School Committee Self Evaluation (15 minutes)

Transcript (~4 min @ 23:48)

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

▶ 23:46 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you all. Thank you so much, Ms. McAndrew. Next on our agenda is the Policy and Planning Subcommittee with Ms. Dessel and, uh, Ms. Good

▶ 24:07 Speaker 3: Evening and welcome to Policy and Planning. Uh, portion of tonight's meeting, uh, we have one item on the agenda, the school committee self-evaluation. Uh, I want to take a moment and thank Ms. withy for, uh, all of the legwork to get this done. Um, as uh, she undertook this, uh, I want to offer the floor to her to, uh, give a brief synopsis of the executive summary.

▶ 24:34 Speaker 4: Great, thank you so much. Uh, so in your packet, you'll see that we've compiled a summary based on all of the self-evaluations that were turned in to us prior to December 19th. Uh, just wanted to name a couple of strengths and future considerations as we begin to think about our role and how we wanna continue to strengthen overall service, our service, um, to best support student outcomes. One, I think across the board we mentioned just that we have clear agendas with outcomes that are consistently identified. We are able, because of the presentations that we experience, um, to also have access to data where it be related to curriculum assessments and the budget. And then there were two things that really did bubble up as places of of strength this year in particular. And so one was the hiring of a new superintendent. Um, we began the superintendent search process much earlier this year in order to really attract incredible candidates before that more traditional hiring season begins. And at the same time, we were really intentional around including public, uh, basically making sure that we were proactive by reaching out to students, to families, community members and educators in such a public process. And then the second thing that was noted was our budget communications. Uh, we've worked really hard to provide more clarity with regards to the budget, and I think that is really such a wonderful thing from our finance and facility subcommittee. So thank you. Um, and I think, again, we've rebuilt a line item budget to help people really understand where our monies are spent and how they are spent. And then at the same time, we've dedicated even more time this year to really make sure that we are talking about the budget at every meeting so that we can ask questions and we can learn alongside everyone publicly as well. As we start to think about next year, I think there are three places again, that bubble up. One is communication, wanting to continue to just stay connected to key stakeholders, recognizing that as we proceed with our budget, we may need to consider hosting office hours or again, forums that help people really understand the budget process and what it is going to take to ultimately ensure that we are meeting students' need. And that may mean generating support for a potential override as well. We also wanna make sure that we're supporting the new incoming superintendent having a robust onboarding plan, and at the same time ensuring that he has strong mentorship and guidance as he moves into this role. And then one other thing that came up is just wanting to understand our return on investment in major policy decisions or changes in programmatic shifts that we've made. So I think we all have a desire to learn once we've perhaps approved a different policy or a different programmatic structure, what's the result? How is that impacting students? And so again, hoping as we move into the next year that we'll have the opportunity to hear from district level leaders about those shifts and again, what those outcomes are. So I just wanna say thank you all for giving me the opportunity to compile this summary, and I'm, again, really looking forward to the upcoming year, given our reflections.

▶ 27:37 Speaker 3: And finally, before we close out policy and planning, just a reminder, each of the self evals that were provided, uh, individually are attached to the agenda. Uh, I would strongly recommend that all take some time to truly read through, uh, and, and take to heart the messages therein. Uh, it's really an insight into how we view the workings of the committee and our role within the greater community at large. Thank you very much. This concludes policy and planning.