##VIDEO ID:v5KM3TWS1RE## forgot the meeting was on Zoom just heading home hi everyone um Dr Cushing I had some trouble getting in via the link that was um on the agenda on the website so just I was unsuccessful somebody sent me a separate link and I got here so I don't know if there was just something strange happening on my end but I fixed it J oh okay great yeah just make sure other people are trying to get in that they don't sort of get stuck so if you if you all hear of anybody else having a problem let us know will could you post an updated link to our Facebook page but also I noticed member brandley is not here so perhaps we could send it directly to her uh I can do that right now yeah I just posted the the dial location instead of the uh the hyperlink but I'll do that now thank you and I'll send it to member brandley immediately okay um I'm going to um get us started um I know the mayor is in transit so she'll be with us in just a few um when she's not in transit anymore um the the 17th regular meeting of the Medford school committee um for November 4th um via Zoom at 6 p.m. please be advised that there will be a meeting of the Medford school committee held via remote participation only the meeting is being recorded the meeting can be viewed live on Medford Public Schools YouTube channel through Medford Community media on your local cable channel which is um Comcast channel 98 or 22 and Verizon channel 43 45 or 4 47 um the zoom meeting ID if anyone is needing that it's 978 3414 6245 um member so will you please call the role member branley give for a moment member Graham here member andapa here here member reinfeld present M zo present mayor L Kern present and I believe member brandley is now here I don't know if she can unmute yet give her we just one second we can call her brandley yes just say I I'm here okay okay seven present zero accent um all 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 okay item number three uh we have the good of the order any comments from the committee will just say um that the annual masc conference is later this week thank you to all the committee members for taking time out of their day to days plural to attend um later this week in hyanis and um we will move on to the consent agenda so item number four is the consent agenda we have approval of bills and payrolls approval of capital purchases approval of Grants um there is one Grant being requested to be approved by the Medford Educational Foundation for $1,000 for model un approval of field trips and approval of meeting minutes our regular meeting on October 21st and our special meeting on October 28th is there a motion to approve motion to sever the minutes for um October oh dear um 28th and approve the rest motion to sever the minutes for October 28th by member rouso is there a second second seconded by member reinfeld uh roll call second m brandley yes member Graham yes member Anapa yes member L yes member rinel yes member yes Mary ler yes seven in the affirmative zero in the negative the motion is severed um and then we have a motion by member Russo to approve the remainder of the consent agenda motion to that uh and seconded by uh member p uh R call member brandley yes member Graham yes member Anapa yes member Ela member reinfeld yes M so yes Marilyn goer yes um seven in the affirmative zero and the negative the consent agenda is approved um the special meeting on o October 28th uh member R did you have a question or comment um yes the um the votes of the meeting are listed as 52 which implies five in the affirmative two in the negative it was actually five in the affirmative zero and the negative2 in the two are absent um the minutes have actually already been updated by um Lisa and updated in our drive but I just wanted to note that and I'll motion to approve the as amended motion to approve as amended by member rouso seconded by member reinfeld roll call member brandley yes member Graham yes member Anapa yes yes m r yes M yes Mar Longo yes seven in the affirmative zero in the negative uh the minutes are approved as amended um item number five report of subcommittees we have none uh and on to item number six which is the report of the superintendent so um number one the superintendent updates and comments Dr Maurice Edward Vincent thank you and good evening good evening to everyone it is great to be with you all tonight for this evening school committee meeting while we normally hold our sessions in person tonight we are on zoom while our great City finalizes its preparation for tomorrow ahead of election day I want to begin my remarks tonight by speaking about the importance of voting voting is essential because it empowers you to express your beliefs and shape the future of our local community the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and our country it's not just a right but a civic duty allowing you to initiate change and advocate for your community your vote is your voice information on where to vote what is on the ballot and when polls open are available on the city of medford's website and as a result of election day tomorrow Medford Public Schools will be closed for all students tomorrow however staff will be present at all of our school campuses as one of our scheduled professional development days is taking place tomorrow our Educators have been doing a marvelous job supporting our students social emotional and educational Journey so far this year myself and all of our other administrators are looking forward to connecting with our staff tomorrow during our professional development Day so I'd like to just rewind a little bit over the past few weeks I want to thank all of our administrators elected officials City A Partners building staff and Community leaders for reading to our Miss students in late o October as part of the jumpstart read for the record day our misat students were part of over two million readers across the world who enjoyed this year's book hyperen sings I'd also like to extend a special thank you to all of our community members who joined our students during last month's walking Wednesdays students enjoyed the presence of fellow peers and caregivers on Wednesdays throughout October while all walking to school including the national walk and bike to school day on October 9th these outdoor commutes to school took place at all of our elementary and middle schools I am also very very excited to share good news that happened yesterday afternoon where our Medford Mustang marching band won the division 2 New England Scholastic band Association championship for the second year in a row performing their 2024 show after the rain our band won capture awards for best visual performance best color guard and best overall effect additionally students Kian Lea and Benjamin vers received the award for best drum Majors congratulations to them our Mustangs also claimed the top spot with a platinum award and a score of 95.3 seven making them the only band in division one two or three to achieve a platinum award the band includes students from Medford High School Medford vocational school and both the Andrews and mcglenn middle schools congratulations to all of our students and our first year band director in Medford Public Schools Mr Michael dampier on a fantastic fantastic fall season so congratulations to them and here they are with all of their wonderful Awards I also want to just quickly jump over to Athletics to share some great news our football team continued their memorable season with another history making performance yes our senior Briana cerulo became the first female in Mustang football history to score in a varsity game punching in a 2-yard run during our 38-6 win over Chelsea so that's a huge congratulations Brianna Brianna is just the second female to participate in football at the varsity level in school history and the first one to find her way to the end zone congratulations to Brianna for having your name live in Mustang lore forever I would also like to extend my sincerest ad admiration to our football team for fostering an inclusive and welcoming welcoming environment for all of our students so congratulations to them in the spirit of congratulations I'd also like to take a moment to congratulate our Medford rowing team on a superb fall season that culminated at the mpsr fall Championship our crew team won two gold one silver and two bronze medals at the state championship Medford High School also won the Massachusetts State team skulling trophy for the first time in school history and last but not least hot off the press just came downstairs from the game our unified basketball team just won their game upstairs it was wonderful and I want to thank mayor Longo Kern and member inapa for being upstairs supporting our unified basketball team and our wonderful band played they sounded fabulous it it was a great Victory a great game um a great night for Mustang Nation so I want to just thank and congratulate all of our Mustangs for a terrific fall season yes we give them a shout out clapping for all of you keep up the great great work as I continue with my announcements just for everyone to be aware next Monday November 11th Medford Public Schools will be closed in honor of Veterans Day this Veterans Day we honor and thank all the brave men and women who have served in our military their sacrifices and dedication protect our freedoms and ensure our safety please take a moment next Monday to reflect on their courage and commitment while recognizing the importance of supporting our veterans both during and after their service thank you sincerely to all of our veterans on Tuesday September 12th Medford Public schools and ccsr the center for citizenship and social responsibility will be hosting a dedication ceremony for the new Crystal Campbell Memorial Garden at 3 o'clock which will be taking place at the front of Medford High School the New Garden will honor Crystal a 2001 Medford High School graduate who tragically passed away during the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing the Memorial Garden will celebrate her life and passion for bringing people together light Refreshments will be served following the dedication ceremony and all members of the public are welcome to attend lastly I want to just provide some brief msba updates I want to inform the committee and the community that msba will be visiting our schools beginning next week as part of the state's School survey assessment the msba will be visiting all schools in the Commonwealth during the next year except schools that are in the msba program pipeline so as a result they will not be visiting Medford High School given the ongoing new high school building process but they will be visiting all of our other schools the school surveys of approximately 1580 schools in Massachusetts will result in a published report by the msba which will detail a shared understanding of the building condition and general environment for all of the commonwealths public schools the assessment will evaluate several key factors including condition capacity maintenance and educational environment the last school survey of all schools in the Commonwealth was held in 2016 the msba school survey will begin next Tuesday and include walkthroughs of our schools and interviews with building leaders these surveys again are independent of the ongoing process to build a new Medford High School rather it is part of the Statewide assessment with that being said we look forward to welcoming members of the msba team into all of our other schools and for this evening's meeting I'm excited to join Dr gusi in sharing about what's happening in Medford Public Schools from our instructional Vision also to our mcast performance and this evening Dr kza Miss fisa Khan and Mr Roco sieri are directors of humanities mathematics and science they will be reporting out to the committee on our mcast testing data from the late spring of 2024 and share about our key takeaways and the results thank you do you want me to continue either way I was just pulling up the I have the agenda up but totally yeah if you could take the next one that' be great sure um item number two is a recommendation to approve a vehical donation um approximate Val approximate value $1,000 um Dr Peter Kosen assistant superintendent Dr Kush yep just real quick uh donating a 2011 Hyundai Santa Fe that the automotive department has worked on significantly they were offered it they said they would be happy to take it so simply uh approval of the school committee motion for approval uh motion to approve by mayor lungo Kar seconded by member reinfeld uh roll call member brandley yes member Graham yes member Anapa yes member olapa yes member reinfeld yes member R yes mayor lungo K yes 70 affirmative or the negative motion passes we have instructional vision for me for public schools I'll turn it over to Dr Maurice Edward Vinson our superintendent and Dr Suzanne B galloi assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction thank yeah I was GNA just I I will just teat off and then we'll we'll go back and forth there is a slide deck thank you Dr Cushing um and this is a very brief slide deck um talking about the instructional Vision work that the Medford Public Schools is going to be working on continuing to work on the work has already begun but this is just to formally introduce it to the committee and this body of work is going to be introduced formally to all staff officially tomorrow in a joint capacity during part of our professional development sessions and so Dr gusi I'm going to pass the balloon uh baton on to you and we can piggyback off of one another thank you perfect thank you very much um so as the superintendent said um thank you for this opportunity for us to present our the work that's gone in uh to the creation of our District's instructional Vision um if you could please advance to the ne thank you so I think it's important to just highlight the work that has kind of culminated into creating our instructional Vision so in 2021 coming out of the pandemic uh as a district we really worked on aligning our common assessments and some of our common um approaches to ensure that instruction meets the needs of our students so in 2021 we saw the implementation of nwaa map as a districtwide assessment tool I mean at that point it was grades K through 10 we've slightly adapted that now to be grades 2 through 10 but that provides a common measure to ensure that we're meeting student needs and that we are standards based um we also saw the alignment of restorative practices K through six excuse me 6 through 12 and the continued implementation of responsive classroom K through five so ensuring that our classrooms are setting that foundation for op optimal learning and then ensuring that our instruction and our materials are meeting um state standards and National standards in 2022 we really looked at the alignment of evaluation techniques so we partnered with Rebus and the administrators really worked on aligning observational and evaluative feedback for our staff we worked on creating core actions and we created a crosswalk um to ensure that our evaluative and observation work aligned with the superintendent's core actions at that time advancing to 2023 we really dug into our instructional alignment I'm calling it 1.0 at this time we were grounded in the work that we received from the Desi air report into that analysis of the instructional pieces that we really had to work on as a district at the same time also engaging in an instructional leadership seminar hosted by the Department of Education so we created a series of professional development opportunities to align our instruction districtwide um that was titled right here moving towards opportunity for all students um and the bulk of our that was given during staff meetings by our uh School leaders and also followed up in department meetings by our directors advancing to this current year of 2024 that work is continuing and between the August administrative time of 2023 and the June of 2024 and the August of 2024 Administration engaged in all of this alignment work work to create an instructional vision for the district to ensure that we are really grounded in what we want to see for instruction in every classroom across the district K through 12 so in continuing the professional development um we created Dr Cushing if you don't mind um this took several iterations so this began with um group work in terms of elements that we wanted to really hone in on to make sure that our students are receiving and right down to the introductory Equity statement at the top this instructional Vision uh we believe captures the priorities for teaching and learning districtwide um so there are four core quadrants as you can see um to frame the entire instructional Vision the equity statement um is as follows we are committed to providing educational equity for every child by offering the necessary resources support and opportunities for students to reach their full potential so first and foremost is high quality instruction and that establishes high expectations for all students that promote critical thinking and problem solving it aligns to grade level state standards and ensures that instruction meets the individual needs of students while maintaining grade level standards High rigor and high instructional quality materials we also want to ensure that our instruction is deeply engaging we want to create cognitively Rich learning contexts that are supported by collaborative practices that connect learning to students lives and to the real world um so students should be able to participate in learning opportunities that not only provide them with that rich context but also make that connection to why this is important in real life um we also want to ensure that our instruction is data informed so that is consistent educator should be consistently collecting and analyzing data to in and adjust their instructional practices ensuring that all students reach their full potential so there are various sets of data that teach are using constantly to inform their instructional approaches it can be formative um data that they're Gathering throughout the lesson on a daily basis as well as summative data which we're going to talk about a little tonight um but some of that Summit of data is around the map the nwaa map its unit tests um it's even part of mcast but making sure that they're collecting various forms of data and targeting their instruction to meet student needs all of this should result in a sense of belonging for our students um which is the Crux of why we're doing this so Educators should we we want Educators to be using inclusive and culturally affirming instruction and curriculum that acknowledges students backgrounds and identities we want to ensure that an environment of connectedness is created where all students feel heard valued and supported in their identities and where relationships are built on empathy and respect we do we were very mindful that this display is circular because all four quadrants um rely on one another so we you know we we can't have belonging if our instruction is not high quality deeply engaging um we can't have high quality instruction if we're not using data to inform our practices uh and vice versa so um as the superintendent mentioned tomorrow is the PD day in which we're very excited for this this whole entire professional development day was um created by the professional development advisory committee it's all choice-based our administrators are providing sessions in which the the Educators selected what they were interested in learning more about um and within between those two sessions we are spending some time on this instructional Vision So within small groups educators will have the opportunity to engage a little bit more fully on the instructional vision and really be able to connect and give us feedback as to how they um how this means for their role in Medford Public Schools and we're going to be able to have that data to inform our next steps as we work to actualize the instructional Vision within our schools so part of the next steps after the teachers engage with this work provide us some feedback we have a committee an instructional Vision uh committee that will also now take that data and hone in on what those observational look fors should be connected to our instructional Vision so that when we are observing teachers and we're going on walkthroughs through our schools um we have something that reflects the instructional vision of the district I don't know if you want to add anything on to that um Dr Edward Vincent I I just was gonna actually um piggyback and double down on the circle that every piece of of this circle depends on another piece of the circle and that it isn't a square and it's not you pull one piece of the puzzle away it's not going to work and as we transition to the next presentation when you hear about our mcast data and how as a district we're making data informed decisions um and looking at what does our high quality instruction look like what are the programs that we have in place everything is connected if our students are not engaged and they don't feel like they belong they're not going to be interested in learning so there are a few um really bright points that are going to be shared shortly by our team um but one of the things that I am very happy about is our growth our student growth we know we have other areas that we're going to work on but our students their starting point and their ending point they are showing significant growth in almost all of our schools as a district and they the the Pres the following presentation will show what that growth looks like and we want to build upon that positive momentum by making data informed decisions and ensuring that our students are engaged in the in quality of instruction that they are receiving I also just want to um recognize Suzanne for her artistic work in designing um this instructional Vision um it's visually appealing easy to understand and um we are working on giving our staff and visitors as it gets published and posted in all of our schools an anchor to look at an anchor chart to look at to understand what is actually happening right now in the Medford Public Schools and that everything is interrelated and again our goal is to have all students feel like they belong and know that they belong and know that they are part of the Medford Public Schools Community because if our students feel connected they will feel engaged and they will feel like they belong they will um continue to produce positive outcomes and we're going to see the needle keep moving in the positive um Direction so I just you know thank you Suzanne for you know your presentation there and we're looking forward to this work this next iteration of the work happy to answer any questions thank you very much Dr Edward vincon and Dr gloy next up we have number four my agenda back we have um mcast results Dr again Dr galy assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction turn what are you right thank you um good evening again as the superintendent previously mentioned I'm honored to be joined by our curriculum directors we have the director of humanities um Dr Nicole kza the director of mathematics fisa KH and the director of science uh Roco sieri and collectively we will be presenting on The District's mcast scores accountability and action steps um as a result um so this is our agenda for this evening I just want to kind of highlight I'm going to um discuss a little bit about the accountability and then the curriculum directors are going to speak to the test results in their respective departments um but I do want to highlight that there's a new there was a new pilot that Dr Kiza will speak about which is the Civics in 8th grade so um a lot of Assessments in the eth grade but before each subject is discussed um for English language arts for mathematics and for science Technology and Engineering we have a slide that just shows the overall narrative for the state of Massachusetts mcast results um thank you Dr krushing so for massach for the results this evening the directors are going to be discussing with you two areas of reports they are going to show you the achievement within their departments and they are going to discuss student growth within their departments they are also going to discuss what they're doing with this data and what how this is informing the work of their departments and what the next steps are I'm just going to briefly cover the other piece of the mcass assessment system is the assigned accountability rate for individual schools as well as the district as a whole so this chart shows you the criteria or the key features that all go into how the Department of Education calculates the accountability rating for schools and the district so they look at the achievement in all of the content areas they look at student growth in all of the content areas they also look at high school completion clearly this is not a factor at the elementary level or the Middle School level but it is a factor in our overall accountability and at the high school all schools are looked at for their English language profic proficiency rating which also calculates the score that we get um for El students that take take the access Statewide testing um and then there are two additional indicators that the Department of Education looks at which is chronic absenteeism as well as the percentage of high school students that are engaged in advanced cours work um and graduation rates you may go to the next slide Dr Cushing thank you this just shows a basic overview of the accountability ratings for the past 3 years um you will see on average that the accountability rates across the district show substantial progress and we had some schools that really showed a great gain in accountability percentage from in the past three years um and you will also see that the majority of our schools do not require any sort of Assistance or intervention um from this Department of Education before I Advance are there any questions on the first two slides regarding accountability the accountability oh I guess I have to be called on you're good member reinfeld yeah the accountability percentile is that within the district I know so I looked on the Desi site and it's it's compared to other schools is that within the district or other schools with similar similar population Statewide the latter okay member rouso yes thank you um the are you going to explain the requiring assistance for intervention later no I can cover that here um the Roberts if you look the Roberts has shown great gains um in their accountability they also showed some pretty great gains in their achievement overall um but as I indicated one of the measures um that the Department of Education has in their calculation to determine to determine their accountability rating um Is the participation rate uh across grade levels across the school and across subgroups and there was one subgroup where the participation um dipped a little bit below um what they want to see and so they have this requiring Assistance or intervention I do think it's important since you asked the question um I don't think it's important to maybe discuss the subgroup but I do think it's important that um the participation rate if families opt out it does factor into the overall accountability rate from the Department of Education um and so that does affect our scores and that is uh what happened at the Roberts thank you I just want to um clar not clarify because that's a question not an I don't know the answer but the score itself I mean the Roberts has for instance a 41 Which is higher than one two three4 other schools um so it it is it is it affecting the score or merely the determination of whether we need assistance or intervention correct okay thank you yes okay Dr chrisan do you mind advancing two slides thank you some one more thank you uh I am sure that this is common knowledge for some but I do think it's just important to show uh the grades in which we're talking about this evening so for third grade there's an English language arts test and a math that's the same for fourth grade same for fifth grade except there's also a science test given grades six and seven uh English language arts and math grade eight again uh has science as well as this year a field test for civics which Dr Kiza will speak more about great grade nine is the science requirement for graduation and grade 10 has the English language arts and the math requirement for graduation and at this point I am going to yep introduce Dr kza Who is going to speak to you about Civics and then English language arts good evening everybody um I'm going to begin as Dr gloy said by outlining the Civics mcast um if we look at the Timeline we have known for a few years that the Civics mcast um will be coming and so essentially the timeline begins in 2019 there were some voluntary Pilots along the way there was another voluntary pilot and last year we had a Statewide what they refer to as a field test for all schools serving grade8 students next this school year we anticipate um this to be an operational test so I do anticipate next year coming to you with specific scores specific um accountability reviews um whereas this past year was the field test to determine what um this current year will look like to give you a little background um since we really haven't talked too much about this on the floor is the actual assessment so the assessment is comprised of two components components we have what the state is referring to as the state level performance task um and that is centered on one of the seven topics from the grade eight Civic standards so our grade eight Civic standards have seven topics and this In Sum with many many subtopics underneath and the state level performance task will focus on one of those seven but then in addition excuse me in addition to that we have the end of course test which covers the full breath of the grade 8 Civic stand standards this gives you this chart on the right gives you a sense of um what was looked at how it was dispersed for this year we have topics one and two a certain percentage three and six four five and seven and so we can get a sense of what types of questions were asked when we look at this um table the next slide please just putting a couple examples of some questions um from T not the actual test obviously but some questions um that we could practice with um just to give you a sense they look similar to you know um an m a regular mcast question on testnav um but these are kind of give you a sense of of what's being asked the next slide please and so when we got our results back again it's a field test they're trying to determine what's going to work for questions what maybe didn't work but the nice thing about the field test was it did give us some information on where our students scored well and where there are areas of growth um overall the district scored in line with the state um we did score above the state in a variety of topics um namely analyzing a source to explain how the US government was influenced by the polit political structure of native peoples we did well on supporting EV on um figuring out which evidence supports a claim and students showed strong depth at both middle schools um with their understanding of the state and federal powers granted under the US and Massachusetts constitutions of course we did see some need for um opportunities for growth in a few different topics T1 again so topic one we were strong on in one one question um topic one we struggled with the Enlightenment and the American Revolution so that section of topic one we would want to go back to as a Civics team and um look to see where we can support this even more um they struggled a bit with describing how an Amendment to the US Constitution expanded access to civil rights and determining the branch of government in which a state government position belongs again this is an abbreviated test so it just gives us a little sense of where um we can shift our curriculum um um to make sure our students are fully prepared for this exam um our next steps are going to be to continue to remain updated on any changes that might occur as desie continues to develop the exam structure we will engage in an in-depth analysis of these standards as well as other data points that we do have and make adjustments on the pacing guide as deemed NE necessary this test does unlike English um come towards the end of the school year so there is ample time to review the different topics but again we do want to keep in mind that our eighth graders um are tested on four different subject areas now so we have to continue to work with test stamina eighth grade graduations around the same time you know obviously we've we've planned the calendar to avoid conflicts but there is a lot going on in an eighth grade year um just like any other District so we have to be cognizant of that as we move forward I think there's a question yes Russo thank you um does the test cover anything to do with local government at all and I realize there's immense variability but um I mean I know within every Community there's a a vast misunderstanding of how local government works and what our responsibilities and powers are and it seems like that would be a great opportunity yeah certainly like with within the Civics standards themselves that is um expanded on especially when we look at like the Massachusetts Constitution and and different pieces like that um we don't have access to the questions per se but that it's it's basically going to cover anything in those Civics topics including local government excellent thank you thanks Dr krushing I think you could put the thank you okay so moving on to our English language arts mcast results this slide is discussing the um State as a whole so this slide is not specific to Medford Public Schools um but what we what we did see across the entire state was a decrease in 2024 as compared to 2023 so as a state the state of Massachusetts fell three percentage points when we look when you look at the grades 3 through eight and the high school fell one percentage Point not a great story for the state as a whole and so we did want to highlight um that you know this was interesting I don't think we've seen this for some time um so again the state as a whole did have some dips when we look at Medford on the next slide we are going to see how Medford compared um in relation to 2023 so we will see 202 3 data for Medford versus 2023 data for the state and then looking at 2024 Medford versus 2024 for the state just at a cursory glance if we take grade three for example in 2023 the state was excuse me Medford was three percentage points above the state this year um Medford is four percentage points above the state different cohorts different groups of students um being tested on the same grade three curriculum skills so this just gives you that look over the years um actually if you go back for one moment please we will talk about this in a minute just the one thing I do want to highlight is um our grade 10 took a dip in 2023 um being six percentage points below the state which is unlik um isn't isn't really what our Trends have been in the past um this year we were creeping back to be within two percentage points of the state so I I did want to highlight that because I do think that's an important comparison there next slide when we look at growth um we see that um we have achieved what the state determines is typical growth for every grade level as well as every school within the grade um we will see that in grade four we have the district mean SGP is 50 grade five overall it's 51 grade six where we do see dips compared to the state we um still see typical growth similarly grade seven um we have dips compared to the state which I will talk about in a minute but we also do see some strong growth there um eight grade eight is the same and the high school continues to be the highest school um or the there's one other school the Brooks also excuse me the mlin and grade four also grew at 57 but we we do see a high number along with grade eight mcglinn at 59 next slide please so if we see the gains and glows um what we're seeing in English is that the students in grades three through five performed well with each grade exceeding the state average students in every grade level and at every school is a just noted did achieve strong growth throughout the district we have our 10th graders our eighth graders and our fourth graders at various schools achieving high growth percentiles which is what I just pointed out to you and out of the 56 subgroup data that was in the packet you received from grades four to 10 52 out of those 56 subgroups achieved typical or high growth we also have opportunities um to continue continue to improve so we see um and I believe there's a bar graph somewhere in here um but if not we can refer back to the chart table we do see that the students at the secondary level while experiencing growth did fall below the state performance levels and that is something we need to look at closely and we are looking at as a team um and we see that you know between the two schools we have most significant declines relative to the differential found in grades 6 and seven and we do see that students at the middle school level exhibited some weaknesses specific to writing and grammar so part of the work is digging deeper into um where we dipped and so as we begin to look we see at the middle school level the Grammar and Writing is probably where our biggest um dips were okay so what do we do with this well we have several action steps that have begun and will continue to work on throughout the school year we're going to continue to closely analyze all subgroup and domain analytics um particularly at the middle school and we need to make some adjustments as we deem necessary we do need to look as a district at the instructional time at the secondary level within the humanities classrooms and I know that that is work that is already being um that is already occurring within the district I do want to see us taking strong advantage of our reading literacy skills teachers by maximizing instructional time and cohort compositions we've done a lot of work with that we've had the district support with that and you have kindly reinstated those teachers a few years ago um we need to continue to develop that model at Ela secondary level we want to start a curriculum review it hasn't been done for quite some time so we want to start um looking at that since such wonderful and intense work has been done at the elementary level uh we want to make sure that carries through at the secondary more globally um within the English and sometimes the social studies classroom we want to implement close reading programs like a Lexia power up we have done some PD already on that that's an extension of Lexia Core 5 so where students are struggling our struggling students or tier 2s um will benefit from um some reinforcement of close skills and Lexia PowerUp can provide that um we also need to explore a strong grammar program at the secondary level we will continue to offer professional development for writing at the secondary level uh we did begin PD on our half day um specific to writing we had a presenter come in and work with us on um a specific writing um approach and uh we will continue with that um throughout the year and again we will continue to support the element program implementation thank you to the school committee for all of their support with all of the different pieces of that we will continue to support ekre our enhanced core reading instruction as well as that shift to the science of reading are there any questions I can answer drr do you mind going back one slide while questions are being thank you thank you Dr Kaa no questions I think I see a question thank you remember reinfeld thank you so you've mentioned a couple of these key areas within Ela do do these results these gaps do they match what teachers are kind of reporting outside of the standardized test evaluation because writing is definitely one of those things that you see a lot better in everyday classroom experiences rather than the standardized test model we see with grammar and vocab we do see that within the classroom um as as in the teachers have indicated that that they see some of that deficit as well and that's what the mcast is is showing us the middle school last year we were able to provide the middle school student with a sample of the question they had answered the year previous we were able to to tame that and what I think was the big surprise was that the stamina with the writing didn't seem to be there so I think the teachers were surprised and this is very Global um to just see this is what you wrote you know and and and positive and negative I don't I don't mean that completely negative or this is what you wrote great job but we were able to analyze more deeply what their output was interestingly enough even though writing is lower at the middle school at the high school in that domain we were 10 percentage points above the state so something is Shifting between eight and 10 and that seems to historically be the case something is happening between within between eth Grade from the time they take the mcast in eth grade to the time they take it in 10th grade um with that piece so we need to figure that out a little bit more um and I don't know if I just answered your question but yes grammar and vocab is where we're seeing a deficit um in the classroom as well as on the test I think with the writing it's just more of the output the final product that was um because I know know students approach homework very differently than they approach or an in-class exercises very differently than they approach yeah test with writing we often do a lot with scaffolding graphic organizers generate ating ideas and and it's a process to put the final product together um including editing and so we just need to dig a Little Deeper to see how we can translate that better in the classroom because we know the skills are there um but it's just not being as presented yeah I just want to understand how good an indicator this particular test is on these really important skills thank you thank you thank you thank you we can continue the presentation or is that it no two more to go that's what I thought thank you um fisa will'll present math the math of results thank you thank you Dr gusi Dr Vincent and um school committee members good evening um so as Dr Kaza mentioned the first slide is um it's about the Statewide math mcast proficiency uh when we are looking at the scores we see that um as compared to the 2023 results uh the the meth mcast for grades three through eight remained the same and in grade 10 um the state reported a decrease of about two percentage points um and as Dr kza mentioned and Dr gusi before that this is the Statewide picture so if we move on to the next slide um here we see the Medford numbers um I am am seeing uh I saw um slight improvements in certain grades I saw that grade three grade six and grade eight um improved and grade 10 um stayed at pretty much the same level um as the the the state um and when we move on to um actually 20 I'm sorry 23 and 24 if we go one slide back Dr kosing I apologize thank you grade 10 stayed at the same level as um 2023 actually and um now we can move to the next slide thank you so here is uh the SGP uh for mathematics um I was happy to see that um three schools uh at Brooks fourth grade um Andrews at the sixth grade level and mlin ele Middle School at the e8th grade level reported um SGP of higher than 60 typical growth is between 40 and 60 um I I am looking at one of the schools uh with SGP that is a is lower than um what I was expecting to see or we were expecting to see as a team um but we do have a plan in mind uh for that particular case so if we can move on to the next one making a note that on average all uh Medford schools and all grades fell between 40 and 60 here is the summary for uh mathematics uh in general so the main gains and the glows are um as I mentioned uh three of the grades that different schools showed higher than typical growth that is greater than 60 uh the district's grade 10 uh SGP matched the state's grade 10 SGP which is 49 um and uh last year in 2023 when I looked at um the different clusters and the domains and I did the uh and we looked at the item analysis sheet um there were huge differentials sometimes in certain clusters there was ative 17 we have significantly reduced that to single digits this year and um for the third one District's grade six standards and domain possible points matched very closely with the states um uh possible points and uh grade six uh SGP showed uh overall uh an 11 Point growth so these were the things that um uh that we we are happy uh to report uh what are the opportunities for growth in mathematics um the first thing is uh our grade seven um I when we are looking at the grade seven overall uh scores they are lower uh and when we are looking at digging deeper we are looking at the different domains um geometry is the one that um basically where our students um didn't do as well as um we were hoping and the reason for that is that um these students in grade seven when they took this test uh this mcast um in 23 24 in 22 23 they were in sixth grade and in 21 and 22 they were in fifth grade and when they were in fifth grade geometry was uh covered as the very last um unit uh and that was under our older program and Visions um ever since we have adopted investigation three geometry is now um in in the middle uh and and it's it's constantly spiraling and um hopefully we we will not see um these uh scores um for much too long if at all um the second area of growth uh that we notice is of course um that grade four um in in especially in one particular Elementary School um needs that's where we need to provide educator support and guidance and um the third one is that the equations and expressions domain in 7th 8th and 10th grade um is based off on the arithmetic operations in elementary um standards and domains so in Elementary uh School in elementary mathematics we have three different domains uh where our students on and off um didn't do as well as we were hoping and um those are the number and operations in base 10 number and operations um in fractions and operations and algebraic thinking so operations is very common in all three domains and then it showed up in our seventh eth and 10th grade um also uh the new Elementary program is very strong on this particular domain because it's very Explorations based so when they talk about operations they are not teaching them through worksheet or through the videos but actually teaching it to the students through Explorations so uh again I'm hoping for better results um next year so Dr next thank you so here are our action steps um we have constantly been reviewing our pacing guides and um looking at the available resources at the elementary level all Elementary uh teachers uh have been provided with a pacing guide and I have met with um every single grade level team um through their uh CPT um and I will continue doing that I plan also to work specifically with the new fourth grade team at the elementary school um where it can um benefit from such thing and and and such meetings where they can ask any questions and I'm I'm happy to be um um there for for them so I'm planning to have another touch Point meeting with them in December so that if any questions arise in the middle of the year I I can answer them I can take a look as to if any um other resources that I can provide other than the ones that I have already provided um the second one is that we are looking at the work that needs to be done um especially in the low scoring domains and standards so of course we'll be looking um at our fifth grade um pieces and because that's where uh fractions uh fraction and operations meet together so fourth grade is our big grade on fractions and I feel that if we have shaky foundations then when we try to do the fifth grade um operations on fractions um we we our students face a tougher time so we want to start this work at the fifth fifth grade level we also want to continue discussions with the teachers during department meetings to understand the challenges with particular domain especially at the middle school and um and also at the high school but definitely at the middle school because that's where we get our fifth grade students is at the sixth seventh and eighth grade level um we want to learn more about the available resources and we want to make sure um you know we provide as much support to the students as well not just the Educators that can be done through the Saturday Academy and through the extended day um uh teaching we also want to we have been offering fourth and eighth grade SD maath intervention and extension platforms um teachers have been um provided um resources in terms of uh illustrative mathematics tasks to uh provide extensions for the students who um can use them uh we have also been reviewing map data with the teachers on the particular domains specifically to identify which students and where um the support is needed um within the classrooms teachers can provide that support um and then we want to plan professional development to extend the knowledge of our Veteran Elementary teachers and train the new teachers on the pedagogy of the investigations program um I I came uh to the school committee uh two years ago and um we ran the the pilot one year and then we uh adopted investigations um but we have um hired um a big pool of elementary teachers and we want to be sure that they are on board with this pedagogy of you know of of more of Explorations and more of and less of um worksheet based uh um student learning and uh we definitely want to work on the subgroup data in and um we are looking at the instructional Vision uh and we want to make sure that we give our students um high quality instruction but again uh it has to be with um proper scaffolding um and and we want to make sure that uh all our uh grade levels uh continue to get the deeply engaging instructional um instructions and um that's the curriculum we have been investing in the one that um prior PRI izes and emphasizes on um Hands-On approach and and just and on student engagement um um pedagogy so thank you and happy to answer any questions thank you remember reinfeld no you're shocked it was me um should we be expecting to see some similar Wiggles with the new integrated math that's coming up I was you answered my question about is this because we switched curricula at the elementary level should we be expecting this middle and high school as well in a couple years I am I'm hoping so uh member reinfeld uh in my conversations with the teachers uh they do believe that integrated math 2 is more rigorous uh but it also brings um a spiral perspective uh and that it doesn't um leave much room for students to only be algebra oriented or only be geometry oriented in any particular year so I'm hoping to see those um uh that that progress and I know that uh this year we don't have geometry we only have algebra too so only within next couple of years we'll know uh better but uh in conversations with the teachers and with their unit tests they are reporting um stronger results with integrated uh curriculum so we don't think things are going to dip back dip down the way they did in some of these areas here or is that just we can't predict that yet it's it's difficult to predict I mean I haven't I haven't spoken with a single teacher who is not hopeful about integrated math let's put it this way everybody is liking it so far nobody has said we want to go back to algebra geometry algebra uh they feel it's uh the right way to go and um and and and so I mean we have as I said the classroom assignments and classroom assessments are indicating that we will have stronger results so I'm I'm hoping that and and our and our map scores have been um pretty good when it comes to growth so the map scores and the mcast scores are matching up in terms of which areas are strong and that's right that's right in fact uh the map uh assessment showed um some great growth in mathematics all starting from you know grade one all the way to grade 10 and I was very pleased to see that so I'm hoping that it'll translate into our mcast U assessments uh as well um and and that's that's what we can do but we we'll continue to collaborate during department meetings and compare and contrast and see where we can actually improve and if there are you know like for example our Saturday Academy teachers collaborated with all of the integrated one and integrated 2 colleagues to see where are they seeing the gaps for during math assessments and that's when that's how they catered their Saturday Academy teaching too so I feel like we are moving in the right direction and I'm hoping to see good results okay and then as we look as we think about Staffing for future budget Cycles I know when we targeted certain literacy skills we prioritized literacy specialists or and I know there was a period in MPS history when there were some math specialists in the schools is that something that we're looking at what you described sounds like the structures around Team Planning and scheduling with the trainings we're covering it with the existing staff and the teachers but is this something we should be thinking about as we look ahead I think um I I I I do believe that having um math coaches or math interventionists uh will be beneficial um and and I I mean if that's something that's a possibility I would love to advocate for it yes um remember reinfeld that's her dream I'm trying to be conservative with with my thoughts here but yes Dr galui knows it I think I'm going there on a weekly basis or if not not at least a monthly basee um so yes I would love to get math coaches um at least reinstated if our budget allows that I think it's very beneficial for the teachers to be able to go to someone um you know I I am readily available but somebody who can mentor them and somebody who can demonstrate and model lessons for them but we are not desperately suffering without them in this mean these scores seem to support that we are making the progress yes I yes yes all the things we could do with bigger budgets all right thank you of course thank you okay one one more section and um director sieri will discuss the science results districtwide good evening everyone I hope you can hear me um uh as the other two presentations began with the Statewide data uh we can see that in science the Statewide data uh showed that at grades five and 10 uh there were increases by three percentage points at grade five and uh two percentage points at grade at the high school in grade 910 um however they decreased in grade eight so this is again Statewide data um and we'll look a little more deeply at our uh our own uh data in a moment one thing I do uh want to highlight is the fact that Medford participated in the pilot uh the state selected which communities would participate I believe there were um if I recall correctly it was about 10,000 students that participated in the science pilot and it was at grade five and grade 8 the pilot exam included a two-day uh typical exam however day one it included the traditional nextg exam questions and on day two the students were exposed to the pilot questions these are called performance tasks or Innovative questions uh is how they're termed um on the next slide if we move ahead you can see a sampling of the two versions of the uh questions on the left you can see the more traditional uh NextGen mcast questions where you can select in a box they give you a reading um you can see um a food web there um there's a cycle uh a decomposition and then you're allowed to choose your um your response uh in a in an open BL block the performance task or the Innovative question the one in color in the lower right that enti um blocked off area includes a a space where there are a couple of you can see three tabs where the students have to click uh each tab to um see different locations and then they have this simulation uh tab where they perform Sim simulations experiments digital experiments and collect data and once they do the once they perform that experiment they're asked a series of questions that go along with that uh question so the the the two question types are quite different um but I did want to highlight that that the exam that the students took last year in grades five and grade eight have these two different types of question formats um one on the first day the the next gen mcast and one on the second we can click on to the next slide um keeping that in mind I just uh car carried through the three-year data um for uh the for the uh State and for for Medford um and you can see that at grade five uh the students are they're about four percentage points below the state um for uh for this year um so I would also keep in mind that the current test questions were half the number of questions that could be used to uh compare the groups um to to get the student scores and then the same at grade eight at grade eight you can see that we are uh eight points below the state um and the state also performed a little a little worse this this past year um at grade nine or the majority of students that take the grade N9 10 high school competency test is in one subject in biology and um right now we um we were two percentage points above the state for this year's test um in the past we've been slightly below or almost even with them um we can click the next slide um so in science I believe that the students performed well at the high school level um we're using a storyline curriculum that uh spirals the content um consistently throughout the year so that things that generally you would think of as beginning of the school year topics uh recur in subsequent units um and we've been doing that for the past two years it is a really engaging curriculum but it also um allows students to keep um all of the standards and the types of um content that's expected on a on a mcass exam to always remain fresh the standards that are used um in grade five we noticed that students have broaden knowledge base in the domain in all the domains um there wasn't any one pocket of content or do or subject area that demonstrated um a weakness so that's good it tells us that the fast curriculum is um certainly covering all the domains of Science in a sufficient way and um at the misuk in particular um I think the the grades warrant attention not for uh negative but for positive they have had gains I believe 19 percentage points over the last three years um and so uh that's really something pretty remarkable to see um these are different cohorts of students and yet the progress continues and so that's that's a really nice um story to tell um and areas for growth um for for science are in particular in grade 8 did show as a cohort some weaknesses in test as you saw in the previous slide um these are the current grade n students at uh Medford High School so we'll need to make sure that there are supports um in place to make sure that the students make progress in biology so that their outcome their outcomes on the mcast are strong um and give them a shot at uh making sure that they reach their competency determination this year so that's something that we're looking at uh in the immediate term through department meetings conversation um you know when I when I speak with the with the teachers that are uh running the nth grade class and then uh potentially as we look forward to uh some of the additional um class opportunities that uh are possible with extended time we we would uh we would try to leverage it for helping those students out um some of the challenges uh that scheduling present at elementary schools points to a greater focus on making sure that our uh instructional time for science is maximized um we definitely have worked with f uh a lot and I believe that it's a strong program what we have not done is we've been very broad with the scope um uh to identify the sort of the the the units of instruction in a particular part of the year but we haven't very well narrowed down to key lessons that must be covered um at particular time points in a in a sequential fashion so I think a lot of our work should probably center around that um in the next year uh year to year and a half so that we can sort of make it much more uh predictable for the teachers and supportive of uh Improvement um and also we'll look at potential program changes at Middle School because at this point we're looking at stagnant growth I believe um and so one of the areas that I think could uh use a refresh at this point uh at least we're going to look at what we have and potentially what is available at middle school so that we can uh begin to ponder some changes there uh for curriculum so those are the the where we see some strengths and then some areas for grow growth for us in science based on mcast tests um can we move on to the next slide okay I think no actually Dr pushing questions yeah sorry go back one slide in case one slide sorry there you go perfect and if anyone has any questions I'll be happy to take them I did see member Russo's hand I don't know if his question was already answered it was thank you thank you to all the presenters oh there there's one more section if that's okay but I'm going to I can cover it very briefly if there's no science questions no science questions go go go to it thank you okay I just I just think it's important I'll go very um quickly but the next slide please Dr Cushing I think it's very important to just highlight some subgroup data and just some overall Trends in some of the things that we have found and that you may have heard in the presentations from the curriculum directors so our subgroup data I think it's just important to note that the Department of Education um reports around 11 subgroups they are listed here and that there needs to be at least 20 students within that subgroup for us to have results reported um in terms of tracking subgroup growth and achievement rates overall we saw Improvement in nearly all of the subgroups there are some dependent on the grade and dependent on the content um there are some areas in which we're digging a little bit deeper into um not just specifically with the content and the curriculum directors but also with our um data analyst uh Kim miles in how we're reporting and how um we're categorizing some of the subgroup data um at this time through the registration process um some of the subgroup data is self reported and so we're also just really looking into how that factors into some of our subgroup data but all in all in grades three through eight subgroups remained statistically about the same or they met in some cases achieved um or exceeded achievement targets and they showed a range of low to high typical growth and high school students actually met or exceeded achievement Targets in nearly all subgroups with high growth um gains overall and so we do acknowledge that I think the overall as you heard in most of the presentations is that our story is growth um Meer Public Schools showed a lot of growth in all areas but we do have some work to do when we're looking at achievement and closing some of those gaps and so we recognize that we're very happy to see that our students are learning because the growth is there but we are doing the work to continue to disaggregate the data and look at the instructional decisions and moves that need to be made to ensure that interventions and instru instructional approaches are put in place um next slide please and so I think it's also very important to kind of highlight some of the work globally that we also have been doing around the professional development um especially for some of the subgroup data um that continued focus on instructional priorities and culturally responsive practices really factor in as well to ensuring the the growth and achievement of our students um I also want to Target and if you don't mind I'm going to have you advance to the next slide while I talk through some of those interven that we've put in place we saw tremendous um growth around so last year in an effort to meet student needs instructionally and as well as the high stakes mcast standard for graduation the high school had a Saturday Academy as um principal cabal mentioned there were two parts of that Saturday academy one focused on regaining um for mcast and one was on um just uh course course uh um credit credit and so for the mcast in particular four out of the 18 I think it's important to note that four out of the 18 students that participated in the ELA program partially or fully met the expectations in terms of the mcast so we saw that direct correlation to the work they did throughout the school year and how they did on mcast and so overall the students that attended that Saturday program increased 17 points from their grade 8 mcast Ela to their grade 10 respectfully for the math we saw 18 out of 21 students partially or meet expectations and overall they increased from two points from eighth grade to their 10th grade and uh Mr Siri already spoke about the science piece but there was a program for after school support in which 16 students were offered and 12 of the 16 passed um the biology test the second time around and so a lot of this work we want to see not only continue as it will at the high school level but also how we're going to implement program and targeted assistance like this at our Middle School level and Elementary but we're definitely looking to it won't be Saturday but it will be an extended day program at the middle school level and so we're going to begin the curriculum directors and the principles and I are going to begin creating that so that our students at the middle school level um have the additional opportunity to work on um closing some of that achievement I also want to say that also targeted to this that you may have heard especially at the elementary and the middle school is that overall piece around time and schedule and so one of the things that we are looking at is that we do there's limited time right now reflected in the Elementary schedule as well as the middle school schedule and I think we are also taking a little bit of a deeper look at how we can work within the constraints of the existing schedule but also what are the opportunities that we can Dr kushen you can take the slide presentation down um how we can work within the constraints of the schedule but also maybe how can we look and vet the current existing schedules to allow our students a little bit more instructional time at both the elementary and the Middle School levels and happy to answer any um Broad overarching questions Dr gy just remind us um what funding was used for the Saturday tutoring and it was it was a a collaboration of funding sources and so some of it came out of the title two um every student succeeds act Federal funding that we have um as well as some of the funding that is given um through the city's operating budget and allotted to the high school principle thank you member reinfeld has your hand up oh I miss that hold on a second thank you reld thank you um so I remember you saying a few meetings ago that the reason people didn't pass was because they didn't show up it was mostly an attendance issue rather than instruction issue and on the Saturday and after school those four and forget if it was four or three in the other one yes if additional remediation services are needed is that interfering with people's ability to take elective classes you me you alluded to the high school schedule and the middle the constraints within the schedule to how does this affect people's ability to take it it doesn't and and just CL districts where the students who need mcast support get pulled out of some of the other classes that are really essential to being wanting to be in school so currently um principal cabal created the Saturday Academy because we don't have a block of time within the high school schedule to provide interventions or to what you're speaking of so it did the Saturday Academy kind of did become based on that but this rest the constraints that I was speaking about a little bit right now we not the high school level it's the three through eight levels exactly I mean because I know we have this challenge in elementary school of like my my kid misses art in order to do stre but sometimes she misses recess in science and I didn't ask Dr Siri like we we need more targeted science but do we also need more time for science as well so trying to understand what's fighting with what to gu the educ I would not want to hear about the science part being interrupted by strings but I do know that other specialist classes in in a morning meeting absolutely students sometimes have to choose um between the enrichment activity of strings or band um and another specialist class or morning meeting it should not be at the expense of content but even if all the stars align um it's it is very science and social studies definitely wind up taking somewhat of a backseat um to literacy and math and when you think of Elementary schools as being the foundation um even fisa spoke about those skills that are needed at the fourth and fifth grade level to build off what's coming in Middle School um that's the same for all content that's the same for reading skills that's the same for science skills and so it does somewhat become uh a vicious cycle and then it leads into Middle School where the academic blocks are very small and so we're going to start to at what does that maybe look like where the academic the daily academic block um is is tight to fit in all the instructional priorities that are probably needed in a daily lesson thank you for laying that out we have thank you for the presentation everybody than you next up we have continued business because there's no presentations of the public we have policy a cgb Title Nine sexual discrimination grievance procedure me for public schools is committed to maintaining School environments free of sexual discrimination sexual discrimination in any form or for any reason is prohibited this includ sexual discrimination by administrators Personnel students vendors and other individuals in school at school related events member Graham uh motion to wave the reading second motion to wave the reading by member Graham seconded by member reinfeld roll call please amember brandley yes member Graham yes remember in to yes remember Ola yes remember reinfeld yes remember so yes mayor lungo K yes seven in the affirmative zero in the negative the um motion is passed to way the reading I'll make a motion to approve the policy I don't if anybody else wants to speak on it I'll second it approve by member Uso seconded by member branley please member brandley yes member gram yes member andapa yes yes remember reinfeld remember Rell yes L go yes s the affirmative negative the policy has been approved to P 21 offered by member Graham 0224 d39 be it resolve that the administration will present a report on the state and condition of the bathrooms of Medford High School be further resolve that report will include recommendations to improve conditions in the bathrooms and increase the number of a available bathrooms during all parts of the school day we had also resolved that the report will be delivered to the school committee at our December 2nd 2024 meeting there a motion on the floor can I just um add some context um a parent uh a parent reached out to me about this recent somewhat recently and um I thought there might even be some students on who wanted to speak this evening but I'm not seeing them um but my my goal here is to say that the situation with the bathrooms at Medford High is untenable like we have students who don't go to the bathroom all day long who don't drink anything during the school day and it's because they have to like wander the Halls to find an open bathroom my own daughter says the same thing um and I I get that there is like a need for us to have some balance between everything open all the time and some way to like properly supervise these spaces but what we're doing right now is not it like this is we haven't arrived at like a balance we have arrived at students having to like wander the Halls to figure out where the bathroom is and every time we talk about this I really hope it's like the last time we ever talk about it because I don't want to talk about the bathrooms but it it just like we never seem to actually make any progress so I am asking the administration to bring forward a proposal of like tell us what you need in order to improve this situation and what will an improved situation look like under some new plan so I am asking the administration to to come back with a report um but I would hope that they will start with saying what are the problems as all of our like constituents in this like picture see the problems and like how are we going to fix all of those problems like I you know there are real constraints from a staffing perspective do we need more staff if we need more staff what kind of Staff do we need and how much will that cost us now is the time for us to be having these conversations um because a budget season is coming quickly um but we may also have an infusion of um funding to be talking about very very shortly here which I'm hopeful for um but I want to hear from the administration what is the like what is the totality of the problems at that sort of get in the way of everybody feeling bad about the bathroom situation and like what could make it better like what could we do to make the situation better um and what would that take so I'm really asking for somebody to like sort of Step Back From like where they are today um and figure out like how do we how do we move past this conversation because every time we talk about it we talk about it as if we have like done something different that's going to like move us past the conversation and that's just simply not happened um my daughter was telling me just the other day she's like oh yeah there's like no schedule everyone says there's a schedule but there's no schedule and so you just wander the Halls until you find a bathroom that you need and they're gross and they're lots of kids inside vaping and so for all the supervision we're still having all of those problems like something has to change in this conversation um it's a real like climate and culture issue in my opinion for the high school students they don't want to go to a school where they don't want to use the bathroom because they're gross like I don't know it's just like it's all got to change somehow um and I don't know what the changes are I don't know what those things might be but I am asking for us to actually like dig in and come up with something that is a solution rather than just um sort of shrugging and continuing to do the same things we've always done that don't work so thank you that's the Genesis of this resolution thank you member Graham and before I turn it over to member brandley if I just could um ask for a friendly amendment I know in 2019 the city council approved 250,000 for improvements to the bathrooms and I'm not sure any of that money um how it was spent or if it was spent at all I thought it was going to be complete Rena of multiple bathrooms and I'm not sure that was done so maybe we could add that to the report for December 2nd member brandley hi so um I agree that the bathroom situation is not ideal um I don't believe that it is as horrible as it is portrayed by some um this is the schedule that was taken off of oh hold on where am I off the door today this is the schedule um and if the staff that are actually on the ground at the high school could correct me if I'm wrong that this is on the doors at the high school on the bathrooms so you have availability of all of these bathrooms all day long um is it great no it's not great we also have I think too many bathrooms um and I think in a new high school we wouldn't have as many bathrooms also I know that that's not the situation now um I reached out to nursing staff at meford high security at meford high custodians at meford high teachers at the high school and at the vog and I also reached out to staff over at Seville High School um and these are the things that I heard more bathrooms equal more hangout spots not supervised at all times because there's just not enough people bathrooms that are open aren't enough but who's going to man them we're already spread thin all bathrooms during lunch are locked besides the calf bathrooms but it's only a 30second walk I was told bathroom schedule is always posted B Anda buildings probably have the biggest inconvenience during lunchtime not any other time bathrooms are in better shape overall this year kids do do clog the toilets can't have them open all the time everywhere because there's just not enough staff to secure them graffiti this year has been minimal Vape detectors were pulled down the majority of them um within the first couple of days I don't know if they've been fixed uh main office for students the bathroom is always available um General gender neutral bathrooms third floor SE building um always open open all day based on this schedule and B based on what I was told um third floor and lunch ones need monitoring everybody's doing the best that they can and these are quotes from staff that are there every single day nurse bathroom is for emergencies it is available but obviously students with fibo plans and medical plans um access they are the priority um four sets of bathrooms open ABC voke that was a suggestion by someone um full full-time monitors sign kids in that's not realistic really you know ideal yes in an ideal world that's great but that's probably not realistic um the current situation does need Improvement but opening every bathroom would never work so I just wanted to give my feedback of everybody that I spoke to like I said nursing staff security staff custodians teachers at both the high school and the vog and I spoke to some ofil high school today here we are a high school right that went through what we hope to go through an old high school that had too many spots to a new high school that has a little bit more tailored to the needs um and there's a lot of single stall bathrooms at the new Somerville High School um there're still monitors in those bathrooms um so yes things need to get better but in asking students even that I know I'm like do you know what bathroom to go to they're like oh yeah it's posted okay and could even name them to me off the top of their head so um do we need to do better yes I would never I would never say that we're at 100% but I definitely think that for safety concerns top of the priority um the bathrooms that are open are what we can manage and still that's not 100% so if we open if we have six sets of bathrooms open or three sets of bathrooms open or 12 sets of bathrooms open does it really allow that many more students to use the toilet or does it allow that many more students to hang out this is my concern also so that's my two cents um I look forward to the report I'm happy to know that there is some money hopefully somewhere that we can help do some Renovations I know that there was some Renovations done to bathrooms and the conditions in the bathrooms themselves are a little better but it is not lost on me that I'm going to my reunion this year of 30 years in those of the bathrooms I used used so that's not lost on me it's gross um but some of that is going to have to be what we look forward to for a new mefford high what we're envisioning so what we're doing now I think we're doing the best of our ability and I just want to thank everybody who takes the time during the day to check those bathrooms to send kids back to their classrooms the custodians who are cleaning up the bathrooms the security monitors who are sending kids back to class um the nursing staff who is trying to accommodate everybody on 50 504 plans um and anybody else that needs needs the bathroom so um a big shout out to everybody that's doing the work on the ground there so thanks you member brandley member okay I think that's it is there a motion on the floor motion to approve to approve by member R second by member Graham all um roll call vote please am brandley yes member Graham yes member and to yes remember Ola yes member reinfeld yes member say yes mayor lungo yes seven in the affirmative zero in the negative motion passes 2024 D40 offered by myself mayor long Kern Consolidated language for diversity equity and inclusion Dei support whereas the city's Dei director and Ada coordinator is supporting School Ada Dei crisis management HR and training needs by being a resource to the school ad Administration team be it resolved that the Dei director will continue to be a resource to the school department including but not limiting to the following in the Dei Ada realm attendance app parent meetings during challenging Transitions and examples of principal changeovers interview panel and question design professional development d consult consultation with external Trainers for program design presentation and support Andor direct training by Dei director Ada coordinator assist with professional employment discipline cases involving CI civil rights allegations civil rights complaints immediation example employee to employee parent to MPS in consultation to the administration administrative team on all civil rights related matters support required training and need after successful conversations with respective collective bargaining unit um presidents support HRS needed consultation regarding Ada FMLA crossover review and guidance of external correspondence when addressing hate related Imaging found on school property and resource sharing new laws amendments to laws case settlements from EEOC and navigational support with HR Recruitment and talent acquisition sharing of viable candidates from Cityside and training support webinars formal sessions Etc other related items as identified by the administrative team thank you for allowing me to read that um I just to further point out I meet with um our city Dei director quite frequently and over the last especially several months if not um close to a year um the conversation is about obviously City departments but it's a lot about the school department and all the support she's providing to the school um Francis waj and I put this resolution together to highlight that for the committee because especially over the last like I said several months it's more and more um about the support that our Dei director is giving to the schools and I felt that the school committee should not only be aware but vote for this um to continue and obviously compensate accordingly so it ask for a um support of the motion and so that the continued relationship and collaboration and um work that Miss W is doing for our schools as well as of course our city um continues as I'm very happy that she's able to support our superintendent HR and other departments so ask ask your support member reinfeld yeah so I'm looking at this list and I'm incredibly grateful that we are getting that kind of support I'm also a little concerned if we need all the support putting that on someone in the city who already has quite a full-time job I could see this all being a part of that um so I think coordination is great but it feels like maybe we need some more of the support built into the the school structures I'll yield the floor to member Ola thank you member ryanfeld member ola thank you and I I would happen to agreee with member reinfeld I think that though I'm incredibly excited um and happy to hear that um director Wan J has been able to support the schools thus far and will continue to do so um I think in her role I do think that this sounds like potential expansion from her role currently with the city um and it might be possible that we can consider how to build that into the current structure of the the the school system um and not rely on her so heavily um I understand that her role is incredibly important already with the city side so is it possible that we can have some of these things built into this um the the school Charter for example so um you know thank you to her and I want to be able to communicate with her a little bit more about what she's been doing kind of her perspective on this as well I think would be productive so um I will I'll let uh member Graham as well say some say a few words if she has any member Graham then member brandley yeah I guess um some of these things that are frankly I'm really happy that Francis has supported us because we've just simply not been staffed to be able to do some of these things ourselves um but we have made some investments in um the HR team in particular and I think we should be looking at what is the right thing for um for the district um for a district of our size to have 800 employees um having this capab is I think important for the district um I think the lines get very blurry when things um go over to the city um so for example if something comes to francis's desk and then it requires some sort of appeal does it go to the mayor or does it go to the superintendent because the mayor doesn't have the authority over the schools that the superintendent does um and I just think when I look at this list there's certain pieces of this list that I frankly would expect the administration to be able to handle without needing francis's support and I think there's other stuff that um the team probably needs training on to do well but I don't think the answer is um personally continuing to to sort of rely on whatever you know sort of slice of francis's time she can provide so um I'm not super in favor of this and it's not because I'm not grateful but I I think actually the thing I would want for to do is train our own staff so that we have this capability um within our schools in a way that um allows the people who spend the most time in the schools to be able to like do this work that's relative and and specific to the schools so um I have some real reservations about this I also feel like we sort of are heading down a slippery slope of shared services which was not the intention when at least for me when we um decided to like accept that statute and share um some resource on the facility side um and you did you did mention some sort of stien but this doesn't say what that is or who pays for that so I have a lot of questions I'm not particularly in favor of this as written but um I will uh defer to my colleagues who might have other thoughts member branley yes so just to piggyback with remember Graham just said I think that I did hear you say compensation at one point so I'm just curious how that would work between you know our school budget and the city budget um I have to give three shouts out to Francis because I think she's one of the most loveliest human beings ever um I can't help but hug her every time I see her she makes me really really happy I love her energy her messaging um the way she brings our community together I think she is a star um but I do worry that we're going to blur that line and then if we blur the line you know I we school I we a we City it just makes me a little nervous um I do love the sentiment like me Graham said I do think there's some things here that are staff definitely should be able to handle um you know I would love to clone Francis just for my own personal life to be honest um but but yeah I think um I think we just have to really walk the line here so I just I think that that just has to really be um on the Forefront so thanks member rouso thank you I also since we're having a Love Fest love Francis too um I guess my one one of my concerns although the appeal question actually is one I had not thought of that M Graham brought up that jumps out at me as something quite important to understand and have a plan for um but the other thing though is um you know what I don't know is is Francis up to date on all furpa and all the educational privacy laws that are irrelevant to the city Side um and um so and access to student information and um at Personnel stuff too but I think that this would sort of put a a bow on giving her access to Personnel information I do wonder about access to student information and um and I don't I don't know the legal the stuff that allow you know what what the laws are that give for instance all of our staff access to student information but for instance school committee members do not have access to that the mayor doesn't have access to that um and nobody in City Hall has access to student information so how we would consider that aspect of student privacy um I think has to be a part of the conversation um and you know being on the other side of the wall of student information as a school Committee Member the answer is you get none um I'm very unaware of how that is managed within the school system already to make sure that only the right people have access to to student information so that that is a concern I have as well um so that's all I want to say thank you member and tapa I mean I also just wanted to share my love for direct and a like they're Francis is phenomenal um but also um I guess it's a question for you mayor so we heard concerns about um this being a huge undertaking and using this to train our Administration as well wouldn't we have to vote Yes on this anyways to give her to be able to allow her to train School members or in any way like would we have to allow um consolidation language for Dei support regardless to enact that or to um give her some of those those resources to train staff and to make that happen if she's willing to add to this list I'm sure she is willing and I know she's lent her expertise is trying to help especially HR as much as she can um but if she completely ceases doing this work other than the Ada work there's going to be a huge huge gap in our school department I don't know if the superintendent or any of the administration wants to speak speak on this um one suggestion is if anybody wants to add anything that's fine if you want to make it temporary or review it within six months um but there's support that um Francis has given on a daily basis that frankly um the schools need she has Decades of experience and I don't think we I don't think the city's ever had that I'm not sure if the school has has ever had somebody with 30 years experience like this is like moving the district along and helping however she can so I have no doubt that wasn't I'm sorry that wasn't the point of my question that was just a hypothetical just like a question of if if if if that route were to be explored where it was just a support and like a training Factor if we were needed to take that vote anyways um that was just my my question but no I completely understand and I can only imagine um but it sounds like superintendent Edward Vincent has some pointer so or memola I'm not sure I'm not shair um but I yield my time thanks U let Dr Edward Vinson speak and then member elati um point of personal privilege I just want to say mayor that I support um 1,00% um this resolution that has gone forward um the amount of work and support that director noaj extends to the school department is clearly articulated in these bullets and Beyond and I understand there's a lot of um discussion back and forth but the capacity right now does not exist in the Medford Public Schools and it would truly be a significant Gap and um in order to be able to properly address Ada concerns and Dei concerns that exist within the Medford Public Schools you do need someone with experience and so I as a point of personal privilege am saying that I support this resolution I understand the committee takes their own vote but I am living in the Medford Public Schools in real time and the support is needed seriously needed thank you thank you Dr Edward Vincent member of La part thank you um so taking all all the members um and points of privilege and and consideration I think it may be beneficial to kind of have another conversation about this speak to the director as well see from her perspective um so we can hear her understanding about how this will impact both her time with the city side and the time with the school district um I may suggest that we make a motion or I make a motion um that resolution 20 24-40 be sent to the diversity Equity inclusion subcommittee just so there's a little further review from us and um some more consideration um from the director um and then we may reconvene for the full committee I would say I think we have a meeting on the 16th of December so just give us about a month and some change just a committee a sub committee meeting um to further discuss I think a subcommittee meeting is great I would just ask for support on the resolution to continue this work to tomorrow because like the superintendent said um this list is is extensive and the work she's doing in the schools cannot be ignored and it it it will like I'll say it again it's it's a huge gap um we're in we're in meetings talking about school raises constantly and you know what we do on the city side is 2% for non-union so I'm kind of a little I I struggle with um Cityside employees non-union taking on the workload extra work workloads in general but especially when I ask for a list and it's this extensive after hearing repeated day after day week after week on all that um this one department head is doing for the schools I think it's necessary to um compensate her for such and I think it's completely fine to have a have a subcommittee meeting and discuss it at our next December 16th um Regular meeting but that that's a month away and I think that's going to create a huge gap for the for the city I just this is an individual working very hard um to help the schools and the message it would send um to not move this forward tonight even if it's just on a temporary basis or with a month two three six month review I I would respectfully ask my colleagues to um try do both at the same time member Rell the member in tapa thank you um I guess I I'm not particularly enjoying the UN not Veiled Threat that tomorrow the work stops if we don't pass this um because that's what it is um I would just say we've never authorized this work in the first place so we put the cart before the horse here um and that wasn't my decision and so as a Committee Member I'm going to second the motion to send it to subcommittee and not support this until we've had a chance to actually discuss it thank you member and tapa before I call the rooll I was just gonna make another amendment to um allow the temporary work until January 1 um alongside sending its committee but um that's dependent on if you want to take the amendment or not not but just to revisit it if if it's as dire as you're saying and I I or the same you know if this is unauthorized work you know I don't I don't I can't my head around that right now but um if this is work that needs to be DIY done and needs to make ensure that our families are getting the needs that they need then I would be comfortable authorizing temporarily to be Revisited on January 1 after findings from the sub committee that's the i i motion to amend that original motion okay motion to send this to subcommittee as by member ol amended by member inapa to allow the work through January 1 which I'm assuming will figure out by December 16th at our committee meeting anyway so thank you is there a on that motion do you mean are you trying to suggest that we skip voting on the amendment before we vote on the motion would you like to sever the paper I mean there's been an amendment offered we vote on an amendment that's how supposed to work is there a second on the amendment I have a question before rinf yeah so the amendment is to allow the work is all every single bullet bullet point here is work that is already happening that's correct that was not other necessarily authorized by me too it's just how it's it's happened I think when somebody has a knowledge base and is lending support it's just so this is work that's happening uncompensated or as part of the this is part of the current position Dr Edward Vincent this is work all all currently taking place as far as I'm aware this work is currently taking place and it's inclusive of last year as well in different capacities she's overseeing all ADA accommodations for the district and supporting the district with um Dei concerns districtwide um all units um supports us with interviews supports HR supports the office of the superintendent supports us with um building and ground grounds concerns uh this tremendous support that has been offered to the schools um and these bullets detail um detail the work that has uh been offered to the school she supported the district new teacher orientation Dei training um whenever she's called upon she supports the district in any capacity that she can [Music] remember Graham still unclear what this stien is that we're tacitly approving and who is paying for it with the building and grounds um consolidation there is a small $7,500 stien um that HR EV you know did through evaluations and the school district is paying for that so we're not talking large amounts amount of money but just a stien to compensate for all the work and hours that I put into this an annual and that's an annual stipend that that was building and grounds that's annual yes that's not what we're talking about here but we did not approve to pay for that stien so I just just want to point that out as we go forward if we're going to do these things I think we need to be really clear about who's paying like my understanding was that a stien would be paid but I was under the impression the city was going to pay for that and so now that's coming to our budget which means this committee should be approving it and deciding on what's appropriate so I I do think we have to get a little bit more precise I just when I look at this list I understand that these are all things that have happened but I just have some real questions about why our Central Administration can't handle some of these things without francis's support so I understand it's like lovely and amazing to have somebody who you can call to to provide input and support I have colleagues like that all that that I rely on in that same way um but that's to me different than saying this is fr part of francis's set of responsibilities um what's not on here is any transition that would actually put the schools in a position to be able to do some of these things for themselves um particularly around ADA accommodations I don't know how many there are on an annual basis but our HR team should be able to do this um an HR department of 800 employees should be able to do this and I understand that that requires some specific training and we don't have that so I I am in I'm fine with some of this stuff happening temporarily but that's not what this says which is why I am in favor of sending it to subcommittee so that we can ask our HR people and Francis to get in a room and talk about like what is best for Medford Public Schools um and I would really prefer to hear from them about it than like this group of people who's not involved in that work to to sort of decide that so um I I just I have some so I still I know what I now know what we're paying Paul riy for his support um but still don't think I know what the proposed typen is here and if we are making a budget expenditure we need to know what that is and I to be honest would have asked HR from this past I'd asked both HR departments to evaluate that and see if it's the same as facilities maintenance or if it should be more or less I don't I don't have that that answer I would assume it be similar but I don't have that answer I'm not in HR to do the proper evaluations I think that's part of what I'd love to hear a subcommittee discuss I mean I can I can do the math and say all right if it we're if we're looking at 7500 for a year and we're talking about a temporary acknowledgement and compensation for this work if we divide by 12 multiply by two months for November and December that puts us at 1250 which I think was member in toas to accept this through the end of the year at which point the subcommittee will have assessed and spoken with HR City Schools to really figure out what is what is the best use of for instance's time what is the best use what is the capacity within Medford Public Schools I really do think a lot of this capacity it it's has to be in the schools that diversity Equity inclusion permeates everything we do and it's got to be built in it's got to be part of the fabric of who we are and what we do and multiple people thinking of it not just one person from the outside that's that's not the authentic work and I think Francis does fantastic ftic work I want to be really clear about that and I really appreciate it I had no idea she was providing this support to the schools and I'm incredibly grateful um and I I don't want to I don't want our students to suffer for this not this these supports not being in place but I also think having one person do this work is not sustainable long term and so I support some acknowledgement of the temporary work but not fully jumping on this model as written in perpetuity I completely agree with you I think because Francis knows and it's called upon to help um she's going to help however she you can see it all that she's done is in that list or and I'm sure it's even lengthier than that um I do not want her to burn out doing all this work for Medford Public Schools we need her too much we as a city I don't want to lose her either so um member Russo yes um I would certainly second the motion to approve this through December 31st of 2024 and there's no reason we can't just do this with um $7,500 annualized through that time um but whatever the what was the number well I mean honestly we should just start with July 1 so I mean I that's my recommendation is um so 3,7 yep 37 um through the December 31 date and um if that's okay with member in TOA to amend that and then say that one more time member Russo sure so the motion I'm making is to approve 202 24-40 uh through the end of dece through December 31st 2024 um with a compensation of 3750 for July 1 to December 31 so 7 7500 but only for that short time yes that's that's great thank you remember inapa I was just going to say that I accept the amendment to the amendment of including the language of July 1 through December 31 thank you I think this is just a different motion actually but whatever oh all right and just so I'm clear is that um retro then yeah sure for the fisc fiscal year 20125 year 2025 July one the first half of fiscal year 2025 okay and then the subcommittee will meet to discuss and meet with director waj and we can take it up at our December 16th meeting with potentially amended language time frames things like that whatever the committee decides the entire committee decides okay sounds great motion for approval by I don't can I read it one more time mayor the whole thing uh motion is to approve 20244 to temporarily authorize the work of the city Dei director through December 31st 2024 for um at $3,750 and um for work uh spanning July 1 2024 through December 31st there 2024 and send the proposed resolution to the diversity equity and inclusion subcommittee for review and consideration with the recommendations return to the full committee by December 16th 202 for meeting and that was first by uh motion by member and TOA and seconded by me I think and member had done the motion to send it to sorry you're right I'll put up okay roll call thank you for reading that back roll call vote member brandley I just have one question when is that Dei subcommittee meeting we have to schedule it okay I'm a yes uh member Graham yes member and to yes member ol yes M reinfeld yes member yes Maryland goer yes Sly affirmative Zer and the negative motion passes thank you everybody talking through that we have um condolences the members of the me school committee expressed their sincere condolences to the family of Gloria M Karu former Medford Public School's kindergarten teacher and mother of Lois Karu deari who teaches in our gymnastics program from Medford Community Schools and the members of the Medford school committee Express their sincere condolences to the family of Joseph s Tarantino former crossing guard for Med Medford Public Schools if we all may rise for a moment of silence thank you our next regular meeting is November 18th 2024 on the Alden Memorial Chambers Medford City Hall and inti to zoom is there a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second second and number in toer roll call please member brandley yes remember Graham yes member Anapa yes member ala yes remember reinfeld yes member so yes Mar Loker yes 7ir zero negative meeting is a j