School Committee — 2017-10-24

School Committee Regular Meeting

This meeting starts at 0:00 in a recording that covers several meetings.

Agenda

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● OCTOBER 24, 2017 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176

(ID # 5987) Announcements - Superintendent Superintendent Updates (5 minutes)

(ID # 5980) Consent Warrants Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 11/8/2017 8:44 AM Minutes Melrose School Committee October 24, 2017

(ID # 5995) Educational Programs and Personnel MHS Field Trip Request - buildOn School Construction Methodology

(ID # 5989) Educational Programs and Personnel Enrollment Report FY18 (10 minutes)

(ID # 5976) Finance and Facilities Rental Agreement Review (5 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5983) Finance and Facilities Budget Timeline and Process for FY18 (15 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5985) Policy and Planning MASC Recommendations (15 minutes)

(ID # 5997) Policy and Planning Annual Review of Internet Safety Policies IJND and IJNDB (5 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5984) Policy and Planning School Year Calendar 2018-2019 (10 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5996) Announcements - Chair Student Representatives (5 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5990) Announcements - Chair Overarching Goals (5 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5991) Announcements - Chair SMART Goals (5 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5992) Announcements - Chair Action Items (10 minutes) vote required

(ID # 5986) Announcements - Chair Liaison Reports (5 minutes)

(ID # 5994) Executive Session To approve executive session minutes of September 26, 2017

(ID # 5993) Executive Session Pursuant to M.G.L. c. 30A sec. 21 (2), To conduct a collective bargaining required grievance hearing with the MEA City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 11/8/2017 8:44 AM Minutes Melrose School Committee October 24, 2017 Note: The listed agenda items are those that are reasonably anticipated by the Chair to be discussed at the meeting. Not all items, in fact, may be discussed, and other items not listed also may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. City of Melrose Page 3 Updated 11/8/2017 8:44 AM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: And welcome to the Melrose School Committee meeting of October 24th, 2017. Please rise and say the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And just to note that this meeting is being recorded. First on our agenda tonight is the report of the student representatives. If you'd introduce yourselves, please, and tell us what's happening. Hi, I'm Abby Breyer. I'm a junior at Melrose High. And some events that have been going on the past week at the high school is yesterday the German exchange students left after three weeks of being in Melrose. The French exchange students are here for a few more days, and they leave on Thursday.

▶ 0:55 the senior Halloween dance is coming up on Sunday the junior class is holding a fundraiser of Fuddruckers tonight and powder puff and spirit spike raffle tickets are on sale now for spirit week in November hi I'm Kira Holmberg I'm a junior at Mellors High some recent sports standings at the school football and cheerleading senior nights were last Friday and football played Burlington and they won 34 to 6 football starts playoffs this Friday versus Dracut at home volleyball won their game last Thursday against Watertown and it was also their senior night and volleyball played Wakefield today boys and girls cross country ran and willing run in Wilmington tomorrow boys and girls soccer play Wakefield today and field hockey senior night is tonight any

▶ 1:45 questions for our students tonight seeing them thank you so much for coming thanks for having us next on our agenda is public comments do I have a motion to to open public comment second by mr. sound seconded by mr. McAllister grand discussion opposed that motion carries unanimously with three public comment is now open mr. Morales a few different items here you know I'm I'm disappointed that we haven't been having conversations, discussions, explorations about actual education issues. The EP&P Committee had no business before. Tonight it's basically the enrollment and field trip request. There are so many issues around education, whether it's academic or social and emotional or, you know, skill development, personal qualities of students and it's not happening

▶ 3:23 and I don't understand why it isn't. You know, the excuse in the wintertime is always, oh, we're so loaded with the budget we don't have time to do it and so you don't do anything then in the winter and the spring around that. And it's an opportunity right now that you have to actually work on some of these issues because you know as the MCAS result shows that we're not educating our students to their potential we're not giving them meaningful experiences in the classroom some of them we are some of them actually are meeting expectations but that doesn't mean that the schools have done anything to help them meet the expectations some of those kids would meet expectations regardless of whether they went to school or not so why does the school committee sit here

▶ 4:08 and look down and have goal-setting meetings we come up with these broad things but nobody wants to deal with the actual issues of education and how the education system in the city is not impacting positively the students that we have here there is so much there's there's so much you could talk about you know in a conversation that I would love to have and I appreciate that somebody's making a difference to try to change the students that come here from being told that they just have to sit here and enlist a calendar or sports box scores or something but at the same time in the memorandum that I read and I apologize because I I scanned it quickly but it appeared to me that there's an acknowledgement that the school committee is required to meet with them

▶ 4:53 with five student advisory council members every two months while schools in session but it doesn't even seem from the memorandum that you're actually attempting to do that you know by devising a liaison to go meet with them somewhere or talk with them about what their roles are is wonderful if it's in preparation for them coming here engaging with you about the issues I've I have yearned for a long time that you could have real conversations with the students that I hear about what the students say from time to time because you need to hear the disconnect between their experience in the school and their experience in the classroom and the distilled version that comes to you here at the school committee. The whole point of having the high school students engage

▶ 5:40 with the school committee is so the school committee has one less filter about what the real information is. And I don't know why the whole committee isn't excited to take advantage of that and, and make that, make that maximize the use of that. I want to go back to the MCAS results that are, that are out district-wide right now, you know, it doesn't look so good, the results. And some people want to spin that as, oh, well, the cutoffs of this new test are different, and so, you know, meeting expectations isn't the same as proficient was before and all these things. Well, the reality is that if we admit that the new test is valid, and a lot of effort went into trying to make it as valid as possible by a lot of professional

▶ 6:47 psychometricians and statisticians and curriculum people well what the new test actually shows then that the old test didn't is how poorly we are doing nobody here nobody in this district should say oh we're doing fine it's the same as before because you know the test is a little bit you know the standard is a little bit higher for this that's not acceptable right the new test is actually signaling to us that we're not doing the job now I'm sure all of you remember that I've come here for years saying we're not doing the job and over all the years of the the the the the charade of no child left behind that oh if we just follow these you know fractional paths to improvement by 2014 every student in Melrose will be proficient that that was

▶ 7:36 that was the narrative that the system had and oh let's just you know even though we're only at 66% proficient if we take the next five years and divide that 34 point gap by five and we go up seven points a year we'll be there at 2014 these are the issues that the education system is playing games with and the people in Melrose are willing to play those same games and take advantage of them to the detriment of all of our students so i please ask you let's step out of the the merry-go-round let's stand up and let's get some solid footing on solid ground and have a conversation about what could we do different not what we're mandated to do because that's not what should matter here it's what could we do for our students this year next year the year after

▶ 8:29 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: tomorrow thank you mr morose thank you that's fine it's five minutes i appreciate that but if one of your goals is to have the public be involved and communicate it seems like in a quiet meeting when you're doing nothing really excuse me is there anyone else who would like to come forward for public comment seeing that i take some more time do i have a motion to close public comment today second you really made by mr selm and seconded by miss casatelli discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously with two absent next on our agenda is the announcements of the superintendent of schools I'm sorry I'm just that's okay this coach and I was supposed to meet today and we I was

▶ 9:34 stuck in traffic so a couple of things again actually put it under the heading of late breaking news a couple of emails came in this week first of all our recent recent submission on the CPR got an email from contact at DESE and no further progress reports are required we have met all our obligations if you remember they were mainly under translation and the next time they'll Sears is somewhere in the 2019 2020 school year so that was very good news today the other news I got today is Watertown has approved late start and Burlington is taking your vote November 14th so let's hope some more of our colleagues will be following starting when next year I believe next fall yeah so the other good news that we received is 66 of our students are Adam scholars

▶ 10:38 which was great news if you're not familiar with the John and Abigail Adams scholarship it is based on your MCAS of the three graduation requirements you have to have advanced on one proficient on the other two and be in the top 25% of your graduating class we also have two of our METCO students who have qualified for the Parsi scholarship we've never had two in one year so we're excited about that the last step in that process I believe is next week and we're hoping that both students will be awarded scholarships the Posse scholarship is a scholarship that's given to minority students it is a compact with certain colleges that accept the students and it's called a Posse because when the kids get there they have a Posse or a cohort of kids

▶ 11:31 that work with the University of College to give them all support and to make sure they succeed and graduate on time so we're very excited about that so that was good news from guidance today and from Miss Ward today so I wanted to share all that with you and the last thing is where I was today as we took a team the US District Attorney's Office in Boston did a conference on addressing hate and bias in k-12 schools so we took a team to Worcester and a lot of our partners were there so that felt good ADL the restorative justice people Middlesex Youth Partnership and it was very rewarding for us as we as we discussed it confirmed a lot of the work that we've already begun so it was a very fruitful day in that aspect very good any questions for the

▶ 12:31 superintendent mr. so I'm sorry could you repeat the scholarship information prior to the Metco on the posse scholarship not the posse the Adam scholarship the address based on the MCAS exams so 66 of our students qualified and will receive scholarships any other questions for the superintendent this Castelli how many is that consistent I don't I don't know past numbers okay and then back to the leader start again what time are they I would have to pull it up to see what the email was from the superintendent in Watertown okay just curious okay very good next on our agenda is the consent agenda which tonight includes the school committee regular meeting minutes of October 17th 2017 the school committee special meeting minutes of October 21st

▶ 13:33 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: 2017 and the warrants as follows FY 18 schools s 1 8 0 1 3 in the amount of one hundred and five thousand one hundred and eight dollars and sixty seven cents I am going to remove the school committee special meeting minutes of October 21st 2017 they will appear on the consent agenda at the next meeting would anyone like to remove any other items seeing none may I have a motion for approval so moved second made by miss Casatelli seconded by miss McAllister grand all in favor opposed seeing none that motion carries five in favor with two absent next on our agenda is the educational programs and personnel subcommittee miss McAllister grant good evening and welcome to the EP&P portion of our program I am Jamie McAllister grant vice chair of programs

▶ 14:43 and personnel and tonight we have I believe one item on the agenda because one item is moved off the enrollment report so again thank you mr. McAllister grant we are pulling the field trip that is on the agenda so we will not be discussing it so in your packet you have the annual enrollment data again we continue to grow we're at 30 as of October 1 we were 3,912 students as you know this number will continue to change over the course of the year as children move in and out of the district for planning purposes I I will tell the city's CFO, Patrick Del Rosso, that we'll use 3,600 students for the chapter 70. And a reminder that the only ECC children that are factored into that are those children receiving services and it's prorated.

▶ 15:47 The concerns are the concerns that we have faced for the past several years. As we continue to grow, it's a requirement for added staffing. only classroom teachers but specialty specialists music phys ed ESL continues to grow we're up to 167 from 149 last year the good news is our SPED numbers have dropped I would love like to think that's because of all the in-house programs that we are building and also because of the approach that we have taken that a child does not have to be special education in order to get the accommodations he or she may need some of our programs as you know especially our social-emotional programs we have made open to any student who needs the supports and that has worked well for us and mostly for the children Donna Rosso

▶ 16:44 our early childhood director continues to be concerned about the number of children that she sees coming into ECC with autism spectrum disorder and behavioral challenges and to that point she is doing a lot of work around behavior modification and social skills the low-income students had grew a little bit 693 from 681 last year the problem is we're doing it based on our free and reduced lunch count and the state reimburses us on their new calculation of disadvantaged students which is a lower count it's people who are receiving state services as opposed to applying for free and reduced lunch I will tell you that there are several superintendents involved in a committee with the state trying to get the state to rethink this approach primarily they

▶ 17:42 are superintendents in gateway cities Revere Chelsea Everett Springfield and and new bedford you know and because they have been impacted even more adversely than we have our homeless population we had a sharp rise this year you may not be aware that the division of housing and community development began to use the motel on route 99 again as a shelter they had backed off very successfully from that for a few years but this year due to a shortage of transitional housing and shelter other shelter beds they use the motel again and that impacted us and our choice students are down a little bit and we'll talk about choice when we meet believe in November and what my recommendation will be to you at that point also

▶ 18:37 included in this we made a last-minute decision to give you all the data on the classes at the middle school in the high school so that you could see what goes on some of those classes do get combined when typically when you're looking at French five French for those those courses that may have four or five we typically combine them not only because we're trying not to run classes very small classes due to our staffing issues at the other side of the coin we worked very hard this year with the teachers to reduce the number of classes that are over 30 and we thank them for their help on that so you will see that in the numbers again we do not have a strict class size policy we have a recommendation and I can say in good faith that both mr. Merrill and mr.

▶ 19:33 Conway made every reasonable effort to keep the class sizes to a manageable number what does happen in some courses especially electives if they're a popular elective the teachers our teachers are very generous they love being with our kids and they'll say sure and you'll see classes creep up to 30 31 in some of those electives econ seems to be one of those classes right now future recommendations the same thing that we've been talking about for the past three years what is the impact of the increasing enrollment on our ability to staff adequately and and to staff a comprehensive education the ongoing challenges as I mentioned with children with behavioral and mental health challenges the high school especially needs staffing I asked for nine teachers

▶ 20:29 last year we were able to provide four and those were all at the elementary level if we do have another 15 section K next year we will need two more teachers at that level as well plus more to build out the art and music a little bit more again and of course with more students becomes the requirement for more resources long-term discussion points and some of this came up the other day when we had our retreat you know how do we continue to be a district engaged in ongoing growth improvement and innovation when we have so many competing needs what additional supports are needed for the staff to be successful in meeting the academic and social and emotional needs of a growing student population continue to develop a rigorous curriculum provide access to

▶ 21:20 specialties as art music and physical education integrate instructional technology and we've had a little bit of a conversation here that I have mentioned a couple of times to the committee the addition that we all anticipate at the state level of either computer science or computing knowledge as many superintendents prefer to call it as a requirement for graduating students and how do we fit that into everything what programs and classes do we need to re-examine for need and relevancy I had a little bit of a conversation with the high school administration around that yesterday following our retreat when looking at class sizes across the districts are their grades or specific content classes with size may be a concern with the

▶ 22:16 projected continued growth what are the long-term financial challenges of course and what are the short and long-term impacts on physical capacity as our numbers increase I we've addressed them elementary but if you do look at the charts that Judy Chan nicely provides now with the enrollment numbers you can watch the bars as they march from left to right and anticipate that those growing numbers will eventually hit the middle in high school and with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to take them right so just to frame our discussion there's no need for a vote tonight this will just be a discussion on this topic and in addition to what the superintendent mentioned I would add I saw some additional positives the decline in the out-of-district

▶ 23:04 placements for special ed which had went from 37 to last year to 33 this year but when I looked at the five-year data there's a decline across five years from high of 48 five years ago now down to 33 which is pretty significant and I want thank the superintendent for this memo that she wrote summarizing the numerous charts and graphs which was very insightful and the questions that she poses which she just read for future discussion I think would be a great jumping-off point for the next retreat of the committee which is scheduled for February so discussion from the committee mr. Scott to what extent do you see this kind of information incorporating itself in next year's budget or your thoughts are on the budget there definitely will be

▶ 23:57 incorporated in the budget the need for staffing will be brought forward in the budget again as you know we may do this year because there is a slight decrease at the high school we took eighth grade staff and we divided them one one period at the high school but as his numbers as the middle schools numbers return those staff have to return as well and we need to address the staffing at the high school one of the conversations that we that I'm having with the high school administration is as we get into a more personalized individualized approach to teaching one of the positions we really need you know a lot of conversation about we have 1.2 academic facilitators at this time and actually one of them is

▶ 24:50 shared with the middle school what what should we be really thinking about am I thinking about adding a social studies teacher am I thinking about adding and I'm just using that as an example that's not a specific am I thinking about using an academic facilitator as we begin to think about less courses being confined to the building and going with more online courses more college courses or extended learning opportunities who manages that and who oversees the kids on that so there's lots of those type of discussions happening at the high school and the middle school level right now that will impact the budget and what kind of requests we make guidance has made it very clear to me that they need

▶ 25:33 somebody again we began to shift our guidance model four years ago from guidance to student services it is also the preferred shift at the state level if you go on to the state's website they don't even refer to them as guidance counselors anymore they refer to them as school counselors and they have a very wide mandate about being social emotional resources for kids as well and as we do more and more of that work what do they really need to balance that out we currently have eight five at the high school three at the middle school while the recommended ratio from the professional organization is 250 to one we're getting very close to that number luckily every year we have an intern so that sort of helps so those are the kind of considerations when we go forward to

▶ 26:28 the budget and again we got lucky when we had to add for music and art this year dr. Talbot and the elementary principals were very creative with their schedule I don't know how long they can continue to be that creative we added like a point to point to we didn't have to add a 1.0 and as you all know by doing that we were able to add the 0.5 ESL that we needed the other thing that we're all waiting on is at the state level they're revisiting English as a second language again it may be more restrictive it may be more liberal depending on which bill passes the state legislature and that may be a point in our conversation that we have to consider about service delivery and staffing depending on how that plays out going forward just a follow-up question

▶ 27:28 question and I wouldn't expect you to know this but just if you do and if not it would be interesting to know how many students have have come into our district since October 1st I don't know how many since I told us because I August 30th I was at 39 62 or 39 72 and then we do as I told you the DNR's the do not reports and then there's some other shifting that went on so there there's been a a little bit of a a carousel um but i don't know how many that's what what i do know is as i as i've shared with some of you last what what has been interesting is um the month of october has seen some children return from the charter school um so um and then they came in after the count so what will happen is i'm between registrars right now as you also know

▶ 28:24 Christine Casatelli: ms candelaria you'll see her name on the uh warrant became the assistant to miriam farrell and the registrar usually runs our numbers and when we have a new registrar we'll run the numbers again very good thank you further discussion ms casadona yeah i was going to ask about the if you could attribute the bump in enrollment at the high school is it from the charter school or from coming back from private schools we had 25 students return from charter private and parochial at the middle and the high school we did do that count is it just do you think this is just a one-year thing or I don't I can't answer that as you know the charter school has had some difficulties in the past year and that has been an

▶ 29:13 Jessica Dugan: impact the parents I've spoken to have said to me that has impacted their decision it is not unusual for us to have some students return sophomore year from some of the local parochial schools um are these students who were our students yes and okay so then they went away to private or charter or wherever private schools and then they returned right thank you further discussion mr again thank you i'm curious about uh what the committee can do or hear from you to support the conversation around where the limited budget priority can go to support enrollment so in the we know that staff at the high school is a problem and we've needed staff the need is getting stronger yet I think we probably anticipate a similar need as to last

▶ 30:08 year at the elementary level again so how do we balance that how can we support that work of your team and you know where are we in the early stages of the game on thinking about that for next year there's nothing you can do we're waiting on the numbers when patrick delarusso gives me the numbers and we know what our chapter 70 may be that gets factored in when we know what the city can afford to give us that gets factored in but at this point in time we don't have numbers yet which influence our thinking and around what the priority is within all the competing needs the priority within all the competing needs i i really cannot answer that at this point in time miss dugan because it depends on what the team

▶ 30:59 decides we've begun to have a conversation internally about what could we do that could be more cost effective and efficient um where could we make changes that would free up resources and once we finish that conversation then we have an idea of where we're stuck and where we have to ask for resources so i think it's a little preliminary to make to make that kind of pronouncement okay i definitely wasn't looking for a pronouncement i'm just looking for what this report can tell us about what we expect over the next few months from you know from how your team will be building their budget priorities so as i i think it pretty much tells you that i when i point that out in the text here i am sorry i have all the charts in front of me and

▶ 31:48 i'm trying to get back to the text where i talk about the anticipated impact that if we have 15 what that means it means it means grade two or grade three needs to be a 15 so that we would have a 15 at k123 the resources it means talking to the principals about the scheduling what what What do they think they can do with stretching art, music, phys ed, or the digital literacy specialist, who right now we only have in three through five. So we have to begin to run those scenarios. And again, I think an important scenario for me to run with the high school team, which I've begun to talk about, is what should the program of studies look like? that has a big impact on how many staffing they need and part of the thing

▶ 32:39 is which is difficult for people to wrap their heads around is high school teachers actually have more flexibility in what they teach than our elementary teachers because you can point you can teach point two outside of your license it doesn't matter if the English teacher or the history teaches history through film it doesn't matter to me if the English teacher the history teacher or even a foreign language teacher teaches freshman seminar it's those type of choices that we have to get to the bottom of before we know exactly what we need okay so the preliminary indication is that there are some continue to be significant needs at the high school as well middle school and high school and I guess you know in my mind when I think of it it's much easier to articulate the

▶ 33:34 Jessica Dugan: needs at the elementary school because it's more new students coming in every year and I guess we will look to your team to really articulate those needs at the middle school in high school as well and as I said earlier the state is moving faster than we anticipated on the computer science and if that comes through in the next year that's another thing we have to factor in about not only do we fit that in the schedule but who teaches those courses with any of our subgroups there's some significant enrollment shifts and some of them is does that have any impact on title one funds or well 70 anything anything significant well as I said the main issue with the title ones funds is the state has decided to go to the disadvantaged student category rather

▶ 34:28 than the free and reduced lunch category and it cost us $90,000 this year approximately even though our numbers are up the other thing I remind everybody this is October one census this is not money this is not this is money for next year that you talk about not money for this year when you talk October one because the state uses this to calculate next year that that's a factor I think really the factor that we're really having is do we manage to squeeze another 0.5 ESL out of the what you gave us last year does that have to go to 1.0 again it depends on where the state goes on their English as a second language program we don't know yet there was conversation where they are going to allow people to do dual language again where kids can take this

▶ 35:18 subject in their native language that I'm hoping it'll be a local decision not a state decision but that is it that is a something we may have to consider that's that's a staffing issue I think probably the bit the thing that we've done and our people have done it well but it is a strain is the social emotional supports for kids when you're talking about kids who are immigrant population in the current environment socially economically disadvantaged either because of family circumstances or because housing circumstances kids are coming into school traumatized and you know we've had a conversation in this body about what does trauma mean in the year 2017 and it doesn't mean you you survived a war or you were in a car accident and actually I saw a very

▶ 36:20 interesting figure today and I have to remember where I saw it about 35 or 34 percent of all children have had some sort of significant life event that is traumatizing or an impactful to some degree and that plays out in schools and our kids our staff is doing the best they can but there are days I will not deny to you that it's difficult luckily through the work that we have done with seem collaborative the ten seem communities they have developed for us a consultation service where we can bring into the buildings behavior specialists ESL specialists people who have been trained in the new leap program from the state um so that they can support us without having somebody on staff it's a pay for service

▶ 37:19 pay you know pay for fee fee for service excuse me but it enabled but it does give us help when we need it um the one thing that i think i've explained all to you that this scene is going to go for a radar grant and one of the things that we want to add through the radar grant if we get it is an inclusion specialist but none of us can afford a full-time inclusion specialist and again i'm using word inclusion in a very broad sense how do you include any at-risk student in your academic and extracurricular life so that that child has a chance to be successful that's where the strain is and that doesn't get reflected in the numbers per se when you just talk about the numbers but thank you for asking that question thank you further discussion yes mr.

▶ 38:13 O'Connell thank you very much to the chair the superintendent I was particularly interested in the information you provided about special education in paragraph 7 of the memo and thank you for the memo as someone else said it it's very helpful and this this information particular I found very informative and instructive and I would really like to hear more not tonight but more about the programs we're building because I think there is a shared interest and consensus around keeping more students in district and for reasons beyond just our legal obligations and again I think that there's a shared interest and consensus there it's also you know a budget challenge every year and I think and I'll take

▶ 39:10 this up with with the chair and the subcommittee chair I think we really should have substantive discussion about about these about these programs we're working on because we need to know as a committee how we can support you and your team and building those programs both to serve the needs of these students and also to address this perennial budget challenge so I would say two things to you again and I think I think you've heard me say it here before and I say this as a former SPED director I hate the SPED designation or the requirement that we must have it in order for a trial to get services and we've begun to move away from that and when we did our CPR when we did our coordinated program review I will tell you the state said to miss white

▶ 39:57 Lambright dr. Adams and myself how have you guys reached the level of inclusion that you have reached because we just keep pushing it and pushing and pushing it and holding it as the standard are we a hundred percent successful of course not nobody is but I was gratifying for me to hear from the state that they thought we were doing a good job of it and part of what we have done is some of of our programs we've reclassified as combined programs their gen ed sped programs for the very simple reason that if a child needs help he needs he or she needs help and you know sometimes a student is in a situation where the sped process is 45 school days well let me tell you something if you put in a referral to me today you're looking at after February vacation before you get

▶ 40:45 an answer because of vacations and everything else we don't wait that long than kids and so we've begun to build programs that are more responsive I will also tell you I know I number is I you don't have a context for it I have a context for it our number is exceptionally low we have 3,900 kids and we only have 33 kids on a district that's not counting the occasional kid that goes into a 45-day placement while we get more information I've worked in districts smaller than us whereas the SPED director I've had a hundred kids out of district and and what I thank for that is the culture of our parents and the culture of us our teachers who have been open to this because you can live and work in districts where the out of district placement is the expectation

▶ 41:37 here what I've encountered the expectation is I really want to keep my kid in if we can make it work we recognize that for some children it does not work and we have an obligation to do what's right for them but I mean that it that is what we what we hear from our parents how can we make this work that my child can stay in great and I think we share in those expectations as well I want to support it and I think a sustained substantive discussion as an agenda item would go a long way toward that both in terms of our obligations and again addressing the financial part of it my last comment you mentioned the consultation service that we have through seem I'd be interested in hearing more about that again not tonight you know my recollection is we do an annual

▶ 42:28 review of seeing maybe we just look at the budget it strikes me that that review should be more substantive as well so we could talk more and hear more about this consultation service and maybe even some data about how often we're using it whether it's working whether we're getting a adequate response from the consultation service so again I'll take that up with the chair and the subcommittee chair I'm glad we have it it makes sense I think from a financial standpoint so thank you you have mentioned through the chair to the superintendent you have mentioned previously work ongoing at the middle school with regards to the teams and how eighth grade there is an effort in progress to make eighth grade remove the teams from eighth grade or at least make

▶ 43:29 that more flexible as I look at the enrollment numbers by grade we are anticipating a decent jump from next year to this year or pardon me from this year to next year and then the following year as you know fifth moves into six six moves up etc what by my count and I'm ballparking here so don't quote me I'm looking at roughly what an additional 50 students within the next three years total right so can you speak to the team system that is currently in place and what modification we can make going forward now we can support you in making those going forward so that we can be more flexible and make sure that there's a balance across the students and the teachers in each grade well I would not want to make recommendations without mr. Conway being involved in

▶ 44:37 that type of decision he is the middle school principal and the team concept is held near and dear by middle school people while there is conversation across the country about whether or not we need to revisit it for a variety of reasons what we have done at Melrose middle is we at the eighth grade level especially we're doing more cross-teaming so it used to be very difficult for you to take certain electives because we could not go cross-team and we have decided to make that more flexible for our kids mainly for our kids so that if you want to take I don't know Italian you can take a terrible year if you want to take German you can take it without having to be on a certain team because maybe you're taking algebra one and it's on team A

▶ 45:23 and the Italian teachers assigned is attached to team B whatever it may be we got more flexible about the cross teaming the other thing that has made a huge difference for the eighth grade is the number of eighth graders who are coming over to the high school so if you're taking Latin one again you're not you're not on a team you can be on all three teams taking Latin one and now you go over to the high school take it so it's again it's that flexibility that you're not stuck with the team and can't move across periods and classes same thing with the algebra one students they're all coming over to the high school now so that has made a huge difference the ability to go cross team the ability to think about especially when you think

▶ 46:09 about kids specialty schedules so if I have and I'm going to use special ed as an example if I have a special ed child and they need a particular service and that service is only B period and B period is normally when they have social studies on their team the guidance people now have the flexibility to say well maybe they won't take social studies with team B social studies with team C so that they can get their other service so the lack of rigidity around the schedule in individual cases has made a very big difference for students and that was the purpose of it the purpose of doing that was not really about cost savings it was about what do kids need that we can't meet and then when we had to take point two of teachers it drove it even more so we had

▶ 47:04 to get really flexible on how do we meet kids needs with only a point eight teacher as a point as opposed to a point 1.0 future so then forgive me for jumping in you thank you for speaking to eighth grade flexibility is that flexibility also available to seventh and sixth graders not not as much this time except for the students who are taking compacted math in the seventh grade so again we're pulling from multiple teams for kids to take compacted math before when you were in that type of program and you had only one section of compacted math all the kids who took compacted math had to be on the same team well think about what that does to the diversity of your team you know it sort of messes it up pretty pretty badly so by being able to go

▶ 48:00 across team we can keep our teams diverse so another way that what you do that is you decide everybody who's teaching math is teaching at the same block so that way kids can go like this if they have to go to compact math and things like that so loosening up the rigidity of the team model has benefited kids where we go next remains to be seen like I said it's a hot potato to talk about doing going to a different team model a different middle school model the the middle school model as it currently exists I want to say God 35 years old at least and it evolved because of social emotional needs of early adolescence how do you give early adolescence a secure school within a school in which they could flourish rather than a junior high which is

▶ 49:07 basically a mini high school so is there a hybrid that would evolve for our kids I don't know possibly I think you're seeing that more in the eighth grade right now than the sixth and seventh and I will also tell you quite honestly Mr. Selm the anxiety from fifth grade parents as they move up to sixth grade and I speak to the people in the room not you yet you know they like that team model especially in the sixth grade where it is a little bit more nurturing so then if I may one follow-up at this time do you anticipate any additional needed infrastructure or staffing to accommodate the roughly 15 odd new students come that will be increased in sixth grade it really depends on how they're dispersed what does that mean well you have three teams so if it's

▶ 50:13 only five kids on each team it's probably a minimal impact if it if for some reason some team gets 10 and class sizes on that team creep up to 28 29 that's a different conversation but usually mr. Conway can secure control it by how he assigns kids to teams okay thank you very much further discussion seeing none that concludes EP and P for today thank you thank you so much next on our agenda is the finance and facilities subcommittee mr. so good evening and welcome to the finance and facilities portion of tonight's thrilling meeting tonight we have two items listed on the agenda however due to needing more tweaking and more discussion between myself and the administration I am pulling the budget timeline and process from tonight's

▶ 51:29 meeting there will not be any vote required for such or discussion I would invite the committee that if they peruse this and have questions comments suggestions or otherwise want to throw words at me about this please do send me an email or get in touch I will entertain any and all outreach thus we have only one item on the agenda the rental agreement review and to frame the discussion we do have a vote required at this time I would invite the superintendent to speak to this okay thank you mr. Selms so as you know DPW has taken over our rental management and our two city solicitors and mr. Schenner and I and miss Farrell felt that we needed to tighten the rental application as it was being managed out of his office so that it was clearer and

▶ 52:35 we knew exactly what was expected from rent rentease renters renters thank you so this is what came out of several meetings with many people involved I I think probably the most important thing for you to understand is we're going to at the auditorium we're going to create a policy almost like leasing a car here's your checklist before you lease we go through we go through everything when you're finished we go through again so that we can have a better idea of what kind of damages are maybe being incurred other than that it's pretty straightforward um both mr van campen has advised me that the liabilities limits are appropriate he checked with our insurance agent and other than that it's pretty standard

▶ 53:36 it is a non-refundable deposit at time of application and a security deposit is probably the newest thing because again we need to make sure that if we incur damages we have a way to to pay for repairs. Great, at this time I would entertain a motion. Second. Motion made by Ms. Driscoll, seconded by Ms. McAllister-Grand. Discussion? Ms. Castelli, first. Reviewing this, are rates the same or have they gone up? The rates are the same. What has gone up is the custodial fee because it went up in their contract. we did not adjust rates at this point in time how much of us increases the custodial fee by dollars it went up from 440 to 45 and there is there is a tier right in terms of what the payments are okay do are those others on the websites

▶ 54:46 people see them or yes okay all right thank you miss McAllister grand thank you I think this agreement looks very thorough and I had some minor suggestions just with regard to like clarity and grammar which I've sent to the here I will pass them along yeah they didn't in no way impact the intent or the content of the agreement so I won't walk through all of them with you even though I'm sure that would be thrilled thank you for doing that mr. O'Connell. Thank you, Madam Chair. A request and a comment, and this is a reiteration of a prior request. When we're getting documents that have been changed from year to year, if it is at all possible for us to get a revision history or some, you know, the old document and the current

▶ 55:44 document, preferably a revision history so we don't have to go through these. If we're taking this seriously we're going through this line by line to see what's been changed and while it may sometimes seem that we get paid by the hour here we actually don't so it would be great to get some ability to track the edits that said this is clearly a cleaner more comprehensive document I'm happy to see the language about the event monitors and the use of technology and AV equipment and I would also note and indicate support for the new language regarding payment terms including the security deposit and the contract deposit so I think that all looks great thank you for that any further comment all right all those in favor of passing this with modification from miss

▶ 56:42 McAllister grand motion passes unanimously this concludes finance and facilities thank you thank you next in our agenda is the policy and planning subcommittee mr. O'Connell any friends welcome to policy and planning we have three agenda items this evening the first is continuation of our mass policy update mass being the Mass Association school committees we have in the packet the updated mass policy update grid we also have three policies that are on for first reading and vote tonight they are policies bhe DJE and DKC the committee will recall that these will last before us last week for informational review and as I mentioned last week we do have the benefit of our councils suggested revisions to DJE and they are indicated in blue in the document that's in the

▶ 57:52 packet having said all please mr. school and is there a second any discussion on motion seeing none all those in favor and the motion approved carries unanimously thank you for that the second item under policy and plan this evening is phase two of our annual internet safety review where in Doris does not get erodes but instead we formally vote to approve our policies related to access to digital resources and acceptable use of said resources neither of which has been changed from last year as per our discussion second any discussion on the motion of proof seeing none all in favor and the motion passes unanimously thank you for that the final item under policy and planning this evening is the 2018-2019 school year calendar the proposed calendar is

▶ 58:44 in the packet if I may begin with a query madam superintendent regarding religious holidays does the language do not schedule school activities on the day of or evening prior mean no homework no practices no games no rehearsals no nothing is that right that is correct any further discussion any further discussion please miss McAllister I had a question from a parent and I couldn't answer so I have to ask why August 31st the Friday before Labor Day is do we not have school that day it's contractual agreement so just because it's a contractual agreement with the MEA okay basically it's not unusual okay many many districts do it in exchange for starting before Labor Day that was that was the contractual agreement with many unions across the state thank you and

▶ 59:35 then the other question I got was the half day before February vacation the so that's a contractual agreement also okay thank you any further discussion please I had a question from a certain 12 year old at home who wanted to know why we no longer get November 1st off why November 1st why did we ever get November 1st off it's the day after Halloween eyes no we used to did we really yeah when years not in years but we did your 12 year old but we did right yeah long time ago yeah yes how does your 12 year old know that ms gaston the toilet paper had to be cleaned up all over town that was the pd day though that was the new school for students but it was the pd day yeah oh okay teachers were always working kids could stay

▶ 1:00:38 home with their candy any further discussion so just may I please election day just so that you know again it throughout Middlesex Merrimack Valley is the section is the superintendent's roundtable it's 40 odd communities and many of us have gone to the Election Day because we do a combined PD for low incident subjects that we all can't provide so it's called NPN Northern Professional Educators Network we have 3,000 staff convening in multiple schools across the Middlesex County to share PD on that day so that's become a very important day to keep in our calendar so people like all your occupational therapists speech pathologists physical phys ed people some of your foreign language people music we share resources and we do

▶ 1:01:50 professional development across the region on that day so that day will stay so that's the explanation to Rosie why it's now that day any further discussion seeing none all in favor and the motion to approve the calendar carries unanimously and that concludes our policy and planning portion of the agenda thank you thank you mr. O'Connell next on our agenda is the announcements of the school committee chair and we'll begin this evening with a reflection on our student representatives document and I will invite mr. O'Connell to speak to that please Thank You madam chair on the advice of the superintendent of the chair the student reps memo has been revised to properly reflect that the superintendent cannot simply designate a faculty advisor but the same is properly

▶ 1:02:49 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: the subject of collective bargaining as I understand it accordingly the memo as revised now reads simply that there be a faculty advisor and I would look to direction from the from the chair would you like a motion to reconsider motion for yes please if I can make a motion reconsider our vote last week in this regard second motion for reconsideration by Mr. O'Connell seconded by Ms. McAllister grand discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimous and madam chair if I could make a motion to approve the proposal as revised in the memo that's before us tonight second made by mr. O'Connell seconded by miss McAllister grand discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously thank you very much the next item is is

▶ 1:03:36 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: a proposal for revised overarching goals I'm greatly appreciate appreciative to all of you for spending a full three hours on Saturday engaging in a lot of discussion around what we feel are the things that are most important to us and our students and we had some consensus around some wording and some ideas I I hope that I have reflected them adequately here and I would entertain some any discussion that you wish to have around this or a motion for approval as you wish so moved thank I mr. Salm seconded by miss McAllister grant is there any discussion miss McAllister grant I think these look great and very accurately reflect our discussion and I had one suggestion two suggestions sorry so the number four strategic leadership the last line so I'm just gonna read the

▶ 1:04:41 whole thing because it's just one sentence the Melrose public schools were responsibly strategically and transparently allocate resources based on their ability to positively impact teaching and learning and I would change it to and to realize continuous improvement in student engagement that's my requested change and would you propose it as a friendly amendment yes is that acceptable mr. so very good okay and then you my other friendly amendment is just if we could add to I don't know if this is the header that would be on the final document but just to indicate that these are goals for the district for the upcoming we had said five years in our discussion so just to put a time frame around it so that it isn't just a one-year plan it's not intended

▶ 1:05:33 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: to be overarching goals are standalone you can change them anytime they want this merely it's like it's like describing what overarching goals are like when we list our vision and mission we wouldn't describe what a vision and mission is so with overarching goals we would just indicate we would just update our documents to indicate that I'm not sure that I would be clear to me that overarching means five years like I don't know that that like equals it doesn't necessarily it's supposed to be overarching not changed every year there's not a time there's not a but in our discussion we discussed that this was basically like a five-year plan but there's nothing in this document that says that so it's the it's the will of the committee whatever they wish they

▶ 1:06:21 can change the overarching goals or not that is the because we do discuss them every year but they're not intended to dramatically change okay so it depends on what the the committee wants to do but we don't have anything in here that says five years or one year okay does that answer your question sort of the motion on the floor is for approval miss Castelli under educator development the development was just one aspect of this but we're calling in the whole thing I don't know if anyone else has a question about that educator I believe it was educator development and support miss Dugan I guess what other aspects are they well it says recruit develop evaluate retain but we're calling it educator development so I think I would prefer the word support educator

▶ 1:07:27 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: support in lieu of educator development is that your motion correct friendly amendment that is a friendly amendment is that acceptable mr salm yes mccallister grant yes okay it becomes educator support very good any other discussion just uh uh thanks to the chair for organizing the retreat and for many managing somehow to synthesize everything we talked about that's appreciated and a task well done thanks thank you further discussion seeing none with the amendments that we have uh discussed all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously and now we're moving on to our smart goals so after we had some really good discussion around our overarching goals we had some equally good discussion about our potential smart goals and

▶ 1:08:23 Jessica Dugan: again i've tried to somewhat capture what we discussed i did add dates just for purposes of discussion so I would entertain any discussion around smart goals or emotion motion to approve second seconded by mr. McAllister ground discussion miss Dugan I'm curious about the timeline for number one I appreciate that it's a pilot but I also know that we don't necessarily revisit our goals again until a year from now so by saying by December for in this series I'm wondering what if the pilot goes well what the intention would be after that or is that something that the committee would discuss that happens so this is a goal that we would revise to carry on through the year not necessarily could vote it now or we could change the date you know certainly as you wish the

▶ 1:09:31 thought behind it was that it would be one a quarter beginning the first quarter of the year one a quarter one per getting the first quarter of the year okay got it thank you so that was a philosophy thank you further discussion ms. McAllister grand for number three mm-hmm by October 1st to find indicators of student success for each grade level I think my understanding of our conversation on that was to define indicators of student success for each of the district's overarching goals does that match that was my understanding as well I was wondering if we could just clarify that in that statement and how would you recommend we do that to find indicators of student success for each of the district's overarching goals at

▶ 1:10:21 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: the elementary and secondary level I don't know if they need each grade level I think just but I deferred to about grade spans as opposed to grades so then you're talking pre-k I defer to you on that but that makes more sense to me yes so it would read by October 1st 2018 to find indicators of student success for each of the district's overarching goals for each grade span in an articulate and understandable manner is that acceptable yes mr. Dugan my understanding of that goal was that we would define indicators of success for the overarching goal not for student achievement within each goal the goals are not all necessarily related to student achievement so I would actually the cares of success recommend that we define indicators success for each

▶ 1:11:10 Jessica Dugan: overarching goal in an articulate and understandable manner not right so remove the word student and grade level right because those goals are only one of them and we have a lot of student success indicators already so I think it was kind of looking beyond that actually or in addition to that for each goal what are the indicators of success for each of those goals yep okay please so So we had had a brief conversation about action steps. Is that what you're thinking, Ms. Dugan, like in terms of action steps? I think outcomes. Yeah. So what I don't have a good example. I'm sorry about that. I think that what I mean was that strategic leadership is one of our overarching goals. What are the indicators of success in that area?

▶ 1:12:01 Jessica Dugan: So not necessarily action steps, not how will we achieve the goal. How will we know if we achieve the goal? Okay. And I think, I don't think it's necessarily obvious, I think what it does is it pushes us to that place where we are actually looking at indicators of success in a more complex way than we have been. We continually rely on student achievement because it's something very measurable. I think this pushes us to think about how we see success in ways beyond that and is important in my opinion. So would your proposal read, by October 1st, 2018, define indicators for each overarching goal for each grade span in an articulate and understandable manner? I would just say define indicators of success for each overarching goal in an articulate

▶ 1:12:55 Jessica Dugan: and understandable manner. I'm sorry. Say that again. It's okay. I agree. I agree. Okay. of success for each overarching goal in an articulate and understandable manner very good further discussion oh sorry and again I would just say that was my understanding of our conversation so if others understood differently I would welcome that very good further discussion miss McAllister grant and number four which states I'm going to stop you sorry just a second is there any further discussion on number three I'm just can I consider that a friendly amendment yes very good that is considered a friendly amendment so for number four which says draft a one-page document articulating the financing of education I from our discussion actually this may be more of a question for the

▶ 1:13:51 finance chairs who I assume will at least in part be tasked with this one I thought it was more around planning some kind of communication that articulates school financing that might be presentations to a PTO might be a PowerPoint presentation might be a one-page mailer like it wasn't clear to me that it was definitely this one item but I so I wanted to ask what others thought particularly those who might have to do it did anyone hear something different all right I didn't hear one page I think the intention was that it something that was accessible whether it was a PowerPoint similar to another town that was mentioned or otherwise so we could say draft a an accessible communication versus a one-page document would that meet your needs yes because I

▶ 1:14:54 think that just provides a little more flexibility around what might best suit the goals again a friendly amendment folks yes further discussion oh not on that one no anything else miss McAllister grant at the top it says proposal for FY 1819 smart goals I thought these were calendar year 2018 smart goals well if we start them now we're in 18 okay because I thought the goals we had worked on communication and the other two went through December of this year like with the terms of committee members it depends it's it's whatever you wish like I said when I when I did this I wanted to give the committee flexibility so that I didn't want to say you can't start until January okay see what I'm saying so it could go through June 30th of 19 the

▶ 1:15:56 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: goals you're saying well except that we have defined the the dates here okay so but they they cross fiscal years FY 18 19 would be next July 1st through so we can't write it till July right okay so yes I'll think calendar see what you're saying yeah yes so so what is your pleasure how would you like it reflected then calendar year 2018 would be my suggestion so you don't want to be able to start until January well I just don't want to limit you I don't think it really limits I would still start on it do you know what I mean it's not I think it's just that we're intending to complete them during calendar year 2018 that's the intention okay but if others feel differently please and this this header will not be on the document so it it's it however you want to if you do

▶ 1:16:57 want to reflect it that's fine but the smart goals can just go in without a specific date okay I must voice concern that we're getting bogged down in the letter of the law rather than focusing on the spirit of the law while some of the friendly amendments have certainly been important and proper for clarification purposes I again want to caution us to on diving in on like specific dates for instance for purposes of limiting ourselves in many respects despite I think we all will readily agree that if we approve these tonight we will begin working on them tomorrow and I think there's an understanding that January 10th or what-have-you we our vote tonight binds those elected on for the next term to this having a little bit of flexibility to indoctrinate

▶ 1:18:14 new members and carry them forward I think might be help so I would just say in response what I'm trying to get a handle on is what the cycle is for these goals I'm not trying to pick particular dates or limit our ability to do something or start something I'm trying to understand well the superintendent's goals go from this period to this period whereas our goals go from this period to this period and they don't necessarily have the same scheduling so I was just adding a date for the purposes of making the cycles clearer so whatever the committee wishes I'm fine with any further discussion seeing none with the original motion and the amendments that we friendly amendments we have discussed

▶ 1:19:01 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously and action items we will consider and discuss at the next meeting and liaison reports is there anyone who would like to offer a liaison report mr. O'Connell Thank You madam chair in my capacity as school committee liaison to the elementary schools they had the privilege of meeting with both the Roosevelt school site council in the Lincoln School PTO as reflected in the Roosevelt schools school improvement plan, the site council is doing significant planning, scheduling, and grant writing work in support of their aim of incorporating more project-based learning into their curriculum, not as a set-aside or stand-alone activity, but as part of their students' regular classroom

▶ 1:19:50 experience. And I note it because I think this effort shows great promise and is worthy of our continuing attention and support, particularly as a potential model for other schools. regard to the Lincoln School PTO ably led by parent Becky Fuentes they continue to see increased parent involvement along with terrific and much needed financial support for the school community and they are certainly to be applauded for their work as should all of our PTOs I would like to note one issue that came up that I hadn't heard of before and I suppose it's apropos of the discussion we had earlier about Halloween and I've come to understand that halloween activities in our schools and this may be old news to the superintendent and others

▶ 1:20:34 are a significant issue for some members of our community such that some students are being held out of school owing to parents objections to in-school halloween celebrations i'll certainly take the matter up with the chair and the superintendent offline but my sense for purposes of discussion is that this may be an issue that we want to address on a district-wide basis i don't know if it should be a matter of policy or just something that's handled administratively but it seems to me we should be handling a district wide rather than school by school so thank you thank you any further reports miss dugan thank you as a liaison to the melrose education foundation i'd like to encourage folks to attend the ed foundations parent university

▶ 1:21:22 Jessica Dugan: on November 18th there are some significant and very relevant workshops being prepared by some of us in this room as well and it's just a fantastic opportunity to engage with the parent community and educators who will be presenting to us as we all work together to have and hold high expectations for for our schools, thanks to Cindy and her team for supporting the event from the Ed Foundation. Registration is open now, you'll pick up to three sessions and we have a keynote speaker, Dr. Christopher Willard, he's a clinical psychologist specializing in mindfulness who will kick off the morning. So the Ed Foundation is excited to bring him forward. Also this Friday is the deadline for the Ed Foundation's fall grant round.

▶ 1:22:15 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: they will be making available up to $23,000 in grants to teachers this cycle. So this Friday, any educators who are still considering have the opportunity to submit a proposal to the foundation. Thank you. Wonderful. Any additional liaison reports? Seeing none, that concludes our agenda for this evening. Do I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Made by Ms. Casatelli, seconded by Ms. McAllister-Grant. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries unanimously, and we are.

School Committee — 2017-10-24

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