholders and then it comes to you for the final approval. Again you can't withhold your consent from a dy qualified individual. Um you do the goal setting and strategic planning. Many
strategic plans will originate the district strategic plan not buildings. District strategic plans very often originate with the district with the administration but they do come to you. Um you review school improvement plans. You don't approve them though. You just review them. Uh you are the employer of
record for collective bargaining and again you retain the legal counsel. You also approve handbooks, fees, grants and gifts, strategic plans, overnight and outofstate field trips, the calendar,
and new and substantially different job descriptions. So, I'm going to start on that last one because new and substantially different job descriptions. When we're talking about that, if you have an assistant superintendent in charge of teaching and learning and they're going to be turned
into an assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum and belonging, that's probably not a substantial job change. But if you have an assistant superintendent in in charge of teaching and learning and you're going to make them an assistant superintendent in charge of transportation, they may have just become a different role. You would
need to approve the job change the change description. So when it comes to we're going to talk about budget now. Any questions so far about all of that? >> We just go back to the hiring. >> Yeah. >> Um so
>> the assistant superintendent um finance person the nurse which is >> me but um >> can you just reiterate is it is it approved like um claimment based upon the recommendation of the superintendent. Okay. So it's not as simple. So you they hire me as a
superintendent. They would approve or like approve based upon recommendations for 10% of those other positions, right? Cuz it's a little bit different. >> It is definitely different. You are not directly hiring, right? >> Um there are a couple school legal councils who disagree with a couple of those that there should be a direct
hire. Masc will tell you, "We will always give you the most small C conservative advice to make sure you stay out of trouble." According to our legal counsel in house, superintendent hires everyone but themselves. You have advising consent on those positions,
which means yes, there would be a recommendation from the superintendent and they bring it to you. Your role in that is to look at someone the superintendent was hiring and be like, uh, this guy's your cousin. You can't hire him. That's the only like there would have to be something substantial
for you guys to disagree with the hire because all of that process, you are the last step in that process. the superintendent makes the recommendation. You approve it. You are advising consent. >> Thank you for clarifying that not in this committee but in my previous life, but I've seen that confusion a lot. Um
and then the other quick question before I go on is um >> that has surprised me that the that the school committee doesn't approve the school improvement plans. We brought it before this even before I was my whole entire life. >> Totally. According to the MGLS,
the school improvement plans are approved by the school site councils or the school councils or whatever you call them and then they're brought to the school committee for their information. It was a change that happened a couple years ago and I have to tell you there's still a lot of committees that approve the school improvement plans. My first committee, we still approved all the
school improvement plans, but in the actual law, the school site council is the one that actually approves them. >> I know it's weird. It's like a piece of legislation that's sort of you're like >> why um it doesn't hurt to have the school committee approve it. >> Yeah.
>> You know, oversight, etc. >> Awesome. >> Okay. I realized I skipped this uh slide before I went on. Briefly about policy. Your role in policy is that you are the only body that can approve policies for your district. There are other things
that the superintendent will do, procedures, um, operating protocols for buildings, things like that, but you are the only people who can approve the policy for the district. Policies should always be 30,000 foot overview, clear statements, unless Desi Desi says
otherwise. We'll get there in a second. Um, they will be general enough that your superintendent can create procedures from them, but they set out the mission and vision of the district within those policies. So, they create the framework and then the
superintendent takes that framework and it turns into safety plans and handbook language and um teacher schedules and things like that. Every once in a while, because Massachusetts is the IB4 accept state, um I just told you not to make
them procedural, but every once in a while, Desi says you need to have this policy and it's so procedural. Um I was the field director that with our legal council just put out the timeout exclusion restraint update and that is
straight out of what Desi said you have have to have. We tell you all the time don't make it procedural. Desi said it has to be procedural. It has to be procedural. A colleague of mine calls those the choose your font policies because that's the only choice you get to make. Most of your policies will be high level. They will be vision
statements. They will be aspirational. They will include things that are specified by law. Um, but there's a little bit of wiggle room to make them. We never want you to just take our policy manual and drop it onto your district. We want you to make it yours. Um,
when policies change, there's a couple ways that happens. Sometimes a state or a federal law will change. Um, sometimes a state of federal regulation will change. When you see that come from Massachusetts, that's the CMR. So, very often we'll see 603 CMR 28. That's
special education. Um, sometimes there's state and federal oversight guidance that changes. That's Desi just put out that timeout exclusion restraint guidance. So, we had to make sure we changed all our policies there. Policies may change through strategic planning and goal setting. You should have in
your policy manual some policies about educational equity. Um, if your strategic plan changes and you want to update your policy manual to reflect that, that is appropriate. Your policies should reflect your district. Um, and sometimes you do a full policy manual review where you start from A and you go
all the way to L. I had to think about no K L. It's L. Um, you'd think I would know. I have like 13 policy projects going on. That's not applicable. Uh, sometimes you do a full policy manual review. It's a good idea, even if you don't hire out
for a full policy manual review to as a policy subcommittee talk about a schedule in which you will review your policies. So when I came on to NASC, I was already on my district school committee and they were doing a policy project with Rodney Preston. Um
she was my field director and I was training into her role as she was coming out of it. She finished the policy project before I came on board because you can't work for your own district. Can't be paid for your own district. No cookie baskets. Um, but we after she was gone, after she was done, we as the
policy subcommittee set up a schedule by which we would review our policy manual going forward to make it less likely we ever had to do like a whole policy manual review all over again. Um, and policies are not in effect until they're adopted by the committee. Sometimes you'll have a policy that takes
immediate effect. Sometimes it will be a date start in effect. Um, especially things that affect handbooks. Sometimes you'll have a policy change that you've been working on all year and you will the motion will be something like a motion to approve this policy effective July 1st so that the superintendent and
the administration can update the handbook but it doesn't go into effect in June and cause a dizzy. So before we get to budget two things are true. You as the school committee are the
financial stewards of the district. You do have oversight and budget is your direct purview. Anything having to do with money, policy, laws, you have oversight. However, the day-to-day management of that budget is the superintendent's
responsibility. And what we talk about when we do charting the course is you approve the budget at a cost center level. So, think of it like columns. You have columns. You've approved the overall number and you've approved the cost centers. The cost centers are based
on the municipal chart of accounts. Your school business official should know this. I'm sure they do and they're probably part of Mazbo. Um, which is their organization like us. If a superintendent is going to turn a third grade teacher into a fourth grade
teacher, that's the superintendent's purview. It's within the cost center. If you're going to turn a third grade teacher into a bus, that's you. because left the cost center and become something else. So, you need to approve that transfer. So, when we're talking about day-to-day oversight, the
superintendent is the day-to-day oversight. We don't expect you to be in buildings counting copy paper. You are the oversight and your superintendent is the dayto-day management of the budget you have given them. So, when we talk about budget, we hope
you familiarize yourself with school finance. Um, I joke frequently that I don't do math in public and if you have a budget question beyond the basics, I'm going to send you to Tracy. Tracy was sent to Masbow School, so she's actually certified Tracy Novik. So, if there's a deep question the rest of us in the room
usually ask her, but you should familiarize yourself with school finance, just knowing you know how things um happen in your town, how the state sends your town money, how the money gets from your town to you. Ensure your policy manual has up-to-date fiscal policies. You have a whole section in
there on fiscal policies. You approve all grants, gifts, and donations. Anything that comes to your district that has value has to be approved by you. And the reason for that is one, you're the financial oversight. And two,
it's a contract. If if you earn a grant, my district just got a grant. We have to approve not the application for the grant. You're not applying for the grants. If the district finds a grant that is appropriate for the district, the district then would have to bring it
to you for approval and acceptance of the grant. That's because it's a contract. They're giving you money in exchange for you doing something. I'm sorry to say if you're not already doing this, yes, this also means donations from PTO's and from members of the public. Really easy way to do this is to
create a consent agenda where you have grants, gifts, and donations within the consent agenda. So you're not having to if it's routine and you know the PTO donates for um when we were little it was the people who came in and did like yo-yo tricks you know that happens every year it's in the consent agenda you
don't have a lot of questions about it but it's there so that you have oversight um can I ask a question about that >> yes absolutely we have a very generous PTO structure in Marblehead we have a
volunteerrun thrift shop and all the money earned is donated made it to the PTO's for enrichment. >> Yeah, you should approve the you need to be approving the yo-yo guy and the jump rope guy garden person or can we approve
$25,000 in enrichment programming at such and such school this year? >> So, I'm going to put a pin in that question, but say you can approve a donation from someone that says you need to use it for enrichment programs. I
would say talk to your school business official at what level they want you to approve enrichment programs. Do they need to be the yo-yo guy, the birds of prey guy? Like, do they need to be at that level? Talk to your school business official about that part. Okay, but at the very least, you need to approve the money coming in.
Um, and a lot of people will ask, "Wait a minute, I've never approved a grant anywhere, and I know we get title one grants and title three grants." And you actually do that as part of the budget process. you're approving those grants because they're included within the budget. That is your approval of those grants. You don't need to pull them out
separately and say, "Hey, we're approving the title one grant on this date. It's in your budget." That >> unless there's a unless there's a grant that we would go after this repair allocation, right? >> Correct. >> They would have a transportation grant that we normally would bring in for the
school again. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Granting VCO, right? Does that get approved >> through the budget process or may not >> something like that is usually in the budget unless it comes in late or early or there's a change. It's usually built
into your budget structure. there. We get some go back. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Um so other things you do is you work with the superintendent to create the
final budget proposal. Every good budget process will start with a look back within the administration. They will talk to their principles, their uh department heads. They will put together the original budget, the first draft of the budget
because they are the people who are your stewards, your everyday boots on the ground, kids in and out of buildings. So that's where the budget originates. It then becomes a collaborative process and you at the end have to approve it. Um you advocate for effective funding levels within your town or within the
state. I heard that this year's budget from the state includes creating a review committee for the foundation budget. Yes, we are all super exciting and like >> we're all excited. A >> little overdue.
>> It's way overdue and it's going to take forever. But that is something when that starts happening, you all should be advocating for that. You also monitor things. You are ensuring accuracy. You are ensuring that your cost centers are the appropriate cost centers. You
approve the transfers in and out of the cost centers. And you approve the warrants. Warrants are how the lights stay on and people get paid. So we talk about warrants. Warrants must be signed before the bills get paid.
You may designate. How do you do warrants? Do you have a single signatory? Do you have a warrant subcommittee? >> The chair signs and then the full warrant is voted after May. It's been paid at that point, but it does come before the school committee. So coming
before the school committee is absolutely necessary and the chair signing it is absolutely well your signatory signing it is absolutely necessary but the signatory signing it is what makes the payment go out. Um you technically don't have to vote to approve the warrant. You're receiving
the warrant. It's a report. Um if your committee does that you always have to put and it sounds like you do. You always have to put the warrant information on the next agenda. Having a single signatory does not absolve you of knowing what's going on in the warrants. That doesn't mean you need to sit there with a calculator and a magnifying glass
and central office, but it does mean that those things are available to you and if you have questions, you can ask them. The warrants should be available to you so that you can see them before and after this the uh designated signatory signs them. I will also say
this about warrants though. Sometimes if people are looking for detailed warrant information, um there may be information that needs to be redacted. We need to make sure as we are doing these things that we are protecting student and staff privacy.
You should not be seeing warrants that have people's home addresses on them. The public should not be seeing warrants that have people's home addresses on them. The appropriate amount of information and again your school business official will know what that is. We want to make sure we're protecting the privacy and not just sending out the whole warrant to everybody without making sure we're not
violating someone's privacy. Sometimes someone will ask for information about out of district placements. You can have the information about what is being spent on out of district placements. You cannot violate those students verbal rights. So, um when you're signing the warrant,
you should at least know and understand what you're signing and you should be given a chance to ask questions and review as needed. Uh it's very overwhelming the first couple of times you've seen it. After a while, you will get to know what's being approved. Uh payroll warrants will start to look the
same throughout the year. Sometimes they change a little bit towards the summer. Um expense warrants are usually the same. Sometimes there's things that happen for fuel and heating and then they go back down. You should understand what it is you're signing and your school business official can answer those questions.
>> Can I ask one question? >> Absolutely. bullet point that says second bullet point. >> Yes, >> you need to vote to authorize. So if the chair is signing, do we need to vote manually to authorize them or the fact
that some action was taken at some point? >> Your chairs. So it's better to there are many committees that designate the chair will sign. I will tell you it's better to designate every year at the beginning when you at the beginning of the year. Well, it's actually usually the end of the year before the beginning of the
year. When you vote in your chair, vote who's going to sign. You can also in some places you can vote an alternate to sign if the chair is not available. This used to happen more often than not when we were all still physically signing on signing. When I
first got on, three of us would have to go to the office in the summer and sign. Um, e signatures, electronic signatures, um, Tracy will tell you have been legal since the Clinton administration. So, you're usually doing it online, but sometimes it's helpful if you know like you're going to be out of the country to
designate an additional signatory, an alternate signatory. So, your role in personnel, we talked about this a little bit earlier. Um, the school committee has one employee, the superintendent. And the
superintendent has one boss, the bud. No one person can direct the superintendent to do anything. You can ask for information. You can have a good collegial relationship. You are not in charge of walking into the superintendent's office and saying this
is going to be the thing you do. The committee is the employer of the superintendent. As such, yes, you do have responsibility for hiring and retaining district legal counsel. Legal counsel works for the school
committee even though the district does avail themselves of legal counsel all the time. They'll talk to the board more than you will but technically they they are employed by you sign the contract of usually your chair signs the contract of legal counsel. You also then those are your advising consent positions we
talked about earlier and again they are only advising consent. Additionally, when we're talking about personnel, there's an entire section in the policy manual, section G, on personnel. Um, you do establish compensation. You establish what's
called the range of compensation. When we're talking about collective bargaining, that's the contract itself. Otherwise, non-union employees, you are approving the range of compensation. You're not going in and looking at everyone's individual salary. Um, the
superintendent may bring to you, hey, I all of my principles are X percent under market basket. Sorry, market basket. I don't mean the supermarket. Um, under the market rate for all of our districts under our comps. I would like
to increase X amount to bring them up to scale. You're not going in and individually approving. You're approving the range of compensation. Um, and again, you're the the employer of record. And one of, again, the best things you need to be able to do for
your constituents is understand the appropriate staff member or department to send someone to. That doesn't mean that you're not going to be hearing things. That doesn't mean that you're not reaching out yourself. Most of your communication should be through the chair and the superintendent. Very often on subcommittees, we see other
department heads in subcommittees working. You're working with them. But knowing where to send someone, having that org chart, uh, one of my kiddos had a principal who had a fantastic graphic that I have since stolen and it said, "Who you gonna call?" Cuz we're all 80s babies. Um, so it said, "Who you going
to call?" And it said, "You know, my kid's pizza was burnt the fifth Friday in a row." Food services. I think my kid has too much homework. The classroom teacher. Knowing where to send someone when it is not you and it's not the superintendent to start with. It may eventually go to the superintendent.
packet may go there first, but you have told the people in order to get their problem solved, which essentially is what you want to do. You are here to help. That's why you're here on a gorgeous, it's not pouring and it's not a million degrees out Wednesday afternoon in July. Um, those seem to be
our two ranges at this point. A million degrees or pouring. You're here because you care. You're here because you want to help. Helping people get their information that they need and their problem solved is one of the best things you can do. So, I'm going to jump into subcommittees now. But before I leave
roles and responsibilities, are there any questions there? You can shout them out if they pop into your head as we go. But are there any questions before I jump into subcommittees? Okay. So, subcommittees. I love a good subcommittee. I have to
tell you, my district, my committee has oh, I think we might have nine subcommittees. Keep in mind though, we are a 14 member group with alternates from every town. So, we have a lot of people, but I love subcommittees because you can do the work of the committee and
bring a final product to the full committee and save so much time in the room. So, all subcommittees are subject to the open meeting law, which means, and I won't read these out loud, but all of the same things that apply to the full committee apply to your subcommittee.
Must be posted. can't talk about things that are not on the agenda. Um must contain the details with as much the topics of discussion with as much detail as possible. Everything OML that applies to the full committee applies to a subcommittee.
This is an including but not limited to. You don't have to have all of these subcommittees, but there are very often subcommittees around policy, finance. Every district will have a negotiation subcommittee. Um, my district has equipment and facilities because we're a
vote, so we have a lot of equipment and facilities. Sometimes there's a warrant subcommittee. Um, sometimes there's a curriculum subcommittee, which is not about choosing curriculums. It's about approving purchases and hearing from the district as to what they're doing. We're not saying we're going to do something
outside of Massachusetts core. We're saying, okay, you've brought us these curriculums and this is the one you've chosen and here's the book we're going to replace. Um, equity and belonging and legislative legislative advocacy. you could have a subcommittee for that. I would advise you though not to have a subcommittee for anything that is not
your direct purview. Sometimes in an effort to be really um equitable and efficient when serving our constituents, there are districts that get a little over their skis with adding subcommittees for things that are not
their purview. If it is not your purview, you shouldn't have a subcommittee for it because subcommittees are making recommendations to the full committee. That's why they need to be posted under OML because they are doing the work of the public body to bring for approval to the public body.
It's like they're their own public records sphere. Um because of that, because they are bringing the recommendations to the full committee. If it's not something you have perview over, you shouldn't be having a subcommittee for it. But all of these subcommittees can touch on a myriad of
things. So like a policy subcommittee very often will review operating protocols. Um sometimes they're called governance and rules Somerville calls them rules and governance. I'm meeting with their policy subcommittee, but it's their rules and governance subcommittee.
So when we think about Sure. >> Sure. >> So one that we had that isn't on that list and I know that wasn't inclusive list is communications. Was that not a common one for school committees across the state? >> It's becoming more common. Um I would make sure though that it's communication
from the school committee, not communication from the district because again the committee only speaks for the committee. Communication from the district. You could have policies about that and the superintendent may have their own working group on that. But your if you have a communication subcommittee, it should only be school
committee communications. If you're talking about other communications in the district, that's more of a strategic goal or a superintendent goal. So, >> when we establish subcommittees, they have to be established. You can't just
say we have one. So, the committee needs to establish a subcommittee usually by a vote. Some of us have standing committees. We don't vote on them every year. Um, but a couple years ago when a some of the towns around us reached out to us about adding them to our membership, we put together a membership
subcommittee which studied our regional agreement, etc. It was a onetime committee. We had to establish it and then we demolish that's not the word I'm looking for. >> Thank you. >> So, usually according to your policies,
the chair will either assign members or members will volunteer. Again, check your policy manual. Um, the committee will provide the subcommittee with a charge. You don't just get to form a subcommittee and go do whatever you want. Um, you can't undertake massive uh
projects without the full committee telling you this is what you should be doing. So, like if the subcommittee decided they wanted to do a full policy manual review and they wanted to contract out with us for it, the full committee would have to approve that because you're not making the final
decision on behalf of the full committee. you're recommending um the subcommittee or if it's you need to check your policies on this one. Sometimes the chair of the full committee will appoint the chair of the subcommittee. It's been a lot in cities though, not necessarily in towns. Um
they will choose their chairs secretary and the secretary is usually the person who keeps the minutes. All subcommittees must keep minutes just like the full committee. You have to keep minutes. You can approve your own minutes and send them to the full committee or you can send them to the full committee. The
parent button for their approval must have minutes. A word on quorums and votes when it comes to subcommittees. The subcommittee membership must be under the quorum of the full committee. So you guys are five sitting here. So a quorum of your
committee is three because a quorum is always 50% plus one. So quorum of your committee is three, which means a subcommittee can't be more than two. Otherwise, you're the full committee and you might as well just post it as a committee of the whole. So your quorum, your maximum membership for your
subcommittee is two. You can't have a subcommittee of one. Has to be 50% plus one. So that subcommittee always has to have those two members there. Which is why you want to be really judicious when you're thinking about subcommittees and the time that they're spending because you're a small group. But you always
have to have under the quorum of a fil full full committee and a quorum is 50% plus one. Um your subcommittees do the work the research of the school committee. They don't make the final decision. They can only recommen make a recommendation to the full committee. So
you can vote things out of subcommittee to the full committee for review. But you can't say adopt a policy in subcommittee and then it's adopted. Um additional attendees from staff do not count towards the core. So the only people that can vote are the people who
vote count towards the quorum. So if the superintendent or the finance director is sitting in with you, they're not part of the quorum. They also don't get vote. Um you also need to create and approve minutes. I did mention that. A word about attending subcommittee meetings as
a member of the full committee who is not a member of the subcommittee. This is one of those places where we invoke the Jim Hardy rule. You can, but should you? If you were were to attend as a full committee member, if you were
to attend a subcommittee that you are not assigned to and you have just increased the number of people in the room to three, you would have to sit there, face the wall, give no input, just listen, not deliberate. Otherwise,
you've created the quorum. So the idea behind the subcommittees creating minutes is any one of you should be able to understand what happened in a subcommittee based on those minutes. If you start attending subcommittees you're not assigned to and you start getting close to that for
quum. It's a gray area if you completely do not interact. You may get away with it. But if you're spending all your time saying what I did was technically legal. You're spending all your time saying what I did was technically legal. So, keep an eye on
quorums. Keep an eye on making sure we're not artificially inflating them. Your minutes should be thorough. A reasonable person, the standard for minutes is a reasonable person should be able to read the minutes of any committee meeting and understand what happened. They're not transcripts, something Darothy used to have to tell
me all the time as a committee member when she was my field director. She would say, "They do not need to be forensic. We're not looking for quotes, but you need to understand what happened in the world." So working groups and advisory committees
if it walks like a subcommittee and it quacks like a subcommittee. The idea behind this is that who established the group determines whether or not it's a working group or a subcommittee. Leadership teams under the superintendent even if one of you is
invited. Um, my superintendent in my town had a DEIB leadership team and they invited a couple of parents and a school committee member. I was there as a school committee member, but it wasn't my group and we weren't voting. We were
talking to the superintendent about things. Superintendent established it. It was not subject to open meeting law. If the school committee had established it, then it would be subject to open meeting law. So whoever owns the group dictates whether or not it's subject.
However, if you create a group that is behaving like a subcommittee, they are researching and advising the full committee. Sometimes we see this on uh it happened in my time on stock times. Sometimes it happens, say the rword, I'm sorry, redistricting.
Sometimes there will be a group that gets together on that and then they advise the full committee. If it quacks like a subcommittee, make it a subcommittee and post. Don't waste your time saying, "Well, it technically wasn't a subcommittee." Just post it.
Saves you the the hassle down the road. So, before we jump into a quick overview of Robert's rules, I've been talking for a while. Does anyone have a question? I have a subcommittee related question. We have mostly standing subcommittees
saying handful every year. And I think we kind of have a habit of like you know what the policy or budget subcommittee does and people get appointed to it and they just sort of go off and do it. Should we really be at the start of the year having more of a
discussion as a committee about what we want to see you know what subcommittees do or >> so if they're standing subcommittees presumably they got their charge when they were created. You don't have to go back into the record and try and find it. A policy subcommittee does what it
says on the label. If you were going to give them a new charge, please go through and look at our policies on animals and schools. The full committee would tell the policy subcommittee, sorry, excuse me. The full committee would tell
the policy subcommittee, this is what we want you to do. So, if it's an already established committee and you sort of you know what's going on, you don't have to give it a brand new charge. I would have the conversation when you do the subcommittee assignments about what each subcommittee does and maybe even the
current chair can share with the group what each subcommittee does before people get assigned to it. Um we I would recommend that when you're assigning to to subcommittees, you try and sort of want to strike a balance between this is what this person really wants and these
are the skill sets that we want to make sure we carry forward. So if you have someone who's really seasoned on negotiations, put someone new on negotiations so that the institutional knowledge starts to carry over. So when you're thinking about what the subcommittees do, have that conversation at the beginning, but you don't
necessarily need to recharge them with their um their job. And you don't need to reestablish them if you have them every year, right? Like you don't need to reestablish negotiations of committee. Every district has one. So
yeah. Okay, Robert's rules. So, I gave you guys a handy dandy little um laminated card on Robert's rules. Parliamentary procedure is one of those things where
some districts are very very strict. Mine for the for example, we'll very often will raise our hand and we'll say, "Mr. Chair, Mr. Chairman, through you to the superintendent, I'd like to ask this question." falls apart about five minutes in meetings. So, don't think
we're doing something that everyone else is not doing, but there are districts who do that very formally. School committees operate on what is essentially Robert's rules with exceptions. So, you follow Robert's rules, but sometimes there are things that happen that are outside of Robert's rules because they are part of what a
district does. The idea behind parliamentary procedure is that it assures the rights should probably be ensures the rights of the majority of the committee that's your votes. The minority factions on your board
making sure everyone gets heard. Um individual members making sure every voice is heard. Members who are not present who cannot vote but should still be informed. And the public because you're a public body. The idea of this is that it avoids ambiguity and
hopefully it keeps you out of court because what what parliamentary procedure does is it keeps a record of the official actions of the committee and it makes sure that everyone is heard, that all things are discussed, that hopefully you're getting to the best um decision you can make because
you've had a thorough discussion. When you know your Robert's rules of order, and I'm telling you right now, I don't know all of them. I do most of them, but I keep trying to brush up on them. Um, meetings are more efficient.
You're not zooming off into other subjects. You're not talking about things that are not on your agenda, which can get you in trouble with state. People are more likely to leave happier. That doesn't mean that everyone gets what they wants in the what they want in the room, but it means that everyone gets heard. The entire point of being a
public body is that everyone should be heard. Um, the process feels more fair. Under Robert's rules, and we're not going to get into the absolute nitty-gritty of all of the Robert's rules, but under Robert's rules, there is a process by which um everyone speaks before anyone gets to speak a second time. Everyone has the opportunity to
speak before anyone speaks a second time. Um there is a process by which you have the motion, the second discussion so that there is that wholesome discussion of whatever is in front of you. Um and it gives the public a
perception of order and responsibility. Actually, it should be creating order and responsibility. Um, which ones should you use? There are actually parliamentary rules that are not Robert's. For the most part, most districts in Massachusetts, I can't
think of any that don't. Most of you are using Robert's rules. Um, some of you are using Robert's rules with exceptions. That comes in when you're talking about things like regional agreements and weighted votes, um, weighted seat votes.
There's also something called town meeting time, which is like Robert's rules, but it's town meeting time, and every town has their own. Um, they allow you to select those formally published rules, and you can make your exceptions. Um, the idea of the rules is not to
circumvent wholesome discussion. You're not supposed to use the rules to shut someone down. Um, you are not allowed to use the rules to violate executive session. The chair gets to participate. The chair is a member just like everyone
else. The chair does not have to recuse themselves from a vote. There are committees that will say the chair doesn't vote on things. You have an even number of people. Don't do that. The chair gets to vote like everybody else. But the chair is the servant of the body and is sort of the conductor of the things that happen. So
the chair really needs to be wellversed in Robert's rules. um knowing when to stop debate, knowing when to say we're going to call the question, etc. Um there should be roll calls that gets into making sure we know who is here and that you have a quorum and who voted for
what. And you need to record your votes. By the look, for some votes, it's just a majority. Yes, it passed with XYZ dissensions. Um when you're going into executive session, it has to be roll call and all votes in executive session must be roll call. And then there are a
couple other exceptions like budgets must pass with a two/3 majority. So like I said, Roberts with exceptions. Um hopefully we are facilitating the business of the committee when we're sticking to Robert's rules. Um every
member at the table has the same rights. Every member at the table has the right to be heard. Every member of the table has the right to vote. When you're talking about the majority versus the minority, we're not using Robert's rules to drown out the outlier
voices in the room. Um, something I try and remind committees is every person's outlier is somebody else's champion. And when I hit my first committee, I won't swear. I know we're recording and we're public. I was a pain in
something because I was there and I was all fired up and I was going to do these things and I was someone's champion. But I guarantee you that there are people looking around the table going, "Oh my god, Alicia, shut up." So, everyone's outlier is someone else's champion. You want to make sure everyone is heard at
the table. Um, again, no one gets to speak a second time if anyone hasn't spoken for the first time. Doesn't mean you have to speak, but you go around the table and you make sure everyone got the first shot of the conversation. The chair should be impartial in the discussion. You're not calling on one
person more. You're not shutting someone down. You're not closing discussion when other people haven't had the chance to speak, but you also do get to vote. Um, some general rules of order. The school committee owns the agenda.
The most functional school committees have a process by which the chair sits with the superintendent for agenda setting. Sometimes it's the chair and the vice chair, the superintendent and the assistant superintendent. You sit together for agenda setting. have a year-long agenda because you know when
certain things happen. You know your numbers have to be in on October 1st. You know that MCAST scores for now wavy words. Um they come out in the spring. Whatever's coming next, we'll talk about that later. But for the most part, there are some things you can predict every year. Um you know when
your elections are, you know, when you're going to reorg the committee and then you can plug in other things within that year-long agenda. Once the agenda is published, it's the property of the body and it can only be changed by the body. I one of the most frequent
questions I get in the office is someone will call and say I want this thing on the agenda and the chair says no. Sometimes it's someone who wants something on the agenda is not school committee's purview and the chair was right to say no. Sometimes it's the chair saying no because they don't want
to cause an issue and they know there's going to be a huge discussion about it, but it is actually the purview of the school committee. If the chair puts forward an agenda and someone has asked for something to be on it and it's not on it by Robert's rules, you can in the
next meeting make a motion to override the chair's decision and add something to the following agenda. It requires a twothirds vote to override the chair. So there is always within Robert's rules a way for the minority voice to be heard
in the majority. Um generally try not to get to that point have a means of communication in your operating protocols that talks about how you get things put on the agenda when things are coming up in the year. It may be as a brand new member, I don't know, that
every year in November we have XYZ presentation from Skills USA about the things they're competing in that year and I want to talk to Skills USA, which is a a competition for vocational students. Um, I want to talk to Skills USA in September, but my chair knows
they're coming up in November. So, the year-long agenda helps the chair say to me, "This is coming up. It's I'm not telling you no, it's just coming up." But again, I'm over excited because I'm a new member. Um, a call to order in the quorum.
You cannot call the meeting to order until you have the quorum 50% plus one. Um, there are some places that have specialized quorums. It's not you. Don't worry about that. Your quorum is 50% plus one. when the quorum disappears
after the meeting begins if someone leaves the room. Um you don't automatically adjourn the meeting. The chair can actually seek out missing members. This more often than not happens when we're all on Zoom and someone's Wi-Fi kicks off and you're
like, "Oh no, we lost so and so." You make an effort to bring back that person. If you can't bring back that person, but you have a quorum, you can continue the meeting. You can't bring back that person and now you don't have a quorum. You can't go forward because you can't make any votes for the
business of the thing. So you have to have the quorum to start. You have to have the quorum to do business. Every once in a while something will happen where someone needs to step out of the room and take a phone call. We have a rainstorm roll through and the power gets knocked out. As long as you still have a forum of the committee, you can continue doing the business. But please
make every effort to make sure the members who were present at the beginning continue to be present. some of those gray area things where you can keep going. What is it going to look like if you keep going doing business with the committee without two of the members? Um when your chair is not present, you
should have a policy on this. Um roles of the executive committee. Um when the chair is not president present, the vice chair runs the meeting. Um the vice chair can convene the meeting without the chair according
to Robert's rules. um someone's running late. If you don't know that they're on vacation or whatever, someone's running late, the vice chair can start the meeting. If neither the vice chair or the chair is present and you have a quorum, you can start the meeting if you
have a quorum present. Again, though, check your local charter because sometimes there's something in your town charter language that has verbiage around this. But if the majority approves, you can run it without the chair and the vice chair. again.
Can but should you? Having everyone present makes for better decisions. >> Logistically, how does that work? Like Melissa and I aren't there. Henry calls the meeting to order and the three of them take a vote to conduct the meeting without the chair or the vice chair. >> Yep. >> Okay.
>> And then if you arrive, you can say, "Our chair has arrived. I'm going to turn over um the business of the meeting till June. So a motion there are three steps by which a motion comes to the group. A member can just
make a motion. Um another member will second the motion and then the chair states the question within the motion. So sometimes that happens a little bit out of order. Sometimes the chair will say um I'll entertain a motion and someone will say uh make a motion to
accept the school calendar as presented in our packets. and someone seconds. Technically, according to Robert's rules, a motion is made and seconded and then there's discussion. Let's be honest, usually it's discussion and then motions. But usually what happens is
there's a motion, a second, and discussion. Even if you talked about it beforehand, when you make the motion and the second, the chair should say, "Is there any further discussion?" Because that's Robert Tools. Seeing none, I will call for the vote. And you make the vote. But there always has to be a
second. Those of you who have taken chart in the course with us, um, not to spoil anything for you, but we have videos about Andy. Oh, Andy. Andy does things and then we ask you what Andy did wrong. And other than Andy makes really weak coffee, Andy
does everything wrong. One of the ways Andy's committee stops him from doing wrong things is they deny him a second. If someone makes a motion that is way out of line, not your purview. I want to, you know, cut the budget by $500,000. Appropical of absolutely
nothing. Happened at one of my town meetings. I had a second. Motion fails. You move on. So, the motions are the record by which we um ensure that the public knows which actions were taken. Um when you're
considering the motion, you debate the the motion from the floor. Um the chair will then put it to a vote. Um, seeing no further discussion, the chair will restate the question. Motion is restate the motion
and then the chair takes the vote. Very often it's just a voice vote and it's just majority. Again, remember roll call for executive session and twothirds on certain things like budget. Um, the chair then announces the result.
The chair should say motion passes or motion passes passes with two abstensions. um whether or not it passes or it's it fails. Um if there's an effect that comes after the motion, the motion was
to ask the superintendent to um enter the MSDA bidding process and it passes and then the super you say to the superintendent. Okay, so the next step will be for the superintendent to be part of that process. The superintendent would then discuss the process and let
you know when they'll come back and tell you more about it. So, after the motion is made, if there's actions happening after it, talk a little bit about the actions and you can keep going. Um, if the next item of business um the announcement of the next item of
business just comes up right after the vote when you're done, we're not discussing it. We're not debating further on a vote that was taken. And really, I should rephrase that. The idea is once the vote is taken, it's the will of the committee and we move on to the
agenda. >> I have a question, sir. >> Absolutely. >> Um, go ahead. >> Regarding minutes actually. >> Um, so do we need to record who vote like who voted which way or do we just record the
total votes for the vote? Like do we say it was five to it's unanimously unanimously five to zero or five to two? >> If it is a vote that doesn't require a roll call, you can just record the numbers. If it's a vote that requires a roll
call, you have to put what everyone voted. >> Related. So if a a motion doesn't get a second >> Yep. >> Does that have to be recorded in the minutes? you record that the motion was made, what the motion was, and that it did not receive a second. Yep.
So that you can see that it's there. The the public meeting, the public business of the body, you can see that someone made that motion and it didn't get seconded. Um, parliamentary debate. This always cracks me up because there's
a quote somewhere. It's not on this slide. I should have left it. um where John Adams is talking about parliamentary debate and being appropriate and he literally lists a bunch of things you shouldn't do including hissing at people and I'm like
John first of all what happened in that meeting because there's always a story second of all what if I want to kiss at someone the idea behind parliamentary debate is we respectfully talk to each other about the decisions that are before us we can disagree
um we're not shouting over each other members must be recognized by the chair. So, very often you'll raise your hand and the chair will say, "Okay, go ahead." Um, if there are special rules that your group wants to adopt about limiting time of debate, um, you can do
that. Very often people stick to the Robert's rules, everyone speaks before anyone else does. Some committees will adopt an operating protocol by which everyone speaks twice and that's it. um you want to be very careful that you're not limiting someone's expression in the meeting if you do something like that.
Um you can adopt those rules, but you have to get the consent of the whole group before you do something like that. So much like we say public comment is 20 minutes, everyone will be given three minutes. That's your public comment policy and you've approved that. So if you want to make rules around debate,
you have to remove it. Um in the debate rights are not transferable. We don't um reclaim our time. We don't give our time to somebody else. We're not Congress.
Um our voice is our voice and we're not giving our voice to someone else and we're not stepping on someone else. You're also not in your role as a committee member giving your voice to someone else. Public comment is public comment. Business of the committee is business of the committee. A school
committee meeting is a business meeting of the school committee in public. Public hearings are something else. You have those for your budget. You have a back and forth with the public. School committee meeting has a designated public comment time for you to hear from the public and then you have to do the
business of the committee. So parliamentary debate kicks in and you at the table are the people discussing the things. Um, no member is allowed in some places. Strict Robert's rules. That's why this
is Robert's rules with exceptions. Members aren't necessarily technically under Robert's rules allowed to speak twice on the same topic in the same day. Again, John Adams, but that's Robert's rules, but you usually operate by with
exceptions. We're not looking to limit the conversation that happens at the table unless you actually adopt a rule that says that. The idea being we want to give everyone a chance to speak. Not that we want to limit someone's ability to speak. So, properts
must be gerine to the question before the group. My town just went to pay as you throw. Sorry to invoke that. Um, if we're talking about budget, I don't start talking about page and throw because we don't have any control over that. It's
not germanine to the group. Speakers should speak loudly loudly and clearly when you're in remote meetings. All speakers must be audible and visible if they're presenting something to the public and to you. Um, you should refrain from attacking another member's
motives. I'm not telling you you only want to vote that way because you hate books. You can say, "I prefer to vote this way and I want to know why you don't want to vote that way." We're not attacking someone's votives. Um, technically under Robert's rules, remarks should be
addressed to the chair. Most committees are not that formal. Um, Thomas Jefferson. I thought it was Adams. It's Jefferson. Ah, Thomas Jefferson again. We're not interrupting people by hissing, coughing, spitting, or speaking, or whispering to another.
The whispering to another is more. We leave that there because it's funny, but the whispering to another. Don't be having side conversations while debate is happening. You could be missing something very important. And then if you ask someone to repeat something, you know, not only is it your valuable time and the public's valuable time, very
often you have members of staff who are taking time out of their day and they were up at the crack of the kindergarters and now it's 9:45 and they're still at your meeting. So, we want to make sure that we are appropriately listening to our presenters and giving them our um our full attention.
And if a member objects, um, this is very, very, very technical. You're not necessarily allowed to read from something. If a member objects, here's the thing, that is one of those very outdated rules when we're talking
about accessibility. Sometimes we have members who need to read from a script as part of their remarks on whatever is before you. So, this is another one of those Robert's rules with exceptions. That's an exception. You don't have to be so firm on that. The idea is we don't
want someone to come to the meeting and I'm going to sit here as a member and I'm just going to read off of my remarks and not engage with any of you. We're supposed to be engaging with each other. But if someone needs to write something down, make the accommodation.
Public comment. So, one of the most startling questions I ever answered as a school committee member was the second time I took chartering course. Um, first time I took chartering course, it was because I was assigned to my town and because I was I was I was voted in at my
town. Um, second time I took it, I was appointed by my town to the regional vote act. They were like, I need to take this again because funding for chapter 74 programs and policies are completely different. And when I went to that chart in the course, I learned technically you
don't have to have public comment. Right? We are Massachusetts, right? Let's see what happens. But public comment is at the discretion of the bond. So there are times when you may not have public comment there. If
you're interviewing superintendent candidates, I'm not saying you should. You're good. Hang tight. If you're interviewing superintendent candidates, sometimes the night of the interview, there's no public comment on the agenda because it's an interview and there's why would you have public comment? You could have public comment before the deliberation, but you wouldn't
necessarily have it the night of the interviews. So, generally public comment comes at the beginning of the agenda. Do you where's your public comment on your agenda? Basically, the first thing the first time there are some districts that put it at the beginning. There are some that put it at the end. There are some
that do it at the beginning and end. I am a personally I'm a fan of the beginning. I want to hear from the public about the things that are on our agenda and then I want to have the discussion. So it should be clearly identified when it's going to happen. The idea here is that you are open
meeting public body. You don't want someone showing up for public comment at the end and you moved it to the beginning without telling one. The chair should identify time limits. That's usually um the statement that's read at the beginning. Public comment will be 20 minutes, 3 minutes per person. Speakers must be recognized by the chair. You
can't just stand up and start yelling. We're trying to keep this in an orderly fashion because we want everyone to be heard. They left their house. They left their family. They came to you to tell you something that they feel you need to know. We want to make sure everyone gets the shot to do that. Um, no one speaks
twice unless all others have spoken and they should be directly addressing the chair. School committees should look it back up. Remember I told you we will give you the most small C conservative advice to hopefully hopefully keep you out of trouble. MASC
will tell you that public comment is not a back and forth. We say that because if something comes up that is not on the agenda, we don't want you guys to get bonked with an open meeting while violation because you were discussing something that wasn't on the agenda. Most of what happens in public comment
is the public is commenting and you are absorbing. It's their time to address it. you are absorbing it. If you do have a practice by which you talk to members of the public when they are at public comment, be very careful not to violate
that open meeting law. Don't be discussing things that are not on your agenda. The chair can respond with, "Thank you for coming to us with your budget concern. Our budget hearing is actually next Tuesday at 7 p.m. at this building. We hope you'll join us then." Informational responses are okay. be
very careful about the discussion because if you haven't noticed the public that you're going to be discussing that thing, it may feel great for the person in the room that you responded to them, but what about all the other people who wanted to talk to me about that? They didn't know you were going to be discussing it. Um,
speakers do not get to question the school committee directly. I shouldn't be coming to public comment and say, "I hear you hate books. Tell me about them." Sorry, you're like the bookator. You were closest. So, um they don't get to come and ask you directly why you did
this or to engage in um engage in a back and forth about someone's character on the school committee. I will say this, there was and I'm trying to remember the name of the ruling. There was a ruling a couple years ago that said there are very few
limits you can place on the public when it comes to public comment. We cannot threaten here. You can shut down the meeting. You can ask them to be to leave. You can have them removed by law enforcement if they threaten you. If they start to violate someone's privacy,
you can remind them, I'm sorry, hold on a second. That teacher, student has due process rights and privacy rights. Please do not discuss that person's private information in a public meeting. You can't necessarily stop them from doing
it. You also can't stop a parent from violating their their kids their own kids privacy. Um, you can pause the meeting and take a recess and talk to the person about listen, I understand you're really fired up, but you need to be careful not to be saying names because you could be in legal jeopardy.
But for the most part, even if it's not on your agenda, the public gets to come and say things to you. They can talk to the school committee about pay as you throw all they want within that 20 minutes and 3 minutes and you can listen and say thank you because it is their time to address their public officials.
>> Um yeah. >> What about public comment outside of the um period of of actual public? >> You mean like someone stands up and starts yelling from the back row? >> Yeah. The chair should say, "I'm sorry,
we need to maintain order. Please confine your comments to public comment." And if you have additional things you'd like to share with committee, please email us in the superintendent. That's probably not satisfying to the public, but again, we're trying to make
sure that everyone has the opportunity to address you. And if you're addressing something that's not on the agenda or that is coming out of left field and you didn't have time to prepare for it, you're not doing the public any good service by addressing something like that. The public needs to be noticed
about what we're talking about. Um so adjourning the meeting when someone makes a motion to adjourn, that's the only motion that's not debatable. You can deny it a second because someone could try and throw sand in the gears and randomly shout motion to adjurnn. If they don't get a second, you report the
motion the fact that he didn't get a second. You keep going. But you don't have a motion to adjurnn in a second and you debate whether or not it's time to go home because it's time to go home. Um the chair must declare after that I declare the meeting adjourned because that will timestamp at the end of the
minutes when the meeting was over. Um there are a couple of times when we've had at least one town that had a town meeting and they forgot to adjourn it. So technically it just kept going and they had to reconvene to adjurnn it. adjourn your meetings. Um a successful vote to adjurnn doesn't adjourn the
meeting. The chair has to say we are adjourned. Um our chair has a gabble, bangs it, says we are adjourned. Um the announcement of again the chair that the meeting is adjourned is actually the end of the meeting. We stop doing the business of the committee.
We ask questions. Sometimes we see, especially during minutes, someone will say, "I'd like to make a friendly amendment to your motion." Once a motion is stated, it's the property of the body
and the body can decide whether or not they want to adjust that motion. But I would say try not to do friendly amendment. try to say um point of order. I think that meant that motion should
actually be worded in this way. Um does the person who made the motion agree? Don't just jump in with friendly amendments. We want to make sure we recorded who made the motion, who changed the motion, and what the actual motion was that you voted on. Um very often this comes up when we're talking
about minutes. Uh friendly amendment. There's three typos on page three. Every once in a while I see my uh name misspelled. That's not a friendly amendment. That is can we make sure that that edit is changed. The motion then becomes motion to approve the minutes
with the edit suggested in the meeting. So um there we go. Can something be defeated by adopting a motion to table it? You can table discussion.
You cannot use tableabling a discussion to defeat a motion. The idea behind tableabling is, "Oh, we're missing all of this information. We can't make this decision tonight. We need to table this motion." You should be tableabling a motion. You
lay it on the table. It should be time. I would like to table this motion until our next meeting at which the superintendent will give us a report on this subject. Um, the idea is not to try and table things.
You can also, there's a little bit, we're not going to read this verbatim. You can see it there and it's in all the Robert's rules. There's ways that you can object to the consideration of a question. Honestly, the best way to remove the air from a motion that shouldn't be happening is not to give it a second. Um, but if you do table a
debate, make sure you time certain it so that the um public knows when it's coming back so that you're not just rushing over it and not coming back to the debate. You want to make sure that
public definitely it's not. >> So it is you can take postpone indefinitely. Technically, you can. Is it a good way to conduct business? Probably not.
It's better to make the motion to table it until then insert information so that it doesn't just hang out there. If it hangs out there, it's going to come back every meeting to you. And do you really want to be doing that? You can table something indefinitely. It's not
necessarily a good practice. >> It's not a Yeah, a related question. So we do tend to kind of follow the practice of we discuss the issue and then there will be a motion and seconded the vote. So if during this discussion you know we have a field trip on the
agenda for approval during the discussion it becomes clear that the school committee does not have all the information it needs to make a decision but no motion has been made. Do we should we still be going through the process of like this was an agenda item. We're not going to act on it tonight.
we're going to vote to table it to our next meeting or does the fact that no motion was made need to >> no say we'll vote if if you have put on the agenda that you're going to vote on it >> and you don't it's better to say I would like to move that we table this until our next meeting when we have more
information don't just leave it hanging there technically you can but the entire idea behind this is you want the public to understand with all the transparency you can the business of the district so tableing it dates certain is a better
way than just not making the motion. Yeah. So, executive session, there are only 10 reasons in the state of Massachusetts for executive session. You have a print out on those. Um, when you convene an executive session, you must always start
an open session. Someone will then make a roll call vote, a motion, and then there has to be a roll call vote. A majority of all members of the body have to vote to go to executive session. Only three of you are here. Two of you vote to go to
executive session. That's not a majority of the body. Even if only three of you are here, all three of you have to do it because that's the quorum of the full body. It must be a roll call vote. It must be noted. And in the motion for executive session, you have to give as
much information as you can. uh motion to enter executive session under reason number eight to consider let's see um to consider applicants for the position of superintendent. The committee will not return to public session or the committee will return to
public session. You have to say whether or not you're coming back to open session or not. You can do either. You can adjourn directly out of executive session, but you have to state that you're doing it. Um, and when you do that,
as much information as possible in the motion, we talk about the Andy videos, we talk about what he did when he violated executive session. There is a standard by which you should put as much information as you can without violating the reason for executive session. So, if you're going
into, easiest way to think of this is if you're going into um executive session to debate well to discuss a collective bargaining agreement. It shouldn't just say to talk about contracts. It should say to
discuss contract negotiations with units and list whatever units as much information as you can for the public to be noticed. Again, we talked about this earlier. Robert's rules with exceptions. There are things that don't necessarily apply to you. There are things that are too strict for school communities. You'd
never get every anything done if you always had to say the point of order and then go into does everyone remember the dinosaur train cartoon where the guy would be like cute of order. We don't need to be that formal. We want to do the business of the district and make
sure we're functional by Robert's rules, but we don't want to tie ourselves in. Um, if there are any exceptions, you may have school committee rules, you may have formal bylaws, you may have operating protocols, you may have things
in your policy manual. Very often, your policy manual, especially when it comes to officers of the school committee, will detail the role of the officers of the school committee. Some school committees don't have secretaries. Mine does. I am the secretary. But by rules of order, I am not the person taking the
minutes. the superintendent's executive assistant is Robert's rules with exceptions. So that's the end of my slides. Are there any more questions? And also when you think of a question
like tomorrow over the weekend, just drop me an email. We do this. You just drop me an email or a text. Really use that cell phone. So any questions?
>> Excellent. >> Absolutely. >> And I will send you the digital version of the slides too, so you can put them in your packets. >> Um, our next agenda items are to talk about progress towards goals, but we've been
at this for two hours. I think for lady you see the announcement. >> I was retiring. >> Oh, I did see that. >> Yes. Yep. >> It has been a long time. >> It has been there.
>> He is one of the best bosses I have. So that She stop. If you're still >> like street, Jersey Street overlook. All right. So,
audio is back up frame. Okay. Um so we have sort of some related agenda items to discuss progress towards our goals. Progress towards Jot's goals and discussion about seven goals. Um
so I had Lisa put the goals in the drive just minded. Um but maybe if we just start with we had a goal around strengthening the transparency of the school budget. Does anyone want to speak to where they could be hands on that
particular goal? >> I'm happy to do that. Um, so the original goal here was uh for us to publish three explainers and have two community forums on the budget before March ahead of the May town meeting. We
definitely did not hit the March time frame given how many things shifted in the end, but um I think we were ultimately successful on the materials side. We put out a budget road map in December kind of outlining a highle
process which we advanced along the way um as we progressed. But then through the communication subcommittee in April, we released like a quite comprehensive newsletter that I I would say functioned as multiple explainers in one. It
covered basically the budget gap that we faced and how we got to um to our current budget, how our costs compared to peer districts, basically a full breakdown of all the override tiers, what's included. Um and then some data
underlying that on uh like class size for people's spend and how those compare to other districts. Um and then on the forum side, we did a lot more than two. We obviously had the the uh budget public hearing in February. Then in
April, we had the joint uh the first initial joint kind of forum. Um Henry, John Thatcher um and Dan Fox on the select board and then we had eight sessions across four dates in May and
June um between the school committee and the select board. I attended a council on aging um forum to educate folks and then obviously with town meeting um a lot of forum and whatnot went into that um to to educate folks and then another
part of the goal was really the relationship we had with the finance committee and making sure we're just kind of bringing them along. I think this one was particularly like impactful and we we really shined on this. It wasn't kind of a point in time collaboration. and it was collaboration
basically like all the way back to like November, December and all the way through. Um, and so I think that was really helpful and beneficial. Um, and so while we didn't meet the specific timelines on the goal, I actually think the outcome of this was way more um,
output explanation community forums than the goal actually set out. So I would consider it a success. Any other? >> Yeah, I mean I agree. I think I think we got feedback from people that that the
budget process was very transparent this year. Um I think we probably might want to reconsider what forums just because I was happy to do
them. I'm happy to continue doing but they weren't operating, you know. Um and and that may just be because that's not how people want to get that information. Uh so I think continuing with the
newsletter uh would really help that seem to get a lot of traction. It's easy to share and easy to digest whatever you need to. Um, I think forums sort of beyond our our budget hearing
maybe want to gauge whether those are are really good to talk. Well, just as someone who wasn't on the committee, but looking for that information
goes with Henry's point, being able to go to those newsletters because, you know, we have the newsletters and then I went to the school committee website and, you know, web page and there they were right there and they were very clear and, you
know, linked to all of the pertinent um, you know, budget items that, you know, you're talking about in school committee. So, I thought it was very accessible. Um, and I was telling lots of people if they had questions about it, go go.
Um, and I think that, you know, that that to me is true transparency and gives people and you don't have to have a certain time to go. You don't have to have a babysitter meeting to do. Um, and you can just, you know, let people know.
>> Very nice. You know, I just think I agree with Henry. I think, you know, this was a little bit unique. We're explaining a lot more information for asking different types cycle. Um, but you're right. I think the newsletters were
very, you guys did a great job just capturing everything. The feedback that I got from my education perspective was that those were really helpful that, you know, maybe some of those other forms a little bit helpful, not super helpful. So yeah, it's just a balancing act
really. Um, you know, kind of because you could say, "Hey, I'll do a I'll be at the high school and come and talk to me and they won't call or you know, so just but I think I think the written word and the way the forum um the availability was great and sent it out
set up website. I think that's vastly uh different than um we typically do. I think well received from >> Yeah. I mean, I I support the Moses assessment, you know, meant to, you know, Henry's uh point,
you know, I I think we we tried it, you know, and I think it was good to do that. I think we now assess the data and what we learned from that. And to me, I I look to the community, you know, the communications committee will be ongoing kind of just help to make that determination
or recommendation to us going forward. I agree with sort of everyone's assessments and I think when we move into talking about FY27 goals and one of the things I've been thinking about is is this one given what we have committed
to financial strengthen. Um so next we had a goal around datadriven decision making and so anyone want to speak to that goal?
Um I mean just to start I mean I think again like with the news I think it's tough with the newsletter we we we were able to provide a lot of data but I don't know and sort of the storytelling too. I
think like that we were we were forced to be very cautious in that newsletter about like what we could and couldn't say which was a good thing cuz I think we were we were still able to focus on the data itself and telling
a story without it being um you know specifically one way or another. So I thought that that worked successfully. Um I think we have a ways to go on like on
some of the the or at least developing the data that we want to be sort of sharing with people. I think we use you know for that newsletter I created a cohort of of like Northshore that that felt good to compare ourselves to and I
know we also have a list from Destiny that they provide. Um, I think there's a lot more to say. Um, I'd say we're halfway there. I think we've made good progress. I don't think it was like when we set those goals in
>> I mean, it was late. >> Yeah. It's like February. >> Late in the calendar year that we actually set these goals. So, >> um, I think I mean, we're learning about what works and doesn't work. I mean, we
have something in here about surveys, and I also wonder, are surveys just going to be like the forums where, you know, we're not it's going to be such a small data set that it's not really going to be providing us with with good
information. I think that's our biggest challenge is that without it's sort of a large data set, it's not really good data. Um I'm wondering mainly about
the reporting of data driving our decision and um I don't know that we have too many examples of that but I don't know that we have had too many opportunities. Um, I'm trying to think of
>> this might be a stretch, but I'm again without a lot of thinking about it, I would think how we're doing the roofing project at the high school. Again, I you know, the facilities team has done a great job with that. But I,
you know, my assessment is that they they were using data to drive the decisions because there were some interesting decisions, right, around what type of roof, whether we do, you know, this or that. And I just felt that you had the right people involved.
Uh and it appeared to me when you reported to us that your decisions were all based upon data that was obtained from the right people and rolled over and and you know options were created and then the decision was made. So I I think that's a good examp I I think
that's a good example of this. >> Yeah. first. Yeah, >> I would actually sort of build on that and say that the the override that was presented in the budget structure. I saw relatives data driven decision particularly
in how we were even doing Goldman data and you know making decisions about what would come back or not which you know was mostly John evaluating that data and making decisions and meant committee relying on that data in supporting his
recommendations. So I think there's actually a lot of room around the data driven decision making or a goal for going forward. So building on what John worked on this year I think there's I looked when we approved the
DIP to me I saw so many potential opportunities for reporting to the school committee that would give us the data to make decisions or tell the district's story to the community. So it might be another one that we just want to build on going forward. Yeah, I think
we've made a lot of progress on this in very like specific areas, but we haven't nailed it or mastered it by any means. Like I think about uh enrollment and the like the grade changes and like just getting things like that a bit more like a foundation in place to be able or like
why people are leaving. We talked about like exit interviews and themes and just like that sort of stuff. I think there is more we can do around this but we made measurable strides in a lot of areas I think I think it's hard every time when you develop a goal you know
say I'm going to do the same analysis right so you do you do a goal thinking well I'm going to get this all done and then everything kind of happens then you have to like kind of reestablish or re you know as you go and then recognize that yeah okay maybe it was too lofty or you didn't have all that information or
let's you know let's expand that goal let's throw that goal out to create I mean this is my this is the first time you guys gone through bits too right is that's me. So like I think it's helpful that not to beat yourself up too much because I think you guys do a lot of
really a lot of good um strides that were made go I know it's may seem like oh my gosh I'm doing so I've seen it too. I think you're yeah you're you're Melissa to me you're speaking to students right that's what we need to kind of I think
focus more in this area but I do sense that we did a lot of that too right so we looked at the forget the acronym that for the mental health that we just you know that was storytelling based upon data now we didn't personally massage the data or g gain access to it
>> you know but that was a good example of it I think you already mentioned around involvement we were using you know well people were using tools to get data to us. I think that's another good example. You know, the MCCAST report that we
received was again based on student data put together in a presentation and story for us to to learn about. So, I think those are good examples. I think I have more to say just about
um if we were going to refresh this also all um so next we had a strategic planning goal the next two goals strategic planning educator voices be specifically sent to a sub
and I did some work in the subcommitting on that um you want me to talk go ahead yeah Um the strategic planning goal I would say we sort of partially accomplished um we approved the tip and it's going to be
it's I guess move past July 1st so it's you know in effect and being implemented as we speak um and I think we had a really helpful presentation with that I did strategic school level thinking with
ideas but I don't necessarily implemented you know sort of those I guess to me there's work to do there um and al provided all of us with a draft division of responsibilities which was a
part of the whole committee I don't know if you wanted to speak about that draft uh >> yeah just uh wait I thought I had it up already um
So I I think it's a it's a good document, you know, really, you know, certain areas says clearly what school committee should have responsibility for the superintendent should have. I did just have a couple of questions. Um
I probably should have asked before she left, but you know, uh at one point we use supervisors of attendance. Um, and I wasn't sure who that is or what role that is in the document.
Does any mean I could ask her? I should have done that, but does anyone know off hand? My assumption was just it's whomever in the building that's responsible for tenants but >> yeah I mean we don't have like >> but the reason I brought up is because
it's um the school committee appoints supervisors of attendance according to this document and I don't I don't think we do that um I I mean technically I mean technically that would be the principles of their building tool or by consult but
but >> okay maybe that maybe that is yeah that makes sense. It doesn't say you know it says assistant associate superers the business administrator special ed administrator physicians and registered nurses
um legal counsel and supervisors of attendance. Maybe it does seem that okay. Um and it um do we set compensation for school principles?
>> Um not since I've been here. I mean I we >> I don't think I don't Yeah, that's not a >> No, I'm just asking because I don't think we've done that, but it that is one of the things says we should do. Yeah, I think we're supposed to bring a range for the for the administrations. I don't necessarily know it says like,
hey, you're hiring the new Glover principal. Here's the range be the principal ranges between this and this. That's what I understood her saying. I have not done that. Well, you know what I mean? So, I can do that when process
bring that forward. Um because we have we have to put on another we have to put on posting every posting has to have a salary range. So I mean public consumption but you should definitely bring that before um >> okay
I think for high school. So unless anyone else had questions, I think this would be the document that would satisfy that particular goal or in that one of the outcome, one of their their specific deliverables unless anyone has a
different opinion. I I wonder if it's worth adding things that are specifically not our responsibilities. I know that starts to get a little tricky because that that pool of
responsibility is much larger obviously. But I'm trying to think again about like this is a a document that's meant to have some longevity putting some you know you are not
I don't want slides here. >> Yes. I mean, um, but that's just an idea off the top of my head. I don't know if that's going to complicate things too much. >> I
I agree with you. I think um I like this document once you get into sort of a substance where it's going through different issues. I felt like that introduction is long and it's like an MASC general, you know, reduction. So,
um, I thought it might be helpful if we had some sort of Marvel specific language at the beginning putting context around because I I think this actually when I read through it as a non someone who is not a member of
the school committee or like following what people are doing, I think it does a better job really what we are not responsible for or what the superintendent is responsible for. And that's might be more helpful to the committee members to the public than
just you know meeting policy budget and yeah so should we I know we're we will eventually talk about new or filling out
roles um have them make edits or just discuss some just maybe take what we've discussed here maybe uh re-edit this document and bring it back to the school committee. That's depending on >> because there were some things you know I'm looking at some of the you know one
of the near the end around communication talked about consult and confer with the superintendent on ball matters as they arise that concern the school system that's not specific enough to me right that you know should say something
>> yeah it's exactly it's a little too general so maybe again we can have whoever the membership of that committee is take a look at that um and make some some areas of communication again where I think we can maybe um fill it out a little bit more around,
you know, in an emergency, you know, when does the school committee need a community? Um, and I I don't think that's in our polic any of our policies. But I do think that's confused me a bit when I was chair just around where was that
line around, you know, I think the superintendent that's largely responsible for communicating with the community, but are there times where that does not make sense, you know, whether it's whatever it might be. So, I do think that um could
probably there maybe just small I don't really like changing a lot of what MASC proposes sometimes because they're kind of the experts around this sometimes. I think we can put on language that makes things less clear, but I do think that whoever's on the this committee going forward that'd be a good opportunity to
maybe make that a little bit either take it out or make it more understandable and explicit. That makes sense. So then we also had the educator voices goal um which had
two different components. The first one we did not accomplish which is to hold listening sessions um educators. We did sort of discuss doing that. I think the timing of when we approved our goals relative to the budget process and just
that was what everyone was doing, you know, organizing this was not being effective. So, you know, again to the point of um forums and whatnot, it may be something to consider, but people wanting to try to do something
along those lines and you know whether it's not um what what I'm sort of excited to talk to everyone about today is research we did around adding non- voting representatives to the school committee. Um, you know, we have our
student rep and we've talked about, you know, wanting to strengthen that role, which to me is something I would really like to see happen. Um, I personally thought there were a couple of meetings where Will stayed at the table after having g
update and actually being told in the committee as we were having discussions from his perspective. Yeah. you know, and I we have fantastic students and I'd love to add Michelle on that side and I talked a little bit about that. My previous life
I had um I had like four or five student similar student rep that has not been done here apparently. Um so I think this just kind of procedural that this way they do it. Um so we can have that conversation again. Um I think this guides
students being there touching really being a part of their conversation. Um there is also a whole conversation whether or not they comfortable member the committee or not how I feel about that but I think then their perspective is always really
especially with the goals from him voice goals goals make sense. Yeah, it would be interesting to see if there were students too behind this sort of cohort of of representatives who were
really passionate about a specific issue and instead of giving you know a general update with the the plays sports fascinating stuff they could imagine. >> Yeah. The other thing I've seen is like you know when just regular school
committee discussions like you know whenever we're talking about as a committee they also get to weigh in on so like hey you know what do you think from their perspective >> and then they then you say student what do you think >> it really lends a nice uh layer to the conversation and sometimes they say I'm
all set I'm good I've seen say nothing and it see all in which is great perspective the table >> yeah So, >> and I think a good we're all mindful of the fact that we're here for students, but having one actually sitting at the
table >> and um so some districts have non- voting co- representatives participate and there's actually pending legislation state house that would give CPAC a non voting sele.
So those are kind of two interesting things that we could you know we do have the media back then like that model but even if we wanted to explore it's sort of an open invitation but you
know that's something on our agenda that seems on something that merits 71 discussion exploration at the end of the day and then the re the interesting one I
thought was the non the idea of a non voting educator uh which I think was very complicated the collective bargain we have that collective bargaining relationship how do you keep it from being sort of a union representative at
the table was an educator um but we looked at sort of approaches that districts do and the goals subcommittee liked and thought we should bring back to this committee to the full committee. um a model they use in bed which is a superintendence educator advisory group
and so we would charge John with establishing that I don't know what mechanism needs for that but you know group of educators that John on a regular basis to get but and he then frames that many so we're getting that educator voice but it's flowing through
superintendent which I like because that specs you give a division of responsibilities and responsibility for the staff. Um I'm not totally sure what they do in your bedroom. We you could you could do a
model where you add school committee on to that group sort of safety for safety and wellness if we wanted school committee member actually superintendent there. But I also think you know sometimes
we're at the table and that stifles discussion, right? So >> yeah, I think that I think um I think the advisory group would be good. We talked a little bit, but I think uh that would help enhance my relationship with the union. I can have regular special presence. I get to them
meetings once in a while. Um but that would definitely be something I always call Jonathan and Sally give to see if they're kind of help establish that. I think it' be nice to do like an elementary group or that secondary goes um and bring that information back.
Now like I said super >> yeah I think I shared you probably have like 12 elementary and four middle school so it's you know it's like really the only way they could fall into but doesn't camp that smaller school.
Um but I think feedback from Martin or John. So the new Bedford example is that something that they have in their educated contract or is that something that's outside of >> seems to be outside of the contract because the research served or other
districts they would model with the contract. Um but this I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if it was just to be one person as a non-bloating rep getting one person's perspective, but I think a group of
teachers at elementary and secondary meeting with you will give you like better just general feedback and different perspectives to be able to bring up to us and the different perspectives in elementary secondary in a way. I mean and it likely goes something like hey I met with this group
of educators not concerned or these are their things they think are going well and whatever and then dialogue without exposing less likely to so the school member sitting in a meeting even with me I mean
>> as I'm not getting better chance of getting it >> thankfully >> I think it presents That's an opportunity to start building trust and yeah, >> I know it's not on us to dictate what
future school committees do, but I do like the idea of at least spending some time developing the tools in a way where they're easy for other people to pick back up and does get added to a policy. you know, it just makes it clear
they can take it or leave it, but it's going to be a lot easier for them to take it if it just is it's a tool that's already built. >> Um, so I think we kind of accomplished a lot of sounds like there's been senses people are interested in
boards. Um, so I think it makes sense if we hear from John on his progress towards his goals because that may influence what we're thinking about. >> So, um, I shared them in the in the drive with you just um, similarly, you know, there's goals that I think that
get sort of longer than I did other ones. Um, just to refresh your folks memories, these goals were based from November 2025 207 that just overlapping and we have to read this. And I just think we need to make make it make sense for for what
they're doing their goals. I'm not doing my goals but we can we can do that if we have to change dates and we'll do that. But um so first first goal is a professional practice goal which was um uh further development of building administrators as the instructional leaders of the schools in the line with district um wide expectations for
increasing rigor and cohesive control practices. Um, so what what we did, you know, um, I think this kind of lends itself to one of the goals I think I'm going to be kind of working towards is just really focusing a lot more on the culture shift that needs to happen
across across the the district. It's just kind of a dipping the toe in in the water um piece around, you know, starting to get the conversations going. So I think realistically, um, you know, I I did some of the work here. I didn't get to where I really wanted to be. So if I go all the way down the progress on
the goals said based upon shared evaluation goals um each principal embarked up on learning walks within each other's buildings school was fully achieved by all but one principal who completed the 18% of the walks. I had everybody go to each other's um schools but just one principal didn't get to
school. So um which is fine. It's not to be all end all. They still had a lot of good conversations. Um they're really a point of reflection for the admin team really kind of see what they're doing in each other's buildings having conversations. Oh, I saw that in your building. How can I replicate that in my building? Um well, how's that? How'd you
get that in place? Like it's a lot of rich conversations happen and we bring it back to our attending team meetings. So we meet pretty much meet every Tuesday after Thursday school committee meetings. It's been the cadence of those admin meetings. Um and not that we talk about every single meeting but initially
like how did they do their walks? Where did you find out? What was good, what was bad, what, you know, um and uh it's it's it's a really good practice that most administrators have bought into really, but they see the value in it. They um it's a good way to kind of get
them out of their own buildings. And um for me, I this language about silos. I really I'm really a firm believer in not operating five separate buildings that it's, you know, five buildings, but there's some cohesion and consistency across it throughout. Um so you you know
you line uh curriculum just all awesome foundational stuff and so just really having specific conversations on how we move forward. So Julie and I have already been having discussions for having an admin retreat beginning of August with all all of our administrators, principles, vice
principles, uh team chairs and central admin and um you know some directors and you know a lot of those conversations going to be how do we think against this? How do we like we're going to have focus more focused area learning wise? What's that look like? What's the what
we going to focus on? What's the data? We're going to have a lot of that. So, this is kind of like laying that foundation. So, I feel pretty good about that part. The staff surveys, I I didn't get to the surveys for a lot of reasons. Um, I'm going to try to do them in the spring. Although, we have one uh one
principal here, so I'll have a little bit of a gap there, but um a lot of times the survey is a reflective tool, like, hey, how did how did the school year go? I do the same thing, but um like how how does that outperform your goal for next year? So it it'll serve
the same purpose. It's just, you know, it's called building spring. Um so I I that kind of chief post that goal. Um all the way >> any comments? Let's do one by one. Are there comments from the committee on that one?
>> Actually have one. Uh can you share one thing that you heard from a principal that they learned on the on their walk? But >> yeah, so it's more it's um so conversations generally goes something like this like oh um I went to the um I
went to the building that my students go into from this building and this is what I saw. I didn't realize they were doing that at that building. really helps inform our practice of our ability and and I use that as a general example but that happened from you know Glover to village village to middle school middle
school to high school that that same um kind of trajectory was was there in all the conversations like yeah I didn't real like in you know in ninth grade they're working on this now I know more about what I how how we should prepare the students for their interest so it it
speaks to their practice but also speaks to the transition piece too that we really need to shore up Um so mainly building the building but then the other the other piece was um that you like this building the other sister building like oh what do you do in second grade and oh I saw that my in my second grade
how cool was that that the PLC's are working um similarly that the PD um um that's happened um um collaboratively is being seen in in in practice right so so that horizontal alignment is is being
seen So we what we try to do combine combining schools from serd and um so we kind of so principal guy said oh I saw them do it in that full dayd and now I saw it in practice in my building told I saw when I went to your building I saw it there too. So things like that uh you
know basically trajectory >> well a lot as well with the district and I think you know and the more we do this the more natural it will become and not like a lot of our administrators have done learning lots of stuff in their previous districts or whatever but it's always like kind of what's the
focus what's the so when we sit down and we meet in in August we'll talk about like what what do we want to focus because a lot of times when I've implemented the learning walks on like the first year, maybe the second year, you want to get used to going to each other's buildings, not just like, I want you to do these four things. They go
there, they end up kind of seeing what they want to see and they say, "Oh, I want to really look at this instructional practice. I want to really look at how do they use their wind blocks or, you know, etc." So, you know, it kind of evolves naturally, but we're going to do something more specific now that we're going into the third year.
question I have it's um so and I just I think learning walks are great but then the question is you know if there's some practices that aren't as being aren't being implemented as effectively what's your what's going to be your approach how giving your instructional building
instructional leaders that ability to work with staff about how to put their projects >> yeah so I think that goes back to the you know not just the faculty meetings but when they when they develop their their evaluation goals. They can capt those thoughts specifically. Um it's starting to kind of evolve here in my
view like so I would do shared administrative goals with administrative team. They would take it to their buildings. The principles would start doing some shared goals with their value their vales teachers and educators. It was really cool because it kind of was nice. So that's happening here. Um and
again they'll continue to evolve um as we go. But, you know, it's more just around, okay, where where um are we looking at data the right way? Yes, it's to go really well in this building because this instructional leader maybe understands it a little bit better or just really wants to dig into it a
little bit deeper. How can we replicate that with the other instru what's happening in this school, you know, replicate that in your school? Even though it's not necessary same grade level, there's this there's some really good stuff. That's where you know like um Julia's whole team or her whole
instructional coaches are like phenomenal. They really get the figures and apply that the doing the doing and the data collecting and the and you know I've been in the meetings but the going to sit with student that it's it's it's remarkable to watch I I can follow a be
so good at it. Um and what my focus is they get it the educators get it. I need to make sure principal all get it like to the same level where the need for um second goal was uh advanced practices related to hiring training intentional
lic school educators because that's obviously another large um goal. So um some what we did there was when what when I can share when we got when we I mean our whole new team got here there wasn't a whole lot way of like tracking
I didn't know like I I think I was I want to say there was like like 72 people I hired or something first year I was here was I remember legally going oh my god how why do you have all these you know people being hired and there was no track so I couldn't answer the questions
properly I couldn't say yeah I hired you know 28 teachers 14 it was just there's people posting stuff and and not to say that we did they weren't all needed. It was just there wasn't any like way to pull that in the way. So I work with our
new HR manager Gorea and my administrative assistant in they they created a really cool sheet that um um Dr. a lot of information about what problem. It's it's kind of it's
colorcoded. It's um it talks about staff, what their position was, uh did they resign, did they retire, did they get non-renewed, uh who took over for them, um what school they're in, etc., etc. So, it's got all our good data points so I can, you know, I get my
hands on this electronically. I can I can um have someone filtered the right way. Well, I have someone filtered the right way and I can I can look at my teacher. I can look at my IIA. Right now I just kind of um did it myself just to see how
you know what are the resations like what are the retirements and so I I share all that by by way of saying that I didn't have anything like this. So the historical data is not easily and readily accessible. So this is like baseline starting point. So moving
forward I'll be able to refer to this and really help fine tune this which I'm excited about. Um, so that part of the goal, I mean, you know, it's it's just I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't, you know, um, and quite frankly, like, um, Mike's the business, Mike sent
the building, like Kristen, they're all awesome. They've they've really helped and they've worked with my assistant, um, Lisa and Sar and HR and Katie. Um, I don't there was a cohes of discussions
between everybody before. not all working really closely together. They're following they're putting processes and procedures in place that weren't there before. We have a much better handle on what are open position really not open positions we hire not all that stuff. So, um, what I can say is that's helped
us in the hiring process cuz I've already hired probably nine or 10 people, maybe 12 at this point, um, for next school year. It's just sounds like that's all you've hired, but like that's way ahead of where we were last last year is doing that like you
know, August, late August, like panicking like panic hiring, you know what I mean? Um, so we started that process much earlier. We um, advertised it a little bit differently. Um we we came up with a tracking sheet. Um our hiring committees are much more um
sophisticated and much more um pointed and when they interview we have a whole form that we have it for. They the principles push through the form that tells us where we are in the process. Like we interview this person for the superintendent goes to goes to my
secretary for the unit members. She sets up time with me to meet with them. I hire them. It goes back through the process, gets payroll, and boom, boom, boom. And that was like we lost a ton of people the first year because like I applied for a job, I never heard back from anybody, so I went got another job
and it was like weeks and weeks, no conversation, no communication. So that's that would have done much better. Um, retention pieces is is just it's going to go back to the culture building that that I'm embarking on. I really haven't had it been able to take a deep
dive into that between strike and maybe stuff like this past year. But um moving forward that culture building is going to help retailion too. Um I think we're in a good place with the union that we're in a good place with their salaries. I think uh you know I think people are seeing the benefits of
working here and we have some consistency um you know uh at the upper level but also you know um you know one person will leave and we have a whole team coming back this year. So yeah, I feel good about that and that's all got
that's all got attention piece. That's that's always tricky business. Um and then we're trying to be really culturally proficient to go around, you know, the hiring process and doing our best to hire folks that, you know, represent our population as well.
That's always a little bit more difficult than we think it is, but it's definitely on the forefront. So yeah, we're in a good in a in a good trajectory. Um I did start doing I talk a lot about all the exit interviews I
did. So exit interviews are are also tricky business because there's people that want to come and talk to you because they were like if they left they were angry. They want to tell you why or they left and they want to make sure you know like hey I'm not leaving because I didn't want I'm leaving because of this that or the other thing. Um so I had I
had a little bit of both. Um, and then you have the people that decide to resign at the last minute and each still have the opportunity to have a bid. So I think I met with five or six people so far. Um, smattering teachers, counselor, IAS, um, uh, and it's been it's been for
different reasons. Some just want to be something different. I'm educated. I'm doing something very much more specific in education. I, um, quite frankly, this isn't the job I thought it was. but vastly different than what was sold to me as the job. So I might go do
something differently. So that's good information for me to have and so I can reflect to the people who need something like most. So um even if it's five five minutes or 25
but it's good information. So um I like to do that. I try to do it as as I can. people really really really for they they laid it all on the table and it was good and bad and the difference but it was a little bit of everything so I'll
get to back as frequently as I can think even five small population size but still useful to start just documenting and seeing if there's any like themes or trends I will push you a bit on not having like comparative data Y
>> in that same format, surely we can get like raw numbers of departures from one universe to another to like a very high level. >> It's not going to be as good as what you have now. Awesome. But it sounds like you have now. Very excited. >> Yeah, I think you know I
>> prohibit us from trying to >> um Yes. It's just it's it's hard because um the tracking of that was not on the way. It's now and the person tracking is not here anymore. So it's like you would think the data will be there to be
found. That's it's not on the spot. So it's not it's not that. >> So it's it's it's >> it's hard to explain how much available without being really >> the progress sounds great though. like what you have now. Very excited about that.
>> I'm really excited about this and I can certainly like when when I have a minute I'm going to try to go backwards and align it as much as I can. I just >> um so I will do that. That's important. So any thoughts about that?
Uh Sarah goes district improvement plan as the district and district improvement goal is a district improvement plan as we know that um the goal as far as um you know getting it through the whole process and uh approved in by this committee and implemented that of July
1. Um I think uh the good thing is is now what do we do with that document and that's really the conversation you have to have with the dividends and um like this is not something we just put on the shelf I don't know that's not the reason that
supposed to be the street right so yeah it's all student focused and I think um there's some really good information there it's been criticized being like this much where it being should be this I get that. Um, and I don't I don't disagree with that assessment, but it's
also when you have the six different areas you're supposed to report on, it comes with a lot of data points. So, can we hit every single data point? Absolutely not. It'll never happen, but we can look at the focus areas that we're going to look at. Um, and that'll be part of some of the discussion like here's the areas that finally to focus
on, are there areas you want to focus on so we can collaborate on that? um I'll bring not sometimes to the committee as well but also as we move forward just know whatever it's kind of like I'll liken it to when we do educator evaluation right there's a whole bunch of standards we don't evaluate them on
every single standard we we have like I highlight standards that we look at similarly in the dip like not that everything's not important but we're going to f try to focus on the stuff that's you know what we want to try to get to in the first year or so then we'll kind of um so that that works but
the the general document place. I know just hope for a year, but that's okay. I mean, well, I always do that. Um, just like um I don't even have thoughts about the depth point I've talked about a lot.
>> Good job. >> Yeah, you know, I was going to say >> Oh, that's what I say about I don't know why I didn't say this like a year ago. Um many if not most districts pay someone
like an agency to come in and and do the strategic plan at the cost of very very very high cost. So I thought about after after you know I talk about oh you know right here. Um, I think I should, but that's why I went back. I was like, why
is it a lot most spent in the in order amount of money, but tens of thousands of dollars to get um strategic events done for the agency um to do all the work. So, you know, and there's value that certainly values that. I don't I
don't that's money necessarily wisely spent, which is why I didn't do it that way. But, um, I just never mentioned it personally. Okay. Um I'm pretty always always can improve. Um and then the last goal is the um identifying
meaningful ways to assess and enhance student academic achievement, social emotional growth, which is really just called essentiating students. Um so I I don't I don't love this goal. I I love this goal because it needs to be a goal, but it's also it's what we do every day.
So it kind of seems kind of transformative to be honest with you. Um I don't I don't love I don't want to go be because of that not that we should be doing what we already do. So um I mean the research based assessments are already in place of district um generally couples with whatever the
curriculum is and you know we first Julia and her team while you know how we how we figure out what curriculum we need to do the assessments to go with that. there's all sorts of vetting that happens to make sure the we're not just willy-nilly assessing the kids based upon oh I think this is how we got to
find out whether kids understand the information it's it's it's all research based and I think um you know it's it's generally adopted curriculum and doing this um created outside of the stuff that swiftly has done with the teams of educators it's not just like you know
saying hey I'm using this and someone else is pretty cohesive so I feel I feel good about that um you know some of the data points mean the building principles share the MCAST data until we had done you know I heard schoolbased data with the office of teaching and learning brought up the air um and what I just
want to say is like all the schoolbased data teams administrators with PLC's that's what they do they they do this at all their meetings they look at that they I mentioned a little bit while a little while ago with the instructional posters and stuff they just everything is down they think through it um you
know make sure that how we're assessing kids informed and then the results of the assessments in form instruction. It's just reciprocal that way. So I, you know, I said I like the goal because it just is what we do. Um, and it's, you know, this is a goal that can be 40
pages long. So if I went through every grade level and here's all the assessments we do and here's all the ways we do it and here's all the data. I mean that's not what this kind of goal is is beautiful but I could you know be 40 p just but um so I'll strive towards develop
more focused reporting mechanisms. I think if you done a little bit of that, but we can do better. Um, I think Julia, I think team does a really nice job of pulling pulling data for you um to share committee and uh this past year I think uh we didn't really get to speak
services doing similar um work this coming year uh and as we move forward um that was changing stuff is changing. just a look at how that how that might look different for as well and I hope we can talk while the
data points share on levels you know um it's just so much folks I think that me kind of establishing uh ways to share information with you that you know you tell me this what you want to see or this would be helpful hear
from this group or work with that those my four goals Um and just so you know, I mean I have four goals. It's typically typically three. We add the fourth because I did this year. But whatever you whatever we want to do for next year, three for me.
I just I just shouted that protection practice as you go >> just on that I hear your point on like there's you can go down to like the most detailed level and then I'll say like MCCast like annuals like as high as you can go it'd be ideal to land somewhere
>> closer towards the top but in the middle you know what I mean to give us yeah like strive to find out like what that balance And and that's why I said that thing because that's I knew that I know that's what we're looking for. I haven't provided that for sure
ways last two years but definitely I think that level has to be provided because >> student you know everyone sees past results. public not everyone sees like oh how are we doing on grade level you know dimples assessments in third grade or whatever you know it's no one sees
that level other than the teachers or parents if they ask for it or so yeah I would >> do you think that's someplace where there would be value in it being almost a shared goal I mean is it
a place where it would be valuable for you to be getting input from school about kind of data and the boarding members would like to be seen >> or is it more that you need to kind of drill and figure out? >> How about how about we attack it from
this way? How about let me have some further conversation with folks like with the backdrop being, hey, you know, I really need to share more ongoing data with this school committee around how our kids have achieved and get them what they think would be best to share and
then maybe bring back to you and say this is kind of what the team thinks and you can say that's right on the money or that's way off the market and then we can I think that's probably the best cuz I mean I can come up with a bunch of things but may not be what they think is the best way to highlight how they're how are keeping like in a meaningful
way. You know what I mean? So I have to educate. Now this is the hard part because as an educator it's like okay I you know I know all the jargon and stuff but it's like you know people may not know that. So I want to make sure you know we're doing something makes sense. Not just makes sense but like it's
meaningful. So, so how are we that move on to Y27 schools? Yeah. Um I just gonna go full. >> So my thought then that we could use
this workshop time to just sort of have a general discussion about what ideas and thoughts on the coming year and then sort of assess where we are and maybe if
we're in a position to put on a couple any further. Um, you know, certainly it's a committee decision. I think it would be preferable if we could have we think the lesson of this past year
was that once we hit February budget is even in a particularly challenging year, it's going to consume a lot of time and energy. Um, so I think I just open it up to what people are thinking about. pushed me seven goals.
>> My question would be do we feel like any of these goals should be dropped? >> Think the budget line should be dropped. think we've done >> I think it that should just should and can be just part of like the ongoing can how we operate kind of the budget
subcommittee like some commitment around explainers like I think we should change the forums for sure based on what we saw but I don't know that if we're putting like three goals together as a committee when I think about like the ones that are
most important I don't know that that one is one that needs to live on >> I can see that I guess the question be do you think that like are you satisfied with the progress of that goal you know enough to say well we don't need to do
anymore and then is there any like are there final nails that need to be hammered in or something like is it is it part of our policy manual or or is it appropriate for it to be I think dropped >> I think I I'm satisfied with the progress of the goal where I think
there's still more work to be done when I think about it and a typical budget cycle. How do we want to like what does that framework look like for now? Like here's our budget. This amount is teacher salaries. This
amount is like transportation. Just like a framework that we regularly are using each year to say here's what it was this year. Here's what the budget shows is going to be next year. Here's the delta. Here's what's driving in Delta. like things like that that people can just get in a familiar cadence with um
understanding and expecting that we would do but I don't know again if that needs to be maybe like one of our is pretty old I mean happy for it to be if there is other thing like >> yeah I was more thinking about stuff like that being sort of the final effort
toward this goal that we're So you solve it somehow work. >> Yeah. >> I do think that there's value to having the NOS become that it no longer needs to be the full school of committees
or budget submitted the progress that we've made. fail on that and my bed and then the baby's attention to that behind.
I would like to keep the dated perfect that's aligning with a lot of things that Donald is talking about. Uh I think we there's some revisions
to sort of make it more fit reality. But what I'm finding is that I'm hearing when I start to hear things in the community, you know, like why why do we pay so much? So then you start to go well we
your book should you know and and I think that it's important to have that that information you know in this case it turned out that very very well very low
but it may not have turned out that I don't think we were searching for to tell people story to answer people's questions So, uh I think part of it part of that goal is
sort of coming back to people with with the um not just so I would keep that. >> I would agree with that. I actually think it our obligations under the MOU in some ways maybe are just fleed that
goal is to now financial transparency goal and it's you know certainly something very much you could also essentially like layer some of the budget items since it's under the same thing like data Yeah, you
know, it could be it could be like a few specific components like reporting that like kind of as an umbrella for a few of these. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm happy to do that. If anybody has feedback,
>> I'll give feedback. Yeah. Um I thought that I can throw out which is I would like to get sort of a sense of where John is heading for what the focuses are going to be for the coming
year and see from that you know if there's any build out from there to support you knowing I think I think the other one was something we discussed last year or I
know I've discussed it with you but um and it kind of came up again during presentation but her um picture of a graduate >> you know and the way that that their
their goals cascaded from sort of like well whether it was vision first or purpose first, right? But but I do think that in conjunction with the work that John is doing on DI, we could be working on
that sort of graduate that I I know a lot about specific. >> We have something specific to the high school, right, John? >> Yes. been done for the NES
accreditation, but other districts have sort of a more broad portrait of a graduate keeps kind of evolving and they're working on that school. >> I think it it's it's important to keep
it relevant to, you know, our mission and and and our responsibilities. like we're not saying oh you know want spending like it's not that granular at all and I think sort of a high level thing of
like the why we're doing this >> I think you know when when when talking about it you know a lot of something similar but realistically it doesn't matter the words you use all the same yeah resilience uh you know reflection whatever um it's all about how do we get
students to become good citizens and educated and be ready for the outside world. That's what the whole vision for graduate is. And that's, you know, me as kind of helps make sure that we're on track with that. So, you know, it's fine if you want to come up with, you know,
like along those lines. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's it's it's what we do anyway, but to to codify it a little bit differently from your end probably makes sense. you know thinking okay we're we as a school committee feel that these things are important for our students
that's more that's part of that um you know discussion anyway graduate yeah spin off that sense >> I think it may also provide an opportunity to do some of the things we've been talking about you know forums
and the discussions with the community trying to find ways to get that engagement that, you know, instead of it being the five of us saying, "Is this what we want from our home?" You know, it's an opportunity to sort of positively engage the community,
you know, in a fundamental strategic exercise, you know, as you can. So, it builds off what we've got to right now. Do we need a goal about the goal setting
process itself? I mean like like a lot of what you just described is like we didn't pressure test it. We could actually report it out on progress before we put the goals together. It's a bit of a more of like a
doing our oversight job better there. Making sure that we're setting goals that we can actually measure against. I'm not sure it should be a goal, but it's definitely something we should contemplate at least part of the goal setting process that we actually are able to measure against the
>> realistically because we do kind of hop from one like essential part of the job to another. >> Yeah. >> You know, and and this year or last year more so. But uh yeah, I mean setting
realistic goals is very important just know we want to get all this done but then yeah >> our our meetings are already starting now I think we're going to achieve that. Um so it sounds like sort of some consensus
around refining the data driven decision making goal to use again developing something related to the dev priorities for this
and then develop a graduate. Yeah. Sounds great. I'll work on like I said I'll work on the data driven
well I don't know if anybody else want to to sort of come back with gold for the other two what will we do for portraiture to graduate a little that one
if it Uh I would sort of do a little bit of research into what other districts have done. >> That's like we don't need to reinvent the wheel. I think like I think we just need to find something that fits. It doesn't matter if someone else says
Houston, you know, I I again I don't think it's I think it's meant to be >> a very high level, you know, sort of guiding principle for the five people who sit on this committee. So we don't really need to
I I don't think we need a whole presentation but it's connecting the dots with you know I think so I think maybe to your point is um you know when I chat with Michelle I think conversations you know what what's been
kind of drafted so far I the last thing I want to do is you you saying this what graduate is and it's not even that I I worked on for years right so we can do that working kind of um backward design I think for for what makes me cuz from
what I heard from I guess it's just a way for you as a body to affirm and to agree and to be dedicated to making sure that as a group we're making decisions that help inform and support and provide resources so that we're doing we can do
the work we're doing with students right so I think that all ties >> you're right it's more of a shortand for like our our mission statement is actually to say >> yeah because I don't think your role is to say um oh I want I want you mentioned
like I think we should have 17 hours of this course and these person I mean it's not bad it's just like what do we expect our students when they graduate from high school we want them to be vocal and I think that works kind of done I just I
don't have the purge to share with you this back. So, >> so maybe the goal really ends up being like filming a lot of the work school, you know, to consider
>> a vision for the district as a whole. >> Yeah. And exploring like maybe it's not picture, maybe that's getting too close to something, but this is an area. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. where I think we need a little more visioning
and you know what are we trying to accomplish by this right is the vision relates to your last goal how do we know we're being successful as a school committee right that should be the vision whatever that is is it improving student outcomes
longitudinally you know for every grade that we have the measurements then I think the goal becomes much easier right to figure out what the goal should be but as you know what is that you know what are we really trying to accomplish and how
do we measure that you know that's so I'm I'm getting confused with goals and the clarity of the goals because I'm not exactly sure the why sometimes right and that's what to me the vision provides you know you know
outcomes what do we want do we want them just to improve do we want them to be better relative to a certain subset of districts that we compare ourselves to >> or do we >> is that important >> or do we or do we base it on not comparison to other districts but just
comparison to to you know student outcome you know are we seeing improvements in that area you know that's that's what I would you know kind of going back to the piece about the um you know vision or the picture of
a student I mean keeping in mind that she was talking I mean is It's a regional high school, so similar to the high school. So I think that think about it. You know what that looks like at early elementary, upper elementary,
middle is much different than what it >> does then realistically it's the link blocks all the way up. So that's why that's why again going back to the culture shift. I mean we have a culture shift that needs to happen with this district so that we'll be perfectly aligned like we know
that the work they're doing there is building is a part of the building block for them being successful graduating high school throughout grade that's yeah so I think to your point yeah I don't know that your goal is to you know see a
10% growth in student achievement I think the community school's goal is to make sure that we have the resources We meaning me and administrators teachers have the resources the ability uh you know the support to make sure that all those things make so that
students get so it's kind of like you're like once once removed from the from the thing so it makes it a lot more difficult to develop a go around that I and I don't mean I'm not belittling what we should say I just think it that's very
it sounds great I don't know what they actually do to me to get into the RS here. It's nice. It's got four Rs. It's great. But nice program on be program and they may and they may have it all align. I I don't like I said I don't
want to like belittle it, but >> you know to simplify my brain. >> I get that. I think again what what I'd like to see is something that's focused on student success, you know, and and again that's sort of like the goal that
you are doing anyway, but it's still important to have. And I >> I was just thinking of a picture of a graduate as a as a um again as like a tool to talk about STEMs. Um, and maybe maybe it's not a
good tool for us, you know, but I think it would be good to come up with some way to talk about supporting student success easily. Maybe it's maybe it's a goal of trying to
understand what are these what are to learn more about the strategies that these schools using or particular levels using to define that beyond some of the curriculum but you know the data showed that our
attendance improved significantly there must have been some strategies in order to do that I'm assuming it's not just so you know doing want to learn more about some of the cases beyond just you know the dibble and the you know IES and you
know MCCAST and all of that I I don't know know this but I know that they're doing lots of different things in the area of you know even the wayfinder maybe it's learning more about the wayfinder and why you know what are
some of those strategies at the speed level they're And how does that connect to student success? >> Yeah, perhaps >> like instead of of building some maybe
the goal is just to to explore ways in which we you know measure student success because I think you're right they would different principles be treated very differently. When you listen to Scott Williams talk, he talks about, you know, it's 50% this like
social learning 50% academic level and that's really important. So, uh, you know, maybe we don't need a clever, >> right? So, >> whatever. I actually don't want to throw
the vision or portrait idea out based on it being too or clever because I actually think if we can figure out a way to do this, it's a form of the school committee supporting the culture shift that John is trying to make away
from these silos. And if we're saying when you graduate from Marblehead High School, you're going to be a responsible citizen, you know, a proficient communicator. or whatever it is that they've decided and we find a way to adopt that as a
vision for the district as a whole. I think it helps set that tone of you what are you doing in kindergarten that ladder up towards being a responsible citizen when walker fields 18 years not 18 years 12 years 12
13 years later some years >> at some later date um you know I think these things are all interconnected and it's just >> figuring guide to your journey. I do really like
that being paired with like how do we talk about it like you know how do we show that we've done it >> well even what is student success >> how to discuss why success first >> I mean this is I mean we're not going to
figure this out today but I think this is a good discussion but guess my follow too like how do I discuss I have my team you know I think this all good So maybe we just have this as a discussion about maybe an incoming
meeting. >> We don't really assign you. I think in the meantime people can think about it and you know poke around online see what you can find other districts do and yeah I'll go back >> we ready to move on to subcommittee and
liaison assignments. Um so we have a number of standings and voting point members to here. Um and my thought was a way we can do it
unless judge would be you know anyone that has been on the subcommittee. Um subcommittee. So if we want to just walk through the subcommittees and figure out who's being
appointed both subcommittees sort of one one um so we'll start with the budget which >> I am yes but it's not obvious I'm pregnant in November fully planned that I will like be able to do this like but it
there'll be a period where I'm not like I'm left probably rubbed out for the count but yes I'm interested in doing this but whoever decides to join me we'll just have that can I just make a so um you know mentioning your general I mean the
budget it's going to be vastly different conversations there was last year so kind of good idea >> I think there's a lot we could do to like lay the foundation and framework and what the timeline looks like Speaking you do a lot of that a lot of that before you
>> um speaking plan we do that if that's >> um and not just budget but all of these nothing is set in stone so if the year gets going and change but yeah is anyone else interested on
the budget sub I'd be happy to join else Great. Policy which has been said. >> Yeah. >> Um, anyone else?
>> No. to facilities. It's been unre I love to stay on facilities. I really enjoy it. >> I think he's step back since
communication suspend Henry and Melissa. >> Please continue. We have a good >> um negotiations. It's been Melissa and you can we had a goals subcommittee that was
out and it was I've been thinking about this one because it was sort of specifically established to work on those two goals. But I actually think there may be value in a goal subcommittee on task in terms of measuring whether
we're making progress. So, so it's not just an annual check in, but like the goal subcommittee give me orderly or whatever cadence like yeah, >> assessed and then bring it back us a chance to talk about our goals during subject.
>> Yeah, I mean, but I have no problem stepping aside if someone else wants to. wants to do it. >> Um, she want to do Van Maria now. Sure. >> I like that. Just because you probably should take some things off your plate.
>> Too late. You know that. >> All right. >> Okay. So, those are all our regular standing subcommittees. So do those as a phone to be back things we need to do. Um
so I'm looking for a motion to appoint Melissa and Henry to the budget subcommittee. Kate and Ann Marie to the policy subcommittee. Henry and Al to the facility subcommittee. Melissa and Fenry to the communication
subcommittee. Melissa and Kate to the negotiation subcommittee. and Marian subcom any discussion from I don't know if it's relative to this but I guess what what did we just see
that the chair appoints the chair of this or the subcommittee do it themselves do we want to make that part of motion or do it separately >> we can do that >> good fine >> all right we do Got a second
vote. All in favor to zero. So our policy says that the chair appoints the chair of the subcommittee. I would like to leave it to the subcommittee to select your own chair. If you have trouble coming to the
consent, >> you can come to me and I will intervene. But I think really The sher post that partic >> is there a motion to have subcommittees
select their own chairs Okay. Second motion to be able to have subcommittees. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion carries five zero. Okay. Um hand us over to Henry. are we
have a roof advisory committee under the policy that those appointments for one year. So we need to reappoint members to the roof advisory committee that budget. So let us know who that would be.
>> Uh interesting. I was looking at our our advisory committee guidance, but um so the the roof subcommittee is or advisory kind of is um myself, Mike,
um Ralph Wallace, Brian Sarapian, uh Karina Maloney, and Art. So we have a motion to reappoint those members. >> So just do you find that that number of
people is too many, too little? Like do you feel like it's the right balance? >> Does suck to say it. It's it's very challenging to schedule and that everybody sort of has a different view of
how someone should participate on the buses. Um, however, there's been certainly a lot of good guidance, you know, because the way we set this up is we've had people who
were familiar with construction management, people who were familiar with roofing projects, people who were familiar with HVAC. So we had these expert and and someone who's familiar with you know with uh uh MSBC
building opportunities. So if I were to do it again, I would probably advise future committee members to choose a smaller number. But I I think we're getting a work done.
Should reappoint the members to the group advisory committee. All in favor? So then we have a few liaison that we um so and I set up two of those this past
year. The health and wellness advisory safety um I would like to continue on health and wellness be a great group John really good job leading that group but I'm excited to see you >> today with you in the meetings. >> You did? >> Yep. It's on my calendar already.
>> I set up the safety one to an American. >> Um, so then we have the safety leon. So then our metathon >> again. I I don't mind continue to do that, but if someone else really very
passionate wants to do it, I'm open to it too. But I can continue to get on. >> Well, Emory, I thought with your experience that it might be a more effective lead onto this. >> Yeah. >> Uh I will say they are fantastic.
>> Yeah. Um so they don't understand >> just you know safe the safety one I'm doing a quarterly I'm going to do quarterly meeting the wellness see discrimination a little different but I'll just pretty great
>> I'm happy to say thank you since I never got any invitations actually um but if someone else wants to I It feels strong. >> I get lapped off the initial one. I think that's fine.
>> I mean, I'm happy with the safety as well. So, yeah, that's fine. I mean that penis as long as I get invitations but spent the first month spinning on board. So at least I didn't do any live
dot discrimination. >> So I would be looking for a sorry >> I was going to say there's also a a marble head 2037. Oh, the master plan. >> Would you like to continue on? >> Aren't they coming out with that
sitting? >> Uh, yeah, they just had a lot of communication around it. Unfortunately, they schedule it Thursdays. All their meetings have been Thursday nights, so people will attend a whole lot of it. But I unless someone really wants to get in the way of the I can continue to
do that. I wasn't thinking of that as something we needed to like bring up, but I think if you're open to doing it, continuity is probably >> well and maybe you know it should be the chair. >> All right. So I would be looking for a motion to appoint Kate to health and wellness as the health and wellness
leazison Marie as the Cathon and Alco. So unless any further discussion include I did okay vote on this one. All in favor.
So before we get to executive session, we had one other agenda item which is um just a discussion about reporting obligations under the MOU which I think we sort of talked about. It's incorporated that
Alice Henry is going to work on. Um the theou structure sort of requires two important components from us which is special for everyone. One is to give the superintendent to report to the school
committee um beginning in January 2027 district funds um and given that we're not totally January. Um but it's an opportunity to sort of
set up that full structure. Um and then the um calls from the quarterly reporting by the town super the chair. So I think the fiscal year just began so to finish in order before that first report
and see how that all folds and certainly both into discussion about Who's going to be like quarterbacking pulling that all together? I assume when it's our turn, we'll send that
information to >> usually administrator >> administrator. I think joint provide information to them and they all >> see that we can sort of clarify that.
Yeah, just so we're clear on like who to send to, what, when, you know. Yeah. Going to aggregate it and share it back out in what way. Make sure that it's >> Yeah. some information. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> I'm happy to have some conversations.
>> You want to talk to Dan about getting that process nailed down so that when we the end of the first quarter? Yes. We all expectations and better luck. Yeah. So with that, I am looking for a motion
to meet an in executive session pursuant to chapter 30A section 2183 purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the marble pet education association unit A because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining session of the
school committee and the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. And pursuant to chapter 30A section 21 A3 purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation in HSCL versus Marblehead public schools by and through
its duly elected school committee at all Essex superior court docket number 2477 CB000093 is an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating session school committee and the chair so declares without intent to return to
open session. So >> motion by Henry move second I didn't read any discussion call in favor
>> I could say I >> change practice here >> yes >> in favor Kate in favor motion carries 5 to zero we will enter into executive session pursuant to chapter 30A section
A3 purpose 3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the Marblehead Education Association A because an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of school of committee and pursuant to chapter 30A section 21A purpose brief to discuss strategy with
respect to litigation and HSL vers Marblehead public schools by and through its duly elected school committee at all Essex superior court docket number 244 CB0000293 as an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating
position of the school committee and the chair so declares without intent to return to open session. We were