Speaker 1: Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Natick School Committee meeting of March 24th, 2025. I'll start with roll call Ms Flats. Speaker 2: Here, Speaker 1: Mr. Brand Present. Ms. Collins Speaker 2: InBody. Speaker 1: Ms. McDonna? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Goeth here and I'm here. I would like to make a motion that we move into executive session and the purpose for doing so is to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining. If an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining position of the public body and the chair. So declares and I do EAN units A
and B, administrative assistance, food service, paraprofessionals and custodial maintenance. And to discuss strategy with respect to litigation if an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the litigation position of the public body and the chair. So declares and I do second, we have to go into roll call Ms. Flats. Yes. Mr. Brand? Yes. Ms. Collins. Ms. McDonough? Yes. Ms. Brunell? Yes. Ms. Cor? Yes. And I'm a yes. We are now in executive session. We will resume open meeting at about six 30. We're gonna resume with open meeting.
Welcome everyone to the school committee meeting, native school committee meeting March 24th, 2025. We did roll call before executive session. I would now like to ask everyone to please stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance, A moment of silence. Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, Invis with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: Thanks everyone for standing up for the moment of silence to honor those who've sacrificed for our country. We'll now open public speak.
Public speak is scheduled for a period of 15 minutes. Each speaker will be permitted maximum of three minutes during which time they can speak about topics in the scope of responsibility of the school committee. All remarks will be addressed to the school committee chair. Public speak is not a time for debate or response to comments by a school committee. Anyone here for public speak? Anyone online? No. So we'll close public speak and we will go to a teacher and student representative, comments, updates and concerns. We'll start with the teacher. Mr. Wood. Speaker 4: Thank you Mr. Chair. I have nothing to say at this time. Speaker 1: Thanks. And since we have a new student representative,
do you wanna introduce yourself and then we'll go with your updates. Speaker 2: Thank you. So for those who don't know me, my name is Nathan Penn. I'm a sophomore at Natick High School and excited to be the new student rep school committee. I'm looking forward to working with all of you. I know the budget override is a big part of tonight and Athe and I wanted to share the student perspective. In short, we are in support of the operational override for a variety of reasons. If the override doesn't get passed, many positions that are crucial to our education will be lost. One of the most significant impacts will be the loss of interventionists and classroom teachers, which are key to helping students need extra academic support.
Many of us rely on these professionals to succeed in school. For students who certain struggle with certain subjects, they're often the ones who provide personalized support to help us keep up with our studies. Lead teachers also depend on these interventionists to help manage classrooms and ensure every student receives the attention they need. In addition to academics, there will be an increase in MPS fees including for extracurriculars like sports. As an athlete, I know firsthand that being able to participate in sports, it's not just about the game, it's about teamwork, discipline, and community. But for many rising fees can mean missing
out on these opportunities. I played tennis and my sister played soccer and basketball for four years. We both know firsthand how important these programs are for building discipline confidence, a sense of community and our overall wellbeing. Supporting the operational override helps to ensure that these opportunities are available and more affordable for students. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak. And now I'll turn it over to Anthony who provide some additional reasons as to why we are in support of the override. Thank you. Speaker 5: Also, in addition to what Nathan said, if the budget override does not pass, that means teachers are going to get cut at Natick public schools. Right. However, at the Natick High School,
the core classes such as my math class or my English class, has student teacher ratios of 30 to one or 25 to one much higher than what should much higher than a good teacher student ratio that can help each student succeed. In addition, Natick is like increasing in class sizes. Like our junior class has 421 students and the class sizes are now decreasing, in fact increasing each year. And if we cut the amount of teachers, there's not gonna be enough teachers for each student. And finally, according to Gallup, K
to 12 teachers often have the highest burnout rate of all US industries with 44% reporting that they always or very often feel burnout at work. Natick Gordy has 25 to 30 teacher shortages per day according to the Natick report. So if the budget override does not pass, that means less teachers, right? And then the less teachers means there's gonna be a higher burden on the already hardworking teachers at Natick High School. So that's why me and Nathan and many other students at Natick High School believe that the budget overrides should be passed. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And well said. I skipped over announcements. I'll just go back
quickly to announcements. And actually Dr. Sp, do you wanna make an announcement first? Speaker 6: I was gonna go over some exciting, give a little. Do you want me to do this piece now? Sure. Yeah. Great. So I'll briefly go through this, but as we talked about some questions around how Kennedy was being used, specifically aquaponics lab as well as the planetarium, I asked and they were very ambitious and sent me a little deck. So if you'll indulge me for a second, we, we don't often get that bird's eye view into stuff inside the school. So I thought I'd share it. I did not make this deck but I'm excited to share it. So if you can go to the next slide. So this is kind of chunked into,
this is aquaponics as a learning tool. If you were to zoom in on the green things you see in the back, you actually see corn growing. I was there two weeks ago or a week and a half ago. There is corn in the back and there's other different plants growing there. So there's a system. This has become very hands-on way for kids to explore life sciences, sustainability and real world problem solving. It's also connected to science standards and SEL. You can see those are real fish in the bottom there in this lab. Go to the next slide please. Okay. It's also used during RTI connecting to the curriculum.
So students are working in small groups to design and conduct some long term experiments with plants. Projects usually last about 60 days go from germination to data collection and they use variables like light levels. I've actually been at a class where they've kind of been hypothesizing about whether they put sand in the soil or didn't give it light or didn't, didn't give it as much water. It's exciting, sodium tolerance, et cetera. And it's aligned with sixth grade science standards, including character characteristics of life and a separate other thing. So the projects get kids excited and encouraged to revise
and and continue to work on their experiments. In the next slide, it also develops some social emotional pieces. Students are exploring real world applications of hydroponics and aquaponics, growing food in Syrian refugee camps with little rainfall or addressing food deserts where fresh produce is scarce. Just discussing circumstances around the world and how that might affect agriculture and helping students understand the global inequities that can apply to food A access. And then the next one, just sharing with the community.
So this has been part, the school is showcasing this lab in terms of the Econs Earth Day event and students have already proposed, started starting a new gardening club, which is very exciting. So I really just offer this and we'll connect it in the deck to give a little view to kind of what happens and to see some of these beautiful pictures. And it's very green and very vibrant and kids in and out of it all day. I have a few notes to kind of explain how the planetarium is used. Grade eight. Grade eight science teachers are using it for their geology and earth science unit. Grade six science teachers are using it this year. Brown Memorial and Johnson in the past did field trips there.
Earth Day in Natick and planetarium shows last year, earth Day again this year the Weather Club meets there. They use it about 90 day school days or half the school days. And they're going to have K-M-S-P-T-O event used there this year too. So just that is an announcement of kind of some, a window into more than I could have told you last week as I learned more about it myself. Speaker 7: Great. Speaker 1: Any other announcements? I have one, but I'm saving it for the end. New announcements? Yeah. Speaker 8: Do you wanna shout out to NA High music program this weekend? The show choir were grand champions
and gold medal, best choreo, best vocals. And the jazz band also we're gold medal winners at states. And we'll go to the hat she to perform this break. Speaker 1: Wow. Congratulations to Awesome. Yeah, And my announcement of course is that tomorrow is election day here in Natick and I encourage everyone to go out and vote if you haven't voted already. Polls open, I believe at seven in the morning. They close at 8:00 PM Go to the Natick website to find out where you vote if you have, if you don't dunno already. And I will remind the public
that the school committee did vote to endorse the override to support the override. So on behalf of the committee, I'll just remind people that we are, this committee is all in favor of the override among other reasons for the, for the reasons that our student representatives provided. And thank you so much for reminding us of those important reasons. Speaker 7: Yeah. Speaker 9: So before our next meeting, Natick, sorry. Serve Natick is doing their first ever Natick Impact collaborative and they spoke to our committee, they've organized themselves to do a community wide event
to sort of showcase what they're doing, provide us opportunities for service. So I just really appreciated that those students came and spoke to the school committee and they are inviting everyone. You can go right to the Natick, the town of Natick website to register, but it is a evening to talk about service and how people of all ages can get involved in service. So thank you. Speaker 1: Okay, thank you. With that, we're gonna go to our, to the first item of our agenda, which is the recognition of Julie McDonald's, nine years of service to the school committee. And I, I know that there's people who wanna make remarks,
so I'm gonna open the floor to, I know you won't have remarks, but we'll leave you till the end unless you wanna go first. Speaker 7: So Speaker 1: I'm happy to open the floor to anyone who wants to make remarks on this topic. Sure. Please do Speaker 7: All it's warm in here though. Speaker 10: Oh, that's Speaker 7: Awesome. That's just so amazing. Whatcha you talking about? It's just warm in here. I as is the, excuse me, what does it say? It? Oh, it says McDonough 2026. Large fields small class sizes.
Oh wow. Yeah. That is so nice. Yeah, we can get one for anybody who wants one. A lot of work. When's that? No, I think I'm done now. No. So as is the, as is a long standing tradition when when somebody retires from their school committee service, we as a school committee get together and get a series of books that we then donate to town. So we have a few books that I'm gonna talk about and read out loud every one of them. Speaker 11: One of one. Speaker 7: Okay,
so I'm not gonna actually read all of 'em, don't worry. And then I have a few words to say about Julie, but first the books. So the first book where, which where's my camera? There's the first book is called Crucial Conversations, tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. So this is a book that is about handling high stakes conversations with confidence and effectiveness. Julie, as a communications professional, has demonstrated this over and over again in her 45 years on the school committee. This next one, and these are for some are her kids and some of them are for adults. This one is called Women Who Dared 52 Stories
of Fearless Daredevils Adventurers and Rebels. So it's sort of like each's, just a lot of short stories about different women in history and sort of all of the things that they've contributed to society. Here's one called Dare to Lead. Where's My Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. This is about vulnerability, courage, empathy, and leadership. Sort of all of the things that Julie has spent years demonstrating here. This next one is a kid's book. It's called The Kid's Book about voting. And I did read this one. I did take the time to read this one. Don't worry. This is an awesome book about the history
of voting in the United States from the beginning. And it, so it's a history book, but it talks about the value of voting and sort of the value of being involved in your local government. And the last one is called Change Things. It's by Amanda Gorman. I read this one as well, it's incredible. I would encourage everybody to read it. It's a poem by Amanda Gorman that has, I'm not gonna spoil it, just read it. It's really good. So anyhow, these books are all gonna get donated. I'm gonna hand them to you, Julie, just so you can look at them. Don't you can't keep them. Thank you. And time you pass, this is, yeah, that's inside you.
So I just wanna say a few things about Julie is the only person left who was here when I first, when I started my first term actually. Well you were here, but, but at the, as the elected people, Mr. Wood was here. That's right. But the, the, and a lot of us, there are a lot of people in the audience tonight. So I met her in 2018. The day before nomination papers were due, I decided to run for school committee. And Julie was one of the last people who signed my nomination papers in the time that I served with her. She was chair for two of those years or for, for two years.
You were chair and I was your vice chair for both of 'em. She never invited me to the superintendent meetings, which was nice. Thanks for that. I was, I wrote my, I have some notes about how great you were at adjusting your glasses during meetings. It's really great skill. I don't know why I put that. But in all seriousness, Julie has never been afraid. And I'm sure any of us who have been in discussions with her at at school committee meetings know she's never afraid to disagree or take a hard stance on something that she believes in. While she is always been afraid
of the home button on her phone or not having it, I should say so is, but she has always stood by like tough decisions, which is remarkable. And I've learned a ton over the years of sitting here with her for six years about sort of not being afraid to, to sort of stick with what you believe in. And for that, and of course aside from making a new friend, I have greatly appreciated learning from you from all these years. And I hope that we stay in touch. Probably not, you know, let's be honest, we probably won't.
No, now of course we will because our, you know, our daughters play field hockey together and ice hockey together. And so yeah, we'll see each other at the games, I'm sure. So thank you for nine and whatever it is, years 10, however many years of service you can take at least a couple of days off. But then the expectation is you're back at it. And so thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you so much Mr. Brand. Ms. Collins. Speaker 12: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I first encountered Julie, although I didn't meet her right away. I first encountered her when there was an explosion in
little kids' population. And she would come to finance committee meetings and select board meetings and school committee meetings, dragging three little kids with her, two of whom were with us tonight, showing them how to be involved, how to make a difference. And you have, you don't always agree. I don't know anyone I always agree with, but I've always respected you and I will continue to do so. Thank. Thank you. Speaker 1: Any other committee members? Yeah, Ms. Brunel. Oh, Ms. Purpose. Ms. Go. Can go first, Ms. Bruno. Speaker 6: Thank you. So Julie, you're the whole reason I'm sitting here. Oh, and because Julie called me.
I used to attend meetings with you before you became on school committee. And once you were school committee there was an election and I wasn't even a citizen yet, but you called me up and you said, Elise, have you ever thought of running for school committee? And I'm like, I have to become a citizen first. But I did because Julie told me I should. But thank you for just reaching out and I know that there's many people in the community that you've reached out to get involved to volunteer or to seek their opinion or to just bring them into the conversation. And I think that's one of the most valuable things that you've brought to this community is this, you know,
this quiet sense of listening and encouraging people to be involved. And thank you Speaker 9: Mr. Brunell. You are also one of the reasons I'm involved in the school committee, but bum, but look at us four years later, we're laughing. And I even called you today on my way to work 'cause I was like, this is the last Monday I can call you and talk to you about the meeting. So I'm gonna talk do that even though there's nothing to talk about tonight. So I truly appreciate how we have found a way to communicate through some really difficult things. And, and I, like Matt said,
you said you're gonna cry now like Matt said, I just, I really, I really respect you. I respect your leadership style and I just wanna thank you for always stepping up because that's what I think I have seen you do again and again on a lighter note, I also really appreciate the, the number of places you took meetings. My favorites are the meetings in your car where one of your poor children had to wait outside while we were in executive session in a parking lot.
The child was not allowed to get into the car because we were in executive session. I mean, how low is that, right? Sorry, the other one was the meetings you took in your closet. Yeah. Only second to Kirk Downing's meeting in his, in his camper van. Your closet. But tonight we're going to, we're gonna celebrate you with some cupcakes from this sleepy baker, a mom in town who runs her own business and who I'm sure has donated thousands of dollars to the PTO auctions, all of which you probably drug around to children to, to pick up gift cards.
So I'm happy to just to extend the support that you give to other people through that. And then the last thing is to say these, these quotes that I heard you say often would be, huh, I should probably call that person. I mean like, she's the most engaged dispassionately person that I've, and most effectively dispassionate person I've ever met in terms of choosing to call people. And then also just really meaningful to me when you would say, well I said I was gonna do it, Speaker 13: So I'm gonna do it. And that's what you do. So thank you Julie.
Speaker 1: Hi Ms. Flas. Speaker 8: I just wanna say wow, like I'm in year three here and I've got, you know, four kids, but they're relatively older and I'm just like, how nine years through like the raising of all of your children and never, like, not stepping up to be on a committee or, and it just, it's amazing how much you put forward and I know that must be, that must come from a real like cost of time to your family to do so much volunteering over such a very long period of time. So thank you. Speaker 1: So I'll go last among the school committee members before we open it up to others. Julie, you've always been a mentor
to me on school committee. You were the first chair that I encountered and I always looked up to you both as a school committee member and, and just your ability to not only lead us as a as as a committee, but to do that with such level of calmness. You care, you care a lot and you're a huge advocate of the issues that you care about, which are all important issues like small classes and you know, kids getting enough time to sleep for example. But you always do a such calm and with a very kind of fact-based database data-driven way. And I've always appreciated that and,
and tried to emulate it in my own ways. One specific moment that I recall is five years ago was March 7th or eighth or whatever the date was when we had an emergency meeting of three boards of town, select board, school committee, and the health board to talk about this brand new pandemic that we were trying to figure out. And I remember sitting there in one of these chairs and just watching you in middle of literally a global pandemic that none of us had any idea how to handle with such calmness just and, and,
and leadership calm headed and, and looking forward and talking about how we're gonna move forward in your collaboration with the other chairs of the other boards just made me feel like we're in good hands and we were in good hands for all the years that you were here, so we'll miss you. But as Matt said, you know, a couple of days from now I'm sure expect a phone call with whatever we need from you. And feel free to say no. In fact, I'm not sure that's the one thing you probably dunno how to do is to say no, sorry. But anyway, thank you so much for all your years of service
to the community and, and to me personally. And I'm happy to open it to the public. You all can fight off the order. Speaker 14: We'll go not fighting this one. Hi, I'm Speaker 13: Hi Julie, I'm Leah. I met Julie in 2008 when I moved to the Sherwood neighborhood. I had my first born and she had two at that point and we were sitting at the bottom of my driveway and she asked me if I knew anything about class sizes for our kindergartners at the time. And then we went to a lot of meetings and more meetings
and a lot more meetings. And then she asked me how we would fundraise for Lawn zz and we did that. And Julie, like they've all said thank you to you, but I wanna thank you for your just sheer dedication to the town. And it's not just on school committee, it's your involvement with Brown school, your involvement today still with, with the high school and all of the other things that you do and trying to keep people educated and informed in a fair and balanced way. And I know our neighborhood could cannot imagine
what it would be like without you. So thank you. Speaker 15: Thank you. Speaker 13: Hi, my name is Katie Joyce. I'm in precinct five, so I can start with that. And how many children we all have. I met Julie in this very room in 2014. My children were, I had twins at the preschool and I was hearing about class sizes. So I showed up at a, at a meeting. I didn't know anybody at that time and said my piece to the school committee and Dave, Leah and Julie were in this row here. And as I turned around to go back to my seat, one of them grabbed me and said, oh, you're with us now. And I immediately was brought into this fold of, of Natick town government.
And Julie also ran slates of candidates in 2015, got me to be a writing candidate for, for a town meeting. And since then we've always just followed Julie and wanted to be sure we were, we knew we were getting good information, we knew we were getting good guidance and anything that Julie was was telling us, we took our kids canvassing together. Unhappily, admittedly. And we've, I've been so thrilled to work with you over these last 10 years that I've had the opportunity to know you, your dedication to the schools and to parents and to families in this community.
I don't think we can overstate how critical you have been to many of the changes that have come to our schools over the last 10 years. And for that I really appreciate it. Thank you also for being a wonderful friend. I know sometimes that line between a friend and a school committee member can be blurry when I call you. Very riled up about things sometimes and you always, as Catherine said, hmm. Yeah, okay. I think we, maybe I'll call someone about that. Very calm, cool and collected at all times. So thank you so much Julie, for your service and I think if we had more people like you, the whole world would be a different place. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Ostroff. Speaker 16: What, what's that about? Class sizes? My name is Josh Ostroff. I was 10 years on the select board, oh, one kid class of 2004. Now he teaches mathematics in Washington State. So I was on the select board for 10 years and towards the end of of that term, our meetings would frequently have in the front row Julie and Leah and Katie concerned about the town's investment in education. I've always been super enthusiastic about people
getting involved in government. We have citizen led town government. That's one of the great things about this community, the people that step up to lead. But Julie has just been extraordinary. Not only was it just a, a joy to work with you and just sort of like here's how things can work if we're successful in bringing more people into the conversation and having really durable consensus. But you instantly got that other people need to be part of the conversation and inspiring other folks to get involved as volunteers, running for office, participating, making sure their voices are heard,
not just at the moment and when decisions are made, but making the case in the months and years leading up to that so that elected leaders and staff do have a sense of, of of what the values of the community. So I'm so appreciative of all the great work you've done and I'll just share one thing that I shared with you and I just to be candid, for me and for you, adjusting to leadership doesn't always come naturally because the view, particularly if executive session or contentious issues, the view from
behind the desk is very different from the view in front of the desk because you have more things to weigh and many things that just can't see the public light of day because we have to protect the confidentiality, the rights of employees, collective bargaining happens behind closed doors. There are good reasons, but the public doesn't always understand that and you only get that, that nuanced perspective when you're in a position of leadership. So I say that because I know that it took some time for us to acclimate to that and I know that, so I remember talking to you a few years ago and it was like, when did you go from being the rebel
alliance to the evil empire? Because the expectations of families who care about education is different. And you all of you have to weigh the limited means that we have to invest and strike the best deal you can that will reward our, you know, excellent educators and keep us moving forward. But it's not a bottomless, you know, pot of money. And, and and, and those of us who have served on town meeting, you know Kathy and others understand that those can be difficult choices. But so you've really gotten that and left a great legacy.
I'm really proud to be your friend and appreciative of what you've done because I used to get up and say, people would say how many kids they have and I would get up and say, ah yeah I have like 5,500 kids in the Natick public schools and that's who I'm trying to represent and their families and you know, people without kids. So thank you Julie. Welcome to retirement. You will find that it can be difficult to let, it's not how I would make that decision, but you know, we only rent the seats that we're in so we don't own them. So thank you my friend. Speaker 1: Thank you so much Ms. Sonneborn
Speaker 8: Haley Sonneborn, I had the pleasure of serving with Julie, I think six out of your, I'm gonna say 10 years because you sort of came in, I think it was more than nine that you served with your, if we round up, so I'll try to be brief, but I think there's a very clear theme here of admiration for your leadership and who you are. And I can speak to that because I feel like my own leadership is influenced by yours. And I think the things that I wanna comment on are your
ability to integrate varied perspective and your openness to hearing those perspectives has really inspired how I approach challenging situations. And in your nine years of service, there were many challenging situations. There was a nice quiet period where I first came onto the committee and then there was unprecedented change after unprecedented change and a global pandemic and a million things. But you always approach leadership with curiosity and interest.
You approach wildly different opinions with respect. And even at times when I would turn to you to sort of see what you would say to something that I knew was vastly different than your opinion, you would be quiet and then say that's interesting and sort of digest it and integrate it. But your willingness and openness to hear different perspectives and appreciate them and honor them has definitely stuck with me in my time beyond the committee too. And the committee is better, the schools are better,
this town is better because of your service and you will be missed. Speaker 1: I, Dr. Mackenzie, Speaker 17: Donna Mackenzie, I, I just want to add to the alos and don't want it to get lost that not only were you an amazing leader in an amazing chair, but we changed our bylaws so that you could serve another year as chair because we didn't wanna let you go. Remember that I was like three years, I mean the typical term was two and you served us for three and I will always be grateful for that.
You have an amazing sense of respect in your leadership. I mean you can totally disagree with something what I'm that I'm saying and you listen intently and consider it. And you were able to do that with everybody on the committee. And these were tumultuous years for this school committee. I mean we went through a superintendent in these just were just a pandemic. These were tumultuous years and you were always so calm. And I often told you that I thought you had the gift of Irish diplomacy and I don't know that I should define it
'cause we're on camera, but basically the ability to tell difficult people where you thought they should go in a way that they would enjoy going there. And I just think your diplomacy skills are really, I, I commend you. I learned a lot from you. I mean you could have yelled at us at times and you didn't, you, you just were amazing. And I also think you have the quintessential mom gene and I'll explain that. But you had your beautiful children in a room like doing homework often. So from a distance we got to watch them
grow up, which was awesome. But you were so disciplined with them. I, I remember being impressed that you had like organized a summer school for them and my first reaction was, oh my god, oh god, my mother didn't do that with me. That sounds like that would be so tough. But then I looked at the way that you organized and applied the discipline to the school committee and I just thought, oh I need some of that mom Jean, I really need some of that mom jean and you just so down to earth and so kind.
And I remember one time I was had a back issue and you came and you very kindly brought me pizza and I had papers scattered everywhere. You looked at me and you said, would you like me to come back and help you pick up these papers? And I was like, oh my god, oh my god, I probably would love you to do that but I'm not gonna ever ask you to do that. 'cause I'm like mortified. But it just, that's the kind of person you are. You just oozed kindness in those kinds of situations. And it mattered a lot. It mattered a lot to enjoying school committee
during tum tumultuous circumstances. It mattered a lot. So thank you for your gift of time, thank you for your service and I wish I could say, well thank you for extend, you know, making a later school start time for like, you know, adding an early education program or gonna name it the McDonough Early preschool program. I wish I could say all that, but I really think what you did in leadership was so much more pivotal and so much more transformative than
any of that could be. So thank you. Thank you. Speaker 18: Oh, she's nervous. I, Dave Megan, former school committee member, meeting member and much like some of my other residents and Natick, Julie dragged me out of the un unaware nature of town politics. And I wanna thank you for giving that confidence that that community-based government does this work and it's something that people should be part of and it's a lot easy to be critical from the outside when you don't have the circumstances known to you. But when you're inside and you see the school committee, the select board, the finance committee, town meeting, all
of those groups doing their best to work together, you can really see what's such a positive thing. It is, I do think it's 10 years, but I actually went into school committee calculator and I realized that you were the chair for two years during covid. You went through a mass Supreme Court case about a free speech. You appointed two superintendents and one interim superintendent. You went through the Kennedy building process. So by the time you adjust all that, I think it's about 36 years. So we should probably cover your pension and your health insurance at some point. But I think, you know, all those things are a reflection of
what the town was encountering at the time during your, your years of service. I think if you look back, you know, Katie's here, Leah's here, members of the board that you were instrumental in getting them to step up and I think when I did a little bit of a back of the envelope, it was about 13 to 15 people that signed up for town meeting that otherwise wouldn't have a handful of people that have served on this board. So I really can't think of many people that have had that sort of impact where they got people that otherwise wouldn't have participated in town government to do so. Outside of a situation perhaps like we're encountering now
where we have an override coming before the ballot that's invoking a lot of strong feelings from all sides that will I think generate the, probably the next generation of citizen servants that participate in government. So I think it's impressive that as it is as difficult it was at that time with concerns about class size and those other things that you were able to do that just through your leadership and role model behavior that you showed. I think it's also notable that in your various leadership capacities, I never once felt like you were telling people what to think. You really told them what they should think about,
understood what their perspective were, encouraged them to branch out a little bit and learn a little bit more about what they didn't know. And then ultimately the times that we dis disagree on something, it was well we just have a dis disagreement of opinion based on our values and our circumstances and priorities. So I think that's another aspect of your leadership that's worth noting. You know, the other thing I'll say is that there's been a lot of people have served in this town over time and if we had the hypothetical, you know, room of all of them together, you definitely deserve a seat at the table amongst all of the servants that we've ever had.
So thank you very much for your leadership and friendship. I won't see you around the hockey rink anymore, my kids are all graduating, so I'm sure we'll see you around. Speaker 1: Anyone else wish to speak on this item? And I'll just remind the public that members of the McDonna, not to put anyone on the spot, but members of McDonna household are allowed to speak as well if they so desire not to put again anyone on the spot? Anyone? Anyone or any other household? Yeah, Mr. Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood. Mr. Wood, Speaker 4: I'm used to it. Thank you Mr. Chair. I don't know what these people are talking about. You've had no effect on me whatsoever, Charlie,
and I've got 23 students in my class this year. I was kind of hoping you'd do something about that. Personally, I have been a co-president of the teacher's union for eight years and so our tenures have overlapped entirely. In fact, next month I will see what it is like to come to a school committee meeting without you in the first time. Since I've been involved with the school committee, I don't necessarily wanna repeat everything that other people have already covered. I think that one, one aspect that I think was largely overlooked is what a hard worker you are. And that was something that was very easy to see from the beginning. You did your homework, you always came to meetings, prepared
with questions, ready to go with discussion topics that you wanted to address. And although I may have quietly cursed under my breath as you were still asking questions at 10 45, I was always impressed that you had an insatiable interest and desire to get it right. Democracy and town government works when people show up. And although you and I have disagreed on a number of topics in looking back over our time together in these roles, we've had what, four superintendents,
three contracts, one brand new building, one building closing and global global pandemic. That's that is quite a bit. And in that time we didn't always agree and in fact sometimes forcefully disagreed. And yet I never once questioned your belief in that what you were doing was right for the students, right for staff and right for the community. You showed up Julie. And for that you have my undying respect and admiration. Thank you for all your work for the community.
Speaker 6: I'll, I'll say a few words just on be, it's hard to go after Jefferson. It really is. You're so eloquent. But on behalf of the administration, I just wish I personally had more time with you. I have learned a lot from you. You're the communications guru in my mind when I ask you something I don't even hesitate if she's like, one minute before a meeting says, maybe change this. I'm like, done. So I really just take your advice straightforwardly because I I truly everyth. I'm not gonna repeat what people have said here either, but you have a secret sauce there of how to anticipate how people are going to receive what is being communicated
and tailor it so that it's very transparent and reaches them. So I saw that very quickly. Your incredible depth of institutional knowledge. You've been here forever it seems. And so, you know, but what I've noticed really very strongly and recently is your steady, brave voice. You get the thinky face on and then you kind of come out with something that you, you go there and I've noticed it. You did it just the last meeting. It's so brave and I admire it very much so I, I really wish I had more time with you, but I hope you call and hope you visit. Thank you. Speaker 1: So we have cupcakes. Thank you to Ms.
Brune for bringing them into the Sleepy Bake Baker for preparing them. We have soda as well. Would the committee like to take Oh, do I do, do, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I do. And you, is there anyone else who wants to speak? Anyone else who wants to speak? Actually tired Speaker 19: Of talking nine and a half years. Speaker 1: Is anyone else willing, wanting to speak? No. Sorry, Ms. McDonna. Yeah, Speaker 19: Actually I wrote a lot, but if you'll indulge me, I did wanna take everyone like on a trip down memory lane. And I also wanted to thank some people. So if you don't mind, I would just like to read this
and I'll try to be totally calm and cool and collected. So it was 13 years ago that this spring that I ran for town meeting and I, I did it to get out of the house. I was a stay at home mom to kids who were five, three and two at the time. And I kept seeing this local, the, in the local newspaper, this mystical thing called town meeting that was making decisions for our town. So I chose town meeting to get myself out of the house at night after my husband was home and the kids were put to bed. So that might have been a strange choice, but it was what set me on this journey.
So everyone knows my story. It's been alluded to tonight. I started going to school committee meetings in 2012 because I was pissed about class size for my kindergartner. It was worse for my son when we started, when he started a year later. And it was even worse when he went to first grade in the fall of 2014. I remember Kirk Downing telling me on the phone while I was standing in the middle of JC Penney's that he was done talking to me about this. I remember meetings with San Keoni when he kept telling me there was just no space and nothing he could do. And so after four years of beating the drum about class size, which led
to hiring much needed staff and building two sets of modulars, I think we prove that there's always a way to do the right thing for kids. I also remember the budget fight of 2015, and that's actually the first time since 2008 that the town had started talking about a budget override. I wrote letter after letter to my neighbors about the budget situation, encouraging them to write to town and school officials. It's actually the first time I had ever heard of the Natick Moms group on Facebook. I started a write in campaign for town meeting seats. I remember that budget year as the schools finally getting
what they actually needed, bringing down caseloads, bringing down class sizes and supporting kids in the way they needed it. And it's also when I met some of my best friends in town government, I did finally join school committee officially in the fall of 2015 when I was appointed. And it was an experience that, as the kids say, has been like all the things like rewarding, interesting, thought provoking, frustrating, shocking, exhausting, trying, happy, funny, wild, wild
and frankly life changing. I mean for superintendents 600 open meeting law complaints, police station meetings, musical instruments that shall not be named in a global pandemic. I feel like honestly I've experienced it all. And for the most part I'm proud of all that we've accomplished. Smaller class sizes, librarians in the elementary school, meaningful expansion of the music programs, K to 12, more sports, more activities, sustainable and less expensive technology and better nursing and counseling services. I have a few regrets I wish I could've done more
for students in special education. I, we've made some huge, huge project pro progress, but some are still frustrated. I wish I could have been quicker to act on the new information about literacy and how our curriculum needed to change. I wish we could have changed the high school start time. It's actually the entire reason I ran for the third time in 2022. The data and research is so clear. I think we're doing our kids a huge disservice as we remain beholden to athletics and health and wellness departments. I wish I had made more progress on fields and playgrounds. They have to be fixed. And I actually wish I'd stood up
to leadership during my time as a chair and demanded better processes and accountability. So lesson learned on that one. And while I don't wish I could stay, I do regret that I won't have, have a front row seat to watch Melissa do her thing in Natick. She's off to an amazing start and I'm so happy to, got to play a small part in bringing her to our district. And this leads me to my greatest piece of advice. And don't be afraid of change. It's hard and it's messy and sometimes people don't realize that it's the right thing to do, but I honestly believe it's often the best thing to do for the students, the district and the community.
I don't regret any of my votes for change, even the one that arguably cost me my job in real life. I want to say a quick note of thanks to my current fellow members. Kate, thanks for stepping up to run for office because you needed to see and to make change and most people just don't do that. I appreciate you voicing your opinion and then stepping out of the way to let the professionals do their jobs. Kathy, thanks for teaching me to embrace the budget and to learn so much about town finance. I also loved serving with you on town, meeting shy.
You have done a masterful job of being chair. You know how to move the conversation to an end goal in a way that I feel like I never could. And you've grown so much as a member and I'll always value our work together and our friendship. Elise, it's, it's hard to believe we've come so far from the days when you would call me about school committee issues and I kept telling you to run for school committee. I'm so glad that you did and I've so appreciated your approach to challenges, calm, considerate, and thoughtful. And I'll deeply miss our conversations. Matt, you were my right hand man when I was chair
and I could not have done it without, without you. And I tell people that all the time you were always there to talk it out and to figure out how to move forward. It helps that it helped that some of those chats were poolside in your backyard. Oasis, Catherine, you and I have perhaps come the furthest. I mean, let's be honest, you were a lot when you first joined, but let me say, but let me say that there is no way that you deserve to be treated the way you were treated back then for the role that I played in that I sincerely apologize.
You are a fierce advocate for students in our public schools and for a town government that works for all citizens. I have learned so much from you in the way that you approach town government, this override and relating to other people in the community. And I'm glad we had the chance to serve together just a few more thank yous to some special folks that have helped me to make it through school committee service to Katie, Joyce and Leah Falzone. Thank you for the fire pit chats, the phone calls, the walks, the drinks, the tears, and the text messages listening to the craziness of school committee. Thank you for always being there. Dave Mangan, my first running mate who stepped up to run
for school committee when his youngest was two or three years old. He did not have the time, but he knew that it was a really important moment to step up and serve. And while his first term was short, he made the difference. So thank you for the beers at Morse Tavern, the cereal on my doorstep and the supportive text messages. But most of all, thank you to my family, to Natalie Peter Claire. Of course this is for you and for all of your classmates in the Natick public schools. You have sat here in the hallways of town hall, raced me up the elevator, brought me bowls of chocolate chips and glasses of water during,
during pandemic zoom school committee meetings. And you also managed through bedtimes without me. As I walked out the door and said, I'm going to a school committee meeting. I'm sure it won't be long, Of course, don't believe anything you, I know. Of course, it's impossible to express my ga gratitude to my husband. Gene, you've never seen him at a school committee committee meeting and you, you never will. But he has been my biggest supporter. Everyone on this committee knows that you don't do this job without a lot of support from home. He sacrificed a lot in all aspects of his life
for me to be able to do this. And I'm grateful. Two years ago I sat down with good friends from college for dinner and one friend asked each of us what the most surprising thing about our lives has been since we graduated way back in 1995, now 30 years. I said, I I said this right here. Serving as an elected official in my adopted hometown where I've now lived for almost 20 years, I never would've thought I could do it to put myself out there to make coherent arguments and statements about policies and protocols
and to have tough conversations about school issues, but more importantly, to galvanize people in a community to work together to give our kids the best education possible, best public education possible. And a final message to my fellow NAIC community members, thank you for the honor of representing you for the past nine and a half years. You should be proud of yourself. You have invested a great deal in this school system and you have made it better for all of our kids. So now go do it again tomorrow. Thank you. Speaker 20: Woo. Speaker 1: Move to recess. So we'll take a 15 minute recess
for cupcakes, a brief recess. We have just a couple more items to go tonight before we can be dismissed. Should we go with the superintendent's report on the brown? Whichever order you wanna go. Yep. Yeah, we can go with that first. And, okay. Speaker 6: Can we bring up that deck? Thank you. Speaker 14: Good to drink. Speaker 6: As Linda brings up the deck, I really very briefly wanted to update the committee and the public who may be listening about the update for our Brown Elementary principal. As you may know, there's an interim principal there right now, and we're closing in on the final processes.
And so we did make a few changes and I'm not sure how much that's been gone over in prior school committee meetings. So wanted to share kind of what our process is. Speaker 21: Okay. Speaker 6: I'm gonna start just by talking through the first page and then you can take a look when she gets it up. The job posting, I, I actually put the job description in. Sometimes it's nice if you like to skim and just kind of see what we're expecting. I hope that when you read this, it really resounds with the idea of we're, we're, we're seeking an instructional leader, someone who sees the himself as the instructional leader of the building. We all know principals have many, many hats they wear,
but that has to be front and center. And we really posted it in a very wide next slide, please. Very widespread way. We post posted of course internally on Indeed in school spring. There's many, many ways. We posted it in LinkedIn, many shares. So it was widely publicized. I'm not gonna read all the names, but you can kind of see there. Next slide. We've done quite a bit of stakeholder engagement. So I, I share this process because anytime we ever have these types of high level positions, I would say cabinet as well as principal level positions, this is the type of process
that we are going to do, which is going to be to truly engage stakeholders. So that would, if it were high school, which we hope for a very long time, it would not be. But that would involve students. If it's in middle school, it would involve students course involves teachers as well as families. So the first stage of this was to gather stakeholder input to identify the key qualities and priorities for selecting the principal and to inform interview questions. So we did that. We met with myself and Julie Skipper, the HR director. Met with all of the brown school staff. It was a volunteer meeting after school and it was a full house in the LI full standing room.
Very full, very vibrant conversation. We also met with a group on a very rainy night. So thanks for the families who came out. We met with parents and also gleaned quite a bit so that we were able to shape some of our interview questions. Next slide. We formed a screening committee that went through and a formal interview committee. So their purpose was to read screen and interview candidates to identify top finalists. The final resume review, there were 23 applicants, which now nowadays is considered quite a nice panel. The screening committee in, in the past it used
to just be the cabinet is my understanding. And we expanded that. So we had the assistant superintendent Sue Aloni of Teaching, learning and Innovation, the Director of student services, Erin Miller, director of Human Resources, Julie Skipper. We had a colleague, principal that they attend all of these, which is the principal, Shelby Marsha of Lilja Elementary, our union president and classroom teacher, Jefferson Wood, and then another classroom teacher on this panel to do the original screening of the 23 interviews. So that 23 applicants, so that there was true voice of those who would be working with these people in the,
the selection of that slate. We went then went through 20 minute virtual screening interviews by a screening committee. That was the screening committee. There were 12 of those from the 23 original applicants. And the, they recommended six people, one withdrew, six people, five were interviewed. And that was a formal interview committee with a little expansion of that to represent many more folks from the Brown Elementary School. So that included Sue, again, Julie Skipper, the principal Ofia, the assistant principal of Brown, five brown elementary staff, including a classroom teacher,
an EL teacher, special education teacher, a para and an administrative assistant, all chosen by their, by the team there. And then two parents and caregivers. So a very nicely rounded out panel that brings us to this week where we're in the finalist process. We assess finalists through performance tasks, which were due today. Yes. This morning, school visits, interviews and stakeholder forums. Today we start, the performance ca task was due that over the next three days. So today, tomorrow, and Wednesday, each
of the candidates will spend the entire day from the morning until about 1:00 PM at the school, taking part in interviews with me, which includes rounds, instructional rounds at Lilja Elementary. So viewing classes and debriefing it, and then participating in a cabinet interview. In the afternoon there will be an evening forum and certainly school committee is very welcome to that. And as are all parents, caregivers and staff. And there's a QR code after all of these where people can offer their feedback and, and commentary. So this is a really robust process and we are looking to make a decision with the next slide.
Please. By the end of the week by Monday. So I feel good about the process. I, I feel grateful that we had a very nice slate that the team at Brown Elementary we're interested in participating and have participated in the families that are. So I feel great about it and hopefully we have a nice update date for you in about a week. Speaker 1: That's a very thorough process. Any questions or comments in the process? No. Okay. Well, good luck. I hope to find you, find the right person. Yeah. Thank you. I'm sure you, you will. Speaker 6: I'm confident we will. Speaker 1: Yeah. Should we go next to the subcommittee liaison updates
and specifically the public participation policy? Speaker 7: Sure. Speaker 1: Thank you. Speaker 7: So we have looked us as policy, BEDH. We have looked at it at this with the committee. I don't even remember. Three times, two or three times. Two or three meetings. That's been on the agenda already. So this today, again, just to recap the highest level, the biggest differences between the, the previous or the current version, the policy and the proposed new version. To summarize, and won't go sort of word for word, but public speak would allow people to speak about anything,
including things that are on the agenda. That's a difference between the current policy and the proposed policy. People who need accommodations have to request that two business days in advance as opposed to 48 hours in advance. Part of that is because typically our meetings run Mondays 48 hours in advance is a Saturday as opposed to two business days. So typically it's not, people may not respond in time or might not see it in time if it's on a Saturday or Sunday. I think those are the biggest differences in this one.
We took some stuff out of, of what we had originally proposed. So the, that's really the only big differences. Right. All right. So That's it. We've covered it a bunch of times, so I think all that's left to do is to vote to approve this is the new public participation policy. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments on the policy? Yeah, Ms. Brunell, Speaker 9: I just wanna clarify number four, public speak may concern, because it says may concern items that are not on the school committee's agenda. You can speak to items that are on the agenda, correct? Yes. Okay. I just want That was Speaker 7: May. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 9: I just really appreciate the committee's effort on this,
and I just want to call this out because in this world where diversity, equity, and inclusion seems to be at, Just has become this like political hotspot and being made into things. It's not, this type of language is equity because we are changing our policy to allow people, everyone to come and speak without having to go through extra hoops and do extra things. Before this were you, if you wanted to come
and speak about an item, you had to have the wherewithal to know where the agenda was, plan for a meeting, that the item was not going to be on the agenda. And it just involved a lot of extra steps. In this addition, the way that we're changing this, it's an example of equity without ever using the word equity. So I just want to call that out because I, this is, this is the work. Speaker 1: Great, thank you. Any other comments or thoughts? I'll take a motion to approve the policy, Speaker 12: Move approval of policy, BEDH
of the participation at school committee meetings. Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments on the motion? Seeing none. All those in favor? Anyone against any abstentions? The motion passes on the agenda. We have recognition of Tamika Scott as our first micro representative. Just wanted to let people know she's not feeling well, so she's not here. So we will have another opportunity hopefully to recognize her. I'll make sure she, well, I'll ask her to come to a D two different meeting. And that leaves just one item on the agenda, which is
to vote to approve the collective bargain agreement with the facilities union. Just for context to the public, this is a union that is jointly negotiated by both the school committee and the select board. This, the, their agreement was approved by their union. It will be a, it will be approved hopefully tonight by us. Well, it will be approved by us tonight. And then as, as well as the select board. We did approve this in executive session, so this is just a motion to approve it in open meeting.
Speaker 12: And would you like such a motion? Speaker 1: Sure. Is there anything else you would want to add about the Speaker 12: No. Speaker 1: No. Okay. Think so. So let's take a motion Speaker 12: Move to approve the memorandum of agreement between the Natick custodians and maintenance local union 1 1 1 6 in the town of Natick for the period of FY 26 through FY 28. Speaker 7: Second. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments on the motion? All those in favor? Anyone against any abstentions? With that, we have just one more vote left, which is, I'll take a motion Ajour, Speaker 7: Just a quick, can I make an announcement before we do that motion?
I, we should, we probably should have done this earlier, but whatever. We should recognize that this is Chi's last meeting as the chair after two years, and Julie mentioned it a bit, but just real briefly, I just, can we get the slides up? I've just prepared a brief 30 slide. I I have a different shirt and No, I think in the, in the two years that that shy has been chair, we, we had a superintendent search and we had union negotiations and we had a complex budget
and hopefully a positive operational override discussion. So a ton of of work. And so for that, thank you for all the hard work has been actually as, as, as much as some of these things have been difficult, I actually think it's been, no offense to any previous chairs that I've worked with a a real, it's been a fun time and meaningful and they've all been fun and meaningful, but great work and we will get to talk more about it I'm sure in future meetings. 'cause unlike Julie Shai is not abandoning
us after tonight. Thanks. Speaker 22: Thank you. Speaker 9: So you're saying you don't want to be chair next chair. Speaker 1: I'm done. Unlike I'll, unlike some people. I mean three years. There is precedent. There is precedent. So second without, yeah. Motion to adjourn. And second. All those in favor? Anyone against any abstentions? The meeting is adjourned. Goodnight everyone and make sure you vote tomorrow.