← School Committee · 2025-10-28 · School Committee
Report: METCO
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
B Report: METCO Superintendent Berman spoke to the METCO Report in the packet, prepared by Director of Student Relations Doreen Ward who was unable to join the meeting. The factual report showed a decrease in METCO enrollment , looking at the need to fill allotted spots to develop a stronger program. The Superintendent acknowledged Ms. Ward's effective efforts in building strong relationships with parents and ensuring that METCO students are fully supported. Discussion following the presentation covered the frequency of receiving such reports, students still enrolling after the start of the year, providing a late bus to address the transportation aspect, Ms. Ward's data collecting, and per pupil funding from the program. C Vote: Lincoln School Improvement Plan Principal Patti presented the Lincoln School Improvement Plan. She began by thanking all her staff members who joined her for the evening and highlighted incredible things happening at Lincoln The overall goal of the school is to create a daily learning experience that makes students want to go to school and want to learn and feel a sense of belonging and safety in the school community. The School Improvement Plan will focus on two areas: literacy and attendance. For lit
Transcript
▶ 46:54 Speaker 2: We are gonna, next, we're gonna move around the, our agenda slightly. Uh, our superintendent would like to us to go to the report about meco, the program, and then we'll go back up to the Lincoln improvement plan. Yeah.
▶ 47:07 Speaker 4: Seems to be the theme of the night. So I just figured we'd stay with, with switching everything, um,
▶ 47:11 Speaker 2: One on the edge of their seats.
▶ 47:12 Speaker 4: Although I see some of our, you know, terrific Lincoln staff here. I will not put you on the hotspot, um, to, um, present, although I know many of you were, were part of the planning. Um, principal Patty has been doing, um, crisis prevention, um, intervention, like deescalation training with some of our staff. So she was just wrapping up, um, at, I believe it was at the high school. So she's on her way. Oh. Um, but if we can give her a moment to come in and breathe Sure. I think we could go to, to the METCO report. So, great. Um, we have the pleasure of having, um, Doreen Ward back as our student relations director, as has been shared with you previously. Um, unfortunately she could not be here tonight, and she does look forward to coming and presenting to the committee, um, maybe after the new year, um, or at some point when she has a chance to settle in. This report itself is pretty factual at this moment in time. Um, and I know one of the things that, you know, pops out to me and, and I had an awareness of already is our decreasing enrollment, um, that we have. So, um, that's a little bit of an elephant in the room, um, some of which, um, she did not have control over as she moved into this position. So I think it is important that we are looking to fill our allotted slots, um, for a number of reasons, um, but to keep, you know, our really, um, robust METCO program, um, going and providing experiences, you know, for, for all of our students. So, um, it's, it's a pretty factual piece at this moment in time. Um, I do like a lot of the successes that were identified, um, and just kind of digging into, um, that I know we are continuing to look at the disproportionality, um, that occurs, um, with, with all our students specifically in this report, um, our METCO students. So it's something that Ms. Ward definitely has an area of focus on. Um, she's making great relationships with, with our parents and, and reaching out to them often and, and speaking on the phone, um, and just, just doing a really wonderful job of making sure that our, um, METCO students are, uh, fully supported in our Melrose Public Schools. So, be happy to answer any questions that I can answer or get you answers moving forward.
▶ 49:25 Speaker 2: Great. Thank you, superintendent Berman. So, any questions from the committee? Yes, Mr. Hartman? Go right ahead.
▶ 49:30 Speaker 5: Uh, I just have two and, and thank you for spotting the, uh, enrollment. I, I noticed that as well and certainly would like to hear more about that if, if, uh, we have Ms. Ward come before us. And the other question I had was, was actually around, um, how often we would see a report like this is this anticipated to be, uh, you know, a couple times a year we would see a report and, and have a, a discussion about, about this.
▶ 49:53 Speaker 4: Um, I would always look to the will of the committee on this and trying to support what's, you know, reasonable within our, our lean team, especially right now. Maybe in the future it could look different, um, but certainly if we start here, maybe we come back in the spring with some, some next steps. Um, I would love for her to, um, help you all understand that the METCO process has actually changed a little bit, and I don't have all of the details about that, and nor do you probably want them at this moment in time, but how is that affecting us as well? I do know we have had some new students who have started, like after our kind of school year, got rolling. So she has reached out to METCO Inc to try to bring students, um, still into, into the Melrose Public Schools. Mm-hmm. Um, and kind of telling them it's, it's not too late, So. Okay. Yeah.
▶ 50:37 Speaker 5: Um, and if there's any, uh, maybe thinking about looking at how the state, the, the program, the whole program itself, if this declining enrollment is similar to what we're seeing in the program as a whole, or if it's Melrose or, um, those kinds of questions we'd love to hear more about in the future as you get to dig into that question a little bit more. Sure.
▶ 50:56 Speaker 2: Mr. Driscoll, go Ahead. Thank you.
▶ 50:58 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: So, um, I just wanna be very sensitive around, um, the transportation piece, um, and how I'm delighted to see that, um, late transportation is being provided. Um, there were times when funding was very low that a late bus was not, um, able to be run and that, um, METCO grant was needed to be used for other things, certainly qualifying things. But I'm delighted to see that it's here and I hope we can stay.
▶ 51:27 Speaker 4: Yeah, I can just give a little feedback That four 15 Bus is actually, um, not full ever. It actually has like one or two riders very often. So we are at looking at that for a short amount of time, um, to run that two days a week for kiddos to be able to, um, engage in those afterschool activities. They still would have access to that six 15 bus. But, um, Ms. Ward has, um, collected some data to figure out how to do that best and, and which days to choose, um, as we get through kind of the next few months. Um, just because it's not, it's not populated, it's not, yeah, it's not worth
▶ 52:04 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Needed if I may go right in, I I appreciate that. I don't know if there's, uh, any cost savings and how much wiggle room there is in the contract, um, to run a van instead of a full size yellow bus. If there's a cost savings there that would still supply that opportunity with the hope that, you know, there would be students who would be able to access, um, after school activity. I mean, with 37 students at Melrose High School and 22 part in particular at the middle school, um, you know, encouraging students to be fully involved to the extent they wish in our, um, co-curricular activities, I think is something that this district has always, um, invested in heavily from a philosophical and an actual standpoint. So, um, if there were any wiggle room on the composition of the bus and the requirements around the driver, which are different from Vans and the big yellow bus, um, I'd be interested in in learning more about that potentially again, um, after the first of the year when Ms. Ward comes before us. Sounds Great.
▶ 53:07 Speaker 2: Any other questions or comments? I have a few. Um, so I was able to talk to the superintendent a little bit before the meeting just to, to try to get a sense of the enrollment too, because we are budgeted up to 109 slots for students. Um, and we only have 82 currently filled, and then we have, we're losing potentially 17 to graduation this the end of this year. So that's a lot of open potential slots. And I, I don't, I think that funding is based on per pupil as well as a certain amount of money in the grant to suburban districts. Um, so it's a combination of, of how the, the grant is su is supplied, but it would be good for us to be able to fill, fill all our seats with up to 109 students in from the MECO program. And obviously that's a process. You can't all of a sudden just snap your fingers and have that happen because you have to have parents that wanna send students here. And that's an enormous exercise and trust to be willing to send your, your, uh, your loved one into a system, um, far away from your home. So I think our Meco families are incredible. Um, and I know Ms. Ward is amazing and I'm sure that, um, you know, I know her reputation precedes her, and I think it seems like Dr. Crawford's also pretty incredible. So we hope to see that the program will grow itself back out again, um, and that we'll be able to provide wonderful learning opportunities for students, um, all of our students, MECO students, um, and families. So I, I look forward to seeing what, what Ms. Ward does over time. And then she's also growing into this new position too. So it would be great to get an update from her in the springtime at some point on her role in general and just, you know, how she sees kind of building it back up. Um, and we're lucky to have her. And I think one of the reasons why we have her back is because she trusts you, superintendent. So if we, unless anyone else has anything they wanna add to the Meco report, I'm gonna move us along to the Lincoln, um, improvement plan.