Proposed 1:1 Program for Secondary Schools (15 minutes) vote required

Transcript (~31 min @ 1:24:40)

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

▶ 1:24:23 Speaker 5: more games more exposure they play longer periods of time so that's more minutes on ice so depending on what school you go to in what league you're gonna play in dictates the amount of exposure you're gonna get at the end of that which translates to a division one down to division three thank you very

▶ 1:24:44 Speaker 4: much okay so we have a motion on the table to approve all in favor motion passes unanimously thank you mr. Fogarty thank you thank you next up on the agenda is the one-to-one program for secondary schools the Chromebooks superintendent would you like to address this prior to thank you mr. Selma we

▶ 1:25:08 Speaker 3: brought it back we revised the first half of the information to meet the school committee's requests it would be a pilot it would not be required to people would volunteer and I want to talk a little bit about the need for technology so a couple of things last year we brought in a with your permission we put in a BYOD program I'm looking at the memo from June 18th no actually since June 18 2013 my Lord our time flies Lordy and we've had we've had

▶ 1:25:49 Speaker 3: some good luck with it mainly with the older kids who really like their own equipment and do a lot of work cooperative work with other kids through Google ed and the more we've become a Google district the more the kids have been collaborating they you know we do a lot of authentic projects we do a lot of project-based learning almost all our kids from fifth grade on who now have portfolios of their work that track that carries with them as they go through middle school and high school and that they can take to college mr. Ellis just sent out the annual May email in which he tells all the kids how they capture their stuff so they can take it with them and it is very much part of our lives and part of our children's futures as you know from things I have shared with you the state is really gearing up on its requirement that every student graduate high school with computational knowledge what began as a suggested framework four years ago the digital literacy and computer science frameworks last year I shared with you has now become mandatory we have to find a way to incorporate it into our other subjects you backed us in hiring the digital literacy specialists at the middle at the elementary school who have done a phenomenal job and big piece of their work is around being a responsible digital citizen understanding how these devices work what is appropriate and was not appropriate so that we're building good skills and our little ones as they move up the ladder we have built our pathways mr. Merrill mr. Conway mr. Parsons after him miss miss Acevedo miss Jones mr. Cristiano and miss Greenwood and myself dr. Adams have been working for two years on building out those computational knowledge pathways that the state expects us to have and we think we are in pretty good shape as a school system probably better shaped in a lot of others because we were able to build off of a lot of things we had already done the courses that are given at the middle school in robotics in CAD design the courses miss miles does in you know digital portfolios miss Arnold at the high school with God knows we have enough courses we have all sorts of design courses we have AP comp science courses so we've built up pathways that we feel for we're meeting the state requirements where we are having difficulty is in the number of machines that we have the past six weeks have been extremely difficult the state has deemed as of this year all MCAS and all access exams are computer-based and to do that securely the approximately 1300 Chromebooks we have in the district get taken offline to speak they get

▶ 1:29:02 Speaker 3: converted to test mode and that's very difficult especially at the high school where you have kids finishing up portfolios finishing up applications a lot of our kids submit portfolios with their applications where you have AP final papers due and kids have collaborative projects due this is the senior capstone we coming up all that stuff is submitted through Google ed and

▶ 1:29:30 Speaker 3: we've had to take machines offline so we have debated how to do this and it has always been a struggle in this district when we did the tech audit and I have to think of thinking Margaret hat may have to remind me four years ago we almost five years into the tech audit where the alderman and the school committee agreed that the city would have a technology audit to see where they were in terms of their wireless their wiring their access points and their equipment at that point our goal was three to one and to do that

▶ 1:30:13 Speaker 3: that the alderman and the city agreed that they would put a line item into the city's budget for us to lease equipment. Why did George Pezos and I choose to lease equipment? Because this nice little machine that Cindy Tamor bought for herself is about a year away from being obsolete and useless, and I paid for it. If you lease equipment, you can turn it over every five years.

▶ 1:30:40 Speaker 3: that was the route we went originally again we Chromebooks weren't the machine back then they were just entering our world Chromebooks have since replaced this they now have a lifespan about seven years Neil tells me they're a little bit more useful they're cheaper we're able to put them on a cot we can do what is called a management system we can control them all from a cot but what

▶ 1:31:11 Speaker 3: What happened at the same time is our population began to grow, and we began to slip away from

▶ 1:31:21 Speaker 3: our goal of three to one, and we've asked our PTOs again to supplement. So I will say there is not a PTO in the city who has not bought a chrome cart in the past two years, as our numbers have gone up, because we keep trying to get to that two to one now. We're slipping down to two to one. And that's getting away from us as well, and the problem is the requirements of the state. If we did not have the requirements we have for MCAS, if we had not become a Google district, maybe our lives would be different, but we are a Google district and MCAS requires everything online. Where almost every kid needs their own device so that they can be functional in the current environment. That does not mean kids are on 24 hours a day. Believe me, teachers are very purposeful about this. So what happens is you may see a kid using a machine, you may not see a kid using a machine. The other thing that I have to tell you as a former SPED director, this is a godsend to some of our kids, all right? This is an accessibility instrument. For some of our kids, for speech to text, text to speech, the ability to widen the font, the ability to put the yellow screen over if they have vision problems, the ability to have closed caption, this has become more and more important. And as we all know about accessibility, using the famous analogy about curb cuts, what becomes

▶ 1:33:04 Speaker 3: accommodation for a special ed kid turns out to help everyone you all know the analogy about curb cuts curb cuts were made for people were on wheelchairs now everybody with baby carriages on a crutch and everybody else uses a curb

▶ 1:33:24 Speaker 3: cut and looks for it it's the same thing here while it would be desirable for the district to purchase these ourselves to the amount we need four thousand or so

▶ 1:33:36 Speaker 3: it is not feasible and let me explain why first of all let me talk about the override because really as I said to the mayor earlier today I start I'm getting a little frustrated everybody thinks the override was much more money than it was I remind everybody the override had three purposes staffing student

▶ 1:34:00 Speaker 3: enrollment and space that was the focus of the override it was basically a restoration override it returned teachers to our staff it met it gave us enough staff for our growing enrollment right now it is meant to give our teachers a competitive wage it is meant to address some of our space issues while there is two hundred thousand dollars in that money it is to cover

▶ 1:34:27 Speaker 3: the increased costs we have due to enrollment it is not going to buy a machine for every kid okay i mean i have had that override spent 15 different ways in the past eight weeks and i am so appreciative of it i am having a wonderful time thinking about how to best use that money who should we hire isn't this great we you know we put out our social emotional we put out teachers our ESL people are hired already it really has been very rewarding but it is not an abundance of money we have negotiated a contract we hope that will be approved we think we have done well by the teachers that was the purpose of the override we are looking at the Beebe school there is money set aside for the Beebe school that was the purpose of the override okay for

▶ 1:35:22 Speaker 3: For us to be, even if we weren't one to one, even if you increase the numbers we were, even if we were to really become one to two, which we're not at this point because of our rising enrollment, the $300,000 that is in the city's budget that will be rolled over next year is insufficient, okay?

▶ 1:35:41 Speaker 3: Now I can negotiate with the city and ask for more money. Somebody here can do the math for me. Who told me they were a math major? $200 a machine. I think the Chrome card that we use to manage them is, how much is it?

▶ 1:36:08 Speaker 3: Is $2,600, and every Google license for every child is $28.

▶ 1:36:16 Speaker 3: So, thank you, Liz. So, I don't know how much that comes to at the moment.

▶ 1:36:22 Speaker 2: How many do you need?

▶ 1:36:23 Speaker 3: 4,000 because we're about to roll over what we currently have I would you need

▶ 1:36:28 Speaker 2: 4,000 Google Chromebooks mm-hmm that's for one-to-one throughout the district

▶ 1:36:35 Speaker 4: right your program brand new ones program is 6th and through 12 right so

▶ 1:36:41 Speaker 3: if we were to go high school 2000 2000 right okay thank you good good calls

▶ 1:36:46 Speaker 4: wanted to make sure all right so just add 50 each that's 500k right plus the

▶ 1:36:49 Speaker 3: Chrome cards plus the $28 per license for Google ed all right so that's one option whatever that comes to here's my nervousness about that I need the

▶ 1:37:05 Speaker 3: alderman to commit to that for every five years okay here's your other choice

▶ 1:37:14 Speaker 3: you can bond art Flavin will tell us you have to have seven years to bond okay ultimate have to approve it you need seven years to bond okay so that would just take you to the end of the lifespan on a Chromebook we are facing needing

▶ 1:37:31 Speaker 3: all new Chromebook all new smart boards in the city Neil has run the numbers for me his estimate for all new smart boards because the city did that years ago for us we had less classrooms they're beginning to die they're an important

▶ 1:37:52 Speaker 3: part of our education okay almost all of our books now have smart book capability every textbook we buy is connected at least at the elementary school okay the estimate for the new smart boards is nine hundred nine

▶ 1:38:12 Speaker 3: hundred and ten thousand dollars that has to be bonded somewhere along the

▶ 1:38:17 Speaker 3: line the mayor and her office as you heard her when she spoke to the joint committees is beginning to build a capital improvement plan all right I

▶ 1:38:30 Speaker 3: have begun my walk arounds at my buildings preparing for summer work I

▶ 1:38:40 Speaker 3: need roofs the high school roof Denise Gaffey put in for the accelerated improvement plan we were turned down okay high school roof needs to be

▶ 1:38:48 Speaker 3: repaired Horace Mann roof needs to be repaired I don't know what other roofs need to be repaired i was at franklin today franklin needs all new windows all new doors

▶ 1:39:04 Speaker 3: it is where the hoover was three years ago i'm looking at a bird's nest in the window

▶ 1:39:13 Speaker 3: the block okay we have lots of other competing demands on bonding if the city wants to bond it i

▶ 1:39:23 Speaker 3: accept it if the city wants to commit to approximately how much did you come up with liz 500k 500k every every five years not including the cost of the chrome cart or the 28 license per

▶ 1:39:37 Speaker 3: student okay so let's call it 700k all right every every five years i'm open to it but i am very aware of the competing needs of this district and while i appreciate parents concerns about this i have concerns about this too i am in the classrooms constantly and mr merrill is up back and he'll tell you i go like this when i see a kid not paying attention and on the phone and i have teachers who have have phone caddies and when the kids walk in they all drop their

▶ 1:40:13 Speaker 3: phones okay um i don't know where else to turn so i am open to a solution but to say we do not need technology is to deny what the expectations will be for our children as they leave us whether it's

▶ 1:40:32 Speaker 3: for college or the workplace i understand parents concerns about screen time i share it but that's a combination of us and the parents working together to set parameters for their kids

▶ 1:40:45 Speaker 3: every one of the candidates last night said they would not allow phones would not allow cell phones in the middle school but one of the candidates turned around and said but i do want to see kids on devices doing work and learning how to be creative problem-solve and collaborate and using technology as a tool so that's where we are the other

▶ 1:41:10 Speaker 3: thing that I will address in this whole conversation is again teaching and

▶ 1:41:18 Speaker 3: learning is just so different some of you have come to spend the day with my my kids and my staff and I really appreciate it and I think you've seen how different it is when we talk about personalized learning we're talking about meeting your kids needs when the teacher says all right everybody you're gonna and I was in a class yesterday middle school great great project have

▶ 1:41:44 Speaker 3: to share it with you the the model UN kids came over to the middle school and with the sixth grade set up a mock model UN it was fabulous every groups of kids got a country and just like what happens at model new model UN here's your country here's the problem you need to solve you have X number of hours to do this research write a paper and present on it was a fabulous project based

▶ 1:42:18 Speaker 3: learning activity for our kids okay all right now once out that team that high school kids said all right here's the problem do your research the Chromebooks

▶ 1:42:32 Speaker 3: came up kids did their research took what they had wrote their papers Chromebooks went away and the kids presented to other kids and made the arguments pro or against whatever the topic was it's a tool it's not a substitute we would never have a school system where kids are on them all day I've seen those school systems it is a tool but it is so much part of who we

▶ 1:42:59 Speaker 3: are i understand the need to balance but i also understand the importance of this and what our kids are going to be asked to do so we left this last meeting

▶ 1:43:09 Speaker 4: with a motion to table at this time uh madam mayor would you be willing to entertain a motion

▶ 1:43:18 Gail Infurna: to reconsider well i guess i would make a motion to remove it from the table so that would be a

▶ 1:43:22 Speaker 4: motion to reconsider uh and i don't recall who seconded it last meeting two minutes i believe

▶ 1:43:37 Speaker 4: every the vote was unanimous so anyone could second it at this point so i would second mr

▶ 1:43:47 Speaker 4: was second on tabling them thank you so at this time we have a motion to reconsider seconded by mr obramsky uh discussion main thank you very much um

▶ 1:43:57 Gail Infurna: First of all, I want to thank you for the work that it came to in revising this cover letter. And Superintendent Taymor, I truly appreciate your explanation tonight and your honesty tonight with us. I think that I'm finding that very helpful. I've learned a lot since I talked to you earlier today. And through your explanation tonight, I have gained a great knowledge in why these are used and how you have explored all the other means of funding.

▶ 1:44:35 Gail Infurna: I still think the timing is awful, but sometimes we don't have that control if you need to get these going for September. I will support this with this revised cover letter saying that it's somewhat of a pilot program. I'm a little iffy as to what a pilot is going to come out and show, but it at least prepares everybody for a year. It gives people more notice, I think, to prepare that they will be purchasing Chromebooks if possible. The one thing I do ask, and I do say this with all respect,

▶ 1:45:16 Gail Infurna: the cover letter has um neil ellis's letterheading on it i would appreciate it that it came from you

▶ 1:45:24 Gail Infurna: good catch thank you yes and on the second page of it um signed by you as the first one i don't think neil really even has to be on this at all so i would appreciate this cover letter that is going out to the sixth and ninth grade parents is that how i understand it you know have your lead ahead um have this language on it and we'll see how it goes and um though i won't be here next year sitting around the horseshoe i will be watching so um but i do really appreciate the work that went into this i really appreciate your honesty and that explanation tonight i think I think I find it helpful, I hope that the parents out there find it helpful, and that's the way it is.

▶ 1:46:12 Speaker 3: So, let me just say two things in regard to the $200,000 from the override money. That part of that money is going to pay for the fees for the Google licenses? Right, correct. And to help underwrite those families who cannot afford it.

▶ 1:46:25 Speaker 5: Correct.

▶ 1:46:28 Speaker 4: Thank you. Mr. Obrunski.

▶ 1:46:29 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in favor as well. appreciate the fact that we tabled this I was more curious to see what the idea throughout the community was towards this and I really haven't gotten anything negative on it whatsoever and it's funny when I went home from the meeting it was a thing on my table for our school supplies and every year we get this box for the box of school supplies and the box of school supplies size is 50 bucks, and so over six years, my kids are in the Horace Mann for six years, it's 300 bucks a kid. The Chromebook's cheaper, like when you really look at it in the context. And it's the reality as the superintendent says of the direction in which everything is going and every person, and I don't see how we can't move a favorable action on this, but I appreciate the time at the table to get an idea of how people thought. the initial as the mayor said you know the sticker shock of it after the override was sort of like holy smoke now we're gonna have another fee but I really don't I don't think it's as big as an issue as we had originally thought

▶ 1:47:48 Jennifer McAndrew: and I thank you miss McAndrew thank you I'm glad that this is reformulated as a pilot and as I'm glad that the financial assistance is in the pilot as well so that everyone who wants to be part of this can I would like you to talk a little bit about how you plan you and your team and I know we'll have a new middle school principal but will and your educators will evaluate if this is successful in the next year like what are some of the things you're gonna look

▶ 1:48:22 Speaker 3: at so we will immediately look look at how many kids develop portfolios okay and the other thing that we'll look at is how often is when you give options you know again the conversation we're doing a lot of work around universal design for learning and we talk about the options you give kids on um you know uh presentation process product how many how often when we're in a classroom are we seeing kids have options do you do a textbook do you do a chromebook do you do some other source to get your information how often do you use different options for producing your work because that's again part of what we want to be able to do is give kids those options and then neil will be able to run analysis uh you know through google analytics of what is happening Thankfully, we have strong firewalls and we block a lot of stuff, but he could tell how often kids are getting on, where the peak times are, and we can see whether those peak times align with classrooms or some other reason for having peak times. We can tell you right now that lunchtime at the high school, don't try to use your own device because everybody's on the phone.

▶ 1:49:48 Jennifer McAndrew: you and I think I would just mention that I think the example you provided from the sixth grade and the the gem project and and the the participation of the model UN students and is a great example and I think it would actually be really useful I think for the community and I would find it useful for you to to and your team to come back with some of those kind of examples even maybe in one of our showcases so we can actually even see some of it happening and how it was used because I know that that particular example is extremely well received and very impactful on the students both the older and younger and so I think and it's a it's a good example of how you need the devices in available but it's not the point of the thing so I would I would look to try to do that part of our job is to help educate to the community on how education is so rapidly changing and how we're using these tools that we ask parents to to purchase so that's it

▶ 1:50:59 Speaker 2: thanks any further discussion mr. Thomas well I just want to stress again for anyone watching or interested in this all of this is that it's a voluntary pilot program that really it's asking parents to consider as their students are coming into sixth or ninth grade, if they're going to buy a device, that they would be thinking about the Chromebooks. And I really want to echo what Ms. McAndrew just said, is that it's really important if people don't work in education or aren't familiar with Google and all the things that the drive can offer, that the classroom can offer, that they are taught about it or they're exposed to it. Because once you learn about it, you see all the different things it can do. I know that even in first and third grade this my kids are learning about it and it's it's like a whole nother world that opens up for them so I am very mindful that every family has to make decisions about how much screen time is good for their kids and I really want all the families in Melrose to know that those those decisions are still with them even if they decide to go with this program the parents are still in charge of whether they their kid a phone whether they allow the kid to have extra screen time besides homework time I think that all that all the tough decisions still have to happen and all the limits still have to be set whether they join this program or not and so I think we just have to keep trying to be partners with our families in the district and listen to them and pay attention to them and also make sure they understand why we're asking for this so I appreciate your primer and and And I think this is well worth trying to see if families are willing to do this and see where it leads. But I do echo a lot of the concerns that parents brought up and families brought up at the beginning of our meeting with public comment that I think we also have to pay attention to the outdoors, getting outside, not just being on devices all the time. So thank you.

▶ 1:53:01 Speaker 4: Mr. O'Connell.

▶ 1:53:02 Speaker 1: Thank you, Madam Chair. just building on that it is voluntary and if a family chooses not to participate a Chromebook will otherwise be available for that student so no one is making a choice to go without technology here and in fact with this voluntary program families are being given the opportunity to get a device if they choose at a reduced rate in addition to the accommodations for financial hardship so just to be clear a decision not to participate in this voluntary program doesn't mean your student doesn't have a device available we will always make that available so thank you very much any further question

▶ 1:53:55 Speaker 4: or comment so the motion to reconsider is essentially a motion to approve motion to approve

▶ 1:54:05 Speaker 3: the motion to reconsider this is a motion to take from the table and the original motion stands

▶ 1:54:14 Speaker 3: okay the original motion was the original motion was was for approval made by ms rossi thomas

▶ 1:54:19 Speaker 1: seconded by mr obramsky so should it be with the amended letter sorry so we need to vote

▶ 1:54:25 Speaker 3: to reconsider no we're just voting the original motion that's what I thought I

▶ 1:54:33 Speaker 4: just said okay very well thank you so then the original motion was to approve and I believe miss McAndrew did you want to I'm sorry who I seem to

▶ 1:54:49 Speaker 4: misplaces madam chair madam mayor did you want to add an amendment to change

▶ 1:54:58 Gail Infurna: the letterhead change the letterhead and the signature on the page to that it

▶ 1:55:03 Speaker 4: should be the superintendent mr. Obronski do you consider that friendly amendment yes excellent thus we have a motion on the table all in favor motion