FY19 Superintendent's Budget Narrative (30 minutes)

Transcript (~28 min @ 24:52)

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

▶ 24:46 Speaker 3: very much lastly on the finance facilities agenda tonight is a This is superintendent's budget narrative for fiscal year 19. Superintendent?

▶ 24:54 Speaker 4: Thank you, Mr. Stone, and so it begins.

▶ 24:59 Speaker 4: For those of you who have done this before with us, this is approximately a four-month journey. It goes up and down, the numbers move constantly. The closer we get to the end of the year, the better City Hall's numbers are.

▶ 25:20 Speaker 4: At this point in time, as we're sitting here, the governor is making his speech, I believe. So a lot depends on the finances of the state as well as the tax revenues of the city. However, even given that, my job is to propose to you what I believe we need any given year so that we can continue to make the progress we have been making over the many previous years. Every year, we set goals, and I try to make the connection between the goals the school committee has set and what I am asking for.

▶ 26:02 Speaker 4: I am particularly pleased by the goals that we set last fall in retreat. Because I think those goals speak to the work we do on a day in day out basis without drilling down into specifics that are limiting. We want students to be engaged because we're providing them with a first rate,

▶ 26:27 Speaker 4: rigorous and creative curriculum. We want our educators to be well trained and want to work in Melrose because we provide them with a professional learning community that they find rewarding as well as fiscally rewarding.

▶ 26:44 Speaker 4: It is your job to have strategic leadership and to think about all the moving pieces that impact the decisions we make and what we have available and what we don't have available.

▶ 26:57 Speaker 4: And, of course, it is your job as well as mine and my administration's to work with our parents and our other stakeholders so that they understand what we are trying to achieve for our children and to have them feel that they can support us because they believe in what we are doing. The number one problem that we continue to face is enrollment. There is no escaping it. I give you some numbers in this. while we will reap additional chapter 70 money for the enrollment increases last year if you are not aware it was a negative because we paid out so much to charter schools so while the there is a financial reward for having more children it does not always play out in real dollars the enrollment we are up to three thousand nine hundred and twelve as the mayor

▶ 27:59 Speaker 4: referenced in previous conversations we have to some degree neglected the high school as our wave has entered the elementary's that wave seems to have broken off and we now have two waves we have a wave at the high school and we a wave at the elementary the elementary wave will eventually get to the middle school i think it is imperative that we begin to look at the need for teachers at the high school

▶ 28:35 Speaker 4: at the same time if we have 300 students pre-register for kindergarten beginning on sunday i will know that we are on our way to another 15 class for k and that has a domino effect not only in the need for two more teachers but as the elementary population grows you need specialists and as I point out in my narrative a major concern is the size of the Winthrop the Roosevelt and the Lincoln and the need for some sort of mid-level administrative help for the principals

▶ 29:17 Speaker 4: there I point out to you for those of you who have children in high school school you're familiar with it those of you who don't many many years ago when some of us in this room went to high school we did not have to be scheduled

▶ 29:37 Speaker 4: every period of the day you sort of filled your schedules with study halls some of us even went to schools where we had open campus those days are long gone

▶ 29:49 Speaker 4: our high school students are scheduled every period of the day seven periods it's a six period day it's a waterfall schedule drop a period every day but they have to meet the mass core to graduate so they have very full schedules our children part of the work that we're doing around competency based education is how to be more thoughtful and innovative about meeting those obligations as well as meeting kids interests so that they have more flexibility sometimes I get a little concerned that our high school kids are sort of locked in and sometimes cannot pursue the things that I'm really

▶ 30:31 Speaker 4: passionate about on top of it all there are always new mandates from the state we have talked at length about the civics mandate that is coming and again I'm not passing judgment on it it just is what it is hopefully it'll be at the eighth grade and we're getting prepared for that but the computer science or the computing knowledge mandate is also coming a lot faster than we thought and we will have to find a way to incorporate that into our program of studies as well as to find trained teachers I'm obviously not going to read

▶ 31:04 Speaker 4: this word for word for you but in terms of enrollment I am asking for possibly 2.0 FTEs, FTEs for laymen are full-time teaching equivalencies, elementary classroom teachers.

▶ 31:26 Speaker 4: Another 1.0 FTE for specials, a 1.0 FTE to divide between the Roosevelt, thank you, and

▶ 31:33 Speaker 4: the Winthrop, I had to think which schools, I'll come back to that in a moment, a 1.0 fte for high school humanities our most overcrowded courses are in social studies in english that's a compliment to our teachers who offer great electives that our kids love a 1.0 fte music and art one of the hallmarks of melrose is our performing arts and our fine arts programs more students want to take these classes we're trying to jury rig it a little bit by doing semester courses but the staff at the upper level would really like to offer full-blown courses an academic facilitator as we move to competency-based education as you provide kids with independent learning opportunities extended learning opportunities and blended learning opportunities somebody has to work with those children you cannot put kids in front of a computer in a corner of the library and think it's gonna work they have to have an adult working with them and of course as the numbers grow at the high school we need more counseling and guidance we are probably at the

▶ 32:57 Speaker 4: recommended limit right now of 250 to 1 the person at the Roosevelt and the Winthrop were referring to as the student services coordinator quite frankly it's a title we made up last year we did not want to call it assistant principal because it's not necessarily the way most people think of assistants principals it's not about discipline it's about how do we help kids succeed we have a number of children with challenging behaviors we have a number of children with who have been traumatized we have kids with school phobia we need somebody who is the liaison to parents on all that and help these children succeed when that work ties up the principal she is being pulled in one case he is being pulled off the other work that they do as the instructional leaders and the primary evaluators in their buildings unlike the middle school in the high school most the principals are responsible for most probably 90% of the evaluations at their buildings at the upper levels we have directors and other and assistant principals but the most important role is the work they are doing with some of our kids who need more help to succeed and quite frankly not to disrupt the learning of other children English

▶ 34:15 Speaker 4: learner it's now English learners everybody get your acronyms right it's now EL it's L's not ELL's we're at 167 students that is more than double what it was when I came into this district five and a half years ago we expanded

▶ 34:42 Speaker 4: the program to Hoover but what we are finding is where we're really having a service need at this point in time is at the high school in the middle school We've had a number of newcomers to this country who are older children who are

▶ 35:04 Speaker 4: coming in at level 1 language skills. The other thing that we're anticipating is the LOOK Act which I shared with you which could change the way we do English language services. We have a year to get ready and of course the last thing is I did include in the the CPR finding around translations so what I am asking for in terms of English language learners is an additional 0.5 ESL teacher funding for curriculum materials for increased enrollment and funding for translation and interpreter services you all know the difference right between

▶ 35:48 Speaker 4: translation and interpreter okay special education our numbers are holding steady actually our percentage has decreased a little because our physical numbers are holding steady while our population has gone up we're pretty good on our out of district kids we're holding that in the low 40s that of course is subject to change depending on a child's needs what we have done in special education over the past five years and I'm sorry Patty has left is what we revisit our programs all the time to see where our needs are so for an example three years ago at the Horace Mann we had a language learning class a class for kids who had language-based disabilities we don't have a lot of those children anymore at the elementary so we disbanded that class took that position and reassigned it for a new class for kids with on the autism spectrum at a different building so we will reassess the programs rethink where staff can go and we'll try to move them around that way a few years ago what we were able to do is we were able to make a decision that we had not not the kindergarten Paris take that out of this conversation but we had a surplus of special ed Paris based on our IEPs that were being written the formula that I typically use is every four Paris buys us one teacher so a few years ago we were able to use the reduction in Paris and we actually that's how we actually added the fourth the school site second school psychologist at the middle school so we do a lot of that in special education to be cost efficient as well as effective but my concern with special

▶ 37:53 Speaker 4: ed is probably the downside of success in special education special educators including myself say our dream is to put ourselves out of business to have models of inclusion and servicing where we're not needed and what has happened in Melrose is to a great degree many many more of our children are included I mean the fact that we only have 43 children out of district is significant I've worked in smaller districts where I've had two and a half times that number and not a district but our commitment to keeping our kids in district also means we're committed to keeping more severely disabled children in district children who typically would have been sent out the minute they showed up in early intervention and that is going to be a learning journey for all of us I'm trying to be very discreet here because I have children I certainly do not want them to feel identified but we have some children coming up through the ranks that may need more one-on-one service may need medical services and so that is

▶ 39:03 Speaker 4: an anticipation that we have going forward and I just want to make you aware of it the most important thing right now on the special education but budget is probably funding for professional development as we've had turnover in our staff we need to make sure that our new staff know how to do

▶ 39:29 Speaker 4: inclusion right and as we have some children who are more complicated we need to train those teachers how to respond to those more complicated children it's like I said it's a journey and so we need to be able to fund that

▶ 39:50 Speaker 4: appropriately anticipated curriculum changes I've already spoken to we know the civics curriculum is probably coming in about a year's time mr. mr. O'Connell is heavily involved in that we will pilot next year what we think is a reasonable approach I do not know what the expectation will be in FY 19 18 is

▶ 40:11 Speaker 4: coming up FY 19 as to materials the science and engineering we continue to build out one unit at a time it is slow going this year DESE redid the

▶ 40:28 Speaker 4: frameworks last time they redid them was 2011 they did them in 2017 only six years apart the humanities department and the coaches are making recommendations for some updated materials that we're going to need in response to the revised framework and again all the other changes that come our way some of them are immediate some of them I'm just giving you a heads up because part of your strategic leadership goal is that you should begin to think about these things one thing that did happen this year is one of the AP courses one of the advanced placement courses also has revised curriculum so that we did not expect and we will have to purchase the appropriate materials for our kids the other thing at the high school that you should be aware of with the growth in enrollment we have to fill out sets of textbooks when you all of a

▶ 41:26 Speaker 4: sudden have two classrooms of you know advanced calculus and you only have 30 texts and you need 50 we have to fill that out those those textbook

▶ 41:42 Speaker 4: collections so I asked for all of that we have left Mimsy we continue to train our teachers not only in new curriculum but in AP curriculum we need to pay for that ourselves also in the forthcoming budget will be money to continue the CBE work the grant runs out I am trying to find another grant grant source it is not easy but we will include in the budget money for to continue the CBE work. Contractual obligations, we are in the process of negotiating four of our contracts. I list them for you. That is unpredicted at this time. To predetermine how much you're going to give staff is illegal, unethical, at the

▶ 42:35 Speaker 4: very least. Transportation, ongoing problem. We own our own vans, we do a lot of our own transportation but we do contract independently we've had this conversation many times in this chamber they're going from 425 to 450 a bus next year this Farrell continues to explore what will be involved if we were to buy some bigger vans for ourselves we can discuss that with the committee when we begin the deliberations it's a little bit more complicated than we anticipated there are more restrictions on who can drive the larger vans what they can be use for and we're trying to brainstorm creatively around those health insurance I don't think any of you missed the article on the front page of the globe today so that continues so I wrote about seven pages I'm certainly not going to read seven pages to you but I am willing to answer questions

▶ 43:39 Jennifer McAndrew: Ms. McAndrew thank you this is very informative and super helpful as you mentioned obviously enrollment is sort of the x-factor here and not just I assume at the kindergarten but even throughout the district including at the high school but we do know as you mentioned that we'll have at least three elementary schools with more than 400 kids and some pushing 450 so I was really pleased to see the student services coordinator positions mentioned here for Roosevelt and with them I'm wondering for my benefit and maybe the public also if you could say a little bit about how that pilots working at the Lincoln and sort of maybe give us a few examples of the kinds of things that they're they do or would do and in the Roosevelt and Winthrop so very different

▶ 44:23 Speaker 4: populations the reason we put it in the Lincoln first is quite frankly the Lincoln is our most diverse school it's my largest EL population it's a more transient population because of the housing stock in that part of the town you have more apartments you have Oak Grove the position there is only a 0.5 position if we could do a 1.0 we would absolutely gladly do it the person who is in the position is a skilled administrator has done other things for us she spends a lot of time working with our behaviorally challenged children she goes into classrooms to help teachers figure out intervention plans that they called fair plans she'll often go into model approaches to working with children she will meet with parents and outside agencies when that has to happen She leads the crisis team, every one of our buildings has a crisis team and they are all trained in crisis prevention and intervention. Donna Rosso is the trainer for the district and when necessary does crisis intervention. She does that two and a half days a week. Obviously you cannot pick when a kid goes into crisis, but it's the best we can do. I think it's beginning to make some headway in that building I think the building is getting a little bit more stabilized there's some other issues there that we need to figure out so it's very different in that building when

▶ 46:10 Speaker 4: Mary Beth Marato discussed it with me her needs are similar yet different Mary Beth Marato has some of our serious sub separate special education programs with kids with a number of challenges often unpredictable she needs some help

▶ 46:33 Speaker 4: around that actually she has more children than Lincoln numbers wise supporting the teachers in the classroom has become challenging she cannot get to every classroom and if you're not familiar with it our principals try to to get to every classroom every week whether it's to observe whether it's to support a teacher whether it's to make contact with children that's what we try to do supervision in the cafeteria has gotten difficult there if you are a Roosevelt parent I think two of you are three of you are it's a little loud and rambunctious so it's all those things that need to be done at Winthrop again it's more of a supervision there at over 400 part of the issue with Winthrop quite frankly is the configuration of the building that works against you I've been in that building and try to run from the basement where all 4ks are to the third floor where the upper

▶ 47:45 Speaker 4: classrooms are if something happens so again for him it's pretty much a supervision but it's also supporting teachers he does not have some of the diversity that the other buildings have thank you can you tell us a little bit

▶ 48:02 Speaker 3: about the future curriculum needs you mentioned in computer science so what you what your wish list would look like there oh god I don't know and I'm

▶ 48:12 Speaker 4: involved in a couple of groups right now at the state level Jen and we're trying to figure this out we're trying to collaborate with the desi on this on how this is going to play out and those of you well there's only three of you from before who remember me speaking to this there is a real belief in the state based on the business communities needs that computer science is a foundational skill now ranking it up there with english math social studies science and i'm not talking about java or you know whatever else the languages are called we're talking about understanding how computers work how you can program them um you know coding how you can use computers because there is not a job especially in massachusetts that does not involve computers even mine um And the fact that our kids are going to go into a future in which everything is going to be computer-based and changing rapidly, they have to have computational knowledge and skills. So the state has begun to move in that direction. A couple of years ago, they came out with the computer science and digital literacy standards, but they were not mandated. They encouraged all of us to embed them and other things we were doing in the past year they have accelerated their development of that area of the curriculum they've developed a standard to be licensed as a computer science teacher they never had that standard before they have begun to have discussions with there's a car there's a nonprofit group called mass can Massachusetts computer something network don't ask me I think I think I've written it up in something else I've written you that is working with the state on what will the jaw jaw market need in 2020 2030 2040 and how do we get those courses in their training into school systems the preliminary goal is that within the next couple of years 30 percent of all high school graduates come out with computer knowledge beyond

▶ 50:45 Speaker 4: what we're all sitting here doing there is not enough computer science teachers in the in the state right now we were lucky we snagged one of the few certified ones some of my colleagues are just bending the rules and saying well they had a job at IBM or they had a job at you know Google or Facebook they're ahead of everybody else let's go with them and take a chance so this is changing rapidly much faster than the superintendents first thought it would I sat here a year ago and would have told you it was three years out right now I'm

▶ 51:28 Speaker 4: thinking it's a year out and somehow we're gonna have to find a way not only only to embed it in everything but for those kids who have real interest in this field to give them a pathway in this the other thing that I say and I say it often not every child is meant for college I know that's sacrosanct in a community like Melrose and the same as was as is the community I raised my own children but one of those things that we are finding out is children with these skills are probably getting better high-paying jobs than some of our kids who are coming out with four-year degrees and you can get the you can get these skills in a two-year college or a technology training program or some sort

▶ 52:23 Speaker 3: of apprenticeship thank you any further questions that concludes finance and facilities I leave one budget housekeeping note on the 13th of February we discuss begin discussing fees so please pay attention for that look for that to come up

▶ 52:37 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: and i believe on i had neglected to put on the rolling agenda the march 20th tentative date for the committee and so i thank ms de salm for reminding me of that so that will go on the rolling agenda so please mark your calendars uh as a penciled in date and as we go along we'll

▶ 52:59 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: see how we go excellent thank you very much next on our agenda is the educational programs and personnel subcommittee mr o'connell thank you very much good evening folks welcome to the