METCO Update (15 minutes)

Transcript (~24 min @ 37:03)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 36:59 Speaker 6: the introduction please. Thank you Mr. Selma. I would ask Ms. Jackson, Amy Jackson our METCO director to come forward. Those of you who may remember Ms. Jackson first joined us as an interim director mid-year last year and was appointed to the position this summer. Welcome Amy. Good evening everyone. So I just want to

▶ 37:26 Speaker 8: get started with some accomplishments and updates since I've been in the position since the last February so first the current enrollment is 124 students we have 39 students in the elementary level we have 16 at Hoover 2 at Horace Mann 6 at Lincoln 11 at Roosevelt and 4 at Winthrop we currently have 48 students at the middle school 37 students at the high school and 14 current seniors the next piece is Mecco Inc has launched a new enrollment process which is now online so families are welcome to go online and they can download all the new documents this has been in the works for like the last two years because before parents would have to go into the office fill out additional paperwork make several copies and leave them there in the office so we're really excited about the online process. And other changes now, it goes to a lottery process. As in before, it was a wait list. So parents would sign their children up as soon as their child was born. As soon as they get a social security number, they would go down because the wait list would be five to six years long before your child could even enter into the program or get a slot. So now with the lottery process, you can sign your child up maybe five years ago or this year and your child could get a spot currently in this year. So a lot of parents are excited about that, so they don't have to wait the five or six years wait list in order to get their child into the program. And one thing Meckle has really prided itself on is for children entering the program, and you have to be a resident of Boston, and as you know, Boston is changing. The diversity is changing. So a lot of our students are from all nationalities and all backgrounds, and that's something Meckle really priding itself on their market in all the different areas in Boston so there's going to be like a new division of students coming into the Mecco program starting next September one a really huge accomplishment we have a senior who's going to be inducted into the National Honor Society on November 3rd she's really excited about that as well as her mom so we're excited about that we also have a senior who is a finalist for the posse scholarship at Denison University in Ohio and we should know if he gets it at the end of this month so we're excited about that as well next we hired two new staff members we have a medical para at the middle school as well at the high school and we're currently still looking for a para at the elementary school and that person would be placed at Hoover because we have a large number of students at the hoover we have 16 currently now from kindergarten to fifth grade one of the other accomplishments as we as you know we lobby every year at the State House and because of the turnout with the state reps from all the different districts the parents and staff members we were able to increase the funding which was huge for us this year because that allowed us to get additional funding to get a second bus for our elementary students which the parents was so excited and that way there's less time with the students on a bus and less students on the bus which is huge because it cuts down on a lot of extra noise and issues on the bus with the little ones so that was exciting next during the summer we have five students who participated in an academic summer program given by the Mecco program and we also had a student who went to the nexus MIT summer program one of our he's a current senior right now next we were the contract had expired for our bus company so we went up for bid and the current contract that was awarded was North Reading transportation and because they came in significantly lower on the amount we were able to get to late buses for our students which is exciting so the middle school and high school staff members were so ecstatic as well as the families and the late buses take the families take the students excuse me right into Boston so we have one bus that comes at 345 Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday and we also have a sports bus that runs Monday through Friday at 6 o'clock and that bus also takes the students right into Boston which cuts off a lot of time and they don't have to get on the T which from here and to Boston it takes like two hours on the T so the parents were happy about that next thing we started was a middle school girls group and it's going to continue this year and it's by grade level so we meet every Tuesday during flex period so one we could make with sixth grade next week we meet seventh grade and then eighth grade and that's in collaboration with Mecca Inc we have a current social worker who co facilitates the program with me as well as the Mecca para at the middle school and this year where we have a book we're reading is called the state of black girls and then we're also gonna start a boys group in the book we're gonna read it's called dear Martin and so the boys was like what happened to us so we was like we're gonna get you so we're gonna get started in the next couple of weeks with the boys and then we're also gonna invite some professionals to come in and hopefully some Mecca alum to come and talk with the children just about the experience last year I had a Mecca alum she was a Mecca alum from Marblehead where I actually went to Mecco as well and she is a current author she is a lawyer and she has her own company and she came in and she spoke to the girls it's about her experience so when you have someone who come in who already went through what the children are going through they actually pay attention they start to sit up oh you can really relate to me like you remember getting up at five o'clock in the morning so it's really helpful when you bring in the alum and they can say you know what it really paid off so the sacrifice was actually worth it and the girls were really excited about that so we want to definitely continue that as well next I partnered with five other districts Mecca directors to do parent workshops throughout the year so our first workshop we had in September it was on safety and communication we had the Boston police community police officer who came in and talked about safety internet safety social media as you know the Facebook and snapchat and Twitter like you really need to let the parents know the importance of that once you put it up that's it so you need to be mindful you need to check your child's phones and their tablets just to see what they're doing so that was really helpful the parents found that it was like a lot of things they didn't know how to put the privacy labels on the phone as well as a tablet so that was really helpful last week we had the college prep one we had a facilitator to talk about how to apply to college when you go into college visits what questions to ask how far you should go we talked about early action so that was really helpful for the parents it was interactive the parents were able to download the presentation right on their phone technology is unbelievable she even had websites they can click right into go on look at scholarships it's look at other helpful information that parents need to know we actually had a person talk about financial aid how not to take out the parent plus loan I'm sure you parents can relate to that there are other options so that was really helpful for parents as well and then we're also going to have a meeting on IEPs in January we have a special education administrator who's going to administer that because a lot of parents have a lot of questions when the child is on the IEP is it helpful is it not helpful a lot of parents won't sign it because they really don't understand it so we want to make sure they understand that it's gonna help your child it supports and resources that will help your child be successful academically and we'll have like here's the question that you need to ask when you have an IEP meeting so that's gonna be really helpful and then in March we're just gonna have a social to get together with all the families like you made it the year is almost over let's celebrate and then we also had an apple pick in day in January where all the districts we had the families from those particular districts come out as well so that's been really positive and the parents have appreciated that as well and next we also continue to partner with Mecco Inc with Kathleen Lopes she's the director of diversity and inclusion and equity and she's gonna help us facilitate one of the parent university sessions during that time to how to bridge the Mecco families with the Melrose families so we're gonna have a session during that time and we the district also contracted with pathways to restorative communities to continue that work and also do professional developments with the staff as well so those are my updates open for any

▶ 46:30 Speaker 7: questions thank you very much committee do you have any questions

▶ 46:35 Speaker 5: mr. Essie Thomas please welcome welcome we're so glad to have you and congratulations on your appointment and boy it sounds like it's been a busy year less than a year yes accomplishment so thank you for your work that you're doing and thank you for the the books that you're talking about I'm gonna try to read them this year so that's one thing I can do to try to support the Mecco students that are here and your program I'm wondering I'm also the liaison to this new group that Ed has been trying to get together for the last few years and the Friends of Melrose Mecco program and I just wanted to see what your vision is for that over time and I know this is your first you know year so we know things take time too so yes can you just give us a little heads

▶ 47:23 Speaker 8: up on that well I met a few times you know a few people who were on the board and the vision was just to be a support to try to bridge the two families the Mecca families as well as the Merrill's families and try to create like a partnership sort of like a host family a buddy family so identify families and Melrose as well as families in Boston who would be interested so they invited me to a meeting on next month just to really try to start that conversation and how best they can support the efforts of the Mecco families great

▶ 47:54 Speaker 5: thank you and once again I really appreciate the work that you're doing

▶ 48:03 Gail Infurna: thank you madam mayor please thank you very much thank you also for all the work that you are doing and the support that you're giving our METCO students. I also want to commend you for the good use of the funds for the late buses. I think that's really important for these kids. Their safety, they're getting home earlier, and yet they're able to participate in the after-school programs or any sort of other educational things. So thank you for, you know, the sage decision to use the extra funds that way. Once again, thank you.

▶ 48:36 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Mr. Isco, please. Thank you. I think we're all so proud of the very long-standing relationship we've had with the METCO program. METCO has been in Melrose for a long time and I think it's, I hope that the students and families feel that, speaking just myself and I know many others, METCO families are our melrose families this is their school community this is their home it's just like a roosevelt family or a hoover family we're all melrose family and that includes metco students so i hope that the families really believe that we are one school community i think that's very

▶ 49:26 Speaker 1: important any further mr o'connell please thank you madam chair um and thank you miss jackson uh for being with us we know it makes for a long day after being at school all day with our

▶ 49:38 Speaker 1: students thank you very much so I'm excited to hear about these student groups at the middle school and I'm wondering if you can tell us what it's going to take to get the young men's group up and running sooner rather than later I know you mentioned and in the memo we have you talk about a social worker from I think Metco Inc helping to co-coordinate the young women's group does that mean we're waiting or hoping to get a social worker for the young men's group and I guess ultimately I'm wondering could it be a community member could be someone not necessarily from Metco Inc that helps coordinate with you just so we can get that going do you have any sense of that are there

▶ 50:23 Speaker 8: any rules for that no no necessary rules we're actually gonna get it started up in a couple weeks because the boys like we need something I'm like I know I was just looking for just to have someone consistent yeah that's yeah we need to have consistency we just didn't want anyone just to come this week and we don't know if they're gonna come back next week so it was just really hard to find someone just to be consistent and come every single week to be there with the students because they really look forward to that and we know the social worker she's consistent she'll be there every Tuesday with the girls so we're actually just gonna start it myself and miss Castillo who is paraprofessional at middle school so we're just going to do it with the boys and then I'm just going to work and try to get guests to come in so it'd be nice if you could come in and be a guest so that way we could just get rolling guests just to come in and to

▶ 51:14 Speaker 1: speak with the boys terrific thank you for that and a separate question if I may I'm sure please you talked about a number of parent workshops that sound terrific I'm assuming these are all in Boston great and then my last question

▶ 51:30 Speaker 1: maybe for you and or the superintendent if I may superintendent through the chair could you talk a bit about this relationship that we're striking with pathways to restorative communities and what you're thinking is or what the district's thinking is about how this can help so I've been in conversation

▶ 51:52 Speaker 6: with some of my medical parents who we have some fairly honest conversation and they have asked if we could find somebody to facilitate conversation between Melrose families and the Boston families one of the concerns that we have had is regarding many of my Boston families encourage their children to stay over here in Melrose but it's not always reciprocated many of our Melrose families are often reluctant to let the students come into Boston and we want to build bridges and develop a clearer understanding of what is possible and what the benefits of a two-way relationship and I think that's the term I hear most often from my METCO families that everything should be two ways they understand the choices they made by joining METCO these are very savvy caring educated parents who know that for their children coming to school in Melrose is an important step forward for their future but they also want to stay connected to Boston because that's where they have invested their lives and but they would like their Melrose counterparts to understand why that's been important to them so we hired pathways who we with whom we work on other issues to help facilitate those conversations as you can imagine they can be difficult conversations at time so the goal is for pathways to meet first with some Boston parents to gain an understanding of what they're trying to achieve and then for us to facilitate some meetings in Boston and I have spoken to some parents here in Melrose who said they would be more than willing

▶ 53:56 Speaker 1: to participate terrific thank you for that thank you for that investment much appreciated and miss Jackson thank you once again for being with us we

▶ 54:05 Speaker 7: appreciate it Thank You mr. Abrams key what's the typical travel time for a

▶ 54:07 Speaker 1: kid for the day would you say oh yes what's like two to three hours the two

▶ 54:18 Speaker 1: to three hours on the bus minimum of two yes like an hour like an hour in the

▶ 54:22 Speaker 8: morning like an hour but it depends on their bus stop so like the first bus stop it could be an hour if they're at the last bus stop it's an additional hour just going through the city because the traffic is just unbearable especially in the afternoon it's really bad in Boston now thank you so one of those

▶ 54:43 Speaker 6: things that people don't realize is that is the dance we the Metco directors do at the bus stops because it's not just all the Mexico buses with 31 Metco communities it's the charter buses it's it's any parochial private school buses it's the buses for the younger children anybody over seventh grade takes public transportation in Boston so you you have common bus stops in which we're trying to figure out who gets to the bus stop when where and how so it really is the Metco directors work very hard to coordinate their stops and their routes among themselves so that we're not tripping over each other thank you and a

▶ 55:25 Speaker 8: lot of times they're like right behind each other it's like deadlocked especially like at the common after-school programs like the Boys and Girls Club in Roxbury that's a huge that's one stop that all the districts make so it's just trying to coordinate that to make sure that all the buses are not arriving around the same time but it's definitely a long day and I know because I've written the bus several times so it is a long day for our

▶ 55:55 Speaker 6: students it is and what amy's not telling you is she's had four children in the program yes yeah

▶ 55:59 Speaker 8: i had two in arlington one of foxborough and one in walpole that's great yeah so i'm very familiar

▶ 56:12 Jennifer McAndrew: with the program thank you yes miss mcandrew thank you um my colleagues asked all of the questions that i had so i don't have any questions but i did just want to add my thanks to you for for being here for this great update and for all that you do for our METCO students. In particular, to echo the mayor's comments around the late bus, I know that has been a long standing goal of Melrose METCO program and that this change in school start times that we have implemented was an additional pressure on that. And so I'm just, I'm really glad to hear that. And I'm really looking forward to hear more about the ways that we can facilitate and support relationships between Melrose families who live here and Melrose families who are part of the METCO program. So, thank you.

▶ 56:56 Speaker 6: Thank you. The bus was an interesting situation. As we've discussed in this chamber before, busing contracts in Massachusetts for school systems are basically monopolies. And when you go out to bid, nobody bids against you. And we took a very big risk. We were unhappy last spring and we took a very big risk and we rejected the bid from our only bidder. And then we worked with METCO, Inc., and lo and behold, we had 10 bids where that is unheard of. And as a result of that bidding process, we probably got the best contract we've had in about six years, and that freed up monies. So that was a really important step going forward.

▶ 57:49 Speaker 7: Thank you very much. Ms. Jackson, before you leave, if I may take a moment, I wanted to thank you, one, for coming, but also for the parent support groups that you've initiated. I think that adds real value to the program, not just for us, but also for the students and, of course, the families, providing for the whole child, including the social workers for the women's group and the men's group. I wanted to ask if you anticipate any complications due to incoming lottery system that will be implemented over the course of this year for September of next year.

▶ 58:28 Speaker 8: Yes, that's been an ongoing discussion. Yes, because prior we could ask for additional documents, but now we cannot, we only receive the documents that Mecco Inc in the application process asks for the parents to upload so we won't receive the additional documents of from the student until

▶ 59:03 Speaker 8: after they register which will cause some problems and questions I feel like

▶ 59:07 Speaker 7: there's just the tip of the iceberg here yes it is this was a very heated

▶ 59:13 Speaker 6: discussion for two years with superintendents metco directors mecco inc and desi um and i understand they want a streamlined fairer system but there is a lot of concern about districts

▶ 59:32 Speaker 7: about unknowns can you can you speculate on what those unknowns might look like please

▶ 59:41 Speaker 6: school readiness discipline issues if kids have have gone from school to school why you know the things that you want to know up ahead of time so you can plan accordingly nobody is looking to deny

▶ 59:58 Speaker 6: entry but when a student registers in melrose now we can ask for an iep we can ask for the discipline records we can ask for anything else that may exist in the students background we may not get that on this lottery system i think it's going to be a trial and error and we'll see what happens the first round and whether or not metco ink has to rethink what the document packet has to look like certainly nobody wants to underserve a child and we try to plan accordingly very well excellent thank you so much for coming and we appreciate

▶ 1:00:41 Speaker 7: your update thank you next up on the EP&P agenda is the mid-cycle program review for wellness at this time Madam Superintendent I believe I saw Mr. Fogarty and Dr. Adams