chambers medford city hall and via remote participation immediately following the public budget hearing this meeting is being recorded the meeting can be viewed live on the medford public schools youtube channel through me medford community media on your local cable
channel comcast channel 98 or 22 and verizon channel 43,45 or 47 participants can log or call in by using the following zoom link please enter meeting id 958801-2206 when prompted um i will call the
role um member inappa here member graham here member branley is absent member olady here member rouso is running late member rinfeld's running late and myself i am here that's four present one absent
and two running late i don't believe we have any right for no student reps yet um so if we all please rise to salute the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to
the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we have executive session upon motion to enter into executive session pursuant pursuant to general laws chapter 30a 21 a2 to conduct a strategy session in
preparation for negotiations with non-un personnel specifically the contracts of principles marta cabra of medford high school chad fallon of medford vocational technical high school larry hodgegden of curtis tus nicholas tucci of mcglin middle school jennifer scain of andrews
middle school michelle cra of roberts elementary shannon deemos of brooks elementary school nancy sherman hudson of missuck and andrew o'brien of miglin elementary um is there a motion to enter executive session by member inappa seconded by
member olady i will call the role um memberapa yes member graham member branley is absent member olady member rouso is late member rinfeld yes and myself yes that is five in the affirmative one absent one running late
we will um come back to regular session when we are finished okay thanks everybody we are going to record again or keep recording and get to our regular business we have number four good of the
order is there any items under good of the order if not i'm going to move to the consent agenda member graham hi thank you um i just wanted to make sure that my colleagues knew that um masc's annual
day on the hill is on may 6th um which is a tuesday uh it starts at the umass club downtown at 9:00 am and um it there's some speeches from folks
from masc and from the state legislature usually often students are in attendance from medford and then um everyone is invited over to the state house to the great hall for lunch which is put on by students from vocational programs across
the state so it's actually like a super cool event i don't know if our um culinary team ever participates but uh and then typically our delegation invites us to dine with them we just all grab lunch and um i always find those
conversations really interesting so um you register on masc website um i'm planning to go unless my schedule gets in the way but um it's always sort of a fun interesting time and hearing from students from other communities is
always very cool too thank you thank you member graham we have our consent agenda agenda approval of bills and payrolls approval of capital purchases approval of grants
approval of field trips approval of meeting minutes um public budget hearing march 24th 2025 and our regular meeting march 24th 2025 is there a motion for approval of our consent agenda by member inappa seconded by second
member olady all the those in favor do we have money in there no no sorry okay thank you all those opposed motion passes um we do not have any reports of subcommittee um we do have a number of reports from our
superintendent presentation of the governor's citation to miss jennifer scain our principal of the andrews middle school i'm going to turn it over to dr suzanne galooi our interim superintendent thank you very much uh good evening
everyone um for i would like to ask u miss gain to just come to the podium i'm going to give just a brief overview as to why we are honoring um principal sce here this evening so on the morning of tuesday february 11th a small fire broke
out in the first one of the first floor bathrooms of her middle school the andrews middle school um when alerted of the situation she quickly um after the fire started um miss scain quickly grabbed the nearby fire
extinguisher and immediately entered the bathroom to extinguish the flames without even knowing the size of the fire simultaneously she also ordered the safe evacuation of her building by giving her
staff very clear directions and staff and students proceeded to the mcglin um no one was hurt or affected by that incident she remained on scene she sent her her school with the assistant principal she remained on scene to handle the situation that was ongoing
and the subsequent uh investigation she also ordered and worked very collaboratively with myself and our communications director will pipelli for all communication to caregivers and the community um as well as her staff
everybody was completely notified about their child's safety um and the situation at hand and she very well uh and professionally collaborated with the medford fire department the medford police department the board of health um
as well as central leadership that was there um and there really was the students were safe all day and there was very minimal disruption um not just that day but also that week uh to the
learning and so uh dr cushing and um myself worked on this citation through the governor's office governor um hillaley and so before we kind of go through the citation i would like to give principal sc the opportunity to maybe just say a
few words about um that day thank you dr glooi so what i can say is that it was not a individual effort by any means um i felt very gra grateful that uh one phone call to dr glossy and
will and they were there within five minutes communicating to families um within i think we determined it was eight minutes all students were evacuated from the building and at the mcglenn so at the end of the day the
students really their feedback was it was really a boring day so if you can have that much excitement and chaos and the students feedback it was kind of boring i guess we did some things right um i want to say that this was not a
singular effort um nick tucci i picked up the phone i said "my entire school is on the way to your building." and he said "bring them on." um so it was nice to have that opportunity as well as parents who were
super um helpful and helped keep their kids calm the students were really calm um i think the food services we've got amazing feedback from the students that they think that we went out of our way
to make them some special food that day um they served six lunches in the time that they traditionally do three plus they fed our entire staff at andrews middle school so that was a huge momentous task and they did a great job
um so truly thank you um but i can't say that i did this alone my staff stepped up every single one of them uh we had been working on some new fire uh emergency evacuation procedures and what we discovered is they worked amazingly
well so uh we'll continue to as a staff and as a building you know communicate how do we do these things effectively but i think we did pretty well that day so thank you thank you yes thank you miss scain i was um on the
phone with dr lucy after the incident happened and um what she explained that you did for our school and our students and our staff going in there like a firefighter yourself um is very impressive and just shows the you have that part of your
brain they say that just response response response um so thank you for all you did and this is a citation from the governor's office so i'll just read it commonwealth of massachusetts to principal jennifer scain on behalf of the residents of the commonwealth of
massachusetts i am pleased to confer upon you this governor's citation in recognition of your heroic efforts to protect the students and staff of the andrews middle school we commend your quick thinking and resolve to immediately extinguish a growing fire and prevent a larger catastrophe your
bravery and fast action are a testament to your true leadership and strength of character as principal of the andrews middle school the commonwealth thanks you and this was signed the 24th day of march um 2025 by lieutenant governor driscoll and governor healey so
congratulations and thank you it seems will might want a picture next up we have the overview of search processes for assistant superintendent of academics and director of eel openings i'm going to again turn it over to dr galooi our interim superintendent
thank you oh thank you dr kushing so many of you may have seen in uh last friday's memo i did highlight a lot of this work that we have um in the district but i felt it was very important to also make sure that we mention it at this meeting here um for
the greater community so we have two very key pivotal roles at central office uh that need to be filled um one of course was the one that i sat in for the assistant superintendent of academics and instruction and the other one is for the director of the english learner
department um paul texera has held that position for a number of years uh but he was most recently named as the next superintendent for the province town school department and so he will um his employment with metro public
schools will be sadly coming to an end um on june 30th and so it's very important that we just highlight what that process is going to look like for both of these key roles so just um to make sure there is a greater
understanding the position of the assistant superintendent for academics and instruction has that vertical view of teaching and learning for the district from prek to grade 12 and beyond um they play an important role in shaping curriculum decisions
instructional decisions uh and works very very closely with our department leads as well as school leadership and central administration um making sure that we are grounded by our instructional vision and that our students are given the
highquality education they deserve our director of english learners supports the diverse population of all of our students where english is their second language um they work in planning and developing and coordinating their delivery of educational instruction um
that supports the el needs this is a key position that works closely pretty much with all administrative positions and educator types positions across the district um as well as building strong family
community partnerships um within that population and broadly so uh we want to make sure that the process is thorough and that we're reaching out to a varied number of stakeholders and so the importance of collaboration is
key in this process uh and with the school and district communities so we are as you saw in the friday memo we have sent out a letter and we have sent out two
surveys one for each role we are hoping to have two things um for that initial outreach we are looking for interest in people to serve on the search committee so we are looking for again varied stakeholders from students to caregivers
to staff to administration um there's one for the assistant superintendent and one for the el director and within that survey we also pose some questions to get some initial feedback regarding the uh qualities that they feel are critical
for a candidate to to possess for each role um we also will be following up with a greater level of input um pertaining to discussions or roundts or targeted surveys um for each particular
role for the assistant superintendent for academics and instruction um that will be co-f facilitated by myself and joan bowen director of student services we are just starting to look now through the survey
so that we can build what the search committee will look like and for the director of el that will be co-f facilitated by paul texera and nancy sherman hudson principal of the misituck elementary school that houses one of our
newcomer programs and has for the past several years um since we implemented the newcomer programming um in day two we have a you can see we have a very similar time frame that we are going to conduct for this search um
process we have sent out the survey we are monitoring it closely we will be creating the search committees and then we will i've just lost my microphone is that
better okay um and then we will start the interview cycle um the fir the key piece of creating a search committee is for that first round of going through the qualified candidates and doing the
first round of interviews before we move on to the final round of interviews i will make sure that we are keeping the community well informed once the committee has been formed we will communicate that to the district so that
you are aware of the composition of each search committee um if there are any questions at this time before i move on to my next item member graham you thank you um what role does the school committee play on
these committees are you do you have an idea about how how you want us to be plugged into this absolutely yes so as all of our search processes that we've had to date there's been a school committee represent a representative on
each of the search committees so it is my intention that that is still going to happen for the assistant superintendent as well as the director of e and do you want us to apply using those same links um that you sent out
okay thank you i think you have member reinfeld yep i had the same question but i also wanted to confirm that if somebody has initial feedback on what they're looking for in the role but does not want to serve on the committee they should still answer they should
still respond to that survey yes right think if you do a second push it would be really useful to put that in there because i certainly read that as if you want to be a part of the committee that's what this survey is for rather than also feedback sure thank you for that feedback
um i know that there was so the original letter that went along with that uh for both surveys did say that we're looking for interest and input so but to be more targeted and clear we'll follow up with
um another vehicle for input and feedback mhm okay want me to go to the next one yes okay okay so um the last report that i have this evening is i've brought forward an update um to the policy
language for policy ikf regarding the graduation requirements um at medford high school so in an effort to add some additional context and/or clarity to the ikf policy
um memphis public schools would like to update the following language um based on stakeholder input and feedback so we have received um some feedback from stakeholders uh regarding some areas of
the current policy that would be most beneficial to add a little bit of clarity to so the first one is around the introductory language which i will speak to um in a following slide that specifically targets the participating
students in graduation in the graduation ceremony um a little bit more clarity to the math requirements since the implementation of the pathways just to be very clear by class what the requirements are um and then a little more spec specificity to um students
with sign significant needs um so if we go to the next slide um that talks about introductory language one more thank you very much so you'll see i have highlighted where
we've built out a little bit more of the of the clarity so that we're very clear in who's participating in the graduation which is all medford high school students that have received a diploma or a certificate of completion and i just
want to make sure that we're very clear there's an asterk there so one of the pieces is that at the bottom where we've kind of had our footnotes i want to be clear that we're mentioning that the uh decisions regarding students and our
substantially separate programs are made through the individualized education program process which is the iep process um so all students that receive a diploma or a certificate of completion will absolutely participate in
graduation um and more specifically the following outlines the requirements that must be met to receive a diploma which include a total of 112 required credits and the completion of the competency determination
i don't know if it's best for me to keep going or if you would like to ask questions with each clarity which with each clarification there's no questions right now keep going yeah i'll let you know just the
next section um where we were receiving a lot of questions and rightfully so we have implemented integrated math pathways at the high school so this just breaks out what the requirements are by class so for this current class of
2025 next year's class of 2026 and the following year's class of 2027 um for our local graduation requirements they have to pass geometry or integrated math 1 in 9th grade and they have to
pass algebra 2 or integrated math 2 in grade 10 and just as a side note this was the first year where freshmen entered the integrated math one which is why you'll see for class of
um 2028 and beyond it would be that as freshmen they have to pass integrated math one uh cp or honors and in grade 10 they need to pass integrated math 2 cp or honors and then it's a little redundant but
following in the further considerations section within the i kf policy we just added specifically that students with significant needs um that decisions regarding students in our substantially
separate programming um are made through the iep process that is my uh recommendation if you have any questions please let me know member graham thank you um i just wanted to um
thank the members of the community that reached out to myself and member reinfeld in particular um who asked some good clarifying questions about the math sequence in particular and then some of the clarifications um around who gets to participate in graduation because that's
obviously super important um when we talk about grad requirements um as well as some clarifications around students with um ieps that are sort of directing the graduation requirements a little bit differently so um there were two or three parents that reached out and we
were able to have a quick meeting to come up with some clarifying language i think my question is does this need to come back to the agenda next week um because it is an official policy so do we make a motion to approve it now and
then put it on the agenda for a second reading next meeting yes okay so i will make a motion to approve this as um as suggested and if i just may ask a question from the chair and then i'll pass it to member and the 60 total hours
of community service is that spread out 15 hours and i'm sorry if i miss ideally 15 hours per year ideally okay ideally but every student has kind of their own course so i think to make it more manageable that's a great way to do
it but by the end of the four years they have to have done at least 64 hours yes okay member in top oh i was just going to say that um if there are no other questions from the committee then i can um second the motion um as written i
think that you know the addition of the you know clarification on who will walk at graduation and i know that that is a huge i'm sure stressful point for you know members of the community who um who you know that may be an issue for so i'm just i'm happy to see that that's inclusive um passing of geometry it's
all pretty written out so i if there are no other questions from the committee then i it seems like we do then afterwards i'll second the motion thank you member member reinfeld it's not a
question i would just amend replace further considerations and next steps with additional considerations since it's a policy and not on the top of page three it's not part of the policy okay that maybe that was a question no
but i think that's why it um it is repetitive right now because we made sure that we added this statement to the footnotes that is reflected in the policy okay um then i guess the question is where is this page three content
available for people to view i can double check on that i know that the original was linked into my letter but i will double check what is actually posted on the website because i think since this addresses questions that the
community had about particular situations like transfer students significant needs etc it should be available in a easily easy easy to find place sure mayor member russo i'm actually i'm fine with just adding
it to the policy although i would remove the words further consideration in the next steps and just and just or or not including the header at all and just all that text minus the header without the title
i'm fine with that member so if you just could repeat that i was just reading something else uh just to strike further considerations and next steps and include that language on that page as part of the policy this policy is updated every six months anyways so we'll just scrap whatever we
don't need in october when we review it next member member in tapa yeah just a quick point of clarification so on page three this this was something i was actually going to ask and i completely forgot so last bullet point former mhs students
without cd is this i'm assuming this is what this is but i just want to clarify so this is basically saying if you did not graduate you can retroactively apply for either certificate of completion or a diploma or is it just certificate of completion
right so these are for the students who did not pass mccast right so they got a certificate of completion and not a diploma okay and so if they would like to go through the steps of getting a diploma which is just really having us look into their transcripts right on an
individual basis right if they pass the proper coursework that now applies to our cd our competency determination then we can go through the process to kind of fix that for them and issue them a diploma if they did
not let's say pass the coursework then it also allows us on an individual basis to have a conversation with them about what they could do to acrue those credits and earn a diploma awesome no i love to see that because i i saw i believe i'm going to i'm sorry i'll talk
less loud so it doesn't echo i saw i think i saw another district within the state or maybe yeah it had to have been a state because we passed the mccast ruling um like really publicly mentioning this so i think we have a lot of work to do to work with our marcom team as well as our alumni association
to really push this and be very clear about yes it's an imageable basis but we'll help you get there so that way you know this is an unfair thing we're fixing it the state has entrusted us to fix this like let's not like let's go back
and do that and just to make that very clear in any way we can so thank you that that's really nice to see and obviously i still second the motion on the floor so there's a motion for approval as amended before i call the role or um
move the motion member reinfeld one more amendment is just to add eligibility for a diploma under the post 2024 requirements so that it's explicit that this is about the diploma um last bullet point to assess
eligibility for a diploma under mhm eligibility eligibility for a diploma and then i will stop amending things oh you'll get me next week yeah okay motion for approval by member
graham seconded by member rouso as amended all those in favor all those opposed paper passes thank you yes yes i will thank you we have number four recommendation to
approve bond request of the met of metro city council of $25,775,000 for the mcglin and andrews hvac project dr peter j kushing assistant superintendent we also have um miss brenda pike from pe planning
development sustainability and our director of planning development sustainability alicia hunts with us as well thanks for being here everybody good evening we also have our own as project manager tom represent y um thank you very much for this opportunity to
request um the last sum of money uh for this project um and which will be as has been mentioned previously um not only repairing and replacing the equipment that is there but will also
serve as a significant energy reduction for the city um so uh the initial design came to $1.2 uh 98 million uh we requested for phase one construction
um for phase one construction $5 million of bond which i can't believe that was december already it i i had to actually go back because it didn't feel that long ago um and requested $5 million for pre- purchase uh through some uh really
heroic efforts of our design team brenda paul riggy alicia tom and many other people really working on this project which is a sprint in order to make sure that we get this work done in time a lot of complicated pieces from procurement
to design um and funding all have to fall in place uh very well and so the work is moving forward uh and frequent meetings frequent reviews uh and frequent visits to the schools as well to make sure that this project is on
target and moving well um so that $5 million um work uh and the pre-purchase was submitted this past friday successfully all right so that equipment can be built in time to be delivered on
site and hoisted into position prior to school starting fingers crossed uh any questions on phase one which we've discussed extensively previously uh our construction budget
um coming in in the neighborhood of 22,945,533 um total construction costs $19,279,000 our owner's construction contingency is just shy of $700,000 at 687,000 uh the designer through construction cost to make sure the designs if needed
to be updated anything along those lines $1.3 million opm uh jll through construction $484,000 just want to mention our designer uh b2q previously mentioned that and our owner contingency
uh that is not considered in the gross maximum price gmp stands for gross maximum price when you have construction manager at risk uh everything has to they're involved in the design process and everything has to be baked in in this final gross maximum price so uh not
considered there anything you'd like to add at this time brenda not to this section to the to the other cost definitely okay so other costs why don't you take that away then sure um so yes so we have we're calling this under
um all these other things underneath that we're putting under other costs but there are um things that are required for this project to happen including commissioning of the new equipment 500,000 um ada upgrades that the new con the the
new uh project is is triggering um so we have uh included six around $619,000 for ada a upgrades including um the the leveling of the entrance at mcglin
um and some other um ada upgrades that are we consider really useful and not too costly um and then there are another just want to highlight for you there's another $2.3 million in ada upgrades
that we uh do not consider useful um and are too costly for this project um and so our consultant based on their past experience thinks that for those upgrades we will be able to get variances from the state um and so april
and may we'll be applying for those variances and getting those approved we fully expect that we that we will get them but i just wanted to mention that that that that's happening um we're including the cost of the it room
uh uh hvac equipment replacement for these two schools in this project the other three schools um it room uh equipment is is being handled separately from this this includes refurbishment of the mcglin roof uh not full replacement
just refurbishment um and i want to point out that while we're considering that we're we fully expect that we will get massave incentives for for around $2.2 million we do have to authorize um spending upfront for that and then that's a
reimbursement that we'll get some months later and then we had been talking about including solar potentially as an ad alternate for this project um right now we're not including it as part of the project uh because of the cost of it but there's the possibility if we do come in
significantly under cost then uh we we could add solar on the midland roof um and that's a that's a distinct possibility because we do have a lot of um our regular construction and owner contingencies included as part of this and then also another more than $2
million of contingencies built in for possible tariffs and possible second shift work in case there are delays that will um you know create a time crunch so that we need to to do a lot of second shift work in order to get this done by
the time students are are coming in we're obviously hoping to avoid any second shift work uh we have already made plans internally um to move programming elsewhere in the district um and just want to make sure that everyone
knows that the 80 up ada upgrades get triggered when any single project um goes over 30% of the value of the buildings um or the assessed value uh and the the pro the pieces that are not
being addressed in this and that we are seeking variances for are literally a matter of inches so moving entire door frames for every classroom forward or backwards an inch or two to be in code
compliance or moving a toilet from 17 in to 18 in to be in the the the benefit we are is not there to spend the $2.3 million we are addressing the most
severe and egregious um upgrades that are required um and we'll do everything we can to make sure that our buildings are compliant but these variances are seen by the code consultants as well within uh the realm
of acceptability happy to take any questions um from the chair if i may um the potential solar option can you explain those options down the line
whether it be purchasing or is there an option to lease like homeowners have brenda you're the best yeah um yeah so there is there is the option to to lease to have a power purchase agreement which is something that we have on the
dpw um so that that is an option for the future um i would say the best value in terms of the you know getting the benefit from the the solar is if you own it yourself um but that's you know a decision you have to make depending on
the upfront capital available yeah but and i asked that and hopefully that will be a team decision down the line um even if we don't come in under because of the tariffs and the second potentially the potential second second shift because just to point out this is a massive
massive um job this is over 30 million that we're going to be going out to bond with although there are some discussions behind the scene about potential use of some free cash to bring this down because when we hit fiscal year 27 this
is a $1.8 8 million hit on our budget for um return of principal and interest so that's that 1.8 million we're going to have to find on the city and cityschool um budget that is already pretty constrained um just wanted to point that
point that out um so hopefully it could be a group decision thank you rinfeld member graham then member rinfeld thank you um in terms of the solar at alternate i think it would be helpful
for us to know um like what the payoff is right so if it would cost $1.2 million dollars to put solar on the roof like at what point is the payoff there so that we are making wise financial
decisions for the life of the project instead of just in the right now so um i'm i'm happy to make a motion but i would just like somebody to give us that break that financial breakdown of what does this look like if we do it and what
could we expect in terms of electrical savings that kind of thing i know it's like imperfect and it's a moving target i'm looking for something that can give us like a payback period um so that we could predict like could the could are
there multiple ways to fund this um this addition so that we can get the best benefit from it yeah before moving forward with something like that we would we would want to show the the payoffs based on oh i'm asking you to provide me the payoff like regardless like of a decision to move forward i
would like this committee to know what that is so that we can weigh in on that priority we can definitely do that um one we did also explore um the terminal units in each classroom from an energy
perspective and i believe the payoff was 347 years um for the terminal units that doesn't have to do with solar but we are looking at every possible cost savings opportunity to make sure that we're we're trying we are desperately trying
to keep cost down and we recognize like this is a necessary uh upgrade or upgrade i mean replacement the buildings are approaching 25 years old thank you member rinfeld
yes my question was related you said this could be added on if we see costs are coming down if we say decide that we want to do this is this estimate going signific i know it's we cannot always predict what the markets are going to do
etc etc but is there a significant risk in waiting to do a solar addition what i'm trying to avoid is six months from now going "oh we should have authorized this six months ago," for example
so thank you if if you had asked us this question a year ago we could give you sort of like well here's where the market is going and why we think things might go up and down um given the state of the world right now we have no clue okay because you know six months ago we
thought we could get a 30% pay um back from the federal government with what's called direct pay which is the tax credit that people can get um while i think that literally today that might still exist i'm i'm not betting on that existing in like a week or two you know
like that's how nuts things are right now and then with the so the tariffs they're trying to move the construction of solar panels to the us so that might actually help and it might be okay but there are rare earth minerals that they have to get from china and you know 50%
increase on those costs it's just who knows where things will stand 3 months from now let alone six months or a year honestly my hope is that in two years things will be kind of a little bit stable again and then things would just be a reasonable like cost on these
things so thank you i i feel like it had to just be sad that for most of this we we kind of we have things we're locking stuff in whatever that just feels like it's just i don't know how to predict something like that thank you and i appreciate locking things in because
this has to get done before our kids go back to school in the fall this has to happen over the summer so and i just i feel like this committee does know but we just should say for people who are not the reason we're only talking about solar on the miglin is because we have contracted for solar on the andrews and
that will be installed in the fall um there was talk of doing it in the summer but after consulting with the general contractor and the solar company the decision was to just do the construction after the the uh new hvac equipment goes in um but that's contracted for the
pricing is locked in and that one is happening what what we don't know is will we get that 30% back i hope so it's still it still exists right now so all right well i say we move but i know my colleague has a i'm going to go to dr galooi and then member
lead i just have a quick question would how you approach the roofing contingency or the refurbishment of the roof have anything to do with this decision uh no they're they're the roof
interestingly enough uh i came into this thinking that we would have a tremendous savings by doing a new roof um and looking at solar and putting a new roof on um the refurbishment of the roof uh gives us the same lifespan and i believe
i said that the over the cost of the new roof and insulation was going to be approximately $3 million and our payback on energy savings from the new insulation was only going to be about $300,000 so over the span of over the
span of the life of the roof it would cost us about 1.2 1.3 million more than the refurbishment at 1.5 million given the savings on the insulation it this has been a very eye
openening project and yeah so eye opening expensive eye opening project u member lead thank you it's a quick question going back to the ada compliance point you
made um i know you mentioned that you're focusing primarily on the most like egregious you know imminent ones or emergent ones for the ones that are a little bit more negligible so like the movement of the toilets for example or the doors is there a listing of like where you don't have to not necessarily a listing of every individual instance
of it like in you know c1 and b3 for example at the high school but is there a way for us to see just kind of like a general understanding about where those like the severity of those is that possible at all yes yeah okay yeah we we have to list those out for in order to apply for the variance so we we have the
list of yeah you could share that with us just so that we have that because i think that members of the public might benefit from having understanding that we're not not in compliance necessarily but there are instances where the overall cost for the shifting of that where the disparity is and so why we're making certain decisions so we're not actively trying to avoid compliance but
there are those costs that we're trying to deal with and for a lot of them i mean the benefit is so minimal for the the cost of it so for instance one of them is you know um raising all of the sinks by one inch yeah that's a lot of plumbing and tile work and things like
that that would be very expensive for very little benefit yeah definitely yeah but if i could just address a couple of the quick uh so over the years schools make uh install new toilet paper holders because they get a good deal on toilet paper from a company those were
installed above the rails they should be below the rails because if a person's going to grab and they hit that they may miss not they may they will miss the hold and they could fall um another one is doors swinging uh in instead of out
um the final one that i'll mention is uh accessible sinks don't have insulation on the pipes so if someone in a wheelchair pulls in they could burn themselves on a pipe potentially so these are things that were not part of the building code when the buildings
were built but when you do a project of this magnitude these are the things that need to be considered uh and i can definitely share those documents with the committee and anyone else that would like thank you member graham
thank you one more question the roof that causes it to rain sideways into the ele the kindergarten classroom is that being fixed it is included it has been mentioned how many times i think i bring it up every other meeting thank you thank you yeah i really want that
kindergarten class to be fixed i i also think that i've reshared the same documents yeah with everybody uh probably five times at this point because it's not falling off of my radar and i guess the other thing worth mentioning is with this list of um changes that we're not going to
pursue at this time like i do think the director of facilities and the 2b assistant director of facilities needs to have that list so that the next time we get a deal on toilet paper and somebody comes to install you know new containers for
toilet paper that we're like hawking them to do it right um and in compliance every every single time we can like i know from time to time the maintenance team has to rebuild a bathroom for a variety of reasons and if they have to do it anyway they should
be doing it in a way that sort of brings us to where we you know where we want to be because those things are small but they matter to people who need them so um i just want to make sure that it's on it doesn't like go in the project file
and go in a filing cabinet and instead it is very in a very real way still on our radar um as we move forward beyond this project thank you um member in taba i also just yeah i really want to echo
that point of like while these things i guess where i want to say is when this list is sent to us i really do welcome any community input about the a lot of these issues because like again while they may be small to some people who may
be a little more able-bodied or may not run into these issues it's good to know like if someone has like oh i'm not crazy like this is actually something that significantly impacts my mobility or this is something that you know just the day-to-day like this is a small frustration like yeah my knees get
colder like they get burned from that like this is these are all really good things that i would hope that the community would also be able to take a look at and say i used i frequent this building this is something that affects me on a daily basis i thought i was small but i'm not crazy just that little affirmation of like no this needs to be
changed and we acknowledge that um but i i do want to get a little bit away from the like well it's a little small like it does seem small to some people but like it really is a huge thing for a lot of people's dayto-day so just welcome that community input whenever that list is made available so thank you to my
colleagues for for raising that that concern and ask and thank you for doing the work and thank you for acknowledging it thank you um is there a motion for approval for this project by member rinfeld seconded by member all
those in favor roll call member graham yes member intapa yes member olady yes member rinfeld yes member russo yes mayor langok yes seven six in the affirmative one absent motion's approved thank you for the hard work thank you thank you
we do not have any presentations to the public or continued business but we do have an item under new business um 2025-11 offered by member graham and member reinfeld whereas medford's graduation requirements regarding health and physical education exceed state requirements and whereas some high
school students have substantial physical activity outside the school day whereas some high school students are unable to access all aspects of educational program programming offered by mps example is arts and language and core subjects in vocational education
and pe health be resolved that the administration will provide a recommendation to policy ikf- requirements for graduation that increases flexibilities for students by changing the health and physical education requirements be it further resolved that the administration will bring this recommendation to the
committee no later than june 1st 2025 be it also resolved the administration will be prepared to implement approved changes for the fiscal for the school years 2025 2026 um member rinfeld or member graham or is there a motion for approval
um member graham thank you so i put this on um i honestly don't remember ever touching policy ikf in six years and this is this is going to be our third goround this year um which is sort of interesting and i think on the one hand
like you don't really want to change your graduation requirements like constantly because that becomes really hard for students but um in all of the conversation that we've had about the schedule and the need for changes to the schedule to increase flexibility and
increase access um i think we have an opportunity to look at um the the health and pe requirements as well to say what could we do differently here what do other communities do um to create some flexibility in our schedule and i don't
think it's like i don't think it's a perfect answer to every single schedule ailment um that exists in the world but i think there's maybe some opportunity for flexibility like if we can teach um spanish online we can teach health
online i have every confidence in the world that that's true um if we have students who are multisport athletes um maybe they would prefer to wave out of it i don't know there's just there's a whole bunch of options that happen um in
other parts of the community and my feeling um in bringing this forward was to hear from the administration what could work and provide flexibility and solutions to students who um even as we go forward with new scheduling options
it's still not perfect like my daughter is still talking about taking classes at bunker hill because there's still there still isn't enough room in her schedule to do what she wants to do um so i don't think it fixes everything um but i would like if we're going to make this big
change to the schedule that we also look at the impact of some flexibility here so that we're not touching this policy you know multiple times a year every single year um and we can just sort of get it all done at this point so that was my purpose for bringing it forward i
think you know i've heard lots of different schedule challenges over the years i don't know that this sort of solves every single problem but i think having options is important um because one size does not fit all in terms of all the programming that's going on at
the at the high school so i don't have a particular solution in mind member reinfeld didn't have a particular solution in mind but more to say um can the people who sort of live the complications of this every day bring forward some suggestions about how our graduation requirements might change
thank you thank you member graham member reinfeld i would just add to that that the state provides limited flexibility in some areas and so i think it's really important where there is some flexibility to increase as member graham said options for students and provide
students with the autonomy to do the things that they are passionate about and really make electives things that they elect to do while still meeting basic health and academic requirements and i know our our various departments
have done a lot of work to build really wonderful electives in a lot of different areas and i just want as many students to be able to access those as possible okay so that's a motion for approval me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me member reinfeld yes and seconded by member graham um all those in favor all those
opposed motion passes um we do not have any reports requested but we do have several condolences so by may the members of the medford school committee expressed their sincere condolences to the family of louise c jordan for 39 years she taught second and third grade
at the hervey elementary school the lauren l dame school and the brooks hob school notably she arranged a first ever visit of then general colin powell's powell chair of the joint chiefs of staff to the brooks
hob school in the early 1900s also the members of the medford school committee expressed their sincerest condolences to the family of anthony tony duca tony was a carpenter with the medford public schools and the members of the memphis school committee expressed their conser sincere condolences to the family of william
shane hordy husband of mary horty former physical education teacher at mcglin middle school if we all may rise for a moment of silence please thank you our next regular meeting is actually next monday april 14th 2025
here in the alden memorial chambers as well as on zoom um is there a motion to adjurnn by member reinfeld seconded by member in topper all those in favor all those
opposed 16 affirmative one absent meeting is adjourned thank you have a