← School Committee · 2025-12-09 · School Committee Meeting
Report: Outreach
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
husetts came to Melrose to compete. Ms. Razi Thomas reminded the community of the upcoming office hours this Saturday Dec 13th from 8:30 - 9:30 at La QChara. The Mayor announced that the December 15th City Council Agenda will formally show that the City was successful in its application for a Mass Office of Disability Grant (over $100,000). This funding will be used to make accessibility improvements at the Horace Mann, Hoover, and Winthrop Schools, addressing needs previously identified in an ADA survey. The Mayor expects the resulting work to be completed by the end of the current school year. 8. ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION Chair Withey sited the need for an Executive Session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, Cari Berman. The Committee will not be returning to Public Session. MOTION: To Adjourn to Executive Session RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll SECONDER: Matt Hartman AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman Public Session adjourned at 9:04 PM. 9.
Transcript
▶ 1:58:05 Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you everyone for your comments and discussion tonight. Uh, as we started off this conversation, the goal for this evening was to begin the discussion. I would anticipate that at our next meeting, which is on December 16th, we'll actually move forward with voting on a process so that we can also comply with the superintendent's contract. Um, so thank you again for having the conversation together this evening. And we will do one more thing- (coughs) ... publicly in our agenda, which is any outreach re- reports.
▶ 1:58:42 Speaker 1: Mr. Hartman, go ahead.
▶ 1:58:44 Speaker 8: Um, I was able to attend for a short part of the afternoon, a wonderful robotics competition this weekend, um, where, uh, kids from all a- all across Ma- uh, parts of Massachusetts came to Melrose and did a day long competition while people were drinking hot cocoa and- (laughs) ... wandering around the city on trolleys and giving tours. Um, all these kids spent the whole day in the, in the middle school doing some excellent work with robots and having a lot of fun. So, um, I thought that was another great thing that happened within our public schools. I know, um, some of our teachers were there supporting the program and really appreciate how much, uh, that program has grown within our schools. So just wanted to put that out there.
▶ 1:59:24 Speaker 1: Thank you for that. I've gone to a few of those competitions too and they're really awesome to just see students like shining and- Yeah. ... going through all sorts of new things that I certainly didn't know about when I was a student myself.
▶ 1:59:35 Speaker 8: Really big collaborative atmosphere. 100%. The teams were competing and collaborating with each other throughout the day.
▶ 1:59:43 Speaker 3: Anyone else?
▶ 1:59:44 Speaker 2: We have office hours, which is a perfect time for office hours this Saturday, December 13th from 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM at Lake, Lake Carchara. And I will be there with Ms. Driscoll. So come on down and talk to us about our process.
▶ 2:00:00 Speaker 1: Great. Thank you for uplifting those
▶ 2:00:05 Jen Grigoraitis: two. Mayor Gragaris. Thank you. Not so much outreach, well I guess I'll be outreach on behalf of the administration and the City Council, but you'll see on the council agenda for December 15th that the city was successful in its application for, um, a Mass Office of Disability grant, which is gonna allow us to make accessibility improvements to the Horace Mann, the Hoover, and the Winthrop Schools. These, this was a co-effort of our Disability Commission, which is all volunteer led and our Department of Public Works. Um, and this was needs that were identified in our, um, ADA survey from a couple years ago that we've been trying to work through, but it's over $100,000 and, um, because of the tight timeline provided by the state, um, the work will likely be done by the end of this school year. So- Wow. ... that will be before the council for acceptance and action. Thank you. It's great, someone-