Great. Okay. So, I am going to call us to order. 6:0 p.m. Alway School Committee meeting May 15, 2025. Welcome everyone. Welcome. Um let's start with the pledge of allegiance.
Republic and justice mistakes. Um, so I'm going if it's the um of the committee, I'd like to move uh something on the agenda so we bring the student spotlight to the next item and then we can move forward from there because I
know these folks were being very patient. Welcome. We have the village student spotlight tonight. Yes. Welcome to the school meeting. Glad to be here. Thank you. Take a minute to get the slides on. Maybe can each of them introduce
themselves? Yeah. Can you guys introduce yourselves while we leave? Or is that part of your jump past the time for you? [Music] Hello and good evening school committee. I'm Vivian and we are here tonight to
tell you that school is alive leadership opportunities. Here leaders we are a group of sixth grade students who work hard to live by examples throughout the school year. We engage with family action such as peer mentoring with fourth grade during lunch, researching
social culty and creating an informative slideshow to share with fellow classmates in community meeting, touring parents of incoming fourth graders as well as all the third graders on step up deck and participating in a cleanup day around our village school campus. on the screen you can
see. Um, so we have some pictures of our cheerleaders in action and we're really excited for June 9th where we're going to be touring incoming fourth graders. Hi, I'm Perry Scott and I will be introducing ahead. Yeah, you slide
ahead. Yeah. So, can I go back? Yep. Hi, I'm Perry Scott and I will be introducing the school newspaper. Behind me or me is a photo of the school newspaper team. Liz P is the mastermind behind the club which which worked hard
throughout the year throughout multiple editions of our school newspaper. They covered topics that range from news and current affairs leaders special occasions mystery teacher tech tips and sports and comics. If you haven't had a chance to read any edition of this paper, we encourage you to. We meet
twice a week and put out one paper every month. Daily student announcements. Each morning, two students come down to the front office to deliver the daily announcements. Student announcements include a morning greeting, the date, the weather, the lunch menu, a word of the day, and the pledge of allegiance.
Students then pass it over to Mr. Williams for any additional announcements, as well as the joke of the day. All grades and students have the opportunity to make the morning announcements. Sixth graders strike the hero leading announcements. Then, fifth graders take it on, and eventually fourth graders round up the hearing.
Composting. These are some photos of composting in action. Village schools around composting during lunches here. As a community, we learn about what it is, the benefits composting has in our community, and how we can all get involved to make a sustainable difference. We are all trained on being
on the role of being a compost ranger and each take turns each lunch to help our classmates sort their waste, recyclables, and compost. So, let's go to Community engagement. Hi, I'm Ruben and I'm here to talk about
community meetings. Fourth, fifth, and sixth grade each have a community meeting once a month in place of advisory to come together to a full grade assembly. The in classes and teams are responsible for facilitating a community meeting
throughout the year. The start of each community meetings, the student dynamic ducks are publicly recognized and celebrated for being safe, respectful, and responsible classmates. As community meeting topics have focused on recess expectations,
learning about upcoming cultural events and celebrations, moving, social problem solving, and more. George the chair. I'm Elizabeth and I'm with George the chair. George the chair is a legend. When Mr. Williams arrived at Village School as our principal, he
brought with him George the chair. This has been an a tradition that Mr. Williams has carried throughout most of his teaching career. George is an achievement that classes can obtain when showing village school core values. In the past, classes have decorated George.
He has been a leprechaun, wild robot, and even Mr. Heler in the center. Each week, Mr. Williams visits classes and looks for a class or team that is showing dynamic duck behavior. Then on Friday, he announces the class that will
receive George the following week. George is a very big part of our school spirit here at Village, and every class looks forward to the day where their class acquires George. Village Organic Garden is also known as a shop. It's a special garden located in
in the center courtyard of our school. Big shout out to Spur for the support. The the garden serves as a really cool hands-on learning for us all. We get to learn about organic gardening, sustainability, and health and nutritional habits. Classes get a chance
to go out in the garden and harvest our plant. It's so fun to walk by the block on the way into class to see what we have planted, springing up, and growing strong. The block also functions as a community resource providing fresh fruits and vegetables to the Marvel Head
Food Bank. School spirit. Hello, I'm Tucker and I'm here to tell you about duck dollars and schoolwide spirit. Duck dollars. A village duck is all about being respectful, responsible, and safe. Us ducks make it our goal to
earn duck dollars. We earn duck dollars by showing village core village school core values. We turn in our duck dollars to our teachers and at the end of the week, each grade's duck dollar totals are announced over the loudspeaker by Mr. Williams.
We earn cool prizes such as movie day, extraes, free seating in the cafeteria, hot cocoa day, stuffed animal uh stuffed animal day, and more for earning duck dolls. Competition can get fierce fierce to see which grade is in the lead. And on some days it gets crazy because it's
double duck dog day. Whackers shows up and makes it rain with duck dollars. Top right corner is a duck dollar. Um below that is the duck dollar jar visuals. And then right in the middle on the bottom is crackers.
Schoolwide spirit dates. School spirit is a very important part of village school's community. Peer leaders sometimes even brainstorm ideas for these events. Some of our past spirit days have been dress up like your favorite teacher day, Valentine's Day,
neon day, sports day. When a spirit day is decided upon, students will go on the announcements and spread the news to the rest of the school. These days help unite uh sorry, help unite the school community and add some extra fun to the school day. When the majority of
students participate, it shows village school spirit as a whole school. On the right, it is dress up like your favorite teacher day. On the left, it is Valentine's Day. And in the middle, it's glow day. Life the key. Dress up, Kate.
Community celebrations at Village. We are one big community community who cheers on one another when there is a win and lifts one another when there is a stumble. So when someone in our school community reaches a big milestone, we
pause and celebrate the achievement. Our beloved school custodian, Mr. Rick, retired this March after 20 years. This was a big deal and we had to send him off in style. Showered with love, we all lined the hallways with signs and
we and well wishes the morning of his last day of work. Mr. Rick paraded through while happy music played on the loudspeaker. We miss you, Mr. Rick. For teacher appreciation week, us peer leaders led a thank you teacher campaign. students wrote thank you
letters um for their teachers and we hung them up around the school on big banners. We love our teachers. On the right there is a banner that has all the thank you little sticky note things. In the middle is peer leaders helping
students write the sticky notes. And then on the left is Mr. Rick walking through the hallway on his last morning before Thank you for your Thank you for your time, school community. Hope you enjoyed our slideshow. Mr. N. Thank
you. Wonderful job. Thank you. I'm going to do a picture with Mr. and Mr. Williams. Yes. Oh, you got it, Julia. Yes. Julie, do you want to be in it?
Perfect. I stopped. I will say too, they're not just acting like leaders when they're here and presenting you. One of the members of your team that was here a little early, he came in. He introduced himself. He very much so took a leadership role,
very polite, respectful. So, they're practicing what you guys are are asking them to. So, you guys are doing a great job. Thank you very much. I'm going to move on to commendations. Um I have two
commendations I'm going to read in excuse. Oh. Yeah. That I'm going to read into the record. Um John, I don't know if you want to make a couple comments or I can just This is around town meeting. Yeah. So, um just leading up to Mr. Afron's accommodation, I just uh when we
when we had town meeting and we had overflow, we had to cancel it. we had to move quickly from vets to the high school and there's been a lot of discussion and congratulations and thanks to um our teams of custodians and technology folks that made it happen in
a very short period of time. I'm very proud of the work they did and I think uh Chad is going to share some some letters that we had. Yeah, I just wanted to so we could stay here all night thanking all of our our team, our tech folks, our custodians,
um administration and um everyone's who really stepped up and made it happen at town meeting uh when we had to shift from the pack to the fieldhouse. But there were two letters I just want to read into the record and read to the school committee. Um, the first is from our facilities director, Todd Bletgood,
who says, "On Monday, May 5th, 2025, I was asked to move the town meeting setup to the Marblehead High School Fieldhouse. The pack had been set up on May 5th, as well as the large gymnasium at the Veterans Middle School. The facilities and IT departments were tasked with moving the entire town meeting set up from one building to
another. An email was sent notifying all second shift shift facility staff they would be needed to report in the morning on Tuesday, May 6th. We proceeded to gather every chair in the district over to the fieldhouse. I think it was 17, 1700 chairs. The facilities crew of 30
people, as well as assistance from Marblehead's DPW department, worked diligently while also completing their regular daily duties and had the fieldhouse set up for the building to open at 6 p.m. Tuesday night. My deepest appreciation for John Constantino, Marblehead Public Schools food service director, facilities staff, and IT
director Steven Quietch and IT staff. I cannot thank Lisa Manning enough for making sure that everything facilities transportation in regards to facilities and transportation was covered as I was engulfed in getting the town meeting set up. I couldn't be more proud of the immense task that they were able to get
accomplished. Sincerely, Todd Bledgood. And then the second letter I'm going to read um to the committee and to the record is from um Mr. Lavender um who sent this. I'm sorry. Um, no. This was from Thatcher, John Rabado, Alicia
Benjamin, and Mike Perling to the um um I believe to the press. Yes, it was a letter. It was a letter to the edit text. Okay. On behalf of our administrative teams, we extend our deepest appre appreciation to the unsung heroes who made this year's town meeting a success. We thank Mr. Todd Bledgood,
his outstanding team of custodians, and the dedicated staff in the town's department of public works for their extraordinary efforts in preparing Robert High School's fieldhouse on short notice. From the meticulous setup of the facility to the unloading of materials and on-site assistance with documentation, their Tyler's work,
attention to detail, and unwavering commitment created a smooth and welcoming environment for all attendees. Their professionalism, positive attitude, and dedication were instrumental to the meeting success. We also wish to express our sincere gratitude to the school information technology team. Despite the challenges
of redeploying the remote voting system from the veteran school to the high school fieldhouse and managing a record-breaking turnout, the team ensured that all technical systems remained fully functional throughout the evening. Their ability to maintain reliable operations under pressure despite the demanding conditions of the
new location and the extraordinary level of resident participation was critical to the success of the electronic voting process and contributed significantly to the effectiveness of the meeting. Special thanks are also due to the town clerks, staff, and volunteers who skillfully managed long lines and
overflowing crowd and the issuance and replacement of voting clickers under pressure. Their efficiency, patience, and positive engagement kept the process moving smoothly and were deeply appreciated by all in attendance. We are profoundly grateful for the continued partnership and exemplary service of these teams. Their collective efforts
reflect the very best of public service and highlight the strength of collaboration between our municipal and school departments. Sincerely, town administrator, superintendent of schools, our finance director, and assistant superintendent of finance. So, great news. Thanks to everyone. There was a letter from Mr. Lavender, which I
will also put in Yeah. Do you want to read that? That was, by the way, I think before town meeting even was adjourned, he said that was right. The very next day he sent it because he references how great his breakdown was, too. Good afternoon. I wanted to take a moment to express my
appreciation for everyone involved in the recent town meeting setup and breakdown here at MHS. While the move to hold the meeting here wasn't ideal for us, we made the best of it, and I'd like to commend those who helped us coexist. A special thank you to our school tech
department and all the custodians and maintenance staff for their hard work. The transformation of the fieldhouse into the town meeting venue was truly impressive. More importantly, the breakdown was even more impressive. Although the 3-day meeting was more than expected, I was pleasantly surprised
when I arrived at school this morning at 7:30 a.m. to find the chairs had been cleared and half of the gym was available for use. By noon today, the gym was back to its original state. All thanks to the team's effort. While many people in town have been recognized for the work, I was present and saw
firsthand it was the school staff who primarily handled the setup and breakdown of the event. Please class on my appreciations. Michael Lavender, high school wellness department lead teacher, best buddies advisor, and assistant baseball. Thanks everybody. Awesome job.
Thank you. Um, other accommodations. Um, I it's a little bit redundant, but I also wanted to point out that while everyone was making this magic happen, we were also having MCCAST at multiple schools during the day that week. So, our tech staff, in addition to making
the magic of town meeting happen so everyone could see and hear and staying there till 11:00, was then running back the next morning as were our custodians to do their job, but also to help our students make sure they could access the MCCast testing on um all the various
devices. And we all know tech often goes sideways. So, they were able to make that happen. Um, I was so impressed to see all of our employees just come in to help in such a collaborative way. Um, so it was great and I don't know how they
slept that week to be perfectly honest because they were seem to be there around the clock. So, thank you. Anyone else? Okay, I'm going to move on to public comment. Um, I'm going to start here and then I think maybe I'll ping pong back and forth online.
So, I have uh Sarah Pad here. Hi, Sarah. Welcome. Do I state my address? Just name and address. Sarah Padian, 23 IDA Road. Um,
so I'd like to start with showing a couple of images and then I'll say my thing. So tonight, as we know, um the school committee is bringing a um resolution on the uh Israel Gaza
conflict. So, I just wanted to show everyone some of the stuff that um was brought to the state house that the MTA was showing on their um website, all the teachers and providing. This is a Jewish
star um in the shape of a dollar. And I can pass it around. You can read it if you like. Uh this one is unity and confronting Zionism. And this one Zionist I think everyone in this room
can agree that these images are not only a horrendous but anti-semitic and should never be exposed to students. Yet these are part of curriculum resources the MTA developed. There are currently discriminatory lessons and resources for
teachers to use on the MTA website. Educators are supposed to protect students, not harm them. Without this resolution, a teacher may unknowingly use MTA resources that will cause irreparable harm to students and open the district to more scrutiny and
lawsuits. The MTA's curriculum resources have been described as quote dramatically one-sided and quote a threat to K through2 education. The resources have been publicly accused of promoting anti-semitic tropes and of
politicizing classrooms in a manner that is both inappropriate and harmful to students. This is not just a matter of political ideology. It is a question of integrity. The MTA's actions have eroded trust among educators, parents, and students. Brooklyn has passed this
resolution, and Marblehead should as well. The MTA cannot be trusted. Over the past year and a half, Jewish educators have begged the MTA to stop passing resolutions that are anti-Zionist and anti-semitic because they are hurting Jewish teachers and students. With each request, the MTA has
only gotten more brazen, and these curriculum resources are an example of why they cannot be trusted. Albert Einstein stated, "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything. That is why it is so important
to pass this resolution. Marblehead needs to support each other, not the Massachusetts Teachers Association. These re resources and others like them can never make their way into our schools and this resolution will ensure that this does not happen. Thank you.
Sarah, could you just show the pictures on the camera online couldn't see? I I said they couldn't see it. That would be fairly people. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Um, I'm actually gonna go to online. I've got uh Karen.
Karen, I don't have your last name. I'm going to be um allowed to talk. You should be able to be unmuted. Karen. All right. Can you hear me? Oh, we can. Welcome. Okay. Can you just give us your
name and address? Karen Telmliff, 11 Trager Road. Um, so dear school committee members, I would like to sincerely thank you for approving the flag policy a few weeks ago. I know it was a challenging but necessary decision after there were two unauthorized removals of flags from the
high school cafeteria, the BLM and Israeli flags. It's been upsetting and frustrating to watch members of the community unfairly disparage you, but I don't blame them because they have been fed misinformation by the Marblehead current. While the current is portraying school committee members as bigots,
being anti-LGBTQ and anti-lack, they are actively suppressing mentioning the removal of the Israeli flag. The Israeli flag was removed and never returned, even after allegations into anti-semitism were exposed. Last week, I attended town meeting and as I walked through the high school, I saw that the
BLM flag was still on display. I don't understand why the flag representing an anti-Semitic organization is still hanging up if the flag policy has been approved. A double standard was clearly applied to the Israeli flag. Of the nearly 30 articles published about the
flag policy, only two mention the Israeli flag. Instead, the current focused on exploiting the pain of the LGBTQ and black communities sewing division in our town during election season. I recently emailed the Marblehead Currents board of directors
to share my concerns about their biased coverage and their exploitation of vulnerable communities for political purposes. I've not received a response. As a member of the Jewish community, I'm especially concerned by what appears to be a pattern of omission and bias from the current. And it would make sense
because last summer there was a pro- Hamas tent encampment in Salem Common and I was at the counterprotest. I witnessed a current reporter, the very same reporter who has written nearly every article about the flag policy, watching and smiling at pro Hamas supporters, these same Hamas supporters
who were chanting inifad revolution and we don't want no two state, we want 48. These chants call for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews. Post October 7th, I posted a rebuttal to an anti-Israel letter posted in the current. The current asked me to provide
sources to back up my letter, including the manner in which Jewish babies were slaughtered on October 7th. Yet, The Current did not scrutinize an anti-Israel letter that they allowed to be posted and had numerous factual inaccuracies. Recently, the documentary October 8th was brought to the Warwick
Theater. Reporters from the current were invited to the screening multiple times and they never responded and even told the organizer they had never seen the emails. Any community member who claims to stand against hate and for the rights of historically persecuted people must take a hard look at the Marblehead
Current's coverage, not only for what it says, but what it consistently omits. And I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Jennifer Shaner and Sarah Fox for attending the screening of October 8th and for asking such thoughtful questions. By attending the film, they took an active and meaningful step
towards understanding the climate of anti-semitism that Jewish students are facing today. As a mother of Jewish children, I'm deeply grateful for their willingness to listen, learn, and educate themselves on this issue. Thank you, Marblehead School Committee, again for your willingness to make difficult
but principled decisions in the face of intense pressure and biased media coverage. Your commitment to fairness and to protecting all students is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Carrie. Just when we uh
Mary Good evening, my name's Mary Le and I live at 30 Peach Highs. After listening to the school committee discussion on recess policy, I felt that I had to come and speak to you. I'd like to remind school committee and members
of the audience that recess wasn't simply taken away at grades K to six. There was a large committee of administrators, teachers, parents, and union reps. And their charge was to create a master schedule with several
priorities including the following in no particular order. One, create common planning time for teachers to participate in data meetings, job embedded professional development and collaborative planning. Two, create a
targeted instructional block so students could receive targeted tier 2 and tier three interventions and create opportunities for extended curriculum. And three, meet DES required time on
learning at 900 hours. All of these are good for student learning outcomes. Are these three things no longer a priority to this school committee? Let me be clear. What this process
wasn't was someone simply taking away recess against the wishes of all community all committee members. If recess is a priority for this school committee, the very same school committee that negotiated the
current contract, then the length of the school day should have been made a priority during negotiations. It very simply and very honestly was not much like the high school group. This school committee didn't get the job
done. Additionally, the language used in this policy sounds operation. language like will take place outdoors when weather permits or will be supervised by or will be divided into
two blocks morning and afternoon. Operational responsibilities fall under the purview of the superintendent, not the school committee. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for
recess, but as an instructional coach, I want you to be aware that there's a cost for removing academic time from students schedules. I'd like to suggest that a decision like this not be taken lightly, but rather be
made in a thoughtful manner with voices from administrators and teachers asking the important question, what are we giving up to do anything less would be irresponsible. Thank you.
Did have a hand raised online, but I don't anymore. So, okay. Um, Sally Chevy, Sally Chevy, um, Garfield Street and MEA co-president. I stand before you tonight deeply concerned and frankly
disappointed by the posted agenda item E the school committee by the school committee and making the public pro proclamation against the mass teachers association regarding curriculum decisions. Let me be clear. The Marblehead Education Association has
already publicly stated its disagreement with the MTA's position on Gaza. That statement was deliberate, thoughtful, and reflective of the values of our educators, staff, and students. More importantly, and let me emphasize this,
Marblehead has never even considered adopting this curriculum, nor would we, curriculum decisions in our district are made carefully, collaboratively, and always with the best interest of our students in mind. They involve input
from administration, from teachers, and ultimately require approval by this very school committee. To imply otherwise is to mislead the public and undermine the professionalism of our educators. The latest proclamation is not about
curriculum. It's about politics. It's a calculated move in an election season designed to seow division and cast doubt where there should be trust. And let me add something that deserves to be said clearly. The MEA has never
blindly followed the MTA. Not now, not ever. We assess every proposal, every stance through the lens of what best serves Marblehead students. We are deliberate. We are thoughtful. We are independent. That's in stark contrast to the school
committee's pattern of blindly following legal counsel regardless of the impact on staff morale, educational quality, or community trust. Once again, we see an attempt to drive a wedge between teachers and community using a false
narrative. I urge this committee to stop using educators as political pawns and start engaging with us as partners dedicated to the success of every child in Marblehead. Thank you. Nobody really wanted. Okay. Uh
Jonathan Jonathan Heler, 26 off Road. Uh, good evening. My name is Jonathan Heler and I speak tonight as a parent of two students in Marble Public Schools, as a proud teacher at the Village School and as co-president of the Marblehead
Education Association. I am here to express concern regarding the school committee's intent to issue a proclamation related to the curriculum materials created by the Mass Teachers Association. Once again, the committee is stepping into an area that is clearly
the responsibility of the superintendent and the office of teaching and learning. As educators, you work collaboratively and professionally across the district through building admin, instructional coaches, lead teachers, and staff to
design, review, and implement curriculum. This is a thorough and intentional process that occurs both horizontally across grade levels and vertically across content areas. Additionally, MPS follows a structured
curriculum review cycle, which includes committees that assess and adopt new programs when needed. Our curriculum decisions are made thoughtfully, grounded in data, classroom experience, and the needs of all students. Through partnerships between the office of
teaching and learning and our professional development committee, we prioritize training and resources that help us grow as educators and better serve our students. These are proactive and student centered decisions rooted in
education, not politics. In contrast, the proposed proclamation feels reactive and politically charged. To be clear, on December 9th, 2023, the MTA board approved the development of resources related to the history and current
events in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The school committee made no proclamation at that time. On February 10th, 2025, uh, 2023, um, sorry, 2024, MTA President Max Page
testified before the Massachusetts special commission on combining anti- combating anti-semitism where those resources were criticized. Still, no proclamation by the school school committee by mid March. Those resources deemed to be anti-semitic were removed
from the MTA website. And again, there is no action from the school committee. So why now? Why miday? It is difficult to not see this as philippity motivated, especially with two school committee seats up for election. This feels less
about students and education and more about optics and distraction. As my co-president Sally Chevrey stated, the MBA publicly denounced the MTA's motion on December 9th, 2023. We shared our position on our social media and posted it on our website. Our statement
regarding the MTA's motion on December 9th, 2023 read, "Dear colleagues, on December 9th, 2023, the board of directors of the MTA approved a motion without consult consultation with the Marvel Education Association or any of the MTA's local associations or the
117,000 teachers that the organization represents. The language of the motion is as follows. The training in the professional learning division will develop a framework for discussing and set of curriculum resources for learning about history and current events in Israel and occupied Palestin Palestine
for MTA members to use with each other and their students. The MTA will join in solidarity with the UAWCTU and other labor unions across the country and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. The MTA president and vice president will urge the president of the NEA to pressure then President Biden to
stop funding and sending weapons in support of Neti Netanyahu government's genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza. The Marvel Education Association rejects the presumption that is within the scope of the state and local association's mission to take a position of geopolitical
affairs. The MEA rejects anti-semitism, Islamophobia, and all other expressions of religious and cultural intolerance. And the MA reaffirms our commitment to advocating for highquality public education that supports lifelong learning, critical thinking, and responsible engagement. We
are a democratic union. We are members of and receive support from the MTA, but we speak for ourselves, including when we disagree with elected leaders in our statewide union, in our town government. Every decision we make as a union on the local level reflects
the will of our members. And every decision we make as educators reflects our unwavering commitment to our students. The school committee, by contrast, has consistently made decisions without meaningful collaboration and engagement with students. Educators broader marvelous community. Instead, you have repeatedly
cited legal advice as your guiding force rather than the voices of the people you are elected to represent. Perhaps it's time to follow the example of one of your own members, Al Williams, who had the courage at the last meeting to raise thoughtful and challenging questions about the direction we're heading rather than simply deferring to legal counsel
and allowing the school committee's legal team to speak on their behalf. Our students, families, and educators deserve leadership that listens, partners, and acts with integrity, not with politics. Thank you. I I don't Julia, do you mind just grabbing
that sheet just to make sure there's no one on there? No, no names. No names. No names. Okay, great. Names, everybody. Okay, I'm going to move on to student representative. I don't think she's No, she I don't think is receiving an award tonight for being one of the highest
performing students in our district right now. All right, I'm going to move on to district updates. Superintendent Boost at the wheel there. Um, so I was starting with my updates around the uh custodial and technology staff. So I don't want to fogg a dead horse, but I
just wanted to reiterate uh my my support and my my uh being very proud of the work they did in the town meeting and on their day-to-day operations. So um uh we are so wet welcomed our new human resources manager, Gloria Sen, this past Monday. She is settling in
nicely so far and we're thrilled to be moving forward with her on our team. So we finally got someone in in that position. We're very excited about that. Son Reyes uh joined us the week before as our new executive assistant registar and she has been uh such a breath of fresh air as the new face of our our
admin building. So she meets and greets folks. She does took over the registration process from from Katie um which Katie had taken it on when the registar was no longer in that position. So, we're getting uh the the jobs where they need to be and so we can run more efficiently in the uh administrative
building. So, we're very excited about those two additions. I want to share some data regarding our AP exams that we're very excited about this school year. There were 378 students taking 933 AP exams. That's 153 more exams than
last year. And since 2014, that is an increase of 451 exams. I want to thank Susan Chaffford for her ongoing commitment to en ensuring that there has been steady growth over the years as this is a huge accomplishment. So that's that's that's some big numbers. Um just
the increase in the amount of exams been taken is just it was worth um noting and thanking Susan for her efforts. Um today I um received notice um in regard to our eco director Kia Johnson. She was recognized by the Massachusetts House of
Representatives for dedication and hard work and advocating for Boston based students. Um, and if you if you indulge me, please read the um, please. Um, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the House of Representatives, be it hereby known to all that Massachusetts House of Representatives offers its sincerest
congratulations to Casia Johnson in recognition of the incredible work you have done as a MECO director and the unwavering dedication you bring to the role. watching over students, advocating for their success, and inspiring them daily. Your leadership, compassion, and
commitment have created opportunities, built bridges, and changed lives. We honor your tireless efforts and a profound impact you have made on the students, families, and communities you serve. The entire membership extends his very best wishes and expresses the hope
for future good fortune and continued success given this day, etc., etc. So, that was very um very cool. I just got that this afternoon so I even have a chance to share it with the uh committee. Um so thank you Kasia for all your hard work. Um Brown had his walk, bike and roll yesterday which I
unfortunately missed because we were at another engagement. Um but that's it's always a really great way to celebrate the spring and remind students of ways uh they can be active and healthy. The Browns fun run um is next week on May 22nd which oh sorry which should be
another fun activity and hopefully the weather will cooperate. Uh, grade six, as we already know, is headed off to Bourningdale on Tuesday and returning on Friday. I've heard that this is a wonderful time and serve to help students come together in preparation for heading to the middle school. Um, I will be heading down either Wednesday or Thursday to check out the fun, so I'll
report back on how that goes. Um, senior signing day is Wednesday, May 29th at 12:30. It's a great way to recognize our athletes and wish them well in their future endeavors. Uh, prom is June 3rd and I just want to wish everyone a fun time, but also send my dad message to remember who you are and to use your
head. We want everyone to have a good time, but to be safe as well. Spring coral concert is May 20th at 7 in the MHS auditorium. The MHS performing arts banquet is May 22nd at 6:00 in the cafeteria and culture feast is is May
30th beginning at 5. uh with all sorts of fun activities and food. Um our ac cappella groups will be performing at six, so come and enjoy. Julia and I went to Dave Zinowski's physics class on Monday to witness a really cool wave lab at the high school. Uh the students were engaged in hands-on
learning, which was awesome to see. They had these big slinkies and were measuring the waves uh waves patterns going back and forth and doing all sorts of really cool hands-on um lab work. Uh on Wednesday, Julia Michelle Carlson, Gina R, Christina Czechowski, a host of our students, and I went to the ADL law
and education day at Kernwood in Salem. It was a great morning where our chief of police Dennis King was recognized alongside his swamps colleague um for the anti-hate and discrimination work that they do on a daily basis. It was a well attended event. It was great to see so many of our Marblehead and surrounding community students in
attendance. There's so many activities happening at the end of the year, so we will continue to try to celebrate them as best we can. Yeah, I could go on all night, so I'll stop there because we have a lot on the agenda, but thank you very much and chairwoman. Thank you. So, yeah, we can uh so I'm ready to be
get back invited to I'm going to uh we're going to move on to the consent action and agenda items. So, I'm going to ask for a vote to approve the um schedule bills and the meeting minutes uh schedule bills um with a total of
$397,474.30 and our meeting minutes which are draft from March 625 and um draft room 5625. So, moved. Uh moved by Sarah, second by Allison. Any questions? I'm going to call for a vote.
L. Williams in favor. Brian Oda in favor. Fox favor. Alison Taylor in favor to zero. Thank you. Oh, sure. Okay. So, we're going to move on to comm school committee communication and discussion items. The
first um item we have on this in this category are school improv plans. And I have no idea what you said. Which one first? Brown. Brown. Brown. Village. Okay. So, we have the Brown. We're going in reverse or chronological.
Welcome. Good evening everyone. Great to be here. Um, so you have a copy of the school improvement plan for next year. One second. Brown school improvement. SIP. Yes. Yeah. This is what it looks
like. You can put that. Uh can do I need you can share screen right? Great. Sorry M go ahead. That's okay. Thank you. Um first before I begin I just want to uh commend the teachers and the support staff for all the work that they have
done um to make our last plan uh so successful and their commitment to our student success and learning. Um we you'll see our very first goal is um all about teaching and learning. And um stop me if you've heard this before.
MTSS um I always say multi uh multi- tiers multi-year so it takes a long time to really perfect this system these systems I should say and um I'm looking forward to um going deeper with with
this work. So um obviously the overall uh goal is to increase student achievement and further develop teacher capacity to strengthen our instruction. Um some of the strategies uh include uh facilitating that written wisdom
instruction remembering that uh this is our second year. Our consultant who came to work with us uh was so impressed with our implementation. Uh they just thought we had made more progress than they typically see in school districts who
are beginning their implementation progress. So I'm very excited about um what our our staff has been able to do there. Um and by and large that is due to um the capacity that they built in their PLC's so that they are having
discussions about um instruction and pacing and how is it going and what is working and what is what is hard and how do we get better at that. So, um, I just big kudos to them for having those hard conversations and being vulnerable
enough to to say when, you know, this this isn't working or this is hard and this is new and what can I do to get better. So, really really happy to take the next steps um on those and those are listed in the action steps. Um, we've
gotten really good at defining that intervention block for our ELA and we have begun the work with our math block. So, having an intervention block dedicated to math uh where we have done
some of that before. We really tried to um define that system this year by having a designated block and then truly delving into some of the interventions that those kids need to address their specific needs.
Um looking at the next part uh identify and implement next steps in highly functioning PLC's um to include targeted teacher learning and development. So that's really the PLC professional learning community is really the
heartbeat um and of the student success. So when they're having those conversations when they're comparing data when they're putting their data out there and when it you know celebrating the success and also acknowledging when when it doesn't look as good as you wanted it to look for for some reason
for some instance um and then saying okay what are we going to do? How are we going to address this? How are we going to get better? and what do I need to learn to get better at this? So, that's where they're deepening their own learning in the PLC, which I'm just so
so proud of them for being able to do that. Um, and I truly believe that when they're able to do that, that deepens their passion for the craft and that's what keeps it alive. That's what keeps their passion for teaching alive. So,
I'm excited about that. Um the next part is about stren strengthening the um SEAL curriculum. Um again we're uh just I think next month completing our first year of the um wayfinder uh but we also
have responsive classroom and BIS uh as part of that SEAL work and hopefully you know we can get some more resources in there. for identifying the areas where we need to offer some professional development for teachers who who kind of need more uh work on that. Specifically,
our new teachers and new um folks we have uh and and honestly uh our assistant principal Matt Mary Breedy is doing a lot of that work getting things aligned. So excited about that. Um the next area is professional culture and
um as you know uh this uh we had multiple staffs coming together in this building and there was a lot of work to be done uh in terms of bringing them together to become the Brown School. We are very proud to be the Brown School now and uh and we have come together but
it's not without um some work and some play honestly um h taking the time to connect with one another to share expertise but also to share who we are and um that that's important work um for culture and community and we want to
make sure that we maintain that. Um so that goes on in our in our faculty meetings as well as our PLC's. Uh deepening our data meetings um is also part of that plan. And then the last area is really about ensuring
accessibility as it relates to all students. Um making sure that the implementation of the decap and sharing best practices during our professional development time um is is um is as viable but also as meaningful
um as it needs to be for teachers. uh we all know what it's like to um you know walk away from a meeting and and think okay that was okay but what did I really get out of it and there's a difference between having that experience of walking away and saying uh I can take
something from that I can use that tomorrow I can understand something a little deeper so that's really um the kind of work that we want to do to make sure that we're sharing those practices to make sure that everyone feels um part of an inclusive environment here. So,
some of those are listed under those action steps. Um, and I think that's it. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have about any any part. Can I
just remind the I forgot to say getting the we're going to sort of try to go by the rabbits through the chair. So, do that as we try to control our discussion deliberation. Appreciate. So, any questions for me? Um, I feel like I had a little bit of a
spoiler to this, but as I said on this SACE, one thing that I I just want to bring to the attention of the committee as they were going through drafting this, they really went through in a way and I'm this may be happening. probably is happening. But I got to see this firsthand um through the Brown SACE
where they they talked a lot about the measurability of where they were with last year's plan while forming this plan and where we talked as a committee a lot about the need for measurability um as we move forward in further
strategic plans because that was you know the the key piece that is missing from all the pre from the previous district-wide planning. I was very grateful to see the work happening at the school level um and seeing that while this plan was being formed, they
really were looking at the measurability of where they'd come and talking about how they would measure it moving forward. So, I was appreciative of that. Thank you for acknowledging that. I appreciate I think the process this year was the best one that we've had yet um with regard to getting um all of sort of
the constituents to to make sure that they respond to say did you know teachers support staff SACE um everyone involved. So I I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes. I just want to say I love all the stuff in particular because this
been my thing since pre being on the committee that you do for MTSS. Uh, I I just think that that's so important and I love the importance that you place on it. I'm a little I know you are and I just crazy maybe. I
think it No, no, I think it's wonderful and it's important. Um, and I I just know how much it benefits the kids. So, thank you. Thanks. Excuse me. One, can you just share with us real quick that what decap stands for? No, I can't. But I know
who's getting because Brian wrote it and the district tell help me. Curriculum accommodation. Curriculum accommodation. So truly all the accommodations that all students should have afforded to them in a tier one situation. So all students,
all accommodations, what they need. It's really it's good teaching basically. It's making sure that that sense of belonging and that sense of what kids get kids get what they need in the general ed classroom. It's a Massachusetts thing. That's why I always humble over still converting from you
here. Um, can through the office of teaching and learning, Julia, could you get a tab on our web on our website that says simply what is the decap explains what it is and then list what falls under the decap because I know as a parent it's
come up in many parent meetings and until you've heard it and kind of pause the meeting and ask for it to be explained, it's not something that I think every parent knows is available to every student. So I think if it was part of our d information that was put out to the public it would be really helpful
because this like you said is something that is available to every general education student special every student it's available to you don't need an ed plan to access the DAM that'd be great and maybe Alan Brian you could just touch base with Julie on that because
that sort of come under the communications and it is in I I would say um the recommendations from the last year's committee and this year when we were reviewing the the last uh plan was that we should revisit that. It's time to for us to do that and there are some
updated formats that make it a little bit easier to access for people to to look at. Um but that's a that's a district-wide thing. Um Lisa Marie has much to say about wellversed in these things. Yeah, I just want to shout out Lisa Marie does have it on her website. Oh, we can do
apologize. We can do this. We can pull it out and make it a separate um under students and families where they can click on it. Exactly. But credit to Lisa for already. John. Yeah. So, I was going to reiterate the same thing. So, a lot of times in the decap and you hear accommodations, you automatically a lot of people say special ed, right? And
it's it's it's not it's the tier one piece. It's all accommodations that everyone did before. When we go from there is a special ed. That's when the accommodations get a little bit more specific to the individual needs more so than what's in the TCAP. Um, so quite often the DECAP lives with the
Department of Student Services area because it makes sense. Um, but I do I I agree that we should have it like out there because it's it's usually very comprehensive. Um, and it's something as we go through the uh the updated district improvement plan, we'll we'll look at decap again just make sure that
should be a living document should be changing and and moving as as we thank you. Let's move to village. Thank you. Thanks for welcome, Mr. William. Good evening.
Thank you very much. I have a tough act to follow from our peer readers, and I'm going to do my very best. So, it's my pleasure tonight to present to you um our 202526 school improvement plan for Village School. This is a one-year plan. Um before I get into our three focal
areas, our three pillars uh to move village forward, I do want to acknowledge and thank members of our school advisory council. Uh we navigated this together democratically, community members, uh staff, teacher volunteers. It really was a a true effort. So I want
to acknowledge and thank them. And also second Frank, do you have the document? Okay, you're all set. Great. Thank you. Go ahead. Sorry. and then also our partners in education, our PTO. They've been such great partners, especially during my first year tenure at Village.
So, thank you to them. Um, I'm going to get into our three focal areas. If you look, we are the Ducks. As our peer leaders shared earlier, we're dynamic, unique, courageous, kind, and safe. And so, our first focal area is aligning our
teaching and learning, our MTSS system, our multi-tered system of support. I know that acronym has been used frequently. You'll you'll hear that this evening from my colleagues, but at Village, we're focusing specifically on math and literacy data. How do we use um
those tools and those instruments to inform our instruction to differentiate our instruction for our different needs of our learners where they're at? We have our emerging learners. We have our on-grade level learners. And oftentimes we really also should be focusing on our
gifted and talented and our children that are exceeding our grade level benchmarks. So we use that data as Mary mentioned at our professional learning communities. We have deep data discussions working with our special educators, working with our coaches, working with our interventionist. It
truly is a whole child approach. And those data meetings are rich and we also collaborate to try to reach the child where they're at. Um, obviously we're familiar with our MCCAST instrument. It is one data point that drives so many things in education, but I do want to
emphasize it's one data point that should be used in a collective repository of data for our children. Um, our data meetings again also part of our data is discussion is the what I need block, our wind blocks. That's a very specific intervention um system where we
try to reach our kiddos in mathematics andor literacy. So we're really working hard to differentiate our instruction to inform practice of data. That is a very important um area. Mary mentioned our wit and wisdom curriculum. I believe this will be our third year of
implementation. Um in my experience, it generally takes three to five years to really really get comfortable and fine-tune and grow in a program. So, I think we'll see some traction this fall because our teachers have been using this for two years in their classrooms. So, I'm confident that we will
collaborate well there. Um, we've done purposeful work in incorporating into our master schedule focused in the disciplinaries of science and social studies. Excuse me. I know that um Julie is leading our efforts with our science curriculum. And so, we really feel
strongly that kids need and love science. um they really enjoy the collaborative approach to science, the scientific method of inquiry. Um and and our our teachers are very excited for that. Mystery science is one tool that we are that's under our consideration for use. And then math instruction for
vertical alignment. We want to collaborate very well with our lower incoming grades and our upper grades to make sure that we have some vertical conversation in the content areas of math. Um very important. Our second focal area is professional culture. So
we want to build our educators. Um leadership is not entitled. I think we need to empower and work very closely with our experienced staff at Village. We collaborate very closely, Mrs. Carard and I, with our teacher leaders. Um they help us to guide our instruction, to
guide our practice. So we we are really working hard to build their capacity. Learning walks is a practice that we've adopted this year under uh Superintendent Robu. I have visited I've had the pleasure of visiting all the schools in Marblehead. It's really helped me to inform my instruction as a
as a leader at Village to see what's happening at Glover to see what's happening at Brown. It was really interesting to um tour uh with Dr. Carlson Marvel Head High School to see some of those consistent practices um K to 12. So I I believe firmly in that
practice. We also want to um and then of course we're doing we're in classrooms all the time formal and informal presentations for our educators. Um we just finished our uh summitative informative evaluation tool process. I think I observed and evaluated about 40
teachers this year at village. It's very important for us to be in classrooms not just to understand what's happening with our teachers but really to connect to our kids. That's really important to us. So we are practicing that at village. And then some improvement in that area.
We want to collaborate with um assistant superintendent Ferrer. I'm serving on our professional development committee. We want to make sure that we're we're providing valuable tools for our teachers and informing their practice based on what they need. We think a survey might help achieve some of those
goals. And then our final pillar is diversity, equity, inclusion. So, um, research has strongly indicated and supports that a real indicator for achievement for our children is a strong sense of belonging. Um, we feel strongly about that at Village. Our kids need to
know what we stand for and that they're heard and seen and celebrated. So, we're working very closely with our awesome counselors who are here tonight, Kate Dulac, Kevin Marrian, um, and Jeff Newsome. We're collaborating with them all the time to make sure that the kids feel safe, that the kids are talking
with us. That partnership is critical. Um, so again, Mary has mentioned our new social emotional program, Wavefinder. We're using our morning meeting practices this fall. Um, again, continuity from our lower grades. The morning meeting is an opportunity for
our children to work with their classroom teachers to build that classroom community of learners to talk about their classroom constitutions, their routines, their practices, how to work together as a team. We're using Wayfinder as a tool to promote that practice as as we um open our school
year this fall. Um and then again our PBS system, positive behavior in center program. We're we're the ducks. We have duck dollars. We had great slides earlier from the peer leaders. Um they really have embraced that and every Friday we announce which class has
earned the most ducks. So the rubber ducks are a visual for our kids to see. Um Mr. Robu has asked us to include and incorporate student voice in our practice. I think you saw a great example of that tonight. We have our peer leaders. We have um we recently
hosted um Brown and Glover incoming third grade parents and families. Our I was simply a facilitator. The the peer leaders ran those fours and it was brilliant. It was really powerful. Um they did a great job. I'm really impressed with their maturity and their leadership abilities. So um great job
for that. And then um lastly, continuing to have outreach with our community members and our stakeholders. Um I want to acknowledge the fire and the police. We had four fire drills this year. We had a full safety evacuation drill. They all went very well. They've been great.
Um Sean Sweeney has been a wonderful partner to us this year. And um and obviously again our our community members, our PTO, they've been so helpful to me um within my first year at Village. And um this is a highlight of
where we're going at village. So I'm happy to that's a lot of information on this document. Happy to answer question. I just want to say I think um my son's in fifth grade so he wasn't there for the for the movement of for the this
year but the year he went. It's so fantastic how the peer leaders get to lead all of that. It really gives parents the opportunity to see that program in action um and see just the wonderful nature of those students that that do that. I love I just love that
part of the process and I love that there's that seamless process as well. I think it's really important for having been a third grade parent, you know, when you're moving to a new school little scary um not because school just clear because it's it's new for you and
for your little um and so it's it's just a wonderful part of that whole process. So I just love hearing about it. Thank you. Okay. Um Ros, let's move on to Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Cool. Well, thanks for
having me. Um, before I start my school improvement plan, I'd like to first thank um our school council and our faculty and staff uh for the work they've done on this plan. Uh we had some good conversations around these three elements and Miss Taylor said she loves MTSS. That's great. This all three
of our goals are really part of the MTSS MTSS system here at Vets. So, I'll just walk you through them. Uh, the first one, there we go. Um, the first one, uh, this year we sort of jumped in with both feet to start a and try out a wind block
for us. So, a wind block for those of us who know what I need now, uh, a block for for us to be able to provide some intervention or some extension for our students. And so, we um we sort of all came to an agreement that we're just going to jump into it, see how it goes.
And as a principal, I really truly honestly said no very few times. Uh we sort of tried a little bit of everything. Um at the middle school level, uh it took some juggling to do some tracking where our students where they're going to be and things like that. So we had to go ahead and work
that out. Um so our goal for next year, as this states here, is to lean more into the intervention uh focus without losing the ability to also help our students if they are struggling on the basis sort of deal. So we want us we want to focus at least half our students
that we uh address in the windblock uh coming through some sort of standardized test whether it be our MCAT scores our benchmark testing that we do now I ready now um or for those departments that don't have uh you know English or math
or something like that uh or science for the MCATs um we would use our common assessments so that's the same assessments that happen across teams we use that as data to help drive uh the interventions we're going to have for our students or the extensions that we can have for our students. Um so that's sort of the next step in the development
of our word block is is moving more from um assisting students to providing structured interventions. The second goal uh as you have heard a couple times already uh is continuing the second year of our wayfinder. Uh we had a great roll out
this year. It's really brought a lot of structure to our advisory program. Um it's allowed us to have common activities across an entire grade which is outstanding for us. Um we're excited about the next step which is the waypoint survey. So the way points assessment is a way to figure out where
students are at uh what we can do uh for them to assist them to help them with their social emotional learning. Um so we're excited to start using that data and actually have uh data about social emotional learning. We had that we've done that once or twice over the years with some belonging surveys and things
like that, but it's, you know, it can be a lot. This program makes it quicker, easier, and we'll get good nice results from it. So, we're excited to roll that out next year. So, that's our wayfinder roll out. Um, and and then I'll also mention since I'm here, it's not part of the
goal. Uh, but just to show you the commitment we've had in Wayfinder, we're actually this is a tier one. So, every student goes goes through this this curriculum of sorts and goes through this uh way way points exam, but there's also a tier 2 level to it. So, our guidance counselors, our psychologists,
they're looking at a tier 2 element of this where they can identify students that need more assistance or spec, you know, specific instructions on on certain lessons or activities. Um, and so they've already started that this year. that was actually their goal uh are their goals for their own uh
evaluation process of like identifying uh and and getting their hands into that tier 2 level of wayinder. So, we're excited to see that too. The final goal um is actually we had a nice little discussion on this uh with our with our faculty uh in
particular about this one. Uh coming out of co uh we made a concerted effort at our school to focus on our tier one practices. what we're doing in our classrooms to help all of our students access our curriculum. Um I truly think that the work that our teachers did on
this um has really led to the success that we're having since co you know I shared with you ear earlier this year I believe the numbers are growth you know compared to pre-COVID to postco um and the work we've done in this tier one has been impressive uh we started that by
doing teacherled workshops uh where teachers taught teachers tier best tier one practices and strategies and we did 12 or 15 the first year of that uh the Second year we shifted into doing some peer observations. This past year we developed a uh a faculty agreed upon
peer observation reflection and implementation sheet. So after going in and take notes in there if you're going in and doing an observation, you pull out the tier one, you reflect on it um and you get to you implement them in your class and reflect on the implementation. Uh so we had a talk as a
faculty and staff because I wanted to keep that discussion and keep that learning from each other moving forward into next year as far as tier one practices. did we want to see, you know, more te teacherled workshops like we had some success with too or do we want to steer into peer observation still? Um
and it was a great discussion and even though everybody loved the pure the the workshops led by their the teachers coming into a classroom and seeing things and sometimes as one teacher uh denoted in our discussion sometimes it's it's an inadvertent thing that you learn
just by coming into a classroom and and witnessing what's going on in the classroom that really wasn't the intention to see that but it's something you can pull into your classrooms and make it more accessible for everyone. So that's why the focus on this goal is again having 85 to 80% of our teachers
visiting at least one of their peers and it's it's it's so wealth it's it's created such a wealth of uh of information sharing um and it's really benefit a lot of our teachers. I was just reading some reflections uh actually yesterday uh from an engineering teacher who went and saw a
social studies teacher you know and you think well that doesn't really connect but teaching teaching that's what we're talking about tier one instructional move and and the things that he pulled out from that class were were really helpful. So those are our three uh goals all tied to MTSS and and sort of moving
the school forward from where we are. Questions? Sure. Um I have a few questions. I'm going to keep coming back to you. Um so you talk about the wind block. Can you tell us when in your day you're how are you implementing that because you have a
very different structure of a day than what we've seen in the elementary levels where they've used the wind? Yeah, we have Yeah, it's you know being a middle school we're highly structured. You know it's it's we have bells. Uh so what we've steered into is the wind block being those three days that we have
those blocks were just re fell. Um, so those are our students that do not have performing arts class. They're in those just read classes. So we've took a little calculus. We divided up those three days by department. Um, because we still have good coverage for
everybody. So on, you know, Mondays it's like English and social studies. On Tuesday it's math science and and Fridays it's, you know, everything. Um, so we divide that up so that way it's not just one student going to one thing the entire week. um you know we didn't
want to lock in the entire week but it also allows a student if they need to have multiple experiences throughout the week biggest thought that's a followup to that would be um I'm very grateful that we have such robust performing arts department throughout our district we're
we're very u lucky to have that established so I know you have quite a few students a significant part of your population that's in involved in what would be chorus band or orchestra and not not doing those disread blocks, how are those students getting an
opportunity to access that same opportunity and win block therefore enabling them more access to MTSS? And teachers have noticed that this the outcome of this is that the homework club at our schools changed a little bit too. Uh it's a little bit more it's become more accessible to students. We
have I don't want to say lower numbers um but different structures in our homework club. actually a lot of our students that who might not be able to access it during the day because they're taking an elective um have that opportunity and and that structure after school. You know, for those who go in
middle homework club for us 2:30 to 3:00 all of our teachers are available for all of our students. Um, so it used to be I don't want to say chaotic uh but you know it used to be you know and I think uh part of that reflection because we had a whole almost a whole faculty meeting discussion about the learn block
the other day is that people are noticing that their homework clubs are feeling a little bit different a little bit sort of you know calmer because they've already addressed listen they've already addressed some things for students and students are don't have to quite fight as much to get through teachers attention because they're already they might be getting
assistance. Are you still using your um your data meetings to identify students beyond what is available in in that those wind blocks because again that that population of students aren't part of those blocks but are there MTSS needs
being identified still? Yeah, I mean you know our look at data isn't coming because we we're trying to wimble block. We've looked at data for years, you know, and so we provide those interventions whether it's in the class, outside the class or anything like that, you know, we we have noticed that yeah,
it's a challenge not to be able to access certain group of students. But the flip side is, you know, the only way we could do that is to take time away from our instruction, which we can't do. You know, we we can't shorten classes to provide interventions. It's like a rob Peter pay Paul doesn't can't really work
that way. Um, so we we've identified that, we talked about that. So we're we're trying to think outside the box a little bit about that. But data discussions didn't start because we have a win. I would say it's more the other way around. We have win because we've been talking about that and we we've
actually had some rep replicatable data, you know, high ready data, things like that to to really drive those discussions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. for a motion to approve the school group of plans for the village school, the Brown School, and the Veterans Middle
School. So moved. Do you have a second? Second Taylor. Any questions? Okay, call for vote. Al Williams in favor in favor in favor.
Um we're moving on to the Spain Morocco, John. And then I'm going to ask the committee if they would be um okay with moving up the village school board donation as well um to talk about that. We still have a member of the audience who might have another engagement.
Morocco. Yeah, that was the amended agenda. Oh, I used the one that said updated agenda. Um great. Welcome. Hi. Hi. Do you have I sent that I think I sent the beautiful images of me. It's a
beautiful place. Um on to to uh yeah I dropped I dropped the itinerary and like social you should say Spain France I think. No it's Morocco. Spain we have we had we have multiple
multiple alternatives just in case. Yeah it was already in there. You should have Spain Morocco by Tin. Sorry I had friends. That's okay. That was good, too. They're they're both really great, but we're going to we're going to we're going to leave them off. So, I just want to say this is Leslie
Richmond. She's one of our world language teachers who who's come on board and um she had approached um you know, Sean Carlson to say, you know, we'd like to do a Spain Morocco trip um and followed the chain to me who then brought to the uh school committee. So, she's just going to go through the
proposed itinerary tonight for the committee. Um, and then, you know, I'll see any discussion we may have and hopefully work. Thank you. Um, and do we have do we have Yes. Do you want to introduce Okay. Yes. Hi, my name is Leslie Richmond. I'm the teacher um in world languages at the local high
school. I'm new. Um, so it's such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. um and sort of as a part of an ongoing effort to kind of bring um Marvel High School's world languages program in line with sort of the the rigor and cultural richness um of other
language programs in the area. I together with my colleagues who have joined me here tonight and who have been just phenomenal um worked together to propose a trip to Spain and Morocco um with very specific reasons in mind. One of which being that the Latin program is
being phased out as far as we as far as I understand and um no maybe not enrollment is dropping at the end of future agenda. Okay. Okay. Sorry I didn't know. Um but um the Latin
students often don't get trips. Um, and so one of the things we were talking about as a department was where is a place where we can go with actual Roman heritage with active like accessible Latin inscriptions that's not Italy
because we don't have any time. And one place um that exists where all of the languages that Marblehead High School offers sort of collide and coexist is Morocco. um that it was a former French colony. Um it is also sort of
essentially an extension of Spain and there are amazing archaeological sites that are extremely well preserved um that have like visible Latin inscriptions um in several sites. So this felt like just essentially an
experience of opulence and cultural richness that we really wanted to propose. So, um, here we go. This is the itinerary. Hang on one second. That's what I thought, guys. Latin promise that says main frame. So, I think maybe we won't
use your document because that's what Oh, okay. So, I the one I sent to you. Hold on. Yeah, I got it. I dropped it in before. So, one minute. Sure. That's fine. I have it on my computer also. That would be helpful.
That's Um, okay. So, we're not going to use that document. Frank, yeah, I can probably have her. Um, I can give you this. She or can I make her a panelist? Did she share? Yeah. Are you Are you zoomed into our meeting? I'm not, but I can be. Okay, perfect. Can I do that?
Would it be easier for her to do that? I could just email her. Yeah, I need that. Okay. And I just don't know who I'm emailing. Email it to me, please. And what's your name? It's okay. Perez.Frank. Perez.Frank. Perez. Barbara has
got you. It's coming right now. Oops. As we go through security check. All right. So, while he's pulling that up, I will let you know uh what I've got here. Um let me just bring it up. Sorry about
that. No, it was a quick end because the Morocco one came through and I think you did an alternative one just in case in a long I did just in case just and I should have noticed it because I was alloc France.
Soon and many things, many things. Yes. Um there's many places to go. Um Spain, Morocco, California. Let me just find the one February. Yeah, plenty of times. I hope that this
is the right one. stay in Morocco. Fingers crossed. Okay. Do you want to maybe start? Just let you know. Yeah. Why don't you start and try? Yeah. Basically the idea is you fly from
um Boston. So the the focus in Spain um is a little bit um not on the um sort of more well traveled not Madrid and things like that. We're looking at going to the south of Spain under Lisia. Um and so we would fly into Malaga and in Malaga
sorry in Malaga there is um a Roman amphitheater that um we can visit um and several cathedrals. The cathedral in Baraga is um basically a just gorgeous.
Then we go from Malaga to Granada where we visit the Alhhamra which is um a fortress. Um that has sort of Moish heritage and is also very ancient. Um and then we it's kind of we do olive oil
tastings kind of olive land. The olive land. Um, and then we go from Grata to Sevilla, um, which is again 3,000 years old. There's Roman ruins. Um, so there's this intersectionality of Roman history and,
um, and Spanish. Um, and some people are saying, what would the French students be doing? Well, the Spanish while we're in Spain. Um and my idea and our collective idea was that the Spanish students would be um responsible for
preparing education for their college their student colleague peers um while we're in Spain. And then conversely when in Morocco um the French students would take responsibility for sort of educating their peers on what happened
in sort of French colonial um rule of Morocco where there was peaceful transition etc. So it was just sort of this opportunity for pure collaboration also as a like traveling as a language department all of us together. That was just what I had in my head. Um anyway um
what we do then is from Sevilla we um take a ferry a short ferry ride to um Chef Shaolin which is known as the blue girl which is a totally blue city um in Morocco. And
um you it's just incredibly picturesque. Um it was actually where um during World War II it was a Jewish community. Um, and the blue is so they're they're color the cities in Morocco are kind of colorcoded.
Maripet is the red city, Jeff Shawan is the blue city, Fez is the yellow city and there are two white cities and this is the blue city. So um it's a place where Moroccan Jews are thriving and um it's also incredibly beautiful.
Um then go from Chev Shaan to Fez. Um and we see the Medina which is the UNESCO heritage site. This is the map of what we do. What I didn't get the other piece. You didn't get the other piece. So this is the map. And um and then we
would go so from Fez um there are tombs and um tanneries. That's what most people see when they go to Fez is the tanneries. Um and you often get to sort of see the the process of making leather which is
very interesting. Um and then we go from Fez to um Volupus which is where the Roman ruins are. It's this huge archaeological site. We go from Valubilus to Rabat and from Rabat to Casablanca. And in both all the places
there are museums, royal palaces, um mosques and cathedrals and just it's an incredibly rich um location. So yeah, it's just that sort of short hop from the south of Spain to the north of
Morocco. That's where we're closing. So yes, can you just um I'm sorry. Can you just share um the dates of the trips? Yes, it would be over February vacation. So, it has zero impact on um staffing
2026. 2026. Yeah. An amazing opportunity. Yeah, that's really cool. So, amazing opportunity. I'm sure you'll hit on our normal questions about um liability and and all that stuff. So, I'll leave that to you because you have those down pat. I've
heard them before. Um my understanding is that there may be a new I don't want to call it a policy a school policy but an internal administration policy that um all is it overnight trips or abroad trips would have an administrator
traveling with them as well? Yes, that's my understanding as well. Have you recruited someone who has signed up for the trip? Yes. So, thank you. Um, Dan Richards, um, the, uh, yes, he's all set. Um, he has actually said that he has to get his
skiing in early next year because he wants to make sure that he's on this trip. Um, and he is, um, been so kind as to share. I mean, again, I'm new. Um, so he's been so kind to share some of his background. Um, he's extensively traveled. Um, and he
actually was sharing with him some protocols, some pre-trip protocols that he's observed from other districts and on other trips that he's taken about how to really care of students and families appropriately for this. Um, so he's on board. Um, I know there was also a
question in the recent two recent trips to Ireland and Greece regarding um notorized forms. Um just for the committee's uh knowledge, the the uh tour provider that I provided already provided those as part of their package
because they're sort of it's a smaller, more proactive, a little bit more of a I don't know, they're kind of a high-end tour. I'll be honest with you. So, um this is sort of a destination type tour. Um so that not notorized um form was
already included, I think. Yes, we we talked about that about Yeah. notoriized form so that the children they're traveling without their parents or guardians have that as an extra safety precaution to you know come in and out of custody. Yeah. And I didn't even have to I didn't even have to ask for that. I just said yes.
Yes. Okay. So I'm I'm again thanks for your patience. I'm and again I'm sorry I think the wrong like as we've noted the wrong packet got in. So if if some of these are answered in your packet I apologize. Yeah. Um the are these double
occupancy? Is the pricing for double occupancy? So um the so it is double occupancy. I think the yes the there were there are some places where there are three students to room with like a
cot and I know that we had that in Greece as well but it's usually it's usually double occupancy. um they are um non-smoking. Um obviously the um some of the concerns about European travel I
think in my experience has always been around students and alcohol and things like that. Um, in places like Morocco, that's sort of not a problem because drinking and um um there is in Spain. What there is in Spain, right? But it's
we we can we're good on half of the trip. Um and um let's see what else. Um so double occupancy. Yes. And it's six students per shop. They they can do four students to a
child born or six students job but they will never do more than six with this company and I think that meets the criteria here and um just trying to think why don't you ask me questions um the was the like was the pricing yeah so the pricing um they will do the tour for
as few as 14 students and it was around the same price as the the grease trip which was I thought was appropriate so for 14 students it's4 4,400. Um, and then they can go up to uh 40 participants and the price then drops
to close to 4,000. So you get about four. Um, and I'm assuming all of this is similar to France Spain. If you switch transition to France, Spain, France, Spain, the prices are the same. Okay. Um, it's basically the same. uh this may be more of a discussion item,
but if it's I don't know how it's being presented as an eitheror to us or just this one. And then I I have concerns about um our the world climate right now and and um you know threat levels. I I know they
move from country to country and right now it's I think down to a two I think it's jockeyed three. Yeah. Morocco has been a free recently, anytime recently. Um, and what I wanted to I did I did sort of hear a little bit about that and I wanted to do some research. Um, and
all of Western Europe is currently at a two. So, um, Germany is at it too. England is at a two. Um, France and Spain are also at a two. Um, and Morocco is at it too. So in terms of those um
concerns um I feel like one in terms of price it's not that different and in terms of threat level it's this it's literally the same and so what my proposal actually is is that we look at France Morocco as the primary trip that
we're asking for approval for but then or sorry Spain Morocco Spain Morocco as the primary trip but I do have this alternative itinerary that we could slide in if things changed because I wanted to be proactive about it
addressing those concerns and if that were the case um the other trip would not happen in February vacation it would be April. Okay. So it would give us like a a buffer. Um, but I did want to be really proactive about addressing those
concerns which I think everybody has, you know, traveling at all times anywhere and you may get different interest levels depending too. Exactly. So, I figured that I what I think my colleagues and I wanted to propose was something a little more I I don't want
to say authentic because it's all very authentic, but some of the less frequently traveled locations offer language students more of an opportunity to actually engage with the target language. Whereas when you do the sort
of you know Paris, Nice, Marseilles, even you know Montreal, Quebec, like we try to speak in the target language and they just don't even bother trying to swoop back to you because they all speak English so well
that in these less traveled areas kind of, you know, along the Mediterranean, you really have to make more of an effort to engage with the with the culture. Um and it just it just felt like a more uh robust language
opportunity which is really why you know why we're proposing it. Thank you. So um so I'm assuming these are for the Spanish students, French students and Latin students. It would be a world language um yes and what we did develop
was an application process um where we would prioritize the sort of you know seniors, juniors. So we would go with the older students and we do have an application developed. We are asking for a 200word um statement in the target
language um and a and just because we want to get people who can who are willing to try to speak the far the the target language um it just you know 200 phrases do your best. uh it's not created just we want to see of people
who are serious and then we are asking students to have a reference um from a teacher like a re like a informal recommendation from teacher outside of world language um because again these are not like the most targeted tourist destinations so um we want we just want
to attract students who are um serious uh the only question that I had um oh did you have one I'm sorry I will be last I don't question. I just think this is a wonderful what a wonderful experience particularly specifically targeting places that aren't huge
tourist attractions because they'll get such I don't want to be I want to make sure it says right. I think the cultural experience will be that much deeper for them and that's just wonderful. I think I took French here for 100 years and I think we went to um Quebec and had frogs
legs. Yeah, frogs legs. That was my big cultural experience of 11 years of French. So, I'm super jealous and I think that's I'm going to take that as a vote about the best. This is a good idea and I know this is your first year you mentioned but you did a wonderful job.
Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. The only thing that I asked which I ask every time is to ensure that we have proper medical and medical evacuation insurance. Yes. For all students. Yes. And there's also that's all included in the packet that I sent. And um there's also an optional trip insurance as well
which is another thing. So there's like the basic trip insurance, but I also ask them to include um cancel for any reason um trip insurance. So within 48 hours, if somebody just doesn't feel comfortable and they don't want they don't want to go, they can cancel and
get the money back. Um so cancel any reason insurance is included. Medical is included. Um medical evacuation. Yes, medical evacuation is included and every everything that everything that possibly go wrong
because we did have something a number of years ago. Yes. In a trip trip to France and that has always been top of my mind. Yes. Got it. Anything happened, we have the ability to get them treated and get them. Yeah. And I think also having admin honestly having administrator present is
just critically important. So that I think would help facilitate any issues. Um, okay. I'm going to ask for a motion to remove the Spain Morocco trip for February February 2026. And second,
uh, Al Williams in favor. In favor, Serox Alison Taylor in favor in favor. Thank you very much. Thanks. Um, have a great time. So in 7:39 I So I was going to ask the board if the committee if you're willing to allow us
to move the donation of the village scoreboard placement up and then after we have that I going to suggest a brief recess. Great. Okay. So I'm going to move us to the village school scoreboard replacement donation. Um do you want me
to do this John? Do you want to do it? Um it doesn't much matter. Ums way out of my madam chair. So I have um I have spoken with um members we we had this discussion a number of months I believe last year and I have had conversations with um leadership of the
marble youth football marble youth football um which is a um non-school related football um group here in town and they do play at village school Hopkins field which is their football field. We do have an old
scoreboard there that has been um default I think and not working for many many years. Um so they've come forward with um a uh request to donate a replacement scoreboard. We have provided two quotes to us um and some images of
what that scoreboard would look like and some of the um details around it. Um I do have Shelley Bedroen here who's a member of the Marlhead Wreck and Park. I know we spell wreck. It's wreck and park. um and they have also it's come to my attention have also been uh doing some work in some of the non-school
fields um has been working with Marblehead football as well. So the the item before us is for the marble youth football to donate this to us and we're being asked to accept that. It's possible with some working with uh park
and wreck that some of this this funding may go towards park and breakfast and things they need. So, it's possible that we may need to fund some of this amount some out of our own budget. So, I thought maybe I'd have Shelley come up and at least we could talk about at least talk about a little bit of the background. I'm going to ask for the
motion for the full donation and then if it turns out that we come back after we've worked with the Breen Park board that we need to have some of this come out of our budget, then that would be a future vote. All right. Sir, I don't know if that was a good explanation or how Sure. No, it's perfect. Um, I appreciate his time.
So, a lot of sort of moving parts. It's so Get Park has lights that you can no longer get replacement parts for. Um, so we're doing a private public collaboration with Barbecue Baseball who's donating a considerable amount of money.
Um, our revolving fund is funding quite a bit of it. Um, and Marblehead Electric Light is now on board. They're going to do a lot of the work in the labor saving a significant amount of money for the tent. Um, and our hopes was that Marble Haven Football would be donating some money, too. But there were, you know, honestly, we need a scoreboard, so we
can do sort of, you know, one or the other. Um, just to give you a reference is that what we're getting for green street lighting is a half a million dollars. We're doing this entire project for about 79,000. So, with not $1 for a general
fund. So, it's a very efficient project. So there's just some things that have happened recently where we where like I said well if national grant can or you know mar football can donate it then that would leave more more money to help them our project and so that's really where we are is that if you're accepting
that donation um however it's funded through national grand bank and the private donations they're doing that would hopefully um you know at least a little extra money to help us with this project at gel. So, we had originally had an idea of in April when I reached out a scoreboard that was more generic,
not really just football, but just scores and timing so it can serve all sports because the the high school I believe uh freshman and JV team soccer teams have their competitions at um Compton. So, didn't want to be and lacrosse and lacrosse. So, we didn't
want it to be just football. We wanted something that was more generic. Oh, there he is. Um, and so that I got a quote for that that was like, you know, 10 and $12,000. Um, the one that being proposed in front of you today, uh, is I think a little more substantial, but if they're willing to pay for it, I
definitely pay for it, but that will, um, allow us probably not to have, and this all came up this afternoon, so not any money from them for our light project. So, accepting the gift, just know like we we may say I think we're okay. we may say we need maybe a few
thou a few thousand extra dollars that we were sort of banking on um from Marblehead youth football to go towards that. So that's just the gray area. Um I think we'll be able to cover it through our revolving fund, but it's and we've vetted this and done walkthroughs and
procurement process is done like we're signing a contract this week. Um, just so not full discrepancy that our full disclosure that that's sort of what's on the hinge here is all the lighting schedules which is I said defunds with the safety issue. It goes out when our high school sports are practicing down
there. And so that's kind of and that's another note to make that our teams do practice. Yeah. And we all share the same space but just it's sort of variety. There's a lot it's not just about a scoreboard. It's sort of piggybacking on a lot of different things to you know help get those share. Yeah. Um this is a topic that we talked
about at our facil facilities meetings as well. The scoreboard um the shift back to to using the private funding also you know was unbeknownst to me as chair of the facilities um subcommittee. Originally what we had talked about I
want to say it was month sometime in the last you know four to eight weeks at our meetings was um once it came to light that our students through the JV lacrosse and um JV soccer, both
the the male and female teams were using the field up a village. Um I had brought to the attention of the subcommittee that I felt we should be using we have multiple revolving funds that that are appropriate to to draw this um cost from
as well as potentially using it as it's a one-time cost using um some of our projected surplus. My concern here um is that it appears so often the schools as we we go for overrides, we go for different things. The the voices in town
sometimes we hear that push back on the schools is the schools are always grabbing at the money and the schools obviously need the money. Um so I'm not going to I'm not going to push back on that. But what I will say is this is a unique opportunity where we I feel are in a place to fund the scoreboard at
village and to free up we are very donors generous donors in town um national grand bank being one also modelhead youth football um in no way do I want to say we don't want their money but if by funding that over through one
of our revolving funds and or our um surplus frees up that money to be a good partner to park and wreck and allow that money to be invested in the lights at GCH which serves our students as well. I
feel that that's being a really good town partner by saying we we happen to have this this avenue to fund this project at you know that from the quotes that Shelley had provided right now we'll do that we'll free up that money
that it then can go to fund the ghettos at the end of the day the part the piece about this that really is important to me is then our students and our youth in Marblehead then are getting two of their spaces this improved through the philanthropy of these organizations. Um,
we happen to be in a situation right now that we can fund the the project of the scoreboard at Village. So, I actually would like to make a motion that we fund our project on our I I'm making a motion
that we fund our project through um whatever means is appropriate. that that would be operational and that would free up this philanthropic um very generous gift of National Grand and Marblehead Youth Football to then slide and improve
another another field in another um area in town. So I have a motion on the table. I don't know if there's a second. Should we have that more fully baked as to what that other what that other improvement would be? Well, that's not that's out of our out
of our our purview. That's theirs. It sounds like there's one second. Yes, we have a motion on the table. Do we have a second? Second. Um so, so we have a second on the ask for um deliberation. So, Al, can we go
ahead questions? So, just one standing Sarah. Um, if if the amount of money that goes to the lighting project, if that is significantly more than us buying a scoreboard, we are not
paying money towards the lighting project. But I thought if we paid for the scoreboard, it would allow us one of the sponsors to Yes. the money that would potentially earmark money. Clarify this because I was the one who received this this donation. We and then we're going to ask the superintendent to speak
about this. We received a donation from our well that's what that's what I'm asking us to vote on today. We do have an amendment on the amended mot or a motion but the motion that I was going to ask for was to accept this donation. We've had this conversation that's come up. What I was going to recommend is
that we accept this donation. This has come to us under with no money coming out of our budget to do this. that if by accepting that I think we can move forward with marble youth football and the wreck and park department to decide you know how this all works and if it
makes sense that we decide to come back and say a portion of this because this is what you football has requested is what they've given us and if we want to come back and say we're going to take a portion of this donation and we're going to fund it out of our own a portion of
it out of our own evolving time where we come from that would free up them to be able to make an additional donation which has nothing to do with us um in terms of how they're going to work that out with record. That's my concern is this is what they have come to request for
donation and anything for Sarah's motion is going to change that through the chair if I can ask well no um because I wanted to ask superintendent to also so I think um I think there's a couple of issues here right so first um I'm all
about collaboration and making sure that we can work um well together between the departments in the in the town I think in the short time I've been here I've done that with police fire, Rexen Park, DPW, etc. Um, so that's one. Two, um,
you know, when the donation, um, came to us and said, you we want to donate the the scoreboard and here's here's how much it's going to cost to donate the scoreboard. Um, you know, my my initial thought was, that's awesome. That's great. It's it's one less thing that we have to figure out how to fund
generously donating it. Um, and I think that's a great idea. Uh when we look at this scoreboard um and I think Shelley you you mentioned you know the the multi-purpose scoreboard is something absolutely needs to be there. The differences in some of the prices and quotes I've heard are because of like
the current scoreboard that's there has needs an operator in the box to be able to move the numbers and everything else. That's kind of a defunct old operating system. They're looking at a a system that either is remote um so you have a remote control kind of thing or an app
from the phone. So the the monies um it's my understand the monies are a little bit more um because of that than it was originally talked about. So I think um I think can we can we help the fund the scoreboard if need be? Yes. Um
we we have revolving accounts like like um Sarah's mentioned. I think if we look at it say if the committee's will is to accept a donation and keep the conversation open to say is there a partnership we can do where where both things are true we can get some of the
funding for the school board um so that the lighting can get done it services all all all people I think I think we've we have a good relationship to be able to do that um with the motion that's on motion that is on the table from the chair um and I think that second
conversation now that we have a little bit more information all new information. Um, so it's hard to make a decision um when we get the information late in the game. So that would I would I would concur that um that's probably the way to go and then uh you know we can continue with the
collaboration figure out the funding collaborative chair. Can I ask a question? I just want to see if anyone else has any Yeah, I just want to make sure I understand with John. So John, you were recommending you said there's a lot of moving parts, right? It's a little
complicated, but so there's a motion made by Sarah and just a recommendation from the chair. Which one were you recommending? So the init initial the initial agenda item was to accept the donation of of the scoreboard from the youth. Sarah made a motion that looked
this different than that. I think um my my humble opinion is that we go with the motion the agenda item accept the donation and then we can work to kind of say well maybe we don't we can fund some of it we don't need all of it and then that way because if Shel comes back and
says hey you know $4,000 yeah four 10 five whatever you know and at least we're we can um collaborate that's that I think that's where that number would be if anything is four or five something like that if I have a question. Yes. Um my
understanding was you guys were ready to start this project next week and well we're ready to purchase the lights next week where we've donation check from Marble Head Baseball which is $50,000 um that they're dropping off next week. Um and so we have 30 days the
bids have been already procured we've put open the bids for the electric electricians that we actually need to hire. So we're done like we're gonna we need 30 days to order the lights. We're going to order them next week. So, we're down because my concern and the reason I made this is my understanding is if we
go about this the the proposed motion by the chair versus the motion I just made that we may be delaying your project. Would we delay? I am comfortable. I'm one of five. So I'm I'm you know in my case I can't see all four of them but I'm comfortable with the I think with
our revolving fund and what baseball's doing we're going to get pretty close to that 79 945 that we need. Um there could be a a little I was that cushion which was sort of what we're talking football is like four or five grand in case
something happens. That's all that I think would be like we're we're locked in at 79. That's all I would ever cover for if I were to say for you to say, "Okay, can you put $400 or $5,000 towards scoreboard so football can give us that money?" That's all. So, it's the
it's the if I know there's like a a way we can sort of work together if there's the OG something happens, we need money. That's all I can think it be. We've had electric light down there inspecting all the poles. Our our our procurement process was a site had a site visit. So,
the person that won the bid was there for the site visit. So I don't see any change order type things. We've, you know, we've been very thorough on the procurement process. So I don't anticipate any change orders, but that four or 5,000 was a safety net in case something happens. And I think if we if
we pass the motion tonight that's on the agenda, we can work over the next few days. We could even I can even call a meeting if we need to. Yeah. I I I don't think we need I think we're I think we're okay. We're a big start, but like that may be what I may ask for down the road. Okay. Any other? All right, we have a
motion on the table. So, I'm going to call Can we just amend that motion or we just have to go and do a whole new one? I I sorry. Comment. I I love the idea of being able
to give back. I That's wonderful. I just really make sure that we're going to be doing that. Um, so can we amend your motion, Sarah, or would you be okay with amending your motion to do it that way
to accept the donation and have John work collaboratively with, you know, Mike and yourself from the facilities committee if if need be um to see what portion we can give back to make sure we at least cover that
offer for you guys or No, that's okay. The vote. I I I feel we have the funds to cover this that we should be a good community partner. I'd like to see how the vote falls. Okay, I'll call for a
vote. Also, against in favor uh Alison Dylan, not and Jen Sha not in favor. So, we're going to move to um I'm going to move to a motion to accept the donation from the Marvel Youth Football for the
scoreboard. Um there's two in here actually. So, we'll be working with them in terms of which one and then of course we'll be working with Spark. So, it is a motion to accept the Marble Youth Football donation of school or to the Village Schools Hopkins Field. Do I have
a motion to accept that? Second. So first moved. Second. Second. Okay. Uh discussion. We discuss chair. Yes. So the proposed the proposed um board in this does um include
advertisement. Correct. It does. Um do we need to make an amendment? I know we have an a policy that prohibits advertisement. Um are you suggesting we make an amendment to that or how should we address? So, we have policy KHB, which I did send Frank, I don't know if you want to pull that up, but this
policy KHB on advertising in the school says the school committee may grant permission for advertising of commercial products or services in school buildings or on school property under guidelines or regulations that may approve. Otherwise, no advertising of commercial products or services will be permitted in school buildings or on school
property. Publications of the school system will not include any advertising. However, this will not prevent advertising in student publications that are published by student organizations subject to administration controls or the use of commercially sponsored free teaching aids if the content is approved by the administration. So, this allows
us to grant to grant permission. Do we need a do we need to make a motion to grant permission? I don't think so. I think it's inherent in his motion. So, the board does have um the scoreboard, not the board, our board does have because there is a partial donation. I don't know how much, but partial by um
local national grand bank does have this on the scoreboard. Um I don't know if folks remember from last year we had a different we had a different image that wasn't quite as good but the the advertising seemed to be much bigger. This does have a smaller size in terms
of the advertising but it is it is there. Um, so chair my memory from last from when we discussed it last time was that I thought I I thought we were all in agreement at that time except for the size of the advertisement, right? We wanted it to be similar to what it is
now, right? And I I know that it's it's changed. Um, and I think that that was if memory serves, which maybe it doesn't. Um, I feel like that was the only caveat we were waiting for. So well I think we had asked them my record is we had asked them to sub resubmit and I
did not get or we did not get a submitt so what we did now now so that's where we are. Yes John it seems to me that the the one that's being proposed is very um similar to the one that's there now inside ter
of scope and size of the lettering. That's That's all. I mean, we didn't have that policy when that Well, I don't think we had that policy when that score went up in the 1970s or whatever that was before we Yeah. Um, but that's who we are. So, any other I'm going to call
for a vote. El Williams in favor. Right. In Sarah Fox, in favor of the caveat, I am concerned that we could be harming another town. Alison Taylor in favor. So, I will I will work with you. I'll talk to you. Great. Thanks very much.
Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Um okay, I'll go back to our um agenda which you next item was the superintendent's midcycle evaluation.
So we met um school committee met last week, was it last week? um in open session and we um each member had come in with um a a an evaluation sheet a midcycle formative evaluation
sheet that we had uh created uh several weeks or months earlier and came together. We had all written some narratives and then we collaborated to create aid and evaluation for superintendent revenue which we have
done. um talked about reading this into the record. I believe that was what we had agreed at the collaboration that everyone's understanding. Yes, I think we had agreed that you would read it. Yes. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is read this into the record
and then uh we'll discuss next steps after. So, um this is a midcycle formative evaluation report for Superintendent John Robu by the the evaluators and the Marwood school committee. So, the first step is to assess progress towards goals. Um the first goal what I'm going to do is read
each goal uh the purpose of the goal the feedback and then what the rating was. So the first one is the professional practice goal which we had set with uh superintendent Robert Robu to establish uh the goal is to establish a consistent district-wide culture and development of
appropriate staffing patterns to meet the needs of our students. The purpose of the goal is that the superintendent will work to determine clear avenues of communication with staff, parents, caregivers, and community partners so that pertinent stakeholders have a venue to provide meaningful, appropriate, and
pertinent feedback and input as we determine the current needs of the district. The first step in working towards this goal is to do an in-depth staff student analysis that will help inform the next steps required in order to determine how to meet all students where they are academically and socially and emotionally. That'll be the next
page. Frank one question. Um so the evidence that um we looked at that superintendent Robin provided was a staff workload report which was an initial draft, school committee meetings and presentations that we've uh participated in and John's open door
policy. So the feedback uh or our our um comments to John is that John has started the work on this goal toward the staff accountability report. The school committee is expecting a complete analysis and recommendations of the data provided. The results of this analysis will drive the budget process in the
next fiscal year. The next step would be to provide more analysis of full staff data with a focus on but not limit be limited to special education, general education, and all sport staff. Data tying staffing levels to student outcomes is essential. The committee would also like to see more of a willingness to identify areas of
concerns as a primary step in addressing issues. John has been successful communicating with stakeholders through newsletters, school committee meeting presentations, and an open door policy. As expected, a clear vision for school culture should be presented by John following followed by surveys to get feedback. Results of surveys should be
used to improve school culture and then presented to the school community as evidence of this goal area. The next goal area is um student learning and the goal is ensuring that students have a voice in their teaching in their in teaching and learning. The purpose of the goal is throughout the school year,
the superintendent will be working with administrators to establish vehicles for student voice that is appropriate for the K3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9, 12 grade levels. In a district where we want to ensure that students are our first priority, we need to establish specific ways that the students can share their opinions, input, and feedback in
meaningful ways. The evidence provided included school committee meetings and presentations including school spotlights that we have tonight, attending the student flag forum uh which was a discussion during the development of the flag policy, weekly school walkthroughs and uh the metco
student lunch discussion. Uh in terms of feedback, the solid gains were made in this area. A successful implementation was the Brown School student leadership program. The committee would like to see evidence of similar programs at all other schools. John should strengthen opportunities for student directed leadership. committee looks forward to
seeing students added added to the anti-discrimination committee as planned in results of a student survey. By the way, I should go back. We scored um under student learning that John had made significant progress. We scored under the professional practice goal that he had made. We made some progress.
And then finally, district improvement. Um the goal is um the Marlin school district improvement plan for 20 I put 25. Well, we put 25 to 28. Um the purpose of the goal is that Massachusetts requires the establishment
and implementation of a district improvement plan DIP for public schools in three-year increments. The DIP is sometimes referred to as a strategic plan. So the evidence that we reviewed was the draft district improvement plan that John invited us. The level of detail um in terms of feedback, the
level of detail being proposed for the plan is good. John is on a promising path for developing a true district improvement plan that will help guide and justify future budgets. Elements of the plan should be tied back to student outcomes whenever possible. Every planned outcome must be measurable and the measurement should be consistently
communicated. Plans for stakeholder stakeholder feedback that can be shared with committee should also be identified for progress monitoring. The plan should be developed over the summer with periodic school committee reviews and presented in early fall for school committee approval. Implementation is expected prior to the FY27 budget
development. department. So for the final analysis and comments, John has faced and inherited many challenges in his first 10 months in the district and has remained positive. He has started work on a needsbased budget that is based on data driven is based on data driven through reports and staffing needs. We
are looking forward to the analysis of this data to inform and drive our next budget. The next budget we are looking forward to the next iteration of the district improvement plan. Student voice has been shown in some areas and we are encouraged by his plans to strengthen the plan. John has put strong fundamental pieces together regarding
his goals resulting in an overarching improvement in the district. These will facilitate his ability to proceed even further towards the completion of his goals even faster. More importantly, John's achievement of these goals will positively impact all the students of Marvel Polo School. So that was the valuation which
I appreciate everyone's hard work. um comments. Uh I thank the committee for um the time and effort that you put into um taking my goals and giving me um critical feedback. Um I've talked about this for years that um that's really
important to me as a superintendent to get meaningful, pertinent, and critical feedback for me to be able to grow as a leader. Um so I I wholeheartedly appreciate the uh the ratings. I I think they're I'm fine. I think they're accurate. Um I think the feedback was
meaningful and um it allows me to say, "Okay, these are the areas that you feel that I need to work on. Um these are the areas that you feel I'm doing well on and and need to continue to move forward." So, uh I think this is great. It's it's, you know, it's a midcycle review. Been here 10 months. Um my my
evaluation goes from go from October to October. Um so we're right in the middle. And I think um you know, I I I think the way this evaluation was done was thoughtful. I think you guys spent a decent amount of time having conversations and developing the feedback. So I just want to say thank
you and I appreciate the efforts helpful through the chat. Yes. Um so we used the process that we had talked about that Sarah and I had talked about that we had used um prior with Dr. B. So I just want to thank um the committee because was it
was a lot of time and everybody put a lot of effort in doing their own and coming together to collaborate. I thought the best part about it was that so many of us had so many of the same things. Um, which I think just shows consistency on your part and just that was a wonderful piece. But I also do
want to make the same comment that you did. Um, because you said the word critical twice and I just want to make sure you know that we are also aware you've only been here 10 months and as the final what is it called assessment final analysis says um you know you inherited many challenges and faced some
additional new ones. Um and I you know we are aware of that as well. So I I don't want you to think of this as all critical. This is you know for 10 months you have done and and your team um you've put together an amazing team. You've done a tremendous amount of work. I just want to make sure that you hear
that part. I hear it loudly and I think you know the public. Yeah. And I think you're saying that and you know realistically and I've said this before. our project led with this is, you know, I I I walked into Marblehead with a lot of challenges going on, but I've been able to um meet the challenges because of our team. Um, you know, Julia and
Marie and Mike um especially um and their in their departments have uh really helped me to be able to kind of move the needle way hope to and um you know, I say it often that uh you know, I can't do the work I do without them and without the administrative teams or
without staff and obviously the community involvement. T it takes all those things together. And then the last piece of that is really the support of the committee. Um you know I know there's there's a lot of times there's criticism of of things that the committee does and says and um you know
in the general public but what I can say and I've said this in every conversation in the not just you know kissing up or anything. It's uh it's important as a superintendent to have school that supports the things that you do dayto-day and we have a lot of ongoing conversations. Um that's really
important. Um the superintendent job is a hard lonely difficult job and uh if without the support of the committee um it makes it that much more difficult. So uh I I do appreciate it and I think uh that's the reason um I chose to stay. Hopefully uh we're going to talk about
contract later on. Hopefully that goes well so they'll continue to do the good work. Thank you. Yep. Um and I and I just want to reiterate so we use the form anybody looking at this it's the same form that is used um at at a full
review. So when you see the boxes some some progress whatever the the different um disclaimers are met and and exceeds. It was never an expectation midway through that there would be a meeting. it. I
would liken it to um if you're doing a full year calculus class in January, you would not expect anyone to be able to pass the to have all the answers to the final. This is a midterm, if you will. Um but we were using the rubric against
the full goal of the full year. So, it's right where if you had asked us, I think uh back in October when we set these, where we would hope to be mid-stride. Um, so for anyone looking at it and saying we haven't met, the goal was not
to meet things halfway through. It was to be on track to meet them at the end. And and I think what came out I can speak for the committee is we feel we're on track. I have to hold. Yes. When we saw the first draft of the change from
the planning for success to the district improvement plan was quite extensive and it's very detailed and u what I'm recommending you do is come in on a more periodic basis and show us what you've been working on so we can get like break
it down into smallest section so we can understand better how you converted from the plan to success to the discipline improvement like yeah I certainly can do that mood I think um you know this was an opportunity to share the the the work that I've done thus far on it. Um, and just if I can for a moment, so I did I
took that plan for success. I put it into the um into a draft plan for district improvement plan. I've gotten feedback from our admin team, our um admin team, the central office admin team. I'm going to put that into the plan and I'm going to send it out to the
admin team at large, get their input. Once I do that, it's going to go out to staff um as it'll look more like a survey. I had left I had given you like a page of like what that would look like. Um that will go as a survey so that so the um staff can give feedback
to each area. Once that's done, it will go out to um our community partners, our parents and community partners uh for their input the same way. And then once that's all done um bring it back to the committee and hopefully we'll have a plan that makes sense, that dubtales um with what we're doing, what we want to
do and moving forward. It'll be a three-year plan that hopefully makes sense. Um, and then it's also not a plan that gets put on a shelf. It's a plan that's out alive and um, we we we refer to it every time they do the sips. You know, everything all the all the presentations you've seen will dovetail
nicely with the dip. Best of l and I I think this is what you're speaking to because this is something I've been asking for for my since before I was on the committee. It'll because you said it was a living document, there will be dates and things to meet along
the way versus in three years this will be done. Yeah. Know because some things, you know, anytime you do a district improvement plan, something it's just like anything else. So, back to Sarah's point where she said, you know, um if if you guys put met, if if the committee put met on any of my things, that means
that I didn't set the bar high enough. So, that that should never have upstream. Similarly, in a district improvement plan, you got to have something you're going to meet maybe within the first year. is designed my second year, third year and it may be things where you say wow I I want to hit that in the second year but now it's going to get bumped up or you know just
like so anytime we develop our evaluation goals that happens like you may say I shot I way overshot this this intended goal and then I have to have conversation and say this is what I wanted to do I'm only here and we just have that conversation happens all the time happens in teachers happens with administrators
so I'd like to ask for a motion for next someone to make motion Next step, we need to make a motion to approve this. Oh, I'm sorry, G. I'm sorry. I need a motion to approve the evaluation. So moved by Sarah. Second. Second. Second.
Ask for a vote. El Williams in favor. In favor. Sarah in favor. Allison Taylor in favor. Five to zero. So now the question is um do we have a motion on what we'd like to take for next steps? Yes. I'll make a motion to enter into contract
negotiations to offer to transition from an interimm position to a permanent position. Second place there will any deliberation discussion call for vote. El Williams in
favor in favor. Sarah Fox and Alison Taylor and Jen So we have uh we are scheduled for an executive session at the conclusion of this meeting as much as we can. Um I'm going to call So thank you everybody. Thanks.
I'm going to call for 5 minutes. Um and then we'll come back to five. Thank you. Anybody who's not familiar with where the bathrooms are here, down the hallway about midway. Sorry. Whatever you want.
I can Thank you, Jeff. Um, but I almost died forens good. Oh, there's a big sharp online. Oh, that's funny. serious.
[Music] No, not really. John Bucky was the former super. We had a good conversation. We had a um we had a uh a mutual friend who's Dead.
I'm not muted. Yeah. So, go ahead. All right. I called this back to order 824. Um, next item on the agenda is our recess policy second reading. We had the first reading two weeks ago um that we that it was drafted by the policy subcommittee. We even met subsequently
last week with as a subcommittee with the superintendent and the assistant superintendent teaching learning. We had a discussion um and the superintendent has come back with a proposal um that is a reddraft and rewarded it. So Frank, do you have that document?
Did I send that to you? I believe so. Recess policy recess policy. Do you mind pulling that up? Thank you. I'm going to read this into the record and then we can Okay. So, the the proposal that the superintendent and assistant superintendent has come forward with um
is a re is a change in the wording and it reads um the school committee believes that students within our elementary schools require scheduled recess periods as part of their educational experience. Students in grades K through five will receive no fewer than two scheduled recess periods
per day, eg one in the morning and one in the afternoon, allowing students opportunities for movement and wellness throughout the school day. Students in grade six will be scheduled for one afternoon recess period. All students will have equitable access to recess and recess will not be withheld as a form of punishment. Recess will be supervised by
school staff to ensure a safe and inclusive environment and staff will encourage cooperative play and positive social interactions for students. So that was what the superintendent and system came back with. Um so I don't know John do you want to speak and then Alison? Can I just so I just want to elaborate too. So
when we met at the subcommittee, we talked we talked as a committee about do we look at K to 5 and six separately? Do we look at K to 3 and 456 separately. So the draft that I prepared and in in preparation as you just read um uh was
was what we were think were looking at. Um there's been some further discussion since then and and so we we did some a deeper dive um into getting some input into the K to 3 and four to six. So, um, again, this is just a draft, so it's I just want to say it's it's for
conversation. I think there's some there's some appetite to maybe relook at the K to3 and the 456 as separate um um uh levels to look at um where the input that we've gotten from um both in a more
in-depth way. But indicate indicator to three is is really looking more towards having the two recesses and the 456 in summary ratio would have you know the one recess period um with potentially being a little bit longer if the that five
minute place. So so again draft I just wanted to share that extra extra piece to it. as part of the discussion. Yeah. I think also it's important to note we the last meeting we did have handed to us um summary of the various options for
this recesses for the total of minutes time on learning that was work that assistant superintendent for that document is available we did talk about it at length at our subcommittee meeting. So there is a couple of options um available to us to ensure that um
operationally we're within our guidelines um but that we're able to um create this opportunity for students. Uh so Alison, do you want to because this was a pre this was presented by superintendent assistant superintendent
which is different than Allison's first version drafted the first version. So I don't know if you wanted to speak to your thoughts. Well, I just I I think there's so much misinformation um that is shared. Um recess, just to kind of back up the bus, although Sarah,
did you want to You were on the committee. Yes. Right. So, you are probably more suited to speak about how it actually was taken away without a working group first and then we have the work group. So, you are you okay with that or no? I don't spot. I'm fine. I
And I wanted to chair. Yep. So for a point of clarification, I think the working group that was being spoken about before is different than the targeted recess working group, right? The original working group that um Mary
Leblanc was speaking of was not a recess working group. They very different. it that predated it and it was a work an internal work with um with through Nan Murphy and former assistant
superintendent a former assistant superintendent and I don't doubt it had some educators on it. It most certainly did not have a school committee member on it and I don't believe um there were any parents on it. It was really to target curriculum and and how that was
rolled out. So that is entirely different than the recess working group. So just for a point of clarity, I think those two were meld melded and they're entirely different working groups. Thank you for clarifying that cuz I was confused. Yeah, they're entirely different working groups. Then there was
there was a big the roll roll back of two recesses. I'll call it the roll back of two recesses to one recess occurred and there was a tremendous wave of um community push back. At that point there
was a petition that had within a day or two garnered over 500 signatures of elementary parents. Um and immediately um the then administration rolled back
the idea of of taking away um to the the first recess and letter was issued. I will leave you with the letter if you wouldn't mind reading it right now. Yep. Yep. Okay. Um it was
uh it was dated August uh 23rd, 2021. Uh and this is from Dr. Bucky. the people of Marblehead. This afternoon after our final planning for success meeting, I asked assistant superintendent Dan Murphy, Brown School principal Shawn Satderfield, and Glover School principal Brian Oda to meet with me to review the
feedback on the proposed align schedules for our elementary schools. While we cannot disregard the time on learning requirement by Desi, I did ask them to consider reintegrating a recess period in the morning. I'm happy to report we are able to do that. Additionally, I have asked them to send a detailed
letter to their parent communities outlining the schedule and clarifying the specifics that might not be clear at this time. We will include the elementary school schedule on the Thursday school committee agenda where we can provide information on its development, what it includes, and some options for the future. We will pilot
the schedule with the addition of the morning recess period during the first trimester. We will put together a task force of all stakeholders to evaluate what is working and what optimizations might be made to improve. I genuinely thank you for your feedback, John. So,
the task force was assigned. I sat on the task force. Brian sat on the task force in the role of principal at the time. Um, multiple parents did. Sally Chevy was one of I believe was Diane on it as well. Um, multiple teachers were
on it. I I think and I would like to hear from, you know, Sally King because I don't want to speak for her. I just want to reiterate that task force had unanimous unanimous consent that they felt there were a lot of study happened.
We looked at actual studies that talked about student learning um that talked about the availability of children to really access the curriculum with having that extra recess. Um there was a lot of databased analysis that occurred at the
end of that. It was a unanimous consent across all sections, parents, administrators, teachers, school committee member that it was in the best interest of our students to have two recesses. There was one dissenting vote and that was Nan Murphy. Am I correct,
Sally? Say it louder. Yes, Sally Sherry says that was correct. So, just so we know that was the outcome, Brian. So, time on learning, we understand that we have to do that. I do want to concur operationalizing this is absolutely out of the purview of the school committee
and I I agree with that. How it gets operationalized is you guys. What as another point of clarity I want to go to because I brought this up during the recess um working group as well and I'll bring it up and I brought it up through multiple iterations over the last year
and I'll I'll read it here now. the current contract, all past contracts going back several iterations. Article 10, section B. This is the language I'm reading directly from the contract with the teachers, the teachers unit A
contract. Elementary teachers at a time they deem appropriate during the morning session, whether permitting, will take their classes to the school playground for a period of play and or relaxation. This activity is in lie of multiclass morning research. just meaning the
teachers can decide when their class needs it and they'll take them out rather than a schedule. This is a contractual obligation. I brought this up then I made it very clear to the staff in the room to the administrators in the room we own this in the contract through. So
when we talk about negotiating a second recess in this iteration of the contract it was always there. It has always been there. We did not need we did not need to the it was always owned by both parties that there would be a second
recess that is the contract the school committee has had and continues to have with the teachers unit A. Now how it gets operationalized that's not for the school committee to get into. That's for our administrators to operationalize.
But the fact that it exists has always been a contractual obligation and continue to be an interaction obligation. Okay. So through the chair. So my I would like to make sure then that we have similar language in both of
them. I know we did discuss and I I fully agree we discussed the sixth grade just as a transition u a better transition to seventh grade where no reasons. Um you you talked about potentially using those extra five
minutes or whatever time was there to lengthen their recess. They would still have one but it would be a bit longer. Um so I that I know and I know you have some of that in here too. I guess my concern is because it has been um and I
think again this was some additional misinformation that was put out there but that's fine. uh when I was sharing that I don't know if I would approve of the language. It certainly wasn't because I don't think obviously you just read our review or saw me clap. I don't think John has is is giving us proper
information. That wasn't it at all. I said what I caveed was that um I want to make sure it's written in a way that will be operationalized because it is in the current contract now and it's not done now. So that that was my concern just wanting to make sure. Um but just
to be clear. Yeah. So, I think, you know, I I I did, like I said, I just did this draft. Uh I think it's a draft. I I would actually love it if um we could have the rest of the discussion. I would love the opportunity to kind of redo the draft again because
it's really changed since I did this draft the other day. Um in some of the discussion, um you know, the K to3, you know, wildly and clearly said they really prefer to have two recesses. grade four was kind of split between two and one and five and six were really
more leaning towards having one. So, not just the six, the fitness and six. So, I I think um I just want to make sure if we're going to if we're going to have a recess policy, I want to make sure that it's it meets the needs of the students and and um and shines a light on the
contraction language that you said is in there. So, it goes together versus something that dichomous. So, have you spoken with the junior leadership or any? Yes, we've we've had some conversation and we like so we we we Julia end up doing the um surveys out to
the uh K to6 folks to see you know where they where they fell on the conversation because yes we heard loudly and clearly that previously they had been part as Sarah mentioned they had been part of the conversations about something and they really hadn't been up to this point. Uh we had we did have
conversations with the administration team and you know through the administrators they shared some stuff but we did it was a quick turnaround where we had a really good turnout from the teachers around what they thought about going to see that. So, so perhaps Oh, sorry. Go ahead. One of the things
that when this was first proposed to the principles in the elementary schools, all three of us said absolutely not. You can't take away morning recess. And we asked for the data explaining why you have to remove that based on the number of hours does it require. We never got a
clear answer on that from admin. And it wasn't until I sat down with Julia and had her walking through this matrix that she put together, explaining every single variable and how the hours were acrewed that have come. We realized that
yes, we can still do it legally based on Desi's own standards. So I don't even think it's a legal issue, Desi. It's a question what they interpreted their data say versus what oursly says. And I I trust Julia's numbers. I mean, she and
I sat down and we went through it and I was really surprised that we could actually legally do it. So, I don't know how the previous administration came up with you got to get rid of one of them when clearly the data shows we did not need to do this. Okay. So, can I make a
suggestion of um that John wants to do a little another iteration of this? And by the way, the three reading of a policy is um pausing, but we could do 300 if we need to, right? So we can we can do a couple more iterations or one more if any is needed. So I might suggest that
we come back in subcommittee um work with you and Julia with your next iteration to bring it forward to the school. I think so. And I think it I think we had really I thought we had some really good conversation in the subcommittee meeting and I think that um again I think we have a little more data
at this point that I would feel more helpful like we just said being in the subcommittee bring back some of this. I think we would feel a little Yep. I mean, this is important to me. It doesn't feel like truly is important to anybody else and that's okay, but it's important to me. So, I would like to do
that as well. Okay. Yeah, we'll do it as to the next shape. Yeah. Um, I just want to make sure that where it says elementary teachers and we have a lower and an upper elementary, I want to make sure any policy that does not take us out of compliance here. And also I would
ask um that you remind the the principles of this contract it's so long has always been so long that I think every single line of this cannot be memorized by everybody but particularly where it says um the contract actually
says we'll take their classroom to the school playground because there is an allowance now if you if if a teacher feels their kids need a movement break they can take them for a walk or such They're allowed to do that obviously as um professionals and subject matter
experts to make that decision, but they're actually really allowed to bring them to the school playground if they feel that that's what their students need too. It's it's in the contract. If we want to switch it in the contract, that's a different discussion. We currently own the language. Y So, we'll do that. We will meet uh next week and then we'll
any other Okay. Thanks everyone. Um okay, so we're moving on to the next item. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure you Okay. Um Frank, can you pull up the next um item, which is the school committee proclamation regarding NTA curriculum
material? It's um that's a good question. Uh hang on second. Um he had all that you had with you guys. You know someone has access to remotely.
Is that person of you? It is not me. I can do it from the Oh, no. I need someone resolution 5.15 slides. Got it. Yeah, I just realized I have I'm freezing. I freezing. I literally
going on over here. Okay. So, um I am sorry. So, I am bringing this um resolution forward to the school committee for the school committee's consideration. I have a slide deck that I'm going to go through. But before I start this, I just
want to make clear a couple of things. I am bringing this forward myself to the school committee for consideration. I took this upon myself and I'm bringing it forward. I'm going to give some presentation and then I will read it into the record. As a matter of how did you know sort of how do we get here? Um
over the last year we've gone through um issues around accusations of anti-semitism in our school district actually going back two years. We had a um we had a a investigation done that was presented the results of it that were presented several meetings ago to
us. Um as before that investigation was completed I worked with the superintendent um and we came forth with a superintendent advisory committee which is an anti-discrimination task force currently focused some of the members here in the audience focused on issues of
anti-semitism as a result of the need for the investigation and what came out of it. This resolution that I'm putting forward to the committee um came to me um within the last week um which is a resolution that the Forkline School Committee presented and did vote to
approve um on May 1st. So this came to me after the May 1 presentation. I read through it. I felt that this was something I would like to bring to this committee for consideration and that's the genesis of how we got here. So I'm going to go through these. So if you
could go back one slide again. Sorry. Um, so the resolution, the Massachusetts Teachers Association resources on the Israel Gaza conflict. Next slide. So the question is why a resolution? And I'm asking for this resolution to for the purpose of supporting our teachers, our
administration, and our district family, which is our parents and students and community, and to express our concern as a next next um slide. Thank you. So to set the stage, so after the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7th, 2023, the MTA
assembled a set of resources for its member teachers, quote, to help educators engage with their students on this crucial difficult topic and difficult topic. Um, quote, "The list is dominated by Palestinian anti-ionist voices while voices humanizing Israeli experiences representing a Zionist
narrative are minimal." End quote. And that was a quote, I'm not that was a quote from um a an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe. Next slide, please. Couple of examples. So, the MTA introduced a dramatically one-sided set
of curriculum resources to its members concerning the history of Israel and occupied Palestine that demonizes the only Jewish state and threatens to politicize classrooms. That was the American Jewish community committee agency of New England made in this statement. Of the 89 resources listed by
the MTA, 67 characterized Israel as an illegitimate state and/or reduce a complex conflict to allegations of wrongful occupation. Others discussed anti-semitism, Islamophobia, teaching difficult issues and modeling balance presentations of the Israeli Palestinian
conflict. Um, and the link to that um statement and the background on it is in the slide. Uh, next slide, please. During a legislative hearing on February 10th of 2025, the House Chair of the Special Commission on Combating Anti-semitism, Representative Simon
Gataldo called an MTA resource page on the Israeli Habas Warrenly anti-semitic. Co-chair Senator John Bellis said the materials were incredibly one-sided. Again, there's a link to that um quote. Um here are some of the next page uh next slide. Thanks. Here are some of the
um MTA resources and videos that folks can you should be able to link on these from the slide deck. So you you could take a look at these yourself and read through them. Next slide. So from the MTA resources and I have done a bit of a I won't say deep
dive but a medium dive into these because there's a lot um on the MTA web page. But one of the resources includes the Zen um um education um project. And this organization was co-founded by rethinking schools and teaching for change and inspired by the work of
Howard Zinn um whose work of people's history in the United States challenged dominant narratives in American history. The project offers free resources to help educators teach lessons that are in quote engaging, accurate, and complex. This resource includes lessons and suggestions for teaching in the K12 setting. The following articles may be
of particular interest. Um and again, I call your attention to this. These have been um considered anti anti-semitic in its in their approach and this is what is has been recommended by the NTA. Next slide
please. Far as visuals um and art which is also recommended by or had been recommended by the NTA. There's the Museum of Palestinian people virtual tour um which is the Museum of Palestinian people based in Washington DC devoted to preserving and celebrating Palestinian student arts and culture
which is great um and the NEA's effort to collect humanitarian aid for educators and students in Gaza also terrific um but what what's noted is that these are the only resources listed and there's nothing under the under the headings of um Israel regards to visuals
and art. Um, next slide. All right. Thanks. Um, again from MTA resources, they have documentaries and films. Um, uh, 17 were listed as of March of 20. That very well may have changed. Um, for Israel, there was one documentary about the October 7th massacre at the Nova
Dance Festival and 13 of the other 16 um, of these documentaries and films express a pro Palestinian narrative. Also recommended books. Next slide, please. um are multiple books um that are recommended from uh the MTA
which are considered um anti-semitic and focused on the side of the um Palestinians. Again, this is what is extensively on the MTA website. I I will let you know mention too that I
have gone on to as I said onto the MTA website. A lot of this you can't see it if you're not a member of the MTA. So the public cannot see a lot of this information. So this has been provided but you need to be remembered to see it. Uh this was provided to me. I was given
this information. Can't see. Correct. Yep. Um so what I have in front of the committee for consideration um is the Marbleland School Committee resolution regarding the Massachusetts Teachers Association curricular materials on the Israel Gaza conflict. And it says the
Marvel School Committee resolution regarding the Massachusetts Teachers Association curricular materials on the Israeli Israel Gaza conflict. Whereas the Massachusetts Teachers Association disseminated resources related to the Israel Gaza conflict and its history that contain unamiguous anti-semitic
elements. And whereas these particular materials impact the Jewish community and are offensive and undermine a balanced and fair presentation of this international issue. And whereas the MTA's materials have been critically and publicly exposed by the Massachusetts special commission on combating
anti-semitism. And whereas the use of these materials in any school district could create an environment undermines the values of impartial education and mutual respect among students and staff of diverse backgrounds. Therefore, be it resolved that the Marblehead public schools strive to foster an educational
setting that is respectful, historically accurate, and free from discrimination. And be it further resolved that the Marblehead School Committee strongly cautions our district staff about utilizing the MTA's materials related to the Israel Gaza conflict. And be it further resolved that the Marblehead School Committee has adopted an
instructional materials policy that prevents the dissemination of anti-semitic and other discriminatory contact in our content in our district. That is policy. I now be it further resolved that the Marblehead School Committee calls upon our district to follow the guidelines reiterated by
the United States Department of Educational Office of Civil Rights Educa Ed Education Office of Civil Rights in a letter dated May 25, 2023 of quote schools legal obligation under title six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide all students, including
Jewish students, a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic character. Next slide, please. Right. This um slide just shows the resources of the
OCR, Office of Civil Rights um the curriculum guideline, which I'm sorry, which is um not IM uh policy um of in our policy manual. And next slide, please, Frank. The next steps that I'm asking if this proclamation is adopted
um is that we just share it. We'll share it with our our staff. We'll share it with the MASC. Um the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Anti-Emitism, DESIE, and our State Attorney General's Office of Civil Rights, just as a statement from if we decide to go forward. So, so that was
that's what I brought forward to the committee. Uh what I will state there was a comment at the beginning from um co-president Sally Chevy I'm sorry co-president Jonathan Heler in regards to the MEA's um statement uh that they made uh backed here on January 21st of
2024. Um and I had not seen that before. So I appreciate bringing that to me. Um what I will say and I can you know share this it is on their it is on their website. just go through back back to the January of 2024. They quote um the board of
directors of the Massachusetts Teachers Association who called for the their training and professional learning division to develop a framework for discussing Israel and occupied Palestine for members of the MTA. What our education association did in that what
is on the website is they reject this is the NA the presumption that it's within the scope of our state and local association's mission to take a position on geopolitical affairs. They reject anti-semitism, Islamophobia and other expressions of religious and cultural intolerance and they reaffirm commitment
to advocating for highquality public education that supports lifelong learning, critical thinking and responsible engagement. So that was what the statement was, which I think Jonathan had read to us earlier, which is great. Um, but it doesn't necessarily address the specific issues that I've brought forward, which is the actual
curriculum from the NCA. Um, it has been stated that this information that this that these lessons have been withdrawn or taken down from the NCA website. I have no way of knowing that because I can't we can't access that. Um, we're not members. So um, the accusation is
maybe we're late to the game. Maybe we are. Uh but I just feel it's important to bring this forward um which allows us just to you know I think actually reaffirm the statement that the that the MEA made um and that we are um we stand
together with the MEA and that this these lessons that have been um widely disseminated um don't belong in our public schools and more importantly overridingly we have a policy around instructional materials and how we develop curriculum and it is robust and
is with in the hands of our administration. Correct. Thank you. You go. I'll go Alison. Okay. Um yeah, I guess um I think it's amazing that you guys already did this. I'm not I guess I'm
confused as to why it's looking like a bad thing um that that we are doing. this isn't this is fully in conjunction with what you have already done and just kind of even taking it to a larger level from a school committee or from a a school system perspective. Um at least
that's my take on it or my what my understanding is but somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I guess I'm failing to understand. Correct. I believe that our curriculum is developed by Julia and supported by
the superintendent. They're in charge of teaching and learning what the materials that teachers in our district are supposed to be teaching. I don't see the need for this proclamation whatsoever because we trust the superintendent and the assistant superintendent to make sure that our teachers are teaching the
correct curriculum. I don't see where this comes into play at all other than inflaming a few people here and there. So I I don't I really don't understand why we're doing this. I was surprised when I saw this come across. Sarah, um I just wanted to give a little bit of
history of the pro process of proclamations. I know we haven't seen a lot of them in the last two years come through our committee. Um I think it es and flows. Been dealing with some pretty major issues for the last two years and perhaps that's why they haven't made their way onto our agendas. But if you
look back to our minutes and our agendas previously, um it it's not unusual. Typically what happens and I think this is the reason why Jen said next steps would be to notify MASC is when a district makes a proclamation about anything. It um goes to MASC and MASC
then one of the the benefits of our membership lets all the member districts know of proclamations and then it kind of people look at it and say this would fit us. this would not fit us and then they move forward with that. Um I'll go
back to there was a period probably about three years ago where I feel like we were making proclamations readily um we made some on um on racism denouncing racism in our
district. It was a period where a lot of districts were doing that. We we didn't write the proclamation ourselves. Someone else had had written one that was you know we felt met our needs. you brought it forth then um there were various proclamations that have come
through the committee. So just from just to to make everyone understand where members of this committee may not have been on the committee then proclamations coming to us that have come through other districts is a standard practice across um districts across the state of
Massachusetts and MASC really does help facilitate that. So, I see this as Brookline made the proclamation was the the the one that broke the initial proclamation. Sounds like the chair read this and thought particularly given the topics of discussion around
anti-semitism and concerns about that in our district, this is something I'd like to bring to the committee. I do appreciate very much that you were thoughtful in this is a topic that has been meaningful in our committee and our community. We dedicated tens of thousands of dollars to do this
investigation. We have we have um come up with our superintendent has established a task force on this which I'm very grateful for. I I see this as the next logical step in that process and I don't see this as conf
confrontational with um or or or pointing against the MEA. This is a proclamation against resources that were developed by the MTA, resources that have been denounced by multiple other bodies, including but not limited to our
at the state level. Um I I wrote down at one point when our um principles were presenting what they hope to establish in our buildings and one I believe it was Scott that said, "The goal is that our students are seen, heard, and
celebrated." I can tell you firsthand, I got many phone calls over the last year from parents um telling me their students, their Jewish students were not feeling seen, heard, or celebrated. And each story was a little different.
Everyone's story is unique. I think this is one way we can help make those students feel seen, heard, and celebrated. This is not to the exclusion of other students. This is to the inclusion of saying we have seen this curriculum at the state level. Our union
has already denounced it. We want to reaffirm we as a body denounced that particularly in light of I mean like I said we put tens of thousands of dollars. We've done this committee. It seems like this is just one more step of quite frankly putting our money where
our mouth is. um with if we were to vote this down to me it feels like the other steps could feel a little bit like to I also want to say I don't think this has anything to do with distrust of you
by any stretch as none of our policies are. I mean, it's this is just the way of doing business. And I would I don't think that you do, but I just want to make sure that I make that comment because of of what Brian said. And I respect your opinion, Brian, but in no
way, shape, or form does this or any of our policies mean because of anything else or any distrust of you. Absolutely. You build our curriculum. You do a wonderful job of it. And there's no question there. Just feel like I need to reassure or reaffirm that as well. Just
for a point of clarification to the chair, this is not a policy. This is a proclamation. A proclamation is vastly different from school policy. So this is a this is a proclamation. It's a a statement of our reaffirming for of us affirming we do
not agree with this um curriculum that is put out and we are affirming a commitment to keep it out of our schools which through the office of teaching and learning has not entered our schools. It is not in our schools, but we are making a public proclamation
which we will put out in print it looks like from your next steps if it passes that we are denouncing this. I'll start. Um I agree with m with much that has been said by the school committee, but
I'm not sure this resolution is additive, right? unless we've had an issue that's been escalated to us that the administration needs guidance on, but I don't believe that's the case. You know, the concerns around inappropriate curriculum topics already
addressed as you pointed out in our instructional materials policy. It's also part of federal law. Um, and there are plenty of examples of inappropriate inappropriate curriculum suggestions available to teachers online. However, I trust our marblehead teachers
and that they know their students and our policies and have the wherewithal to figure out what is inappropriate. Um, this includes anything that is anti-semitic as well as any other content that discriminates based on race, religion, gender, and more. I think we are not showing faith
in those who create our curriculum. If we the school committee have to point out any inappropriate websites or sources, you know, will the school committee have to create a resolution whenever an inappropriate source or site is identified? I don't think that's reasonable in my opinion. So therefore,
I don't really see the need for this resolution at this time. Investigation. Absolutely. Do do you feel that this speaks to the mission and vision of what we're trying to create in our curriculum? I just want to add it's not going to happen on my watch. Right. So I
really stand with our educators the curriculum reviewing process that we have established. Um while there are things that we have to discuss and things come up um I really believe in the systems and the structures that we've built and the policy from the school committee.
thousand. I mean, we just had we just had to have a big huge investigation that did rise to us that we had to pay tens of thousands of dollars for. But I besides that, I I guess I'm still not understanding how this isn't a policy.
This isn't us telling you nothing. Even the policies aren't us telling you what to do. It's again good governance. That's part one of the three things that we do as a school committee. Um I I'm not understanding or maybe I'm just not liking um that
it's being looked at as something divisive against our teachers, something divisive against our leadership. I'm not really understanding that that mindset. And I think that that's unfortunate because I don't look at this as distrust in in anybody. When we did
the investigation, it wasn't distrust in anybody, which I I just I'm not I'm just not understanding that. I'm not getting that connection. Um, and that makes me sad that anyone would look at it that way. Um, I guess that's John. I wasn't going
to weigh on this, but I think it's important to say um that I think part of the issue is when the MTA um created some of this these resources um that perhaps the question is um because this was asked of me several
months ago, is any of this is any of this material in our schools? I said absolutely not because I trust all the systems that are in place and if there is they won't be immediately. So that was the end of the conversation for me to be honest with you because I think it's I think it's important but I think
what happens is people um either equate that our local MEA to the MTA um some some ways I can see you know I can see where that connection is easily formed. Um I think I like the fact I didn't realize what Jonathan shared. I didn't
realize that had that had occurred that they had already denounced this. So I think that's a good thing. I think um the school committees just basically reaffirming that is is also a good thing because it just shows um in some sense that we are united against hate and
discrimination, right? um this the the side part like that that Allan and Brian brought up is that because we have all the systems in place, do we need the blockation? I think that's where I think that's the pivotal point. I don't I don't feel like there's a distrust. I don't I can't
speak for Julie, but I don't think that that's not the feeling I'm getting that there's a distrust in our in our processes. So, I'm not getting that at all. I think it's up to the school committee to say we feel strongly that this proclamation is something that we want to make a statement on. If that's the will of the committee, that's fine.
It doesn't change anything that we do as as far as administration doesn't change anything as far as policies go. It's just a way for the school committee to say we denounce this as well. The MEA has already denounced it. So, you know, in that in that regard, I I I see I see
it nothing. I don't see any harm in it. My hoping Any other comments before I call for the vote? I need to actually make a motion to call this. So ask looking for a motion to approve the proclamation in
regards to the um MTA curriculum material is removed as a conflict. Second move by Sarah second by Allison. Is there any additional need for deliberation discussion? I I would just like to
reaffirm what John just said. This is not an opposition. This is not pointing a fing finger. This is proclaiming that the Marblehead School Committee also stands against anti-semitic teaching
material. And I I don't see how that could be wrong. I don't see I mean and I think that's what I heard John say is is is us proclaiming we are because that's all this is. It's a proclamation of us saying we are against this material
which has been deemed by multiple reputable state agencies organizations to be anti-semitic. We we proclaim we are against that. Does does anyone think that Brian and I
are not supportive of that? That's not what we said, right? And there was no distrust. Oh, I'm sorry. That's just a bite mark. Um, is that No, it's sugar. No, it's not blood pressure. Well, Brian's not giving me a cookie. Well,
now you're I just want I just want to make that call. No, I know. I I'm going to call for a vote. Ready for that. Um, Al Williams, not in favor. Ryan Oda, not in favor. Sarah Fox in favor. Alison Taylor in favor. Jen Shav favor. So three to two. This is
great. Thank you. Thank you for your consideration. Thanks for everyone's invitation. What happens in this case where the two of us? It's a will of the committee. So it's a will of committee. I'm not going to sign this thing. You don't have to. Okay. So while lining blank I can change it. So we can take a
name off of the We actually to show point of order is we actually have a policy that when something passes through the committee, the entire committee even those in the descenting side will stand behind the motion that carried. That is that is Robert's rules.
That is our operating protocols and that is our policy. Madam chair person sorry. Thank you. Thank you sir. Um speaking of which I'm going to move on to our um school committee operating protocols of
ethics. Um I had put this in the drop the Google drive at the last meeting and then dropped it in again today. So, um hopefully everyone had a chance to look at it. Um this was drafted by uh Allison and I
in the policy subcommittee and it includes um input from NAC which is the red line for the the strikeouts that I had um in the operating protocols and the ethics were the same document that I had from the
last meeting. So, does anyone uh want to anybody have any questions? They want to concerns. I'm just bringing up the protocols. Oh, yeah. Can you pick these up that way? I
do have a couple of comments. Draft protocols. Writing protocols. Writing protocols. Yeah, we'll do the protocols first, then we'll do the ethics. There were three just so that this is going to be up in just a second. There were three. So this is typical um most school committees have operating
protocols. We did have um protocols which Allison and I as part of our goals goal for this year was to review and update them. They are divided now based on MAC Alicia Melon's recommendation to us into three categories if you will uh or sorry four categories. One is um our
governance. The second is our operations. The third is in our communications how we communicate and then finally our professional development. And then she is suggesting at the bottom that there would be a space for all members and the superintendent to sign. Since this is a draft, if this gets approved, I will
finalize it with letterhead and get super um for all of us if we John, have you signed these before or no? Uh I have not. But that doesn't mean at this point. That was her recommendation. So
obviously we Yeah. Um so Dr. else. So the under governance the very first one uh you know the first sentence talks about prioritizing these needs in our decision-m I wasn't sure what that part I mean do we does it add a lot or should could we just end with we represent the
needs and interest of all students in the district period or are we also trying to say we can't do everything and we'll prioritize things over other things I don't know if that was the intent of this number one so that's why I wasn't sure it was very additive listen to my I I feel like it
is because there are times as you know so we are also trying to say we need to focus there's going to be some times we're going to address some needs over others well but well as an example I would sorry as an example I would say it when they were bargaining with the union that was an
all day every day affair for weeks and we couldn't have well I suppose we could have but there really was no time for us to have kind of regular business that's how I see it I definitely see your point though. So I don't I don't know is there I don't feel I don't feel strongly about
I just really wanted some clarification what we were thinking for me the point is that we are student focused that we we make our decisions based on the prioritization of what is best for students in Maryland. Say that all decisions should be based
on rewarded that's I think that's right all decisions should be based on what is best for students. cuts down some lines too. Way back when it was one
page for what is best for students. All decisions are based on what is best for students. Okay. Can I continue or Yes, please do. Okay. Breath, please, though. Do you need a cooking? No, I'm fine. Thank
you. I'm going to sit on it. Um, let's see. Um, number 14. No, I'm sorry. Number 12. Make sure. Do you mean a mint? No, I'm good. Show up soon. I I know. I just want I No, no. I'm It's a
new app that I'm having a hard time turning off uh notifications because it is on mute. This phone is on mute right now. I think it's letting you know something. I know. I feel like you need to take a look. Okay. I'm fine. Thank you. So, uh, this is a small item, but
number 12, you know, we're talking about public comment and it does talk about the the Thank you. the total amount being 15 minutes, but it doesn't say anything about the individual time and I think a three minute. No, it does right before
the second to ensure everyone can speaker will be limited to minutes. Okay. I'm sorry. I just missed it. my my my bad mayor culpa number 12 uh that was yeah number 14 this was interesting to me right because it says we we we share our
individual viewpoints um which is part of our serving on this committee but I think we're also because we're an elected town official we represent we should be also trying to represent the viewpoints of the community so I don't have a specific word around
that but I think that's important that we're not just represent presenting individual viewpoints when we're on this committee. Yep. I I agree and I like that ad. I'm not sure how it gets Yeah, actually I think that it can be written there. What I was going to say is that sometimes the
community is fractioned and as a result we might be fractioned or we might not be. Who knows? And but I but I think that that could still be added there because that could still be part of it. I I just I'm going to call your attention to item 13 which says just to
think about we will keep an open mind and aim to make decisions by consensus using the best information available in the times and we'll consider facts, research, best practices, public input and recommendations from the superintendent of members. Members will arrive at the table informed and ready to discuss issues but will not make
statements of definitive decisions prior to deliberation. So I don't know does does that capture that or not? um that you're going to take all this including public input. You're going to come, you're not going to have made a decision for deliberation, and then when we do come
together, we're going to share individual viewpoints which to me involve everything that was in item 13 to get to your viewpoint. I mean, we could actually Yeah, I think that' make it more clear. I'm fine with that. Yeah. Well, and it's
interesting because in the ethics component, which I think we're going to discuss a little bit, it says we represent the entire community at all times. But I do like maybe Yeah. While we're deleting because I think 13 agree. Yeah. Yeah. Brian, what
do you think? You okay with deleting through the chair? Can I offer another deletion? Um, not because it's not important. I'm just trying to slim this down. It's a It's a Alicia thought this was perfectly within I thought it was a
little long too. So well I keep going back to we when I first started we had a one pager. It was short to the point. I believe you and Meredith had written it because you and Meredith had rewritten it. It was rewritten. I'll leave it at that. And it was made into like a
six-page document. It was way too verbose. And then there were getting closer to it. But so we can do another round because in 12 much shorter in in in 12 I get what you're getting at, but we just restate our policy. Can we can
we maybe leave it at the school committee encourages community members to attend meetings and speak on issues within our school and then right you know in accordance with our policy maybe in accordance with our policy and then get rid of the rest. Is there anywhere else in the document where we are just
reaffirming policy? Can we just change in accordance with our policy and delete all the language? Yeah, we wanted to go back. Um I get I have no problem with that. Yeah. Okay.
And I like burps and he calls. Yeah. Um last last item. Yeah. But I think it's one of the more important items is, you know, these are very good words on a piece of paper, right? But if to me any policy or process isn't followed or
enacted, you know, it's really just words on a piece of paper. So my question is is what happens if a member violates any of these protocols? So if you look at number 26 and it's a little bit um but it says we recognize the
importance of honoring our established norms and beliefs and agree to hold each other accountable when we deviate from them. So so are you looking for something a little more aggressive assertive or yeah what does that mean? Hi. So Sarah, this has been an issue I've
had with operating protocols always. If people are conducting themselves as they should, you don't need them. And if people are not conducting themselves as they should, they have no teeth. So to me, it's a
document that when you need it, you can't do anything with it. That's always been my issue with these operating protocols. It's to me you should, you know, it could should be we all agree to to hold ourselves accountable to acting
professional and respectful period. Like and and then I think we need to find a way to hold ourselves accountable. That being said, I do have to say I have served with several iterations of our committee. I want to
point out there's been multiple topics tonight where we've all been in different groupings of who's where and when. And we're still talking about topics and disagreeing on topics, not on each other. So, we're doing it. Whatever these three pages say, we're doing it.
We're disagreeing without being disagreeable. And so for that, I think, you know, we should we should like let ourselves take a little bit of of appreciation for that. But to your point, they've got no teeth. There's no
protocol change. No. John wanted to make it. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Otherwise, I guess I just had a Go ahead. No, we said that sounds reasonable. We should be responsible adults on this
committee, but we also should feel it appropriate like we call high functioning teams that if someone is crossing a line, it's not just up to him and her to recognize that they're doing that, but it should be someone says to
Al, "A Al, we think you didn't follow some of these protocols. Here's why." and just giving that input and hopefully you take it, you know. So, I think holding each other accountable, not only just us helps with that, but again, it's really us acting
as adults in making that happen. John, I I was just um going to mention that and kind of hearken back to um Brian's last when when Brian had last water, we talked about the beginning of this meeting too and and it's not
mentioned in here at all that I saw. I don't know if that's something that maybe is needs to be referenced because realistically Robert Robert's rules and water tells you guys how you're supposed to interact and and operate as a I believe it's one of our first policies in our policy
manual. Many school districts have operating vehicles and blue grounds. Yeah, it was just a thought I had as I was listening to everybody. Thank you. Exactly. Um, okay. So, I'll go back or else when
I go back, we'll board Smith some around policies. We will add Robert's rules. We'll add the decisions based on what's best for students and I will resubmit this to committee for approval at least next time. And I dear put this on Lisa Manning, I feel so bad just visualizing
that records room at central admin. I can picture the one sheet that you guys had worked hard in to to boil it down. If she somehow could find it. Oh, I probably have it. Okay. And send it to you. I mean, it really was very concise, to the point. It hit on everything.
Good. All right. So, 3.0 will be coming. Thank you for doing the work on this. No problem. And then the code of ethics um which was the other document that I submitted last meeting which I did find
buried in MASC. And this really is more sort of an over guiding principles of of ethics and how we want to interact with the uh with the community school administration and fellow committee members to your point now
um around how we so accountable. So any comments or issues on this s I just want to make a clarifying point that while we will may wind up having a code of
ethics that should not be confused with the state ethics that we all are legally obligated to file um follow and to Al's point about not what happens if you mess something up if you mess up something on our ethics which may als also be
duplicated in state ethics. You know, we'll I guess we'll be holding each other accountable. If we mess up something on the state ethics side, that is that is a ethics has more power than open meeting. Ethics can levy fines. Ethics can go as far as leveling jail
times. Ethics, the rules of ethics are are very very strong in the state of Massachusetts. and we all everybody on every board every employee is legally obligated to follow them. So, I just don't want anybody to think that this
kind of supersedes or precludes that. Alison, did you have your No, sorry. No, I sat with this. Sorry. Just one comment around uh I think it's D uh play politics. It quotes
that's fairly subjective. That's a fairly subjective term. So just so everyone knows what it says is a school committee member in his or her relations with the community should accept the office of committee member as a means of unselfish service with no intent to play politics in any sense of the board or to benefit personally from committee activities.
I can look at three. Yeah. and and maybe you know I think um you know should we say someone who's acting for political or personal gain rather than from principle it's a little bit more meat around what we mean by that and you know you could even say include you know examples
include and this is a little silly maybe but like spreading rumors talking behind someone's back withholding information uh just makes it much more much less objective around what we mean there and I can send that verbage yeah that would be Great. I can drop in there. And I'm
assuming you got these off from summary either M. Okay. This is their recommended at least. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, I'll make those changes and I will send those back. That's me. When I said it's full review,
obviously edited or made an issue field. Perfect. We'll get it back from then hopefully next time. Okay. Good. All right. We're going to move on to um the MEA's administration safety committee update. Thank you for your patience.
Members of the safety committee, I'm going to go over here because it be together. Yep. Come on, Sally. Come on down. It looks like it's Thank you. Oh, yeah. So, do you have the the document? Thank
you. So, um thank you for the opportunity to share um what we've done the safety committee. Um just by way of um sharing with uh the folks at home or anyone that may not know um during the bargaining sessions, we discussed creating a joint
um safety uh school safety committee uh born out of some just concerns that there were safety issues within the schools that we needed to be addressed um both administratively and from the staff side. So there was a a safety committee that was created. It was up to 10 NEA members and up to 10
administrative members for the committee. Um so we we um were tasked with meeting talking about things um and then just kind of reporting out to the committee which is what we're doing tonight. Um there's a a PowerPoint slideshow that's coming up that we'll
share. So we met four times. Yeah. Four times. Okay. Uh four times we talked about different um things. So, what we'll share tonight is the uh the results of those those conversations um and looking at ways to kind of address some of the concerns. So, um
once that comes up, I'll just kind of go through the slides. It's seven or eight slides. Put the Is there a slide that says who the members are? No, we can put that in there. Yeah. Yeah, we did. Um I can I can shout out. It was a It was a
great diverse group from all schools. Um, we had teachers, we had counselors, we had Lisa Marie, we had administrators almost every administrators from every school, principles, everybody. So, it really was a diverse group and actually
we worked really well together and I think we streamlined a lot of information for for everybody else to see was on there. So, that was nice. So, um, next slide please. The duck committee on safety um the safety committee will collaboratively develop solutions to provide support and
structure that will proactively create a positive and safe environment for staff, students, caretakers and community partners throughout Marblehead public schools. So this is kind of what we decided as you know the mission of the vision of the committee. Next slide please. Um and
then as the I'm go ahead so our task the the three categories. So part of what we looked at was we said well how are we going to look at addressing any of the safety concerns. So we identified as a group um that they should fall in these buckets student
safety mental health staff safety and building safety. So one of the first activities that Sally had had brought up in the first meeting was kind of we put stick you know um the sheets of paper we had sticky notes and we all kind of got together and we put different areas of concerns we had under the different
areas of student safety, mental health. Um, and that's kind of where the conversation began and we looked at all the commonalities from everybody and then we streamlined the conversation. So, um, if you can go next slide, please. So, student safety. Student safety. So, we looked at
this. We talked about we talked about different trainings that may need to be in place. Um, different like forms that where the forms live, what do they look like, are they consistent across the district? Um, and all sorts of other things. So deescalation training was one of the big conversations we had. We talked about making that available for
all staff. Lisa Marie's done a beautiful job of kind of getting those um trainings in place. Um so that that's happening. It's happening in an ongoing way. Uh we had it yesterday actually. We had it yesterday. So that's awesome. So a lot of this stuff is either already in process. Some of it's done and some it's
just kind of things that we need to continue to um to navigate. Uh the bullying prevention form was something that we looked at and said we then make sure that it was consistent across all the schools. Everyone was using the same form. When are we using the form? Uh
when does it rise to bullying and who's in charge of screaming later? Uh we talked about common spaces. Um you know areas in the schools where the kids may need to kind of take a break for a little bit to regroup. What does that look like? make sure we have logs so we can track um the usage of those um
spaces and how that's vertically aligned across the schools. Uh deescalation, that's just kind of a way to kind of give staff prompts when there's maybe a situation going on. Uh what oh, you know, when you're in the middle of it, sometimes kids need some deescalation techniques and sometimes we, you know,
kind of need some extra support. So that was the way you're talking about um maybe putting those down cards. uh the 504 process checklist, just making sure that everyone understands what the process is. Um when the child's on a 504, I'm obviously being identified as having a disability of some sort and
what does that look like and making sure that all the right people have the information um as part of student safety because if there's accommodations that are required, people who work with the student needs need to know what those accommodations are to help feed them safe. I I want to just add that one of
the things that really became apparent working with this committee is that it's not that these things didn't exist. They existed they existed differently everywhere. Nobody really knew where they did. And with all the change in administration, things were getting lost. They were getting lost for
administr administrators. They getting lost for teachers. And we've started to really mainstream this to one document. Um Lisa Marie did a great job of creating um forms that were much more mainstreamed and we went over and every
school now is sort of on the same the same place and and the same understanding and we'll hopefully get it right down to the teachers and and we're looking at the first two days next year in PD and looking at really getting this information out properly. Yeah, I thank
you for sharing that. I think it's it's one of those things where now it's it's going to be a one-stop shopping, you know, like where's this is all and again I was going to le did a really nice job and um Jean had started the um issue like making sure that we're all kind of
having the same thing in one place. So it was it was really good collaborative effort um parent communication regarding schoolwide surveys and opt out. We that's just something we need to make sure that we're doing in an ongoing way. What is expert John? I'm sorry. Oh, that's
back behavior risk survey. Sorry. Yeah. Um, so the the next it's weird over here sounds mental health. These are some of the areas we identified. Safety
assessments, suicidal ideation, self harm. Um, how do we how do we check students for that? uh threat assessments similar when they're the risks of harm to others then both assessment assessments are aligned with districtwide and developmentally appropriate for each school. So we have ways to assess students mental health
and when they're when there's safety issues. Um substance abuse similarly we do permanent assessment kind of review policy for if heaven forbid there's a reason to to use that and then the manifestation determination checklist. These kind of sound like why is that in
there? really that's that's that's around um students with disabilities and making sure that when when they've had issues or behavioral issues, we're addressing them regulatorally. Um then they need to have a manifestation determination to decide whether or not that action or that behavior is a manif
manifestation of their disability. So we it's really just making sure the check is there. People know what to look for and how how we go through the process. Next slide please. Can I ask a quick question on our CAM policy? Is it still just the nurses in the buildings at the
NRAM or the principal student? So then it's housed as my understand it's housed with the nurses but we have the it's called safe it's called safe and so if someone needs it we we uh we administer it um regardless whether it's a nurse or not. The reason with the nurse though is it's my understanding that know if
there's a public event it's not like so oh it's a school I'm going to I'm going to just automatically go there and hopefully someone gives me an okay this is this is a a tool that we have in case there is somebody at one of our events or nurse staff that needs it the nurse for that you know for that
to monitor make sure it's not expired but anyone can administer it when needed that answer the question okay uh state uh staff safety so we looked at restraint training. Um the deescalation training of course that's on both sides of the staff side and the student side. um emergency response
training. We looking at that and our uh you know our protocols around that the MTSS PBS and RTI training for new staff and making sure that everyone understands what our multi system tier support systems are in place what our PBIS that's you know around the behavioral components of how we make we
make sure students are um you know the behaviors being addressed appropriately and RCI's you know responsive intervention. So all that training, we make sure that our new staff are going to get that. And so it's not just like, oh shoot, we didn't do that training. We're being mindful and planful about that. Um common methods for incident
reporting. Again, you know, as as Sally mentioned, you know, some of these things are all over the place. We're just trying to corral them together. So um it's it's not like where is that? It's the right form. It's the same thing. Um this was a big one, I think. um when when there's an incident with a student. So say for instance students
really disregulated and it's being harm you know harmful to themselves or others and they do need to possibly be you know restrained um for only that reason we don't put our hands on kids unless it's uh you know for self harm or injury to others um that when there is an incident and that's an extreme incident that's
not like forever but if there's any kind of behavioral incident especially ones that result in um uh restraints then we want to make sure we debrief after it. So how how did that go? What went well? what didn't go well? Um when is the student, you know, available to come back in the classroom? Does it come back? Yes, she come in the classroom at
the right time. What all those conversations? A lot a lot of what I heard at the beginning was maybe a teacher is having a child a behavioral issue. They maybe sense the principal or whatever and the principal sends back down and then a conversation like what was the conversation principal's office?
They arrive back in my classroom. I don't know what the conversation was. So that's that's really what we're talking about initially. So that's a really important piece of within 48 hours of the incident. So that's been resolved that issue. Yes. Yep. And you know obviously these these are all ongoing things. Uh forms for incident experience
letter after we meet again Lis did a really nice job of making sure that all the forms that we're reporting properly who's reporting it who's monitoring it where does the letter go etc. peer observations just really about like you know it was mentioned a few times
tonight in the sips like um you know how to do peer observation between staff like oh that goes you have really good classroom management in your classroom how can I replicate some of that in my classroom if it's been something I'm struggling with things like that and then across schools and observations similar to the learning walks we do the the ads that's been asked by the by the
um staff a lot can I go to another school and see how this is how they do things there especially in in programs or something like that the more we communicate, the better we get. And that's one of our goals. And then uh just a couple more areas there. Uh
building safety, we the bus safety training, we talked about that emergency protocol refresher. Uh you you've heard tonight we did the Alice training. So this is really important to me and I just want to share. Uh we've done Alice trainings here, you know, since since we've adopted Alice. A lot of the times
it's it's uh you know, everyone has to sign off on Alice so they understand what the training is. We do some of the walkthrough. It was my directed this year to do full evacuations to the sites where the children would go. Heaven forbid it was a major incident. Uh we haven't finished all schools yet, but we
will before the end of the school year. Uh we don't share that information with parents and stuff because, you know, heaven forbid that could be someone that has ill intent. We don't want to tell everybody where we're sending the kids to when and if there's a isn't. But it was the first time, it's my understanding that was the first time we did full drills. Um, you know, there was
a little bit of push back initially, but I think everyone's like actually really excited that we did it. Law enforcement was awesome. Um, they were pushing back quite a bit initially. Um, first of all, but I had conversations with Sean Sean Sweeney and um, and Chief Dennis um, around this and how important it was.
So, I just want to share that we've done that. Um, enhanced loudspeaker system and identified areas. This actually came out of I was in I actually I think Julia and I were over at the high school and they were trying to do a hold pass because there was a medical situation going on and we needed to keep the kids
in place so we can get the um the the student attended to and everyone was leaving the cafeteria because they couldn't hear the whole Passover because it's so noisy. So I said we need to do something. So my my my thought was to put like some sort of flashing light you know like uh when it when the last street goes on it flashes so that
everyone can say oh my gosh there's something you have to hear or something. So Steven's working on that piece for places that we've identified that that need that. So that's that's important as well. Um ongoing with security camera placement. We're always looking at that. Make sure all our place, you know, all our areas are covered. Uh reminders for
security exterior exterior doors at all times. I know that seems like a small thing, but that's when bad things happen. When when staff or kids are pegging doors open, that's when people with ill intent get into schools and bad things. Um so we have to make sure not not propping doors open. Um and then
just the collaboration, communication, the police and the fires is really big. And I think we we have safety meetings with the whole group um every month or every other month. Um and then I meet with the meet the uh first responders for the summer just to kind of firm up
all our processes. And last but not least is the health and wellness. We've heard a lot about wayfinder curriculum implementation. Um thank you Julia and her team focused training. again um thank you to Lisa Marie and uh and Julia and their teams around a lot of the
focused trainings um from then in you know integration and daily instruction and obviously family engagement community partnerships are really um important to the health well-being of the students. So that's that's what we did. And for Julia, we even added that we should get tier 2 wayinder going with
our counselors um based on data and things that we we gather and that can be part of our breakout um windb block as well for those students who need a little bit more support. And I just want to add one last thing and then if you have questions. So so when this came about like through negotiations, you
know, I I sat there in the negotiations. I was I just I'm just going to say that it's important. I sat there and I kept hearing safety, safety, safety. We have safety concerns and it sounded like there was just abundance of safety issues and concerns across the district. So, I was very um actually excited that
we're going to move forward with this and I think once we sat down and I really heard what the safety issues were, it was exactly what we just talked about. We need to know where the forms are, who's using the forms, how we communicating, how we collaborating, how we thought, but not that we had like all
these, you know, behavioral issues that were exploring, exploding all over the school. I mean, we did have some of that, but it's one of those things where these are the things that prevent those things from happening. So, I I think we're in a good place moving forward. Everything we talked about tonight will be reviewed by the committee next, you
know, going into the fall and then, you know, hopefully we won't have to meet a million times, but probably a couple times over the over the school year. And then anything that we're looking to change or update committee because that's what we said we would do um will happen this year. It was a it was a big task task undertaking. John keeps saying
that we can take a small bite and I think we did that each time and even looking at the fact that we got deescalation done yesterday and we started that and we have some plans in place and you know the administrators were I think just as satisfied to have everything in one
place and and know what's going on at different schools as the teachers because there really was a lack of communication around what we do when and the protocols involved because of the all the admin administrative. Yeah, but we're on we're
on track. I was question. Yes, I could just I'm sorry. Can I just add one more layer? Um, also part of this work, uh, the district's BCBAS were our behavior interventionists. Um, we were doing this work kind of like off to the side. And
so, uh, we had talked with a committee to say there's going to be one more layer added, um, from the BCBA perspective where they're they're defining what is, you know, a requirement for an incident report like defining all the different areas. So,
it's going to be pretty comprehensive, you know, tool as superintendent and Sally have said that it should be like one-stop shop. is going to be housed um in the Google share drive and will be introduced
annually especially for new staff so that everybody stays on the same page and even um right down to who to call what their extension is for each school every in the protocols every single thing of that is really delineated for us so we don't have to wonder we don't
have to know who we report to what's our responsibility in this in this incident and we can really follow those and hold everybody in apostles accountable from staff I'm going to show this to Eric's food. The repository for all these forms and
everything used to be the red book. I said we could make a red book. I literally said everything else. It hasn't gone away. We're looking to digitize it. Yeah. Yeah. We tried to do that years ago. Yeah. So, so I mean we we have the red books in each one of the classrooms and
just for folks that's that's our crisis manual. So it's kind of delineates it. That's um that's helpful. this is more helpful. This this is this kind of taking that and and expanding upon it but in a way that's going to be more helpful because realistically the red book's nice to have but if you're in the
middle of a crisis or you're you know you have to report afterwards and I get to find the red book and flip through it like when we digitize this it's it's you know it's going to be well it's already electronic but just need the red books and also digitize them make sure there's a crosswalk there. I think that's the ultimate goal. It'll take a little while to get there but that's the plan anyway.
Another great reason why again it was a joint um joint committee and Steve Quiet was right there. So every time we had a question he could answer it and it was really helpful that way. We even had custodians on there as well and talking about bus safety and everything else. So
really again that diverse group that we came together really helped because we had the people who needed to answer those questions right there. I thought you sorry Sarah. Um, I'm very happy to hear you did the full Alice
walk. Um, that's something that when I used to be on that safety committee, which is a hard committee to be on, um, that we have been advocating for. So, thank you very much for pushing through to actually operationalize that. I've
heard from students more about them being engaged. Like, it resonated more, I think, from students. I've heard from that drilled in previous years. So that was really great. Um, when you
digitize the red book, will you is it possible to make sure there's still a hard copy everywhere? Because god forbid we have a major thing in tech I some part so not to interrupt but part of the conversation I have with Steve is so when we digitize it and and it's
hopefully attached to an app. So forbid I'm not going to use Dr. we use like say there a gas leak right we have to um leave the building we make sure that we protocols so we can you know we be able to access I just don't want anybody ever to be without even
if so that was one thing and then when Lisa Marie presented to us um her update about four I'm losing track of time I feel like it was about four weeks ago um at that point you had reported that restraints were down about 85% this year correct yes has there been any
additional sense since then or any other issues that have been reported to me. Okay. See, um and let me check another one. Oh, and then for Thank you on the cameras to Stephen because I having reviewed camera footage from, you know, four or five years ago, you couldn't
tell if it was a man, woman, or child, and now you can tell if the third button down is missing. So, thanks for that. And also placement. So, if we notice that there's a, you know, a blank spot, someone just continue to have it. He's been updating those cards.
Yeah, I no I was just you know you both noted that there hadn't certainly there are some but it hadn't been overwhelming at all and obviously the numbers are very down and it's feels like again another huge feather in the cap of this
administration team that I'm just so very proud to have been a part of hiring and on boarding because you have in my opinion you have made all such a tremendous difference um here and I'm I appreciate that. And thank you for
everybody on the committee that took the time. I understand it's a lot of time, effort, and energy into it. Also, probably some more difficult conversations, too. Um, or harder conversations to have because, you know, sometimes these can be scary discussions. And I just really respect you and thank you for doing that. I
think that only thing I want to say is sometimes scary discussions, but when you get into them, it actually it h helps alleviate all the fear. Um because people then know and I think the scary part is not knowing what to do. Yes. Um and another thing just there's been other things too with the mentor
program. Gina came and presented to you guys. Um she does that every year and it was such valuable information that wasn't getting to teachers unless they happen to watch that. So we brought that in. She she shared that so that we know what to look for um to the new teachers
and um the mentors who are there and just there's other things the observations we're starting in that level as well um with all the new teachers trying to get them into other classrooms not just their mentors but just other classrooms as well to start getting these things going. So, it's
normalizing, watching good teaching, watching all of these strategies so we can carry them through and help build build the district. So, I'm going to ask a direct question and then I'm going to um this was a you know a very very
important part of the negotiating process was very clear and this is what came out of it and I just want to make sure that you're comfortable with how this process has gone. Has this met actually I think it really really did. I think it
was great working with our administrators. I think they valued both teacher input and we valued their input. And I think that it clarified this was not we really need to clarify this was not just for the teachers. I think that even the principles on the um committee
and everyone else came out feeling more secure than we went into, you know, than we had started. And I think there was a better understanding and a growing understanding of what's best for our schools and keeping them safe. So all of those things were what our goal was. Are
we all the way there? Not at all. But have we certainly taken really some really considerable steps in the right direction? Yes, we have. And I think as we start to disseminate this information, you know, to the staff and everything else, we've had four, like we said, we had four meetings. They're very
productive. But now the next part of this job happens and we have to, you know, get going on the PD, get going on really explaining these forms, get going on the procedures. But we're that's what we're biggest piece, right? Part of part of the intention of the group was
explaining the why. Why is this form done this way and why do we um do the debrief and why do we wait to do the debrief and we're not doing it right away. So it was a great exchange of information of many minds in the room and I think that that really stuck with
all the members. Yep. And I would just add I'll stop talking all together. Um I think Sally hit the nail on the head where I think when we started off the um the committee I think some of the some of the administrators I think quite frankly were a little reluctant saying why are we doing it? know why it is but
once we started having the conversations became clear that it was helpful to everybody and this is going to be helpful you obviously know Matt Pots moving on unfortunately we'll have a new administrator there and it'll be really it will be much easier for that person to come in and say here's where here's
where everything's housed and here's how we do it will be it won't be guess work like this is going to be great you know it's going to be great for so I think I think a lot of good work was done in a short amount of time thank you for your hard work we really really appreciate Thank you. Thanks for getting us here.
Great job. Thank you. Sorry early morning for Okay. Um uh very quickly uh the next item is the Tomas Tomos Tackle donation. Um, I am seeking
the school committee's approval to accept a donation of gift cards from Tomos Tackle, 104 Warp Street, Salem with an approximate value of $150 to be utilized by students for the upcoming Borndale trip. Chairman, yes. Um, on the break, I was made aware that the donation is supposed to be $200. Now, is
this so they can fish? Yes. Fish. Yes. So, they can fish, right? It's amazing what happened. So, donation of $200. Okay. So, moved by Allison. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Sarah Fox. I'm going to just take a little El Williams. Yeah. Brian OD Fox
Taylor favorite five to zero. Tommo's tackle. Can we take a minute to thank Steve? Well, that's what I say. Love this. Did you secure Tommo's tackle? Thank you. Great job. I just want to know like down at Borndale. I had heard
at prior to going everybody, Steve, if you if you want to catch a fish, Steve, she makes it happen. And I'm I met my own child. So I was like, "All right, I'll take that with a grain of salt. It's real. The kids take a beline to get down there and line up waiting for the
the rods." And this will allow so many more kids, right, to be able to fish. No. Oh, no. Come on up. Yes. You know, I just did I just promise something we're not I've been waiting 27 years to talk to you about fishing.
So PTO actually purchased an additional 10 rod and rail combos last year given the number of students who wanted to participate and um we have a sign out process. They're numbered this year. I in anticipation of having higher volume
I also have trained uh 10 kids now at village who spend anywhere between an hour and three hour learning the knots, how to you know rig the rods, how to set the drags. Um they're pros. My sister's done crickets and t-shirts for them that have like we were gonna say pro staff
but Jonathan said line leaders would be kind of cool. So I think we'll go line line leaders. Um after that I went to Tommo and I talked to him about sort of having prizes and he was all in. He's like what do you want? You know do you want
physical prizes or you want gift cards? We thought gift cards would be um better because you really don't know depending upon who wins exactly what they would want. You know, are they getting their first combo or they somebody who's been fishing for a while and wants to sort of up their gear. So, he donated three very
generous gift cards. Um one for the largest fish of the week, one for the second, and then a raffle. So, I had three goals with it. One was by having the cards with the with the number of rods that will be out there. We want to keep kids really focused on fishing
because having that many rods, you you want the purpose to be learning how to fish better. So, I think having that derby style will encourage that. The second thing was if a kid is sort of sparking this passion while they're at Borndale, they come back to Marvel. Hey, they've got this coastline here. I don't
have any gear. All right, go down. And you actually have an amount where you can get some good gear. and he has everything there. That'll be, I think, a really great parking. And the third, probably most importantly, is to sort of bring that PBIS uh idea down there with
the raffle for good thought behavior. So, anytime somebody catches a fish, anytime somebody helps someone else catch a fish by handing off a rod, untangles a knot, baits a hook for somebody else, they'll get these raffle tickets and just accumulate raffle tickets over the week and then at the
end raffle that third ticket off for 20. That's wonderful. Love it. Thank you. It is great. I mean, my 12-year-old daughter came home and asked us for a rod for her birthday last year. I was ahead of my son's home in Cornell. Well,
we was crazy, but that was awesome. So, thank you. Okay. Um, but yes, subcommittee has an update. Oh, we need to vote. Oh, I'm sorry. No, we did vote. We didn't vote. We didn't we didn't say in favor. Oh, no, that's right. All right. Let me do a quick vote. Um, so first and a second. Um, El Williams in
favor. Uh, Brian Oda in favor. Sarah favor. Nelson Taylor in favor. Tim Shepard. Thank you. Have an amazing trip. Have a wonderful time. It's hopefully the weather is good. Okay. Subcommittee updates. I'm part of the appointment. Okay.
Communications policy. We already went through the business as well since then. So, literally since we were here last, all of us have just been at town meeting for like four days straight. So, I'm not sure we got a lot else done.
All right. Anything else? Super done. Okay. All right. I am now looking for a motion to vote to meet in executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 38 Senate 21A. Following purpose purpose two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation of negotiations union personnel or to
conduct conduct collective bargaining sessions or contractations with non-union personnel without intent to enter the session Sarah second Allison uh in favor Taylor in favor
um committee will now be meeting in executive session for masters generalized chapter 38 section 218 to conduct strategy session preparation for negotiations non-un personnel to conduct collective bargaining sessions for contract negotiations non-unel without the intent to return to open session.
We'll now take a quick break and then we'll get into session. John, when you're and Julie, if you're going to next week when you guys are down, will you can you take a picture of the fishing and get it to Amanda and can you include that? Absolutely. And um because we we'd like some good good things that
are happening in the school press. Oh, absolutely. I'm standing and grace for the um I love middle school. So, I'd be happy to do it for this. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. It's just It's a great