Sorry, it was just taking a second to load. I think we're good now. Thank you. What's going on? Okay. But when I unmute it, you only hear me. See? techical difficulties in the back room.
>> Okay, mic check one. >> We don't want to keep you. We know you have lots of homework. >> Yeah, I'm using that. Okay. >> Mic check. Mic check. Mic check. One, two. One, two. Check.
Sure. The fifth regular meeting of the Medford School Committee will come to order March 2nd, 2026, 6 pm held in the Howard Alder Memorial Chambers, Medford City Hall, and via remote participation. This meeting is being recorded. The meeting can be
viewed live on Memphis public schools YouTube channel through Memphis Community Media on your local cable channel, Comcast 9, 8, or 22, and Verizon channel 43,45 or 47. Participants can log or call in by using the following Zoom link and the meeting
ID is 9151236 3873. Member Rouso, if you could please call the role again. Thank you. >> Member Graham >> here. >> Member Master Bony >> here. >> Member Olady >> here. >> Member Parks >> here.
>> Member Reinfeld >> present. >> Member Rouso present. Mayor Lok >> present. Seven present. zero absent and I don't believe we have any student reps. So, we're going to salute our flag one more time. We had good practice the last. 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. >> Thank you. >> Do we have anything under the good of the order before we get to Mustang
moment? >> Member Graham. I just wanted to mention to everybody that if you missed your MASC bulletin, the day on the hill this year is earlier than usual. It's on Monday, March 30th.
Um, so that when you're there lobbying your reps, they actually can still take action on the things that you care about. Um, so it's a big deal. It was apparently a big deal to get that date moved out of May and into March, but it starts at 9:30 and it's downtown. And I
just wanted to make sure everyone knew that that was out there and registration is open. That's it. >> Okay. Thank you. We have a consent agenda. Approval of bills and payrolls. Approval of capital purchases. Approval of donations. Approval of grants. Approval of field
trips. Approval of meeting minutes from our regular meeting February 9th, 2026. Is there a motion on the floor? >> Motion to approve >> by member. Seconded. Second >> by member Master Bony. All those in
favor? >> All those opposed? Consent agenda is approved. We don't have any reports from our subcommittees, but we do have two reports under our superintendent. And I'll turn over to Dr. Galooi um for the Mustang moment.
>> Good evening, members of school committee, mayor, and our wonderful McGlin community that's here with us in person and hopefully viewing at home. Um, this is the my favorite part of the school committee meetings where we start each one with Mustang moment and we get
a little snapshot about the wonderful things that are happening around the district from the student perspective. So, for tonight's meeting, I'm very pleased to say that we have the McGlin Elementary School here. I'm going to have Principal O'Brien come up. He's
going to do a little framing for what the Mustang moment is all about this evening and then call up the speakers. Thank you. >> Thank you, Dr. Galooi. Hello, members of the school committee. Mayor Lingo Kerr. So, tonight we're going to take a
Mustang moment to allow voices from the McGllin Elementary School to share their experiences with an online math program called ST Math. We are in year one of a three-year grant. And the unique aspect
of StMath is that it challenges kids to exercise a problem-solving process without any written instructions. They see the problem, they think about the problem, they try the problem, and then they learn from the problem, and
then they demonstrate how they know it. So, in essence, SDMath encourages students to make mistakes so that they can learn. So, we're very excited. It's been a a big hit this year. Can Can I stand up like this? I know. This has
been the oddest. Okay. Good. Okay. Yes. So, we're going to get started right away because it's the voices of the students that matter. And so, we are going to Oh, first I do have a guest.
I do have a guest. Gigi, the mascot, is what StMath uses to support kids in tracking their own puzzle growth progress. So, Gigi is going to come up. Come on over, Gigi.
Excellent. Right over here. And we're gonna start with Oh, GI, can you see? >> There you go. Get it right behind the kiddo. All right. Okay. Without further ado, we're gonna get started with Nanzea.
Hello, my name is Nanziba and my favorite subject is math. That's why I like STMath and STMAT has multiplication. It really helps me learn my times tables. Estimate makes me good in math and math quizzes. Estimat helps
me in the business. Estimat makes me smart. Estimate makes me math easy for me. >> Nice job. Oh yeah. Next up, Lincoln. >> Hello, my name Hello, my name is Lincoln
Marino in third grade, Miss Burk's class. And I like STMath because it teaches you how to learn multiplication, division, adding, and subtraction. And there's a lot more to learn in it. >> Next up, we have Claire.
My name is Claire in second grade from Mr. Johnny's class. And what I love about StMath is the variety of things it teaches you. I also like using trial and error with no written instructions. >> Nice job. >> Next up, we have Emma.
>> Hi, I'm Emma. I'm in second grade in Miss Collins class. I like StMath because it encourages you to keep going and try your best. StMath makes learning fun. While you're playing games, you are finding new ways to solve math problems. >> Next up, Dye.
>> My name My name is D, second grader. My teacher is Mr. Fentino. I like math because have the puzzle I completed the puzzle be happy. >> Nice job.
>> Next up we have McKenzie. >> Hi, my name is McKenzie. I'm a fifth grader from Miss Nataro's class. And what I like about STM math is that it's like fun and the more you go through like the more you progress through
I can't speak. Hold on. >> Um um what I like about STMath is that it's fun. Like the more you progress through it, the more you learn. Yeah. >> Good job. >> Next up, Mamemed.
Hello, my name is Muhammad and I'm in fifth grade in Mr. Patel's Mr. Pat Charles's class. SC Math is a game that helps us um learn when you make a mistake. Um when you get one right, you get the hang of it. All team math helps
us learn. >> No. Okay. Next up, Kaden. >> Hello, my name is Kayen Lou from Mr. Petrolis's class fifth grade. StMath is a journey that helps us grow as thinkers. Gigi shows us that mistakes are part of learning, not
something to be afraid of. Each each puzzle helps us practice problem solving, try new ideas, and keep going even when it's tough. SDMath teaches us to stay patient, think creatively, and
believe that we can do many things. And our final student to present is Shiv. >> Hi, my name is Shiv. I'm from Mr. Petrolis's class. SD math is something at first I thought was going to be very easy but hard at many times. I get
frustrated at first but very proud in the end and it helps me grow and more believe in myself. Excellent job. Excellent job, students. And so, Gigi, don't go too far because I think we're going to do a picture pretty quick. Uh, but I did just want to take this moment to say thank you to the
family members and caregivers of our McGllin Elementary SDMath Allstars. We appreciate you taking the time out of your very, very busy life and supporting your kids. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Mr. O'Brien, was there more? Were you
showing something or are we So, I did want to give the school committee a visual. And so, I don't know if Will could so you know firsthand what the kids see. So, ST stands for spatial tempora. And
so this is all the kids see. So now they have to guess and test what this question is asking them to do. So Will, do you want to go through your stages of learning? So Will was not sure what to do. So he
just tried something and he took and he thought, "Oh, it must go there. Oh, he's on to something. He's on to something. And so you hit the green arrow and there it is.
So, and this is where Gigi comes in. GG goes right across and you saw that little thermal um almost a temperature check on the left, the green, it just went up. So that measures the progress. And so the kids over the course of a year are going to complete over 2,000
puzzles. And one of the pieces of research showed that if students get to 80% of their puzzle goal progress, they improve they statistically improve their performance on statewide assessments by 9 percentage points. That's pretty
significant. That's significant. So, thank you very much once again and I'll hand it off to Will if we want to invite him up. >> I just want to make sure if there's any questions. >> Oh, sorry. >> From the committee. >> Okay, then we're ready for a picture. Okay.
>> Yeah. Great job, students. I was literally spending like 10 That's great. Okay, that was great. Thank you, Dr. Galooi. Next up, we have our district district-wide update. Um, Dr. Suzanne Galooi, superintendent, Dr. Kimberly
Talbot, assistant superintendent of academics and instruction, and Mr. Kenneth Lord, chief operations officer. Um, this will be on the revised district calendar, fiscal year 2526, professional development and building projects update.
Thank you very much. Good evening again. So, I just wanted to start by thanking everyone for the opportunity to share tonight's district update with everyone. As we move further into the academic year, our central office team remains
focused on aligning our work and our resources to our core mission of providing students with highquality instructional learning environments. Um, so this evening, as the mayor has stated, I'm going to start with a brief
update on the calendar. Dr. Talbot will update us on academics and instruction work and Mr. Ken Lord will update us on some operational um work that's happening throughout the district. But before we get to all that, I also
want to pause and take a moment um to reflect on some news. So, our director of student services, Joan Bowen, after 33 years of dedicated service to Medford Public
Schools, she will be retiring in September 2026. I think it's important to just take a moment and pause because three decades is something that is incredibly significant and I cannot imagine the number of families that she
she and her service has directly impacted in Medford public schools. I think she's at the point where she is seeing children of children um that she has worked for with and alongside in the district. So, in her 33 years, Joan was
a special education teacher at the Hillside Alternative School and the Andrews Middle School, one of those schools no longer exists in the city of Medford. She also served the city as an evaluation team leader, as the a
coordinator for special education, and most recently the director of student services. So, her impact is profound. It's we have some big shoes to fill. Um in the coming days we are going to be
sending out a survey for our staff, our um students, our caregivers, our community um just around some special education um areas or input. We want to gather some
input before we move to uh put together a selection committee um to talk about the hiring process for this position. So, first we're going to gather some input and then we're going to reach out again for next steps of putting together
a search committee. You will see that come out in a separate I think tomorrow. We have a cued with Mr. Pipeelli. Um staff to this point has been informed. Joan has taken a very thoughtful approach to informing everyone and we're going to kind of put it out broadly
tomorrow. So, just wanted to make sure that we acknowledge Joan and we will have further updates in the coming weeks uh as she is here until September 2026. So, it does allow for a really nice transition period for Metro Public
Schools. So, thank you, Joan, for everything you've done. And I wanted to make sure we commented on that this evening. Yeah. Okay. Moving on to to school calendar.
um in due to the four snow days that we've had two in Janu at the end of January two following the February vacation it has impacted our school calendar so first and foremost I think it's important we have updated this on the website so if anybody goes to the website the calendar
is already updated but it does bring our last day of school to Wednesday June 24th um the Roberts Elementary School due to their two days of neurovirus shutdown. Their first makeup day is tomorrow, a
half day during the professional development day. The staff at the Roberts, since tomorrow's professional development day is all schoolbased, the school will be open for a half day and then the staff will engage in professional development with Principal
Croll in the afternoon. The second of the makeup days for the Roberts Elementary is that Thursday following the last day of school. So, Robert's Elementary's last day will be Thursday, June 25th. That will also be a half day.
So, if you are at the Roberts, you will have your last three days of school will be half days. Are there any questions about that before I move on? Okay. The next part that is tied to the calendar that I just think is important
to note and principles have communicated this in schools that are affected, but because four days fell also within the same grading cycle, um some of the report cards or progress report dates
have been shifted. So at the elementary, the second report card um will be issued on March 19th. That's just four days later. The middle school will be April 27th. The high school does not change
their report card dates due to the senior schedule and the AB week for CTE. Um, however, progress reports at the secondary level have also shifted slightly. So, if you are a middle school caregiver, your children's progress
reports will be out on March 17th. And if you are a high school caregiver, the progress reports will be March 11th. There is also some slight update to the um NWA map testing schedule that also is communicated separately by principles.
Uh I know that principal Chuchi and principal Scain have updated their communities respectfully. Any questions? Great. Wonderful. So at this time, I'd like to call up Dr. Talbot. so she can give you an update on academics and
instruction throughout the city. >> Thank you. I feel like the last time I was here, I had to follow Metallica and now it's Gigi the Penguin. I'm starting to feel a little like I should plan my presentations a little better. But tonight's presentation is about how we
in Medford are investing in our legacy educators. The educators um with caregivers and students. GI are the things that make Medford really special and we want to report out how we are taking care of the educators in our
district. So tonight I'm going to talk about two things. One is the states learning acceleration network in which we're participating and I would also like to talk about Mustang University uh slide.
So thanks to Will who not only is an STMath genius but also does communications for us on the slide. Um, we've rebranded the staff portion of our of our Medford public schools website um to Mustang University. We wanted to
communicate to staff how much we are investing in them and this felt like a right next step. So, in this rebranding, there are tiles like the professional development um screen up here where staff can easily navigate to what it is
that they need um to function, I guess, in the district. And so, this particular slide though is about professional learning. So, part of the contract that this body negotiated last year was to reduce some of the half days for professional learning to extended full
days of professional learning. Extended full days of professional learning, even though they are fewer, do provide a much richer opportunity for our educators to engage in sustained learning and that is what we want. So this screen is an
example of three of those days um and the learning that we provided our educators. So at the beginning of the year you can see the August 25th PD schedule or a snippet of it. In the middle you can see um the March 3
offerings that are coming up. And then on the far right you can see what we offered um in November. You can see there were so many offerings in November that we had to split them out by our meet elementary, middle, and high school. And our January 20th PD followed
a similar pattern. So we are working hard to invest in educators providing what they need to feel confident and competent. um and also to provide that sense of consistency and coherence that we spoke about um in our last meeting slide. Thank you. So how we build on
belonging which was the third aspect right belonging consistency and coherence is we partner very closely with the MTA and we have a committee that's called professional development advisory council and it's a joint committee with administrators and
teachers and it is the job of this committee to or this council to evaluate PD offerings to review feedback to make recommendations about practices and protocols that um impact both teachers and administrators. So what you see on
this slide is the feedback form that we've developed this year. We provide this feedback form to all educators at the conclusion of all PD sessions. And then as a committee we meet and we review the data. We use data informed practices and protocols and a little
help from our generative AI friends to um come up with themes in the data um best practices, things that we'd like to see better. And then what our committee does is we produce a couple of slides. You can see them here to help all of the facilitators of the next upcoming
session take our recommendations and show their participants how they are applying them. So in this way we are building trust and we're committing to the belonging of our educators through Mustang University.
This is a natural pause. Should I keep going or should I pause? Pause. Keep going. Great. Um, so the last thing I wanted to talk to you about, I alluded to a little bit in our last meeting um, with the accountability report from the
state and um, because of performance in a couple of our schools, our district um, was invited to partner with DESIE in a learning acceleration network. They are one of our most valued partners. The program description for the learning acceleration network is that they
support district leadership teams to set and achieve goals aligned to con to a concrete instructional improvement priority. The participants work with consultants in this case TNT to identify a high leverage improvement priority and design a strategy to improve the quality of
instruction in a specific subject area. Consultants support the district staff by building their capacity and the capacity of the instructional staff, supporting data collection, progress monitoring, and providing a structure for continuous reflection and improvement. And so that is what we're
most excited about and our partnership with DESIE. You can see on this slide that we have decided to focus on supporting teachers of ELA in grades three through eight at the McGllin schools in the intellectual preparation
required to engage learners in grade level tasks texts and tasks. So that focus lets us use um strategic resources to brilliant principles in a school with rich diverse linguistic resources. we can leverage our brilliant
directors, Dr. Kesa and Miss Mcniff um in ELA and in EL. We have coaches that we can leverage as part of our instructional team. And we are so excited to be able to build on the foundation that our partnership with the
hill for literacy as well as um Unbound Ed and Boston College has been able to lay for us with the help of the bar foundation. So, our team consists of myself and Suzanne and building principles, the ELA and EL directors, instructional coaches,
teachers, and Robbie, who is our TNTP consultant. That's our team. So, what have we done so far? We've had a couple of high level planning meetings with senior leadership and with department of education ensuring coherence among consultants and
classroom observations um of grades six through eight in ELA and in EL. We visited the common planning time. Oh, there's lots of acronyms here. I'm so sorry. We visited the common planning time um of grades three, four, and five. And we have classroom observations planned in grades
three, four, and five. Um, so we can really understand what our baseline is of consistent practices. We engage in regular huddles and meetings um with Robbie and that helps us to foster a sense of belonging and confidence and we cannot wait for this
three-year partnership to really take off. And that's how we're supporting educators in Medford public schools. Any questions? >> Thank you, Dr. Talbot. Any questions from the committee? >> Member Russo,
>> I don't actually have questions. I'm just really glad to hear that this is a focus. U because I know that as a committee we've, you know, we've and and through my time on the school committee, we've talked about hiring practices and
really making sure we are keeping the staff that we want as we hire. Um, but the vast majority of staff are not people we are hiring now. So, I think that's that's really good to hear that we're focusing on our you called them
legacy staff, but um our I don't know of a better word. So, our legacy staff because um they're teaching most of our students. So, thank you so much for focusing on that. >> Thank you, >> member Master Bony.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Um, I love seeing this. I love seeing the direct intervention that's pulled directly from what you know what we've seen in state data. You said this is a a three-year program, three-year engagement. Is it is it likely that you
know or rather like what's our plan to take what we learn in the learning acceleration network and turn it into Mustang Academy? Um, and that's my first question. And the second question is um what's the response been to the sort of PD rebrand? What's the feedback like and
where do you see that going in the future? >> So I'll take the first question first um which is we absolutely picked the strategic focus for lots of different reasons and one of them was for scalability. Being able to focus on this group of students, on this group of
teachers in this setting provides us the ability to scale across the middle schools and also across all the elementary schools. Dr. Kza is a K through2 director as is Miss McNiff. So, we're able to scale vertically in that way as well. Um, and focusing on this
area lets us really leverage the two literacy coaches and the current EL coach of the middle grades um to provide maximum impact. it was important to our team and especially the principles to also include teachers on this as well. So, we're really investing in teacher
leadership um at the state level. So, we chose the focus strategically so that we would be able to scale because we know consistent practice across all of our schools and grade levels is what's going to get the Medford students um to achieve that economic success and social
success that we talked about last meeting. Second question was about the PD rebrand and so far so good. I mean the feedback we're hearing mostly is not what I presented about tonight but about how we've moved our um course reimbursement
structure to an online structure, our course pre-approv approval, our lane advancement. So these things we're moving from paper to um an electronic version so that we're able to track trends um over time. We're able to look at the types of courses that our Medford
educators are choosing outside of us and our direct content directors as well as the PD committee is able to look at that data and it helps us think about what else we need to offer our educators. What are they going outside to seek um and can we offer that in-house instead?
So um so I think that's pretty positive and I think the website looks pretty snazzy. So my feedback is pretty good on >> Dr. Galooi once you're I was just going to add on one other thing. Additionally to your first question, part of our internal conversations are also looking at um curriculum at the
secondary level. So I think the partnership here is also going to be assisting us with taking a little bit of a deeper dive at what is what curriculum is being used uh 6 through 8 so that we
can make sure that we have high quality instructional materials in front of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Um, member Reinfeld, >> thank you so much. Um, you anticipated my question about what feedback we're getting from participants on the
professional development. I am just curious how these focus this focused attention on ELA, which I think is fabulous and I understand the reasoning there. um how that affects growth and professional development in subject
areas particularly for elementary teachers who are teaching across all the subjects because we as a district have invested a lot in ELA and early literacy and curriculum and co coaches and all of that and I think that's fantastic and I don't want to lose that but I also want
to make sure other subjects aren't getting left behind. >> That's such a great question because our data says lots of subject areas could use this. Yeah. So the instructional focus um like when we talk about our ELA curriculum, we don't teach books, we teach skills. So even though our focus
is embedded in ELA as like a frame, the actual focus is supporting teachers in the intellectual preparation required to leverage grade level content and tasks. And so that skill applies across all of the disciplines, especially for our elementary teachers who, as you say,
they are doing heroic work, right? They have to be experts in ELA, math, social studies, and science. And this work, this intellectual preparation work when they sit down with high quality instruction materials is a skill that transfers across all of the disciplines.
So that's why we picked this as opposed to um program implementation or like foundational skills and ELA. This particular skill is widely transferable. And are they having the opportunity to actually have that conversation and reflection and think about specifically
how it applies to other subjects? Because a lot of the professional development I've done, if you don't build that time in to explicitly think about how it applies to this situation, it stays abstract. >> Yeah, I am hoping so. This is just this is the beginning of year one. I will say
in other districts I've worked I've had this partnership before and it's been very very successful and skillfully implemented and I expect nothing less from our current partner with Robbie. We're just creating a landscape analysis right now. Observing classrooms, what's already in place? What strengths can we
build on common planning times? What's already happening? What's the relationship like? What are the structures like? Um, so we're just building the groundwork now. So, >> great. And just to confirm, you mentioned that AI is helping. That's in summarizing some of the feedback and
pulling themes and the humans are still getting the last the the the final eye on things as per policy and ethical >> following the policy. Exactly. Right. No data I mean no um identifying data. >> Great. Um then my last question is could we please get these slides? I don't
think we have them. >> Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. >> Thank you member Rinfeld. Thank you for the presentation. U Mr. Lord. >> Good evening everyone. Uh just going to update you on a few projects we have going on. There's always lots going on
in facilities and technology. Uh first is the accelerator repair program. So, we were invited in by the MSBA for three schools, the Brooks, the Mistuck, and the Roberts. The Roberts was the first, and we just received our OPM and engineer last week. Uh tomorrow, they're actually going to come out and do a tour
of the school so they can get a better idea of the building and the project to be able to negotiate our contracts with those two uh firms to start the feasibility study. And that feasibility study will study ground source, air source, and a hybrid heat pump system,
as well as look at the roof and any terminal equipment in the building that might need upgraded. They'll look at the electrical system, make sure it can support the different types of uh heat pump systems. And the end of that feasibility study will be a design to move us forward with those projects as
well as a detailed budget so we could seek funding for that. Um the missuck is the next um to enter the ARP program. Um we'll need to be coming back to you to seek funding for the feasibility study by I believe it's June 1st or June 6th
or something like that. And then the um uh Brooks is last. So we'll be doing feasibility studies at the same time on all three buildings while we move forward. One will finish and we'll go forward. Uh potentially construction would be uh in the summer of 27 or 28 um
for those projects. the MSBA would like to see them done no later than the summer of 29. So really excited to get those projects going to move those uh heating systems and roof get that all addressed. Uh the next of course we've talked about
this before is the McGlin Andrews HBAC project um that is scheduled for substantial completion at the end of the summer. Um we actually just successfully went out to bid the McGlin roof. Um, you may know that the um, prior in the mass construction project, they bid the roof
up, but the cost came in very high. So, we decided to rebid that. They came in under budget. We're just finishing reviewing those final um, uh, proposals to make sure they meet specifications and then we'll select and award that contractor. So, the U McGlenn, they'll
finish the HBAC at the end of the summer. We'll move directly into the roof, which is a liquid applied roof system. And then right after that, we'll schedule the solar project at the Andrews. We'll finish the HVAC project at the end of August as well and then move directly into that solar project.
So those projects are going very well. Um right now we're finishing up a specification to put out to look for the commissioning agent. This is a critical portion of the project to make sure that the system is operating as designed. And we've also added in doing a full retro commissioning of all of the existing
systems because these projects really only replace the source equipment. And we want to make sure that all of the unit vents and fan powered boxes and controls and everything else in the field is working 100% is properly so that that heat and air conditioning that the new system is delivering works
correctly, all the thermostats are running right and identify any issues so we can make sure that that system is running at top-notch speed uh when it's ready. Um, uh, big big news. We just received, uh, a national grid rebate of, uh, 500,
$687,000 for the Andrews, 1.09 million for the McGlin. Those are credits for the project we're doing. Um, in cooperation with B2Q and Sigley and JLL, our contractor and OPM, they're also submitting more uh, utility rebates for
the building management system as well that's being part of this project. So that's great news that we received that and um this is going to do great great work for reducing our our CO2 production. And finally, um IT and security updates. We are moving forward with our network
refresh infrastructure. We just recently placed the order for part of the phase one equipment and the rest of the phase one equipment is right out to bid now and we'll start working on that over the summer. Uh that phase one includes replacing all the access points across the entire district and all the network
switches at the high school with phase two replacing the rest of the network switches at the rest of the district. Um that equipment is being delivered. We're going to work directly with Extreme Networks who's a manufacturer for their professional services for proper programming and design. I've been working very closely with them to make
sure the um the system is correct for all the our needs. Um and we'll start working on that. And then finally, the security camera keyless entry and vape detector installation is about 95% complete. They're just working on a couple little punch list items. It's probably greater than 95%. Um, so the
system is fully up. We've done training. We have some more training to do. Um, so all the new cameras are up all the district. All the new card swipes are up. All the new vape detectors are up. We've done training mostly at the high school middle school because those were the first systems that went online. Um, and then we'll do some more training at
the elementary schools and with our security monitors. I think that's any questions. >> Great. Thank you so much. Um, member Graham, then member Russo. >> Um, I just had a quick question about the the grid rebates that come in. Where
do they come to? >> I believe that's a direct credit to the project cost >> to the project. Okay. And so those are then used to avoid having to bond for the full course. >> So they had anticipated these and built that in as part of the bond. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Just great news that we were able to succeed successfully get all
those. Yep. >> Thanks. Thank you, Member Rouso. >> So, we actually are getting all the credits we'd hoped. >> We're even seeking more. >> Wonderful. >> Building management system. We'll credit do some much smaller scale, but still get some credits. But >> that's great news. I'm sure the mayor's
happy. We are all happy, of course. But >> I I should have mentioned we're also doing uh comprehensive building assessments with National Grid of the three elementary schools. Okay. >> So, that'll be part of the U heat pump conversion projects >> for sure. Yeah. But less for the money, less money for the city to borrow, which
is good news. Um, and then I just want to also comment how happy I am to see that ground source heat pumps heat ground source heat just ground source is the I don't know why I'm adding ground source is um part of the investigation there. Um because
you know the the long-term costs are so much lower. I know that the upfront costs are not, but um >> yes, they'll examine all three and determine if it what's feasible at some of those sites. Some of those sites are pretty small and compact, so that'll might be a limiting factor. >> Yeah. I'm I'm just trying to think like
where at the Roberts you would actually put a ground source >> exactly >> system. Um when um those come like at the matuk um >> in the Brooks >> maybe the Brooks I guess there's the
parking lot. um when those come in, who will be making the decision on that? I just worry about like one's like 5% more expensive and then >> so the feasibility study will pitch all of the ideas and much like we're in the feasibility study with the MSBA project, we'll socialize that with different
leaders in the district and compare costs and we'll make a collective decision as far as what's necessary. I imagine it would probably come back to here because it'll be a funding request. So kind of probably may come with a couple options here and say, "Well, we'll get this and this is a payback then and this is what the, you know, the
long-term cost will be." And we'll kind of have to decide that. >> Okay, great. So you'll give us all the information you usually >> do it by myself. No. >> All right. Great. Thank you. I appreciate it. >> Member Master Bony, >> thank you. These projects are awesome.
They're increasingly tougher to do uh as everyone's competing to get this done. Um, one of the things that I think about a lot is how we're going to transition this new building management system, this new high-tech HVAC to our team to maintain. Um, is is that process started
or in terms of training our team and our building folks? What does that look like and how can we make sure that we take care of them? >> So, we have not started the training yet. Um, the uh building management system contractor has just recently come on board and starting their installation. uh software is going to be
in Niagara software and then that's part of that um commissioning and retrocommissioning is making sure that that new Niagara system that's going to run the new equipment communicates properly with the existing system that we have which is um's control suite and
making sure that those all work together and there's full training and and everything with that um and that's part of what we you know are expecting to do. Yeah. Member Russo, >> thank you. I was just reminded about um
for the IT system, which I feel like it was I have no idea. Time is very confusing right now. Um was it last year when we were talking about this um we had been discussing, not necessarily in this room, but um about having the
vendor do the you know the monitoring. I mean they because they could provide the 24-hour support and um in a way that we couldn't as a district. Um are we still going to be doing all of that that way? >> So I did not plan on having them do 100%
monitoring the wireless network and the networks which is more looking towards and we put in some operational budget requests in for this is improving our cyber security software management having that be far out. >> Okay. Um, so, um, I'd really like us to move to a managed detection response
system that, uh, basically the difference is is that software is queuing a team of 7 by 24 engineers that are monitoring those kinds of things. Uh, the monitoring of the wireless system itself is not really heavy lift, but we are absolutely going to leverage um, extreme networks expert professional
services to design it, make sure it's configured correctly, help us tune it, and bring those kinds of things in. Okay. But the cyber security stuff will be 24 hours >> professionals that don't work for us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you for the
presentation and the updates. >> Um I know we don't have any presentations to the public, but we do have continued business. Um the MSBA update. I'll turn it over to member Graham, chair of the Medford Comprehensive High School Building Committee. Member Graham. >> Thank you. Um, I'm happy to report that
our preliminary design program deliverable, which was 2,000 or so pages, was submitted to the MSBA last week. Um, they confirmed that they received it. And, um, I understand that they'll take the next like threeish, three to four weeks to review all the
documents. It's like 2,000 pages, so that's really actually pretty lightning fast on their end. um to understand all the things that we've been doing um to assess and survey the site, think about options, understand all the things that we're considering, of which there are
many. um and um will come back to us with some feedback about how they see um the work that we did on the educational plan which this body approved um aligning to some of the building
um concepts I'll call them concepts at this point alternative concepts um that we're considering. So they they'll provide us some input and feedback and say, you know, we we got feedback from Desessie or we got feed feedback from these folks about, you know, special
education or CTE programming or whatever it is. And um please go back and think about this thing. And you know, the full expectation is that that both the educational plan, the space summary, and all of the options, all of that will continue to be revised and refined over the course of the next couple of months.
Um so that was like a huge feat um on the part of SMMA and left field um especially with all the surveying and all the um complexities of our surveying with um being sort of neighbors with DCR
and having um a strong desire to have another egress into the property but no obvious place to put that. um and and everything else including that there was a dump at one time on a piece of the property and where are the where is the
rock and the ledge and where where is there not rock and ledge and all of those things. So they they have been working sort of around the clock trying to pull all of this together both um in supporting us as we build the educational plan but then also in the like actual like surveying of the of the
property to understand what's possible. Um so all of that um initial submission is in um this week is an exciting week. So, our high school teachers tomorrow um will have a dedicated session as part of their professional development day where
they will get to hear a project update um on the project and they will participate in a an interactive exercise much like what we'll be doing on Thursday night um but dedicated just to them to try to um make sure that there's
input and information coming from the educators who may or may not have been involved to date. um lots lots of our um educators have been, but this is an opportunity as part of PD, which is mandatory, to make sure we um are are getting to everybody um to tell people
how they can engage with with the project. Um on Thursday evening, we'll have a community forum. It starts at 6:30. It is in person only. Um it is in person only because it will also be very interactive. They'll have I don't like
Lego block model type things of um of our of our school and some of the needs that we have and they will be working with community members to you know set up some intro of the project but then also um to to have some dialogue about
what excites people about the projects. Um there will be pictures available of all of the 29 options so people can continue to weigh in as they think about space and and space planning on the kinds of things that they like. So all
this in an effort to collect lots of good feedback from um from the community. Um but it is in person only because um of the Lego block interactivity. So um so we've got that going on this week. um uh earlier today
a robocall went out from the city uh informing everyone on the robocall list about um how to get involved in the project where to go for information that it's happening. Uh we're also investigating whether um we send a city-wide mailer um to again alert
people at this early stage um to understand like that this a that this project is happening in case there are people who don't know. I think lots and lots of people know. Um but those who don't will have an opportunity then to sort of tune in, sign up for an email list, go to the website, follow along,
etc. Um and then as we move forward, there's um a couple of big things that'll be happening in the next two months. Um, one is at the end of this month, um, on the 23rd of March, we'll be sort of digging in deeper at the at our building committee meeting on the
evaluation criteria that we spent some time talking about last week. Um, and really thinking as a thinking through as a committee like how how does this evaluation criteria sort of lay out across what is currently like 29
options? um and start to do some thinking um about anything that we may want to change about that initial ranking um or um adjust about the space summary or any of those kinds of things um could be on the agenda on the 23rd.
Um on the 27th of April, right after April vacation is the meeting where we will actually go from 29 options to 3 to 5. Um so that will be a big important meeting. Um we also have a meeting coming up with our um project abutters
um in March. So we're inviting them in to talk to just have some dedicated time with the um with architects and the and our OPM just to understand um sort of what's on the mind of our abutters. Actually, this project doesn't have tons
of abutters um because DCR is one of our biggest uh neighbors um in in land mass, but we are um doing some continued effort to reach out to those abutters. Um they'll get a postcard maybe this week or next week with the dates of some of our specific meetings. um they got
handd delivered letters back um in November and um we just want to hear from them on an ongoing basis so that we're um being responsible neighbors as well. Um and then the other big thing that happened in the last week um was that we did make a decision as a
committee to um pursue this project as a CM at risk project which means that we will bring the construction manager on during schematic design um and rather than pursuing design bid build which is tends to be easier on less complex projects maybe projects are a little bit
smaller but this project really lends itself to um getting all the pe all the pe all the people on the team as quickly as possible. um to make the best decisions and make sure that the building that gets designed can be built. Um which is always um sort of a weird limbo space if
you're if you ever build anything um between the intent on paper and what can actually happen in person um or live. So all of that is coming. Um there's lots more to come. Um and we are moving towards um by the end of June we will
down select to a single option to pursue. Um but um between now and then there's some interim steps that we'll take and some like lots of refinement of different parts of the project. We'll hone in on a handful of options. will do
a more in-depth um cost estimate on those options um after April 27th. Um all to help continue to inform the building committee of what's happening um what the choices are and then how how to go about making those decisions the
best way we can for Medford. Um I think that's everything um in terms of what we've been up to on the MSBA project. Any questions? Happy to answer them. Um if you could just repeat the um date of the meeting where we may be going
down to 3 to 5. >> Yes. Um April 27th. >> April. Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And part of the reason I think people keep thinking that's imminent. It's happening right away and it's not. Um and the reason for that is a we we
can and should expect feedback from MSBA and before we do that down selection we need to ingest and sort of interpret whatever feedback that they have for us. Um there's lots of other reasons for the building committee to have some time to think through some of the options
because there was a whole lot of um there were a whole lot of choices really sort of presented as part of the cost scenarios. The goal with those choices was to say that we left no stone unturned, right? So when somebody comes back and says, "Hey, did you ever think
about if the pool was twice as big as it was or if it was half as big as it was, like we have lots and lots of cost data to be able to help facilitate those whatifs." Um, and so there's there's some natural like working through of options that has to happen in the coming
um in the coming months. Um, and then the I'll say the third and final thing, um, and is because we do want to be thoughtful about how we evaluate. So, we've got a huge list of criteria. There's probably like a hundred or so criteria that we've talked about so far.
And it's going to take some time for the for the architect to give us an initial ranking of those things and then for the committee really to work through a that they agree with the with the like relative ranking that has been provided by um the architect and um sort of
digest what that means in terms of like what the options are and and how to down select. So the idea is not to rush that down selection um so that we can be really thoughtful about how we go forward. Um also next week uh we'll have we'll reconvene our advisory committee
meetings for meeting number three. Um and so those are 50 or so folks across Medford who have signed up for four different committees and um they're experts in their field like we Medford is so talented and the people on the
committee um really have a lot of passion around their subject matters um that they you know they deal with this stuff professionally every single day. Um, so we'll be talking with them about some of their input as we need to bring that forward to the building committee for sort of consideration and and
thought. So there's just like a lot of there's a lot of thinking to do between now and April 27th to really get to the right 3 to five. And the idea is like not to rush that. So um, as much as we're trying to move quickly, we're trying to move quickly in the places
where it matters and where it counts. and like the paperwork. I feel super comfortable that we moved quickly and thoroughly and now it's time for us to like take all of that in and make good decisions. Thank you, Member Graham. Um with that, we appreciate the update.
Um and yeah, the March 5th meeting um is coming up, so join in. I know we don't have any new business or reports requested, but we do have a condolence. Um, the members of the Medford School Committee express >> Oh, one one more.
>> Oh, jeez. I'm sorry. >> New business. >> Offered by member Graham. Be it resolved that the Memphis School Committee review and approve a revised capital plan inclusive of priority ratings as requested by the Colin Center who's working to refresh the city of Memphis's broader capital plan. Member Graham.
>> Yes, thank you. Um, after we we approved our capital plan late last year, um, we turned it over to the Colin Center who is working with the city to refresh the city's broader capital plan and they came back to Ken and I and asked that we
um add a prioritization that uh lined up with how they are prioritizing projects across um across the city, which was just a little bit different than the approach that we took. Um, you can see that in the column on the left. They asked us just to rank the projects in
order from one until whatever. I think in this case it's like 35 or 30. Um we had taken an approach of like here's what we want to do each year. Um and there was some prioritization and grouping within ours. So, this was our
this was my attempt in collaboration with Ken to say how do we translate what this group approved to um uh something that like meshes a little bit better with how the city's capital plan um is
being refreshed and revised. Um, so I did, we have provided this to the callin center already to sort of enable them to do this work, but I did let them know that this body would need to like reapprove this capital plan, particularly with these prioritizations. So, um, I'm hoping that we can do that
tonight. >> Is there a second? Second, my member Graham. Um, all those in favor? I. All those opposed. Motion carries. And now on to our condolence. The members of the Medford School Committee
express their sincerest condolences to the family of Marta J. McNalty McGawan who worked for the Medford Public Schools for over 40 years. If we all may rise for a moment of silence, please. Thank you.
Our next regular meeting of the Meford School Committee will be March 16th, 2026 here in the Alden Memorial Chambers and via Zoom. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn by member Graham. Seconded by member Master Bony. All those in favor.