School Committee — 2017-11-28

Agenda

1. To approved executive session minutes of September 26, 2017 (2:40)
2. To discuss strategy with respect to potential and pending litigation with third parties, when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the School Committee (15 minutes) (3:06)
3. Superintendent's Update (5 minutes) (15:25)
4. Warrants (21:28)
5. Health and Wellness Reports and Program Responses (45 minutes) (22:20)
6. Snow Cancellation Project - Alternative Structured Learning Day Program (15 minutes) vote required (1:46:48)
7. End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes) (2:30:28)
8. Policy JFABB: International Students (5 minutes) first vote (2:31:28)
9. School Committee Self Evaluation (30 minutes) (2:32:12)
10. End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes) (2:38:08)
11. Budget Timeline and Process for FY19 (20 minutes) vote required (2:38:32)
12. End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes) (2:42:20)
13. Proposed School Committee Action Items (10 minutes) (2:45:25)
14. Liaison Reports (5 minutes) (2:48:20)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● NOVEMBER 28, 2017 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176

(ID # 6063) Executive Session To approved executive session minutes of September 26, 2017

(ID # 6061) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to potential and pending litigation with third parties, when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the School Committee (15 minutes)

(ID # 6023) Announcements - Superintendent Superintendent's Update (5 minutes)

(ID # 6015) Consent Warrants Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 12/6/2017 3:47 PM Minutes Melrose School Committee November 28, 2017

(ID # 5979) Educational Programs and Personnel Health and Wellness Reports and Program Responses (45 minutes)

(ID # 6054) Educational Programs and Personnel Snow Cancellation Project - Alternative Structured Learning Day Program (15 minutes) vote required

(ID # 6016) Educational Programs and Personnel End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes)

(ID # 6053) Policy and Planning Policy JFABB: International Students (5 minutes) first vote

(ID # 6019) Policy and Planning School Committee Self Evaluation (30 minutes)

(ID # 6018) Policy and Planning End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes)

(ID # 6049) Finance and Facilities Budget Timeline and Process for FY19 (20 minutes) vote required

(ID # 6017) Finance and Facilities End of Year Subcommittee Report (5 minutes)

(ID # 6055) Announcements - Chair Proposed School Committee Action Items (10 minutes)

(ID # 6021) Announcements - Chair Liaison Reports (5 minutes) 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 2 Updated 12/6/2017 3:47 PM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Good evening and welcome to the Melrose School Committee meeting of November 28th, 2017. Can we 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 at this time i would entertain a motion to move the report of the student representatives to be next on our agenda made by mr o'connell seconded by ms de salm discussion all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously with two absent so i would invite the students to reintroduce themselves and um tell us what is happening at the high school hi i'm kira holmberg i'm a junior some

▶ 0:59 recent events at the high school on november 18th was parent university which was held in the alarming learning commons providing a half day of workshops for parents focused on education other related topics on november 20th was random act of kindness day numerous teachers and students took part in small acts of kindness towards classmates and co-workers last week was spirit week in full force on theme day was on monday class shirt day was on tuesday and red and white day was on wednesday and wednesday was the pep rally on the half day and seniors won spirit week i'm abby brier i'm also a junior for sports the volleyball team played westborough on saturday the 18th in the state finals earning second in the state for division four

▶ 1:41 football played hopkington also on the 18th at weymouth high and they won 22 to 8 football will play at Gillette in a division four Super Bowl and last Thursday was the Thanksgiving Day game where they beat Wakefield 35 to 12 very good a lot of good news there are there any questions for our students today miss McAllister grand can you please tell me your favorite thing that happened on the random acts of kindness day actually in our art class one of this one of like the like ed students I came in and gave a like a treat to our art teacher so thank you great thank you so much for coming in for your good information next on our agenda we do have need for an executive session to approve executive session minutes of September 26 2017 and to discuss

▶ 2:54 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: strategy with respect to potential and pending litigation with third parties when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the school committee we will return to public session do I have a motion to enter into executive session second made by mr. O'Connell seconded by miss Dugan discussion seeing none all in favor oppose that motion carries five in favor with two absent and we will be returning to public session I will announce that in executive session the committee voted to approve disclose and make available to the public upon request in accordance with the Massachusetts open meeting law and public records law the minutes of executive session held on September 26 subject to redactions recommended by the

▶ 3:59 chair and or counsel based on a determination that disclosure would defeat the lawful purposes of the executive session next on our agenda is public comment I would entertain a motion to open public comment made by mr. Selms seconded by ms. McAllister grand discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously Ms. Blesso. Hello I am Jennifer Blesso and I'm here mostly just to introduce myself to you all I am the co-chair of the Melrose CPAC which is the special education parent Advisory Council I'm also here I'm also the mother of a child with autism who's at the Roosevelt and so I'm receiving special education services here just wanted to update you in a little bit we are working on more

▶ 5:30 outreach to the community we are also going to start introducing other than our evening meetings we'll start having coffees as well for parents who are unable to come in the evenings I have also submitted comments about the blizzard bags I can only I'll just speak for myself and I have seen several other comments and I am aware of them you know I'm against the blizzard bags just as a mother of a child who is receiving special education services that are fairly robust you know it takes us rather than 90 minutes to do the work it takes me probably about twice the amount of time to work with her to do these things she's also requires people with expertise to assist her and they're also several don't you know there's about 500 children who receive these special

▶ 6:29 education services and the school district who you know really you know struggle to do their work and their parents also struggle this snow days in general can be kind of stressful for us so they kind of add and it will be adding an additional stress but you've all seen my comments I think you've had an opportunity to see them and among others so thank you very much thank you very much mr. Morales so I know by that clock for five minutes is that right it's not working so many issues so little time I do want to make a point that I think I make here annually that I find in relation to special education that mellows does not do a competent job with child find I don't I haven't seen that the brochures go out that people are introduced to what special education is

▶ 7:33 about and the things to be aware of and what the opportunities are for referring a child for testing and to evaluate for special ed services maybe I not seen what's happening at the kindergarten the first grade level right now but I I really haven't heard that next issue is I asked the school committee to put on agenda for tonight um an item relating to the the large discrepancy between the achievement of boys and melrose and the achievement of girls and there's a 15 or 16 point percentage gap between boys and girls in grades three through eight in ela um it wasn't mentioned by the professional staff that was here presenting two weeks ago regarding the mcas results and that is one of the very significant issues in Melrose and in other places is why boys are not

▶ 8:21 achieving as girls are and I obviously have opinions on that as I do many other things but Melrose isn't even trying to figure out what's not being done for boys that they need versus girls or why we have framed a school system in an education instruction program that is far more likely to be aligned with what girls and are more naturally doing and against from what boys need and it's a sophisticated discussion that has to happen I asked the school committee to put it on the agenda obviously not two of you wanted to do that and you didn't do it it's my expectation here I I've received since then I received this evening a a letter from the school's attorney you know claiming that all there's no problem here because at national levels there's some things and

▶ 9:15 that there's a seven or nine point differential on the NAEP there's no problem here well there's a problem here and it's a problem we're the only people that educate our Melrose children so if there's a problem with our boys not achieving well it's our problem you can't lay this on this is a national problem we have nothing we can do here our boys achieve based on what Melrose does so the message to Melrose parents is if you have a boy here be careful because your child is not going to achieve as well as girls are in the system that's offered in Melrose for them today blizzard bags I asked for and thank you for sending me the copies of the emails you received regarding the blizzard bags as you started to discuss them two weeks ago in reviewing the

▶ 10:03 documents you got I want to highlight the fact that every response that was in favor of blizzard bags was like oh that's wonderful I can plan my summer oh can do this or I know when the school year will end and all that right the ones that were opposed to blizzard bags were ones that actually put out the policy considerations that you ought to be evaluating the reasons of what happens in different families and for different kids and frankly the very large issue that 90 minutes of self-directed activity does not replace a day of teacher-led learning for students and whether you can rationalize something at the elementary school because it's the same teacher doing things I mean how does a high school student do 90 minutes when they

▶ 10:46 have five different classes to do it in six different classes it doesn't work and you know I'd like to see a competent discussion on it but frankly I can't see a result here that would be rational other than not doing this blizzard bag things shortening we have enough problems getting kids to reach proficiency in the subject areas as this frame today to take five days away from from them and essentially give them some homework for 90 minutes on a day that can't replace the school day the 900 hours are there historically for a reason or the 990 hours or whichever ones they have to go by but even if the state gives you a waiver that doesn't mean the kids are being served the point here is to serve the kids you had an opportunity in the last two teachers

▶ 11:31 contracts to negotiate for professional development you gave teachers more money you could have negotiated for more professional development days you could have devoted negotiated for more time from teachers in fact one of the contracts you have the teachers go from 40 hours per week after school over the year to 20 hours per week after school you know to lament that oh you don't have enough time for teachers you're the ones that made that decision I told you about it in real time when it was happening that this is an issue you just refused to accept it or acknowledge it you went ahead and made the contract gave significantly more money to the teachers but didn't get back in return the types of things that need to be in the students favor you talk about

▶ 12:12 student-centered education a student centered system this is not this is an adult centered system and as long as you continue to do what you've done in all those areas you're not helping students students don't get a valid lunch every day because the school day isn't quite long enough they have to get in by the time they get their lunch they're rushed out the door because the next group has to come in and this has been going on for the last 15 years I've been paying attention here and it hasn't been changed or it or improved in any way blizzard bags are not a solution blizzard bags are a problem mr. Wilson thank you that's five minutes thank you this behavior survey I don't know why you wouldn't put out the results for the public to see all the

▶ 12:55 results we used to have a very good accounting of the youth risk behavior survey and people can go and look at it and look at the actual data to figure things out I would love to see how boys differ from girls in these things in the presentation you have tonight that's not there thank you mr. Morales please put up the raw data so people can get the raw data and do the analysis that a more complete analysis than what you're going to allow to be presented here tonight in 30 minutes thank you thank you mr. bless oh hello my name is Francis bless oh and I just wanted to have a couple comments about the the blizzard bags I also agree that this is not a workable solution and it's a poor substitute for a day of day of school and I don't think that we should be

▶ 13:48 shortchanging our students by giving them less than what they what they deserve to the arguments for the blizzard bags are to make more time for professional development and to have more time to clean the schools there are ways there are other ways to be creative we could have a single week in March for vacations that have you know February and April we could also have you know perhaps the the teachers can have their own blizzard bags they do professional development on snow days then they won't have to have you know they they won't have to there won't be this issue about missing professional development and you know it seems like we're already doing a pretty good job working around the the

▶ 14:45 constraints of you know cleaning and maintaining of the schools for instance we have a policy where the summer programs was switches between the Roosevelt and the Lincoln every year so that the those schools can be taken care of and I'm just not seeing any compelling reason to to do this this blizzards bag things and I'm only seeing you know possible negative outcomes with the amount of burden that's going to be placed on everyone that's not that not the teacher here thank you thank you very much it's for anyone else for public comment this evening seeing none may I have a motion to close please made by miss McAllister grand seconded by miss Casatelli discussion seeing none all in favor opposed next I would invite the

▶ 15:39 superintendent to provide an announcements section thank you very much mr. school a few things that I got to write up today first of all which is not written up is the intent is for the new website to go live January 15th so you will be hearing from Miss Kamosa on that matter on November 22nd Massachusetts passed new legislation regarding the delivery of English second language services while the regulations impacting service delivery remain to be written the bill also establishes a statewide seal of biliteracy Melrose has piloted this program over the past four years and has awarded students for their efforts the seal of biliteracy recognizes graduates who speak read and write proficiently in another language in addition to English with a seal on

▶ 16:33 their high school diploma what I would like to do is provide recognition tonight for dr. Kim Talbot dot Kim has been an advocate for this both in Melrose and statewide and her advocacy made significant contribute contributions to this law being passed and in our achievement in this area we have become a leader in the state for this and I want to just recognize Kim for that the second thing remind everybody the annual Melrose veterans middle school musical is this weekend we have four performances of once on this island and over a hundred and fifty students participating they do a great job of participating kids through different versions so that more kids can participate and I will tell you all that they're concerned we are encouraging it

▶ 17:29 as a no homework weekend so our kids don't have to be worried about homework work either if participating or attending the last thing I want to report out is I had told you recently that seem collaborative was applying for a grant if the grant is resource reallocation to district priorities it's part of a new grant programs working in conjunction with radar which is the new database basically replacing dot and it's the resource allocation and district action reports we've been awarded the grant for almost a hundred thousand dollars for two years and it'll be a joint effort with Woobin Wilmington North Reading Melrose Wakefield Stoneham and Reading and our focus will be how to use the radar data to increase our grade pre-k through 12 educators capacity in

▶ 18:27 the area of inclusive practices which is being defined for the purpose of the grant as the instructional and behavioral strategies that improve academic and social-emotional outcomes for all students with and without disabilities in general education settings so we're all very excited the first grant meeting is this Friday in a very locate very convenient location Worcester but as we know the state thinks Worcester and Marlboro are central to all of us so there will be a team going out to gain the first information Mr. O'Connell just very briefly through the chair of the superintendent so this new ELL legislation or law it's early obviously and I'm not I don't mean to put you on the spot any do you anticipate that

▶ 19:28 we're gonna see major changes in our curriculum or our approach to this area of education as a result of this law I don't really have an answer for you Dr. Adams and I discussed it briefly today because we know Governor Baker signed it today we have to wait for the regulations the significant changes you know that Massachusetts moved under question what was it question two and a two question two several years ago that ESL had to be English only the sheltered English immersion model on top of it there was a US Department of Justice advisory to the state that we were not making sufficient progress and we were not being inclusive enough which resulted in the requirement that every core in every course subject teacher be trained in sheltered english immersion it is now a

▶ 20:24 requirement of the state to have your less license to have sei cert uh it's not certification endorse endorsement thank you um millions have been spent on this and so the question for all of us is what changes um having been in this business long enough i've been through every model including the model in which kids were taught in their native language i knew at that time the human cry was they were not making significant progress in the against standards based criteria criteria because they were not being taught in english so now this new bill will allow us to return to that do i anticipate that happening here not at this moment what i do worry about here is again we need to add staffing that that'll that'll be the big

▶ 21:21 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: thing for us but it could be up to a year before the state comes out with regulations very good thank you further questions for the superintendent seeing none next on our agenda is the consent agenda which tonight includes the school committee regular meeting minutes of November 14th 2017 and the warrants as follows FY 18 school s 1 8 0 1 6 in the amount of two hundred and eighty nine thousand one hundred and seventy one dollars and fifteen cents and FY 18 meal tax for October s 1 8 0 1 8 in the amount of ninety nine dollars and eighty six cents does anyone wish to remove anything from the consent agenda seeing none do I have a motion for approval so moved second made by miss Dugan seconded

▶ 22:03 by miss McAllister grand all in favor opposed that match motion carries unanimously. Next on our agenda is the Educational Programs and Personnel Subcommittee. Ms. Dugan. Good evening. We have three items on the EP&P agenda this evening. First up is the health and wellness reports and program responses. So I welcome Superintendent Tamar to introduce and welcome folks forward. Thank you. I'm going to ask Mr. Fogarty and Ms. White-Lambright to come forward please so this is this is a great opportunity for us as you know the Middlesex League this was probably the second project we took on as a league the first being late start we decided that we needed a better way to not only administer the youth risk behavior survey but to analyze the data what

▶ 23:15 members of our school Wellness Advisory Council will tell you is they've had some frustration over the years with the analysis because depending on who you hired was how good your analysis could it could not be so by joining forces and getting a grant from Leahy Hospital and using them as a partner the district the Middlesex League districts were able to have a computerized version of the test created and then John Snow Inc JSI a reputable health data analysis company has done the analysis for us for the first time the other thing that it does for us it enables us to compare ourselves to the other middle sex league communities rather than just the state so as we all know we have two frequent fields of comparison we're either

▶ 24:12 compared to same communities or middle sex league communities so this enabled us to work together to say since we're already being compared let's do it the right way with with somebody who uses the data and can make that analysis for us the purpose here tonight is to give you an overview of it my obligation is to present the data to you before we make it public as we all know that is my obligation as a superintendent after we present it to you we will do what we need to but to give you an overview and to talk about how it impacts our programming and how it impacts our our partners so we have with us I believe substance abuse counselors with us our tobacco we call you council morning with a program coordinator our

▶ 25:07 pediatrician dr. wolf is here and who am i missing Jessica Jessica's here dr. and they will all be contributing to this conversation about what the data tells us and what we need to think about his next steps so with that I give you mr. Fogarty and this white lamb right thank you very much on behalf of the school Wellness Advisory Committee I would like to welcome miss Kathy Guevara miss Maureen Busby miss Jessica Hoffman dr. Wolfe and miss Jamie McAllister grant and also miss Patty white lamb right we represent about half of that committee that sits and discusses questions for a couple of years leading up to it this is our Super Bowl we sit down and we hammer away questions at each other and it goes

▶ 25:57 back and forth for a long time so test was administered last spring these are the results and this will drive where we go in the next few years until we can test again so thank you youth risk behavior survey what is it and why do we administer it back in the 1990s the federal government decided to test certain areas with youth and behaviors dangerous behaviors unintentional injuries in violence mental health alcohol and other drugs tobacco sexual behaviors related to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections nutrition and physical activity with that said we test every two years okay at the middle school and at the high school level we administer ybs to determine the prevalence of these health behaviors and how they change over time and also

▶ 26:57 how we drive our curriculum at all levels in the in the district so for the first time in the history of the ybs and melrose public schools this was administered electronically which made it a lot easier to gather questions to administer the test to shorten the time shorten the response on you know all the numbers coming back so we look forward to this and we'll talk more about it as we move forward with this one of our major partners of course was um lay health they funded much of what went on here our partners were the middlesex league and within the middlesex league you know it's a much smaller scale than the entire state of massachusetts or the nation as a whole that said it gives us a close look at what's trending in other communities

▶ 27:48 as well as what's going on in melrose so there are a couple schools that did not participate within the middlesex league and that was due to scheduling some had already administered in the fall the test was put together or the survey was put together over the winter and administered in the spring so we really look forward to doing this again in a couple years and have all 12 middlesex league schools to be a part of this consultants john snow huge part of the data analysis and again the school wellness committee we look forward to digestion of this over the next couple years all right as we said this was administered last spring grade 7 through 12 648 high schoolers 715 middle schoolers hard copies were made available to all parents in the community

▶ 28:37 parents had the option to you know keep their student from not taking the survey and again it was given electronically for the first time at the high school level is given during English classes and at the middle school it was in this social studies class all right so another click there is a lot of information in the YRBS so our efforts here are to give you an overview of some the pieces so this first piece I chose it texted or emailed while driving in high school give you the information compared to how Melrose responded the Middlesex League and then comparison to state and federal in this particular slide I don't have comparison data so some of the questions are different than had been asked two years ago or maybe four years ago when we had that

▶ 29:46 comparison data I've tried to present that to you as we go along but really thinking of this as an opportunity for several reasons this piece where we've been able to take a look as a Middlesex League look at the YR BS and come up with really not it's the standard form of the wire bs that's developed at the federal level but there are some individual questions that we as a group decided to continue to include for instance for us one of the questions we wanted to still look at was around dating violence That's not a question that's part of the standard YRBS but has been an important piece of data collection for us as we've applied for grants in those areas. So this particular question was actually not part of the YRBS but is now part of the YRBS.

▶ 30:51 So I'm really looking at this as an opportunity for us to develop a new baseline and having this standard procedure moving forward over the next two years to give us some good information about trends. So electronically bullied. So in this slide, we do have comparison data. So when that's available, I did give that to you. looking at Melrose High School in 2015 it was fifteen point seven percent students reporting electronic bullying and this year it's pretty similar fifteen point four percent at the middle school 2015 eighteen point three percent and that's up a bit to nineteen point six percent so that is certainly something that I continue to hear I know it's something administrators we deal with on

▶ 31:52 a routine basis the piece that goes on through student cell phones outside of school continues to be an issue that we address on a routine basis okay so under that big category of unintentional injuries and violence drove when they had been drinking alcohol in the past 30 days 6.2 percent of Melrose high school students and that's an increase from 4.1 in 2015 drove with someone who had been drinking alcohol again an increase in 15 it was 9% up to 12.2 percent drove when they had been using marijuana in the past 30 days 15 7.7 up 12.6 carried a weapon on school property so this is an example of how the questions has changed a little bit so the previous question was asked in the past 12 months the new

▶ 33:11 question is asked on school property in the past 30 days so again there's some you know correlations you can look at but they're not the exact same question so in 15 it was 5.1 and this time it was 2% and again this is the question a little bit different experience physical dating violence this year was Melrose 3% in 2015 they had qualified that question on a date or by a date okay so So now it's just a little bit broader of a question. And in 2015, it was 5.5. So I was pleased to see that there was a little bit of a drop in that. I think certainly an area that we're always concerned about is the mental health of our students. So the idea of feeling sad and not even that specific sad, sad, but the hopelessness I think is an important question to look at.

▶ 34:28 Looking at Melrose, 22.4% in 2015 was 24.2, so there's a slight decrease, but then still, you know, over 20% of our students identifying themselves as feeling sad or hopeless. this is a question we didn't have data for but I thought was an interesting piece because we we often ties into some of the conversations we've had around late starts or student student stress thinking about those different kind of components so which of the following do you find causes the most negative stress for you busy schedule 20% of our students parent family demands 16.1% school demands assignments homework it's the biggest piece 36.4% stress in getting through you know all of those requirements social pressures from

▶ 35:44 friends only 3.5% and I and I thought that from my lens was a little interesting where we had had that question around the social bullying piece the electronic bullying that that was you know a higher piece but I think from a student's lens the social interaction that's a release for them that's not a stress that's that's a release from the rest of their day so again you know in these areas where we're pretty comparable to the Middlesex League in those areas but I think it is again something we have to important for us to be aware of and think of as we're putting together what our expectations and their demands are on students like certainly something of concern your concern is thinking about mental health and if students are

▶ 36:51 considering suicide and in fact have a plan of how they would attempt suicide middle school data is the same from 15 to this year 8.2 percent Melrose high school in 15 it was 9.2 a slight decrease to 8.6 certainly in the area that we have focused on provided training for staff the middle school and high school around sos um so it's it's something that is on our radar and that we have been actively addressing the next piece is on ever trying a cigarette for the high school students at melrose you know 14 which is pretty consistent with the middlesex league much lower than the state national averages the next one you know ever used electronic vapor products obviously we've seen a sharp increase here up 12 since the last round of

▶ 38:14 testing and you know some of the students claims i hear whether it's at the playground or um you know in the hallways or after school when you hear kids talk about it you know some of them feel it's a safe alternative to cigarette smoking and obviously we have to do a better job at educating them about health consequences but this is where we saw a sharp increase tobacco use at the high school 14 reported that they have tried the cigarette smoking and 5.2 percent current smokers with 1.2 percent smoke cigarettes frequently um all that said you know the smoking we were beyond that it's just such a small population that was ever doing it and um now with the vapor products it's it's it's a new fight and we have to uh gear up and be ready for that the use of tobacco at the

▶ 39:17 middle school we fared better than than most schools in the local communities and um you know cigarette smoking for the for the youth is is down at this point in time i think i guess i'm a little bit amazed by the cigarette smoking i know the vaping and i know maureen's going to speak to it eventually um tonight but i never see kids with cigarettes i never see butts on the ground so i'm surprised that so it must be off campus but it seems higher to you than you would think yeah what yeah you certainly don't see it in public anywhere it's out of the restaurants it's out of the workplaces i mean it's it's tougher to to do that and i i'm guessing i'm thinking some of these kids if you go home smelling like cigarettes parents know

▶ 40:06 something was up go home after vaping they may not have a scent to that at all and um you know a little sleight of hand and kids trying something new electronic vaping products use at the high school a larger proportion of high school students in melrose reported ever using electronic vapor products up to 36% which the two years ago is a 24% 36 holds consistent with the league but it's far higher than we'd like to see proportion of Melrose students were reported that they currently use vapor products that's it about almost 30% and almost 20% than the rest of the Middlesex League It's something that we need to address as educators as a whole, and we had a professional development a couple weeks ago, and it was not on vaping, but we had a very robust conversation about what we can do, and it started with the middle school teachers, and then you could hear the elementary people trickling off on what they could do better, and then, of course, the high school people, oh, no, that's not true.

▶ 41:24 this is what i heard so unintentional but it's a direct product of a simple conversation with someone dropping a stat about what's going on and it was a great conversation we look forward to having more of that and talking with miss busby and some of the potential program that we could do and use some of our resources to address this concern the electronic vaping is trending upwards at the middle school unfortunately as you can see this 2017 14 excuse me four point seven percent and just two years earlier it was point eight percent so it is getting to the younger kids I think it's become a more commonplace and it needs to be addressed as I stated so Kathy was kind enough to help me put some of this information together so thinking about what's our drug use what

▶ 42:39 are kids doing at the high school and also in the middle school so ever use marijuana Melrose 34.8% it's a hot high number higher than any of us would like to see and interesting again this specific question was asked a different way in previous years so it's interesting just how they change some of those components so here's we have lots of information here regarding marijuana use and other drug use and I think the pieces although maybe many people had tried it that people who identified themselves as current users is a bit lower still over 20% of the high school students and that you know there are also students experimenting at the middle school as well a much lower number so the middle school kids are not that active but there is some starting

▶ 43:54 around almost 4% of kids and so then but then there's a huge increase into the high school so really what's happening Kathy has been an integral part of working and meeting with guidance counselors working with our high school students and providing support to the staff around this issue looking at alcohol use at the middle school Melrose in 2015 11% up to 15.1% I think you can see that there's an overall trend that alcohol use in particular is not going in the direction that we would like to see it is increasing across the board in all areas alcohol use at Melrose High School 62.5% reported that they had ever a drink which is a little higher 61% in 2015 again I think the more concerning piece is that people who say they're currently drink one or more times in the

▶ 45:28 last month 41% of students and that's up from 34% in 2015 so again I think overall when you're looking at the alcohol piece there is a trend not in the direction that we would like to see there was just I'll just there was just an article about binge drinking you know maybe some of you had seen but again engaging in the binge drinking which has even more serious consequences twenty six point eight percent reported that they've engaged in that kind of behavior which is up from 18% in 2015 so again an area that we need to have some of our efforts in and part of I think the takeaway from the YRBS is that these risky behaviors it's not things that are just done in isolation but these risky behaviors then impact decision-making and other types of activities and

▶ 46:37 they're the underpinning of them making other poor types of decisions regret what they had done got into trouble had unintended sex so the this behavior is not in isolation it's connected with other dangerous choices where do they get alcohol home friends house park party others so it's not this is it's not just a school issue this is a community issue that we need to be talking about and thinking about how we can address this in a proactive manner one of the questions have at the high school have you engaged in sexual intercourse this is one area that has gone down on 2015 32.3 percent of students reported that they had and now we're looking at a little under 25% which I think in some ways that's you know you're saying then 75% of students

▶ 47:57 report that they have not and kind of that idea sometimes that kids do feel like everybody oh everybody's doing something well actually 75% of students are not so those are also good information and messages to get out nutrition and physical activity I would like to think Melrose a very healthy community this people out exercising at all times morning boot camps running at night Melrose Running Club Melrose Recreation Department they can give you stats youth soccer doesn't matter we have a ton of kids that are highly active with that it's great to say Melrose students are more likely to eat breakfast every day we all know how important that can be Melrose students are more likely to exercise every day and Melrose students are more likely to

▶ 48:51 consider themselves fit when they view themselves so these are all great qualities and you know hopefully it offsets some of some of the negative that we shared with you today conclusions this is a great opportunity to compare ourselves with the Middlesex League I know we've done it with Massachusetts as a whole but to look at these local communities you know some very similar to us some may be a little bit different we could argue that all night long but the fact that these are real people with with real data and we have access to that and we can look at the program that's offset some of these what's going on in arlington what's going on at wakefield so with this shared data comes shared resources and we really look forward to uh seeing where that leads some major concerns

▶ 49:43 the uh the increased use of electronic vapor products and the alcohol use as miss patty white lambright said the alcohol use i mean that is a compute community issue that you know it's going to take all of us to to address the electronic vacant vaping relatively new to the scene and you know we're open to suggestions it's important to view the use of alcohol and drugs is impacting on other risky behaviors what happens when the students are under the influence and the decision-making skills how they diminish so quickly so I that's certainly something to consider so positive trends in decreases related to dating violence in engaging in sexual intercourse. That's a good thing. Many areas are similar to the Middlesex League and lower

▶ 50:32 in relation to the state and federal results. I mean, we're not satisfied with that, obviously, but it's who we are, it's where we are, and it gives us a direction of where we need to go and areas we can make improvement. So partnering with the Middlesex League schools gives us a new baseline, you know, to move forward, to look at these local trends. It's not just it is going on it's not an excuse but we need to deal with it it's very exciting to work with these other districts to solve some of these problems to share the resources and to address the concerns that were identified through this test so it's an exciting time to say the least the next steps over the next year Melrose will work with the school districts in the Middlesex League

▶ 51:18 to analyze the YRBS more thoroughly we'll identify some common trends consider the opportunities for shared professional development and resources develop plans to ensure broader participation in the 2019 YRVS process. Our wellness department will analyze the data to ensure the curriculum is supporting the needs of our students and just through that impromptu conversation they came up with a few quick wins that you know can be addressed and we're looking forward to looking more deeply at some of these trending issues. We'll continue our relationships with the partner resources within the local and regional community to name a few tomorrow substance abuse abuse prevention coalition mystic valley tobacco alcohol prevention program mass

▶ 52:03 Jessica Dugan: in motion morrow's alliance against violence in the middle six partnership for youth so those are some organizations we've been working with for years and we continue to work together to solve some of these challenging problems that we're faced with so we welcome any comments or questions and our colleagues on the School Wellness Advisory Council would be happy to join and answer questions as well thank you so much this is an amazing amount of information I know the committee is eager to dive in with some conversations with you all so thank you for being here point of clarification before that with the administration of the survey in comparison between us and other districts or across years is there a statistical significance a point at

▶ 52:57 Jessica Dugan: which it's sick it's what am I trying to say how many points difference represents a significant change either way in compare not in comparison this our first time comparing ourselves to the middle six yeah no in it in any you know I'm trying to say you mean in terms of a statistically statistically becomes significant whether it's up or down probably a five a five point range so there were a lot that were very very close statistically relatively insignificant although all important to recognize I was just wondering from an administration point what that was thanks so much so just a background and I really want to give a chance to our partners to speak to the work they're doing with us one of the interesting challenges here was getting 12 districts

▶ 53:49 to decide on the questions the CDC questions were pretty set but everybody uses these this data for grants in their own community so like we're the only only community that adds dating violence other districts at wanted other questions and we were struggling not to have this grow to be a monster and take two kids two hours and I have to tell you having Leahy and John Snow really made it a much more worthwhile process because they helped guide us and they would say no through this data you could capture this through this data you capture that so that was a very important learning process for the communities involved the the other thing is when you were trying to get twelve people on the same page and imagine twelve superintendents trying to get on

▶ 54:43 the same page as Patti said some of the questions were worded differently this year you know when I first saw the gun violence one I was like a little crazed and I'm and I'm calling in Brent and Jason say saying and they're going time out time out all right this is nobody carrying a gun in the buildings please get and stop getting nervous and they said you know the thing that that the question doesn't gather because it says have you be is a lot of our kids come from hunting families and it doesn't gather exposure to guns it only it narrowed it to did you carry a weapon on campus so it doesn't talk about the exposure to weapons which to me is a very significant number because not only because of the society we live in but when we can when we concern about kids

▶ 55:41 rash behaviors when they're under the influence you know my concern is what weapons are in homes we have no way of capturing that we have no way of of capturing who if they're driving with somebody under the influence is it an adult or another kid there was no way to capture that so while there's a lot of important information here you have to take it in the context that there's also pieces of information that are missing and we need to adjust to be able to address what we can in schools but where our partners take it in the community is is just as important um the um the drinking when you look at the drinking how many of them got alcohol at home all right um i don't know how as school district we address that

▶ 56:41 um so while it gives us good data there's a lot of holes that have to be filled as well So before anybody gets alarmed like I got alarmed, let's, you know, ask good questions of Maureen, Kathy, Jessica, Alan, and see what they can provide us. As with all data, it highlights places where you want to look deeper. So with that, I welcome discussion, questions from the committee. Ms. Cassatelli. Thank you for your presentation tonight. how long has this survey been conducted in our district I look to my fellow historians I mean it was developed in 1990 I do not know I was not here believe it or not I'm not sure if we went right with the first administration or not so they used to be a grant incentive to do it and like all grant

▶ 57:53 Christine Casatelli: incentives then it went away with the assumption that we would assume cost I think that we've done it every two years I don't I don't ever believe there's been a blip I don't think we've ever missed it yeah but I think that's also been a factor in the quality of the data that we've gathered depending on how much we could pay an agency to do the data analysis and that's why we were all attracted to the fact that if we could do this as a group we could pay better I guess I'm less interested in what Arlington or Wakefield is doing than I am in seeing our progress over the years so if we were to have longitudinal data and I know the questions change somewhat but just questions on drinking smoking I

▶ 58:44 Christine Casatelli: want to see our progress over the long term are we making the progress and as a budget making body that we are I would love to see on that line an overlay of where we initiated programs so that we could see if they were successful or not I think that is the true value of this data. I mean in terms of the data from other school districts maybe if Arlington has just a really low percentage of using of smoking then maybe we could share best practices with them but as a community we need to see how successful we are over the past decade in helping our kids to be healthier so if I could encourage you at some later date to share that data with us I think especially as we get closer to the budget process I think that would be that that would be incredibly

▶ 59:52 valuable thank you sure and you know there are certainly some trends like with the tobacco use that's definitely been a decrease but even when we look back to say three wire bs before the question around um vaping that wasn't even there right but certainly tobacco over 10 years overall decrease and but unfortunately any decreases that we've made have only been absorbed and in surpassed in vaping use so it's like one of those things you think you're going in the right direction and then this entire industry and this entire way of looking and I think again lot you know the drinking component has been steadily going in the wrong direction right well and that's valuable information so if our if the cigarette use is going down

▶ 1:00:57 Christine Casatelli: and then at some point then we like then we have to see where did vaping start and that's useful information for the committee because now maybe we have to beef up our programs with more information about that so again the long longitudinal data I think would be even more valuable than this some middle-sex data so and and I would invite Maureen Busby to speak to it but I think Stephen made an important point and it has to go into understanding kids and who they are kids may not have tried smoking because that's easy to get caught at the vaping appears to be and I'm just saying appears to some kids to be a safe risk if I'm going to engage in risky behavior this is a safe risk it's electronic it doesn't smell or I can make it smell like peppermint you know

▶ 1:02:01 it doesn't cost ten dollars a day for a pack I don't know how much it costs you know but I invite Maureen to speak to it Okay. Thank you. The two side mics are open as well, if anybody else wants to join. Either way is fine. Yeah. So a couple of important differences, I think, between smoking and vaping. One is every child, say nothing about every adult, knows smoking is bad for you. So your point is a good one that people think it's safer. Also the local governments, state governments, federal governments have done a lot of not just prevention but also regulations around tobacco advertising around flavors of cigarettes not other tobacco products but cigarettes cartoon using cartoon advertising those things are not legal however there aren't those

▶ 1:03:07 regulations around vaping so we see celebrities on TV using vaping products where we don't see them smoking at an awards show for instance and in some communities vaping is legal to do the activity is legal to do where smoking is not and I can't tell you how many it's not just students saying well it's just water vapor and it's it's safe right but many many adults vaping is so new to us that we just don't have the education around vaping that we had it took us decades to get everybody right educated around the dangers of smoking I hope it doesn't take us decades to get educated around the the dangers of vaping vaping for people who don't know most vape products include nicotine nicotine is the most highly addictive substance in a cigarette if our students are vaping in

▶ 1:04:02 the schools home parks or wherever wherever they are a lot of them are probably addicted to nicotine and unfortunately it's a very very tough addiction so I'm happy to that we have this data and I'm very pleased with you know the school administrators who have said we're gonna work on this and you know what can we do and try to identify some programs and to Chris's point we don't have longitudinal data on this yet but we have we have years of smoking but we have a snapshot in time right now of some pretty I think startling numbers and we don't even have to wait for that to work on on vaping smoking has gone down drastically not that we don't have to worry about it there are there are kids who still do smoke and we certainly want to keep up that prevention effort

▶ 1:04:57 that tobacco is bad but clearly many fewer kids are using tobacco than using vaping and we've got to figure out what messages to use I had a great discussion with the new 84 club at the it's a anti-tobacco program after-school program with some of the students there and we talked about what messages would get to students because most of us adults aren't very good at figuring out what messages will will speak to the students but students are better at that so I'm glad that we have some youth involvement in this because I think it's very very important it is also interesting to know some of the data from some of the other communities while we're most concerned about Melrose of course it's interesting I work in a couple of more urban communities may be

▶ 1:05:45 less affluent and their vaping rates are significantly lower than the more affluent communities that we see on this chart today so understanding why that is you know might be one of the things that that's important to us I know I've heard from I received a lot of vape products that have been confiscated by school resource officers or others in the schools but some I haven't received because they say the parents come to the schools and want them back because they're so expensive and maybe the parents paid for them it'll be important for us to know where the students are getting these these products we have very very good tobacco slash nicotine so that covers vaping products regulations in Melrose you have to be 21 to buy tobacco or nicotine products we have a

▶ 1:06:30 flavor restrictions you can't buy all those flavored products that that these the tobacco industry uses to attract kids to them can't buy those in a in Melrose stores so we've done a really good job with our regulations but where are the kids getting these products a lot of them they're getting online if you have an Amazon gift card and you go online to a site where you can order a vape product it says are you 18 you click yes and you get it you don't have to prove you're 18 and it and that's all you have to be you don't have to be 21 on online you have to be 21 to purchase in in Melrose so we we we certainly have a lot to learn but we really have a lot of education to do with our educators

▶ 1:07:14 with our coaches and I think especially with our parents and so I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and you know look forward to working with all of on how to you know slow down this this attractive attraction to and use of vaping products I just have one more question where are the questions or the responses on prescription medication and opioid use there's one on marijuana use and other drug use yeah that there's a bullet there it was with respect to all of the forms of drug use the percentage of Melrose high school students who ever used cocaine heroin methamphetamines ecstasy and prescription drugs was 5.4 percent and I and I I appreciate that slide I'm I guess I'm interested in more

▶ 1:08:18 Christine Casatelli: detail like I'm worried about well prescription drug use and I mean we have an opioid crisis and I'm wondering what's the impact of that and Melrose with our kids I mean I think that the data that we did get were very low which is still concerning because that says that kids have access at some capacity that we need to be concerned about I think as a state we've done a very nice job with prescription drugs and monitoring in a lot of capacities obviously it's still an issue and it's something that we want to pay attention to but it's not as significant as it was like ten years ago okay thank you so in future surveys I guess I would like to see even more data and we might get more data as it comes I think this is like a preliminary report right and we're

▶ 1:09:19 getting more data to come back from what we received at least what I got on the email right with each question breaking it down I think she sent the supplemental report last month yeah I asked them for a supplemental report and they sent it last month so you should have had it okay I'll check my emails okay thank you mr. school thanks appreciate all your collective efforts on this one question for a miss Busby the chewing tobacco we used to talk about chewing tobacco do you have a sense of whether that's up or down or whether it's really all absorbed by vaping I did I miss that in here yeah I don't did we I don't know if we had that as a separate smokeless okay so that is at 3% okay thanks yeah okay typically chewing tobacco is used by our student

▶ 1:10:19 athletes and that has remained pretty steady over the years statewide at least it remains about 20% of our student athletes use chewing tobacco and it it isn't restricted to them but that's the population that generally uses it so it's really important to get that message to coaches and people who work with our student athletes so in our in our coach training is that an element of the of the training for all of our coaches and if it's not I'm hoping it obviously drugs alcohol tobacco are talked about but you know more of an emphasis on on many of these topics needs to be made thank you appreciate that and I also wondered when you look at the the number of students who are surveyed for example you said 648 high school students so we have over 900

▶ 1:11:07 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: students at the high school so I realized that some could opt out so can you just give us a sense of why that number is not 300 did not opt out the timing of the survey came out late spring and many of our seniors were on internships and therefore we didn't capture all of our senior information so potentially your your high school data is that could be a little bit skewed to grades 9 10 and 11 right okay so I I think that's kind of important for us to think about in terms of what might have been without making judgments but so hopefully next year or in two years whatever it is when it's I'm sure you'll take that into no I've already taken into consideration because again by the time we got the grant finished writing the yeah revised and we wanted to do at

▶ 1:12:01 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: least one round and get a baseline so we've agreed as a league that we will do it in the fall of 19 okay so and I think it's important once you present that information to just sort of point that out when the data is collected because if you see a rise in behaviors that might be considered more adult in nature you may see skewing there so and I just wanted to say thank you for all of your efforts and to remind the community that this is Melrose Public Schools this is not every child every student in the city of Melrose and I'm glad that you've pointed out this is a societal problem this is a community problem or challenge really to help our our children and our students engage in and smart and healthy

▶ 1:12:49 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: behaviors and I also really appreciate the fact that there is discussion around how with certain substances parents play a significant role and if parents are buying the substances that's a problem and I think it's important for us as a community to admit and to say that's not okay it's not okay so as parents I hope we ask our children where are you going who will be there what will you be doing and then if there are issues kind of circling back and asking the questions and that's really really hard to do but I appreciate the fact that we're recognizing that these behaviors have a variety of causes or sources and sometimes kids do stupid things and so it's our job to help them do fewer stupid things so thank you I'd just like to mention at Parent University I had a

▶ 1:13:53 table and I had some vaping stuff there and one of the number one questions was about vaping and parents asking is there really nicotine they really have no idea what are in these products well I had one mom she bought it for her child you know because the child said you know oh mom it doesn't have nicotine did it and parents don't necessarily always research it they look to the pet you know they look to the kid for the information and think they know the latest trends and things like that well this particular child recently had to be hospitalized for about a week and a half and had to ask for a nicotine patch and it made the parent really say geez I really didn't know there was that much nicotine that you know this person would be that uncomfortable so I mean it just

▶ 1:14:41 demonstrates how much we really need to educate parents about what are in these products and how much parents want to be and they want to be educated and Maureen and I have discussed it and we you know we have some things down the road and along with the schools about you know how to proceed but we'll get them for their questions miss McAllister grant thank you all so much I've enjoyed working with you and I'm wondering if you could speak to if you have a sense of which programs have been effective at the high school level regarding drug use and alcohol use do you have a read on which ones are having more of an impact in terms of what you've been implementing like for instance one of ours I think there's also some caution when you say like program it's not

▶ 1:15:40 necessarily that we buy some type of kit that some kind of separate piece all right I think the effective way to deal with all of these issues is to again to think about things in a global manner about how we addressing them through all aspects of our curriculum this is not just something that we Stephen has to address in wellness these these are pieces we have to address across curriculum but also in practices for instance one of the pieces we had instituted at the high school is called critical case management where the guidance staff and administrators meet together to talk about students who we have concerns of and they're not necessarily students who have already been identified as special ed there are a wide range of kids and how are we

▶ 1:16:46 going to support those kids and what are the issues and then being able to through that type of meeting say Kathy we have somebody we really would like for you to talk with and support so having that kind of resource having those kind of discussions I think those are the kind of efforts that help to turn these behaviors and start to address some of the issues I think our increase in support even you know we have increased our psychologists support at the high school the availability of counseling I think those are actions that will help to support these efforts I also think the you know we have a youth action team that we have you know it's we had one we had to re-implement it you know when I

▶ 1:17:46 started I hired Bob Severino and he's been very helpful with me you know we're doing you know and it's things it's consistency it's not just one program it's doing things throughout the year so you know we had red ribbon week we you know try to make our youth come to even like in plain sight that was for adults but have youth be at the tables and be involved having youth talk to youth is you know very helpful you know we're training them to go into the classes you know into the health classes and talk about these things I just started the junior high youth action team so it's going to be myself and the SRO officer Higgins so we're having our second meeting tomorrow we had 35 to 40 you know middle school youth that were interested in you know doing something

▶ 1:18:39 like this and it's a it is a program or something like that you know if we can get them in middle school and carry off they can do it all the way through high school and it gives them the skills that they need you know they learn about you know the substances but they also learn how to you know take notes and do agendas and so it gives them some leadership skills too so i think it's just consistently you know doing things like that you know um in january we're probably going to have this theater group called improbable players that we've booked to come and they have like a theater group you know for the kids um this will be at the junior high you know so just having things like that that and make ourselves visible to the youth and to the administrative in the community like

▶ 1:19:26 like going to parent university or the holiday thing and just keep being visible. Thank you. And the MVP course, has that been, do you have a sense of how successful that's been, if it will continue? Yeah, I can tell you that. So this is our second year offering the MVP, Mentors in Violence Prevention. If you recall, that had come out of our work through the STEP grant. So it was initially a grant funded piece and we looked to how can we sustain that work and we were able to make that a course offering. The first year we did not have the numbers we would have liked to have seen. The numbers have absolutely grown in the second year in participation as an elective through the wellness department.

▶ 1:20:20 Yes, on top of that though, so many kids did take it that second year that the third year yeah it's there aren't as many elective offerings right now with the way that the scheduling is being done which is a different topic but there's certainly a lot of interest with the students and so much so you know the club has grown outside of the school as well so not only was it a class or course offering during the school day but kids are volunteering electing to partake in a very similar structure outside of school thank you very much I just want to introduce Liz Parsons who sorry if she's taking some one she does the regional substance abuse for alcohol so I don't know if she had anything to add because I know you're doing you know something with

▶ 1:21:10 parents and you know working towards that so I know she's doing good things things because she's Holy Cross class of 2000 whereas I am Holy Cross class of 99 thank you I was just coming actually to support my colleagues and Maureen invited me but yeah I work for the city of Melrose as a regional substance abuse prevention coordinator so I work with some of the towns that were involved in this assessment and part of what we did was an assessment across the six cities and towns and learned several things and one what Kathy mentioned is that parents in general have a favorable out favorable attitude towards underage drinking so they either accept or think that it's a rite of passage all the kids

▶ 1:22:07 are going to do it and Melrose is not alone in this this was what we saw across the region and also related to that was what you mentioned talked about consequences and setting rules and consequences for behavior before it actually happens was a key piece because a lot of parents say well I haven't thought about that yet I'll you know wait to see if when it happens or if it happens then we'll set the consequences so that was a big gap and the second piece was on the local level so we we saw a need to sort of educate bring awareness around how local alcohol policies can affect underage drinking rates so in these aren't policies that necessarily not like you know a police enforcing social host liability or something like that but also local

▶ 1:22:59 policies related to excessive adult use in role modeling again parent role role modeling but also just community adults and role modeling and any policies or or local laws that could affect excessive adult use. So that could be how many alcohol outlets there are in a community or in one space. That could be enforcement. All of this has an enforcement piece, whether or not a law or a school policy or a local policy is enforced. And the third piece was around supporting schools. So a lot of schools didn't have substance use policies. and if they had them they weren't enforced, they weren't employed, they weren't effective. Melrose, a lot of our colleagues across the region looked to Melrose's policy because it's very well written

▶ 1:23:54 and the restorative justice sort of approach was an appeal and so to make drug and alcohol use for a student to be more less punitive and more therapeutic so those are the three components and just some general thoughts I had about how to respond to that and this is a phrase that we've used as prevention professionals for a long time is you can't educate your way out of substance use and I think schools kind of really big sigh of relief and they go okay good it's you know not just just our problem but the same time I think a lot of people look to schools because that's where the kids are right so I think it is something it's sort of what our whole you know regional work is addressing parents addressing the local

▶ 1:24:46 communities and addressing the schools and not just addressing but supporting and finding a way to make a difference at each of those levels and impact the greatest amount of people in the greatest amount of youth is really the goal and I'm speaking tomorrow at the substance abuse coalition meeting more about what we're doing but I'm happy to answer any questions or talk to anyone afterwards about the work thank you further questions discussion mr. Selma thank you for this report I found it very enlightening I recall seeing the similar report in 2015 and noticing that there were in fact some differences I tend to agree in that the language and awareness that is around vaping is not as nearly as mature as said language or education around smoking or some of the other vices that our community and indeed the state may have.

▶ 1:25:56 So that's definitely something for us to plan forward. know so I had trouble to some extent the more I dove into this document the more I realized that while we are talking Melrose and you know missing thanks to one of my colleagues asking the question the bulk of a senior class I find a lot of this data to be well incomplete and instead of making apples to apples comparison to some extent I feel as though we're making apples to oranges tangerines and plum comparisons I'm speaking not just about statistics statistical deviation which was already addressed by the superintendent but also with the idea that if we don't have a full picture in our own high school it's hard to really make a plan moving forward and while a survey a survey over

▶ 1:27:07 survey comparison between the entire Middlesex League is helpful it's also important to keep in mind that those districts are not of the same size as ours right so there's their statistical deviation is going to be different frankly than ours and it's going to put a little bit of a finer point so perhaps in the future I might request that not only do we add the deviation but we also add more demographics it would help us pinpoint what messages and and how to tailor those messages to our students to our parents indeed to our entire community I don't really have any questions thank you very much I echo many of the same things that we've already heard statistical deviation why didn't you bail the scientist well I know I'm not and I happen to know that

▶ 1:28:12 we have a stats class at the high school my son's taking it indeed did you have a comment yeah I have a comment well I appreciate the fact that we couldn't capture all the senior class the senior class was leaving us okay and what was important was the kids were staying here that we do have time and I think that's important I will tell you personally I've always had problems with YRBS you talk to educators and they'll talk to you and you talk to the statisticians as well they'll talk to you about reliability validity they'll talk to you about false answers they'll talk to you about you know kids getting out of class and they're going to say oh yeah I answered the sex question because at 17 years old that's an important thing to say and quite honestly I don't know how

▶ 1:29:25 useful this is all right we do it because we need the data for grants we do it because it's an expectation from the state that we do it I don't know how important the data is I think what is most important is and I think I don't know whether it was Maureen Busby who said it or somebody else who said it we're no different than any other city or town you grow up in America quite frankly you're a drop you're exposed to as we used to say sex drugs and rock and role and it's our job as adults whether teachers or parents to try to steer our kids to good choices to the mental and physical hazards of bad choices regardless of what we did in our youth and I will venture to say there were many people sitting within at home or in this audience who said well I did it and

▶ 1:30:22 I survived I think the most difficult education piece and again I think Kathy referred to it is parents don't understand how different it is I don't know if I could ever emphasize enough how different it is when you talk about marijuana there is no way somebody in my generation can understand the impact of marijuana of my kids in my classes generation it's so much more potent so much more toxic Chris it Chris Casatelli asked a question about opioids I will venture to say within the sound of my voice there are as many adults at home saying well my doctor prescribed oxy it must have been okay not knowing how kids steal it abuse it sell it on the street I will venture to say there are many people at home that don't understand how Ritalin is so stolen and sold on the

▶ 1:31:28 street so kids can use it to get high so you can give me all the statistics you want it doesn't get us away from what our job is and what we need to do and I think the real question in the room is and Melrose I have to tell you and I was on the phone today with God knows how I got hooked into this again by MASS they asked me to speak to another researcher and and I was bragging because I was bragging about the fact that Melrose is an unusual city in the fact that I have substance abuse a counselor available to my buildings I have a tobacco coordinator available to my buildings I have a physical health coordinator available to my buildings I have a regional alcohol available to my buildings I want you to hear the phrase I used every time available to my

▶ 1:32:32 buildings so we're doing everything we can but I have to tell you it's an uphill battle and until there is a community effort you can take all the surveys you want you can do all the longitudinal studies you want you could talk about the nature of the questions as much as you want I have heard this question I have heard this conversation for four decades as an educator all right I could tell you horror stories about kids being arrested on the beach where I raised my kids and the parents going to the police station saying give me back the beer I paid for it give me back the vapor I paid for it I rather have them drink in my house than drink on the street and let me tell you how much the recreational marijuana law is frightening the daylights out of me

▶ 1:33:35 as an educator so again you can have all the statistics you want the job doesn't change and it's not going to change until the adults decide they have a responsibility here so we can create programs we can address programs we can inundate the kids I will tell you I walk through a health class and I got kids rolling their eyes at me because they've heard this 15 times already and once they lean the leaves the confines of our buildings we do not control it we will continue to do our job we will continue to educate our kids we will continue to make headway but I gotta tell you guys some days I think my kids are more mature than the adults mr. O'Connell thank you very much so let's do something about that because I think you're right madam superintendent

▶ 1:34:32 there's clearly a consensus that this is a community problem that requires a community response and I think all of you not just tonight in your presentations but always are doing great work in this regard the the school Wellness Advisory Council the substance abuse prevention coalition mr. Fogarty and his staff and others in our schools who are addressing these issues in wellness classes but as has been pointed out tonight and otherwise these are the kinds of problems that end up on our doorstep that end up in our schools but they're really not school problems that said those of us who serve here believe passionately that our schools are very much a pillar of our community so when I and my colleagues see data like this particularly the data with regard to

▶ 1:35:38 alcohol abuse the question that I think should be foremost is what are we going to do about it what what's our role as a school committee and as a school district to deal with this community problem and I think given the work the terrific work that all of you are doing individually and given the fact that this data I think as the superintendent has pointed out if I may say so charitably reflects a struggle that our families have not just our students but our families in dealing with this that I think particularly with regard to alcohol in this community and I say this as not just a school committee member but as a parent of three young people that I think it's high time that we really come together as a community and have a conversation about this a real

▶ 1:36:43 substantive conversation that's just not you professionals taking this on one by one not just us talking about it here and looking to our faculty to address this societal problem but us bringing together all of you your constituencies our families and our students in a community way to talk about this and you know part of the problem is and someone touched upon this it's the circling back that we're not good at you know sometimes as parents and as community members we're good on the front end you shouldn't be doing this this isn't healthy this is wrong but when there are transgressions we're not always good about taking corrective action and I say this I think more as a parent than as a member of this committee or as someone associated with the schools we don't

▶ 1:37:48 always call up the other parents and say what's going on with this like a lot of communities I the one thing that we don't do well is talking about the bad stuff there's a lot of good stuff to talk about thankfully but we need to get better at talking about the bad stuff so I think one thing this committee can do seeing this and I think this speaks to what the superintendent was talking about is taking this on as a community and the school committee partnering with the school wellness Advisory Council partnering with the substance abuse prevention coalition partnering with Miss Parsons and the groups that she's working with partnering with the police department police department is rolling out an innovative and progressive diversion program for juvenile offenses

▶ 1:38:42 related to alcohol abuse and substance abuse let's let's harness these resources together and I think you know it a lot of the time we get problems here that there's really little we can do about as a school committee or even as a school district this is one that's well within the purview and bailiwick of this committee to help lead a coalition of providers and experts and bringing the community together to talk about these things we don't do that enough I think there's a real opportunity here and I for one will work with my colleagues old and new to take this on I think this is something we can bring a lot of attention to and and let's do it proactively right we we we haven't had you know a disaster there have been disasters in other communities and then

▶ 1:39:40 Jessica Dugan: people swing it to action let's do it proactively let's build on all the expertise we have let's build on these resources let's leverage them together and take this on as a community it's not a school problem it's a community problem and I for one and I know many of my colleagues are ready to step up in this regard to help lead this so thank you very much just add two things first I do think actually one thing the the statistics the data may not be new to you to other people who are in this work daily I do think they are attention getting to parents especially parents of students on the younger side of taking this survey so the superintendent opened by saying she had a responsibility to share this with us first and I think it's really important and the answer may

▶ 1:40:37 Jessica Dugan: not be in the room tonight but as mr. O'Connell said we appreciate tremendously our collaboration with you all and understanding that this is not something that we take for granted and not something that other communities have either I guess the question to the room to the folks in the room who do this work every day is how do what is the next step with this data because the data is important with the appreciation that it doesn't solely land on the schools to respond and and I think maybe Cindy you could speak to that and then generally for the group if people have thoughts on where it goes next because I do think after conversations like this if we don't know what's next things start to to fall flat the data is important to our partners again like us

▶ 1:41:35 they're professionals in this field and they're going to do their work regardless of the data the data becomes important quite frankly is because it's how we get grants and I think how you get parents attention if that's where the conversation needs to go I don't think that's how you get parents attention to quite frankly I think parents look at the data and they say it's not my kid it's somebody else's kid I think what you get parents attention is unfortunately what mr. O'Connell says when we have a drinking party in town and you know 50 kids end up on the police roster but we never do that or unfortunately somebody dies or you know we end up suspending two three kids from a team for the season because they were involved in drug or alcohol use that's

▶ 1:42:24 what gets parents attention and I don't know if there's enough enough stories I will tell you one of those things that is effective with the kids and again it's the stories that are effective with the kids when the older kids talk to the younger kids and say look at this is how you get screwed up this is how you don't get your college scholarship this is how you get kicked off the team the younger kids look up to the older kids I don't know if enough parents hear stories about kids who have had situations I'm gonna be very blunt here one of the things and I don't remember somebody made a comment about Melrose's affluence one of the things that happens in affluent towns is we take care of problems very quietly and parents and the greater community doesn't hear about

▶ 1:43:19 the kid that was in a terrible place because of drugs or alcohol or suicidal thoughts as a school district we are bound by confidentiality and I would never want to violate a kid's confidentiality but I think there is a great tendency among parents to think well that's somebody else's kid who wouldn't be mine and so I don't know how you make it effective the other thing that I worry about quite frankly miss Dugan is that the numbers can be scary to young parents they may not be scary to us because we may sit here and say they're similar to other communities which should not be a comfort because that speaks to a statewide national problem but I think people also sometimes look at and say oh my god that city's going to hell in a handbasket you

▶ 1:44:15 know so it's a fine line you walk here with statistics I think again to mr. O'Connell's point if you begin an education program for a lot of a lot of of parents beginning at like parent you or something else where you had the people who had the stories to share I think that's very impactful on on parents I think when you have a parent or a child and I'm thinking of a father and son I happen to know who do this and they turn sit up there and he says I'm an educator my kid was a Division one ballplayer and our life fell apart because he got addicted to oxy I look just like you and you and you my kid was on on track to become his dream and his life fell apart because of oxy I think when other parents see people who look like them who have lived this and have

▶ 1:45:09 reaped the misfortune that is what is impactful to parents does anyone else have thoughts on next steps just very briefly I know I talked a lot before its parents and its students and I think Miss Guevara has shown that with her work in the middle school in high school you know there's an old adage the people closest to the problem are also closest to the solution and so whatever we do and I intend to follow through on this community forum with the help of all of you it should involve students there's an important voice there there's an important perspective there that all too often is overlooked not by Miss Guevara and others who are doing this work but the wider community so I hope we can

▶ 1:46:03 focus on that thank you further questions comments discussion I just want to say that I am I really thank everyone for their participation and comments you know putting this together trying to bring something out I think even this conversation here is a fabulous beginning to continuing to address these issues to our community members we appreciate you all very much thanks so much for being here tonight thank you next on our agenda let me get the title right hold on school cancellation project we're returning to this after a conversation at our last meeting the superintendent have any updates or additions before our deliberation no at this point the will of the committee is to yes so there is a motion on the can you refresh us on what

▶ 1:47:16 that motion was last meeting no I have it right here was it simply a motion to approve the motion that was approved last week was or two weeks ago was to old yeah the motion was to hold the motion the original was to approve the snow cancellation project with a three-day limit with updates to the committee at the next meeting following the use of two of those days and with the reconsideration by the committee in September of 2018 so that is the motion that is now being returned returns but it does not need another second it had a second so it's so with that live motion are there questions comments mr. O'Connell thank you very much and through the chair to the superintendent I think inevitably we're going to go over some old ground here madam superintendent but

▶ 1:48:38 you're gonna have to bear with us we've gotten a tremendous amount of feedback that's that's proven valuable I think to our thinking about this three questions perhaps to get the discussion going if you'll indulge me the one I've been seeing a lot and I'm gonna give you all three at once if I may first question what's the rush why now the second question and I think it's going to be incumbent upon all of us to answer this as a result of what we do tonight is the second question is how could this possibly be the equivalent of a day of school and the final question at least for the moment how will this program impact special education students and families so I don't see a rush the state gave us permission last year last spring I wanted to research it speak to other

▶ 1:49:44 people that have gone down this road before I went down that road this road I had already been the pioneer on late start I didn't care to be the pioneer on this for sexly and gathered my evidence gathered my input as I told you met with Kim Smith from Wakefield spent some time with her and two other supers as we explored this and then I came forward with it it was in a timely manner we have not had snow yet time is slipping away so i don't see this as a rush um number two how can it be the equivalent um i don't mean to disabuse anybody here of what they think happened during a day but um we look at this as similar to when we do tutoring for a kid who's out of out of school for a while you get one to one hour of tutoring per day of school because it's a one-on-one

▶ 1:50:42 experience it's a more direct intensive experience it's not so much a classroom experience so we feel that it's that it's productive and useful and ultimately what matters is the product and so we feel if we have quality products coming then we're doing them then children are gaining the sped children I have miss Whiteley right speak to that but I think there is a misunderstanding or an overstatement about what happens when kids miss services there are incidental circumstances in which kids miss services that we do not make them up child is sick the teacher is sick kid goes on a field trip you have a fire drill those services are not made up services are made up when they reach a point where we believe there would be

▶ 1:51:32 be substantial regression if we were ever in a situation where we had whether you had snow days or blizzard bad days or whatever you want to call them and we were pushing five six seven days at that point miss White-Lambright would get concerned come in my office and say we got a problem but when you have incidental circumstances where kids miss services it's just that it's incidental so if I may ask a quick follow and I apologize for interrupting but I don't want to lose this absolutely so compensatory services first time I've heard this so this is an educational process politics is a learning profession as it turns out this this is a this this isn't this is a planned event so a pre pre planned contingency so this isn't something that happened out

▶ 1:52:32 of the blue and I'm talking about cancellation or missing of services so does that change the equation with regard to providing compensatory services and really what I want to hear about is whether the onus is going to be on the parents to seek these services so if we have five blizzard bag days or even if we have one or two and there's a concern on the part of a parent a caregiver or family about these services is it we creating another obligation for them to get these services or alternatively and I hope this is the answer are we because this is a pre-planned event are we going to be prepared to address that on our initiative so two answers one I'll answer and one Patty will answer Patty will talk to you about compensatory services if you

▶ 1:53:31 read this whole document the assignment for the paraprofessionals is to plan on how to work with the child when they come back so that when we come back on the next day the paraprofessionals are ready to go with this is what the assignment was the child had nobody to help them this is what i'm going to do to help them okay so we we accounted for how the paras will be preparing for the child's return on the day that we're not in session so that's that's planned for okay um all the ots the pts and everybody else has to do work planning on that day about how they'll address situations when they come back yeah I'll leave it to Patty to talk about compensatory services thank you so compensatory services in regards to special education is really based on an

▶ 1:54:27 individual basis so there's not a blanket one-size-fits-all just as special education this whole idea of individual the piece that you're looking for is that because of an extended period of time and exactly what that extended period of time would vary for different people is there an impact so is there substantial aggression is there also an extended period of recoupment okay so it is extremely unlikely that missing a day is going to have a significant impact on a student's ability to progress so they would not have the absence of one day of service they're not going to have substantial regression or need for substantial recruitment time so as far as that component of compensatory service if we had an isolated day in February and then

▶ 1:55:46 a day in March that would not be a great concern around that particular issue the issue would be is if I am certainly hoping we do not experience this snow season that we have in a couple of years ago but if we had an extended period of time off that would be a concern I just you know just to tell you how we think about that I just had a meeting with my ETFs and I was reminding them hope we'll be coming up to our winter break our special ed teachers engage with all of their kids and then in some depending on what it is and then they do the same type of activity when they return because we're looking to collect data how did kids do without having instruction for a week or for six days so an isolated day here would not be something that I would be concerned

▶ 1:56:51 around or would not meet a criteria of needing to explore compensatory service okay that's a fair and reasonable answer and thank you for that just a quick follow-up if I may I'm sure so again my concern is us shifting a burden or putting the onus on the parents so if there is god forbid a five-day situation or a significant one that would trigger in your estimation as a professional for example the need for compensatory services I want to be sure if we go forward with this as you've just described in anticipation of winter break there'll be a proactive approach on our part I don't want to create a situation where we're creating an obligation that doesn't presently exist perhaps uh for parents

▶ 1:57:44 yeah good thank you absolutely no i would be as concerned um as any parent if i would we had an extended period of time great thank you for that manager i have other questions but i'm so i'll yield i need to expand on that thank you if god forbid we had the blizzard of 78 and we were out 10 days the urgency when we come back is regardless of when you make up those five days the urgency when you come back is kids have been without service for 10 days what are we going to do about it now it's not oh gee I'm going to pick up where I left off and gee I'll make up the days in June because the urgency, Mr. O'Connell, has become ten days without. Do you understand the point I'm trying to make? I absolutely do. I mean, one of the pluses of doing this is that we don't lose touch, hopefully, with people completely for ten days.

▶ 1:58:48 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: So I hear what you're saying, and I understand it, and I think that's part of the value here, ironically. Again, Madam Chair, I have more questions that clearly yield to my colleagues. I saw mr. skull yes so the reason I made the motion that I did with parameters around the amount of time is to basically provide an environment to try something new that was intended to solve some problems so I think that one thing I think is really important for us when we talk about providing educators opportunities to think outside the box and to do things and see how they work and in a safe space is safe to fail if it doesn't work and that's why the the you know the confines around this was the intention but I think as a committee

▶ 1:59:52 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: providing you know certainly within reason an opportunity to support problem-solving and exploration coming back with data coming back with oh this is or isn't working is an opportunity for us to explore within our oversight role an opportunity to try something something a little bit different and I know the superintendent talked about five days and I kind of like three days because it's it's pretty limited but it also gives her the flexibility to to it a shot and see how it works and to have parents try it and who knows we may parents may find that they like it more or like it less than they um anticipated they might so i i think it's a great opportunity to see what happens um in a safe space thanks mary dolan um my mind remains open but but

▶ 2:00:50 i don't support this at this time um for a couple reasons one um i don't see a problem there are a lot of problems to be solved and i don't see this being at the top of the list we go back before labor day therefore we have plenty of room the idea the great consequence has always been doc going into school into july we have no chance of going into school with july under our current schedule right i've also seen a trend in you know maybe i don't know you know it's sometimes when i said something happened two years ago was really seven but i don't remember the distance right when the idea was the hours and the number of days in school i've seen a shift now towards going to school less and the superintendent would agree i

▶ 2:01:37 think that four or five years ago when we called off school we used to get a lot of calls don't call off school why are you calling off school it is the extreme opposite now where not only do they want us to call off school they want us to call off school by six o'clock the night before and we just don't get the calls of of why i'm having school the push now is to not go to school right so we need to have kids in front of teachers i get it right and and i understand that that different things can be attempted i think the goal here all right is not our responsibility with all due respect as someone who has a family who likes to go on vacation when they get out of school to tell people exactly when they could go on

▶ 2:02:25 vacation on an exact day that's our responsibility is to educate kids for 180 days a year right but what I think we do don't have an obligation but what could be helpful is ensuring take for this year June 20th is truly the last day of school right so I don't like the idea of starting off with this program I think it should be the avenue of last resort if we were to have a winter like 2015 I would be open after X amount of day three four when we're approaching that critical mass of going into close to August I've been going to July the The superintendent would have at her disposal the right to implement this program in that situation only. But to start with this program and limit the number of days in which teachers

▶ 2:03:23 are in front of kids, I think is not the direction we should be heading. So if I understand you correctly, your proposal is similar to Margaret's but flipping it. well I'll be I'd be open I'd be open to it in an extreme winter situation for a couple reasons one and a ribbon I could close yeah well there's certain realities that we have to deal with in terms of the DPW is a good job moving snow but I've also seen a trend in the weather when we get hit we get hit now there's no longer those simple you know six to eight inch storms it's now you know 14 inches over 24 hours right if I I think that is a couple reasons one once you get to late June there is a certain there's a certain heat drop-off

▶ 2:04:18 within the school day and what's actually being achieved it could get up to 80 90 degrees in a Horace main classroom right that's a reality in late June and that affects learning environment right but there's also your your pretty comprehensive very comprehensive professional development courses that you run out of Morris high school that need to be protected in our interest in taxpayers interest I appreciate parents telling us that you know like cancel April vacation and February vacation and make it March and I've heard this send home a bag with parents and that's not just the gentleman's here today I hear that all the time we live in a unionized environment in which all those things have to be negotiated when we don't have

▶ 2:04:59 a lot we don't have anything to give back in terms of that negotiation everything currently in a contract is it in perpetuity so the reality of that happening is incredibly small right without a strike of the teachers right that's a reality I this should be a program of last resort another issue is I don't think we're prepared to implement it this winter I just don't think I don't I don't think we're ready right the other question is what happens if the kids don't do the work we're not gonna know till we try I don't I don't I just don't I don't I guess at the core of it I don't see a problem I have great faith in our kids I think most of them would do the work especially our secondary students would look at it as an opportunity to work on their long

▶ 2:05:48 term project I get it but if you're in class and don't do the whole the quiz or assignment you have five days to make it up just like as if you were absent and if you don't make it up after the five days and it's just like when you don't make up any other work I get it I'm not listen I'm the first one to support the schools when they want to do anything creative or in any department I have to say I cannot accept that this is the same as going to school in front of a teacher for a full day how I can't I can't come to grips with that however I i am willing to vote for something and the board may proceed forward and that's the right of the board right here that that gives you the power in an extreme winter to utilize this as a tool

▶ 2:06:33 to manage your school district as you see fit in the case of a winter like 2015 or as you articulated the blizzard of 78 and if we're in that situation then this isn't it still has been a problem because we're looking at massive budget cuts because that's that's that's the the reality that's my take obviously majority rule and I'll support the majority just for a point of clarification right now our 180th day is June 13th it plus 5 is it and and then if we have snow days it would extend for five days to the 20th but right now when 180 is June 13 I'm sorry June 13 June 13 14 was that miss Hogan's clarification that we got a couple of ago is it the 14th or the 13th this is this year's calendar what you saw a few

▶ 2:07:24 weeks ago was very good Wednesday June 13th is the 180 thank you very much mr. Sam thank you I did a fair amount of review of last meeting as you might recall I was not here so I felt I had a homework assignment that I myself needed to accomplish and instead of getting five days I got 14 as was previously noted we had a inordinate volume of email and communication from various parents within the community on this topic and this is to put it mildly a complicated very complex topic I find myself between those parents that want to have the school day to be a treasure childhood moment because you know their kids are in a fast-paced environment and those who want more stringency in our academics and better performance on tests etc there is some credence to the

▶ 2:08:50 idea that 90 minutes or at the primary level one hour is not equal to 382 minutes of a teacher in front of you give or take understanding that there's some break time and a small amount of time that students can actually attempt to eat lunch this is a situation that while I feel a trial is warranted I'm also deeply uncomfortable with us using our students as trial lists or guinea pigs I am heartened to know that other school districts have tried this to mix mixed results and it's those mixed results that make me concerned I also struggle here with the idea of social emotional learning the idea that we want to be cognizant of student stress and the concept of teaching students to self-learn and have self-directed studies but the idea that they've got

▶ 2:09:53 five days and if they don't get it in because they've got a dozen other assignments that they're dealing with at middle school or high school level that's an additional additional level of stress but I as a parent with the two children that I have have to be cognizant of and finally there was a an interesting stat that was mentioned last meeting that a survey pointed out or brought to the attention of this body that there were roughly only about 1% of students who were not connected virtually at home through you know their phones or computers or what-have-you but with the idea of educational equity in mind I'm concerned about that 1% I'm concerned that that one that we're shortchanging and requiring students that

▶ 2:10:59 need to log into Google classroom or whatnot have to use their phones rather than a terminal a laptop an iPad tablet what-have-you and thus find themselves in a unable to fully participate in their classroom environment their same time or FaceTime or what-have-you with their teachers etc and then lastly let's talk about the teachers for just a minute if they're setting up a Google classroom and by rights most of them already have such but if they are setting up a secondary go bag if you will for in case of emergency for this situation that's one more thing we're asking our teachers to focus on above and beyond the 20 students boards of 25 in some cases that they have in front of them and if we're asking for a all right so ballpark it here if you've got 20

▶ 2:12:16 students and one teacher and they're spending an hour on each granted there's a fair amount of overlap time there but if they have to answer questions for those 20 students we're not talking one hour or even six hours that could be an all-day thing into dinner into the next day the teachers want this I brought it to the Union first I want to spend time developing it if I thought the teachers were going to fight it you mentioned that but we also know that this is a a particularly interesting time with regards to unions and everything gets codified or at least contractually obligated which brings me to a roundabout point I was getting ready to make which is to say that for more actually to ask would we need a side letter to implement this so what's to

▶ 2:13:13 what obligates the teachers in as much as we're asking them to to prepare this because they're honorable people and the professionals I want to believe that I really do I want to believe everybody's honorable I want to believe everybody's a professional but just as we heard earlier with the youth risk behavior services everybody lies I think that's a really I'm having a lot of difficulty with that statement about about staff about adults and if if the union says to me we're committed to this and we will help you make this happen I have to believe them because if I do not have trust with them we get nothing done so I'm having a really hard time right now with that statement that's totally fair

▶ 2:14:09 Christine Casatelli: thank you miss Castelli so we got our the school cancellation project two weeks ago and we've gotten some positive feedback and we've gotten plenty of our share of negative feedback and still even tonight we've gotten some and I guess what this tells me is that we haven't done our jobs communicating the benefits of this initiative to our families or and or we haven't demonstrated the supports that will be in place to help this initiative succeed and of course we haven't because this is only two weeks old so that leads me to believe that the school cancellation project is not ready for prime time at this time not for five days or three days or one day it's just not ready and it may have some potential and there but there still needs to be some education

▶ 2:15:14 that needs to take place to get the communication to get our community on board and we are just we're not there yet so until that happens I cannot support this motion tonight although I do like the idea of a teacher blizzard bag for professional development thank you miss McAllister grant so I see some positives in this proposal in that it's moving in the direction that we're trying to move with our students we're trying to to think about student agency and their ability to do work independently and just sort of explore their interests more independently to use technology in new ways so I think I see a lot in this proposal that goes in the direction we're trying to go with our students I agree with miss Casatelli that I think we could do more education

▶ 2:16:13 around it with our parents in our community I think it's a good opportunity for one someone in one of their emails called it like a culture shift or a culture change that it's thinking about education in a new way that we've been talking about but we haven't necessarily done on this broad of a scale so I do think some additional education would help my thought for for whatever it's worth is that we got a lot of very thoughtful feedback from parents more than I think we've gotten on any other topic and really detailed thinking point by point through all the different dimensions and as the superintendent has said this is ultimately the committee's decision so it's up to us to decide I would be very interested in having a working group

▶ 2:17:05 including some of the parents who might be interested who shared that thoughtful feedback to advise us on what what the best approach is and to take some time to think thoughtfully about what is our goal what is it we're trying to achieve what's the best way to achieve that and what do they recommend that we do and so it doesn't feel like a rush and it feels like we've considered all the proposals and we have an opportunity to have a little bit longer conversation and do some education and hopefully put some scaffolding in place around you know you'd be able to reach out to your librarian and this is what it would look like and you know just to give people a better sense of what the positives are

▶ 2:17:44 to miss Cassidy's point so thank you mr. O'Connell so having the capacity to count to four I can see where this is going but I'd like to go over a couple of points, if I may. First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with what Ms. Driscoll said, and I think I spoke to this a little bit a couple weeks ago. This is the kind of stuff that I want to see you doing, and I said that and believed it about CBE. You were right out front on that. You're not quite right out front to the extent that Wakefield and Burlington beat us to the punch on this, but we're right there with them, as it turns out, because Wakefield's really doing it for the first time this year. Planned it last year, doing it this year.

▶ 2:18:29 So there's no data, there's no results. Burlington's was much different, to mixed reviews, I might add. So I feel very strongly about supporting you proposing things like this. In the absence of us doing it, we need you to do it. So I appreciate that. I also appreciate the fact that you reached out to the site councils to get feedback. to the extent that we talked a lot about operationalizing the site councils and invigorating their relationship with us and with the school community you've done that in this instance every every one of the site councils I went to they were talking about this this was on the agenda and it's important to note that because that's not just parents it's not just us but it's teachers it's community

▶ 2:19:15 members as well and like the feedback we got honestly the the feedback from the site councils was mixed I think we all saw the feedback via emails and probably the people we talked to was running slightly in favor of this but as has been pointed out some of the more thoughtful comments were really against this if I could ask a couple of questions and I see where it's going I don't want to belabor it but I I don't want to just walk away from this the trigger I think mr. school has proposed a three-day trigger as I'm calling it where we would have three snow days and then this would go into effect okay so I agree with the mayor then and there we go with all the respect to the chair and I think this is what Burlington is doing too if I understand it again what the

▶ 2:20:19 mayor is suggested and what I'm talking about such that we would use this for two days and then go to I'm sorry we would have two snow days well I would say two because if school ends on a Wednesday my thinking is we'd have snow days on Thursday and Friday and rather than going to that next week we would trigger the blizzard bag proposal or whatever we're calling it I think that's what Burlington's done after having tried this a couple of times they don't have a specific number of days defined they do it based on I think it's where they're at saying that the weather situation yeah so I mean to the extent that we were talking about doing this as a pilot I would want to have snow days for two days and then rather than going to the next week having to make up

▶ 2:21:11 school that we would do this instead another thing that I thought made sense the Burlington did and is doing is the live hotline on days when they do this clearly there's angst about this one way to deal with that and what Burlington has done with success both in the first year and if it goes into effect this year as well is having a way for people to call from home and say okay what do I do you know how do we deal with this likewise in Wakefield and we might as well cherry-pick the best of these things if we do this now or whenever we do this the dedicated webpage you know with a link from the the Melrose schools dot-com page where people can go to see those frequently asked questions again

▶ 2:22:05 to see an overview of the program to see the thinking behind it and also a place to host assignments and or links to assignments I think that's something that Wakefield is doing very well the other thing I feel strongly about is the program review and I know you were a little hesitant when we talked about it two weeks ago when I asked about this madam superintendent but in Burlington again to success there was a survey of parents and teachers and I think we would want to get that kind of feedback so I would support this and if this was going forward I would want to make friendly amendments but again I think we can all see where this is going unless I'm reading the tea leaves wrong so I think people felt rushed by this I every teacher I talked to was in favor of this

▶ 2:23:01 every teacher and I think this is as much about moving and where we're all moving toward online learning and the use of technology and I think a part of this if we're being honest is really about socializing people to that end but that's the reality we're dealing with so I would support this with with some caveats but I'm not sure that any of those caveats as I've described them are enough to sway the members thank you further discussion questions the motion on the floor is to approve the snow cancellation project with a three-day limit with updates to the committee at the next meeting following the use of two of those days and with reconsideration by the committee in September 2018 mr. some through the chair to the superintendent would you

▶ 2:24:07 elaborate on why the teachers are behind this I'm stuck between why there's so much angst against it on the parental front and so much enthusiasm on the teacher front i think teachers recognize a couple of things they recognize the difficulty of teaching in the month of june as the mayor has has talked about the later you get in june the more difficult it is um and i'm also to bring up a contractual issue our contracts are written that teachers have 14 days before the issuance of um report cards to do their grades so i want you to think about that in terms of a calendar can you explain that they do their grades if you're if you're closing on june 13th their grade they have they have until the end of may to do their grades and

▶ 2:25:08 turn them in 14 days before the report before before the report cards are issued it's a contractual issue so basically I want you to think about the impact on teaching and learning all right in June all right you don't want me to discuss it here I've been advised against discussing it here I'm going to discuss it does that does that date change if there are snow days yep but still so if you go to that if you go June 25th that means teachers start calculating their grades June 14th it's not like term one two and three where you can carry forward work whatever the last day of school is whether there's snow days or not it's 14 days before that that they have to start calculating their grades now I will tell you most teachers especially at the high school do not do

▶ 2:26:00 that because they do finals they are there at that last day calculating grades getting them in that's also part of the reason why we do early release at the high school for finals is because the teachers have to get their stuff graded and get their grades in but that is not necessarily true at the elementary schools all right I also want you to think about June with the number of field days would sorry so they're thinking about productivity they're thinking about getting things done while they can they all recognize the difficulty of teaching in June I don't have an answer for that besides contractual issues there are reasons why down south they get out of school the end of May and go back mid-august they are also enthusiastic about this for the

▶ 2:26:55 very reason that mr. O'Connell especially at the high school level the very reason mr. O'Connell referenced teaching is changing it's a very difficult shift for people I will venture to say that Jamie's baby will not spend 900 hours in a classroom by the time she gets to high school I will venture to say that by the time she gets to high school she may be sometimes in the building sometimes at home sometimes at a field assignment because that's where we're going and this is very much part of that we've made a commitment as district to stop thinking about brick and mortar because we know that this is not real life anymore this is another example of it but again ultimately the decision is yours so the question has been moved all in favor what was your

▶ 2:27:55 Jessica Dugan: motion to move the question so means we take a vote immediately on the current motion on the table which was the one that mr. school has read those in favor did we get a second to that yes there's a second yeah and there's a post I'm sorry that's okay you said move to so the motion on the floor right now but you don't need a second she has a second she had no Rob doesn't need a second his is just a call for us to stop deliberation and take the vote okay that's all it is so all those in favor those opposed miss McAlister grand in favor in favor okay those post okay so the motion is declined three four and four against thank you madam sheriff a point of privilege just before we leave this there's also the the matter of us being

▶ 2:28:59 put in a box financially as we come up on our budget season and that's part of this that we haven't really been talking about and it because our community we collectively have made a decision to effectively tie our hands financially we have to be creative like this we have to think outside the box particularly with regard to alternative learning approaches and this is one of them so those who would oppose this kind of thinking and this kind of idea I would just suggest you know we all need to look in the mirror because we have to do things like this we have to think about things like this not just because technology is cool not just because it's the wave of the future but because it's 97 degrees sometimes in the Hoover School in June and when I have teachers

▶ 2:30:00 Jessica Dugan: telling me that and I have no response in terms of us being able to bring resources to bear to fix that these kinds of ideas are almost a necessity so thank you miss Castelli so I agree we have to move in this direction but this proposal is not ready it is half-cooked and for it to succeed it needs to be fully baked to get the the community on board and we are not there yet yeah I voted against it so I hear you so I'm in I'm in favor of this direction but not with this proposal thank you very much we have one final item on our agenda this evening and that is the year-end report for a PMP there is a document in the packet the meeting hour grows late so I encourage folks to take a look there mr. McAllister grant and I have enjoyed leading the discussions we value

▶ 2:31:03 the the important conversations that we're able to have and the information that provides to all of our decisions that we make so are there any particular questions at this moment on our year-end report just that you've left big shoes to fill that's the striking thing about this when you read this oh wow thanks but no thank you very much folks that concludes EPMP thank you next on our agenda is the policy and planning subcommittee mr. O'Connell was those wise all right friends policy and planning three items and we'll move through these briskly I hope the first is policy JFA BB international students this was last before us on November 14th for informational review it's offer a first vote tonight is there a motion to approve by mr. Iskell seconded by miss

▶ 2:32:03 McAllister grant discussion on the motion seeing none all those in favor opposed it carries unanimously item number two school committee self-evaluation per our discussion on the 14th committee members were asked to bring their completed self-evaluation forms to facilitate discussion tonight with the thinking that members would perhaps speak to one or two highlights I'm sure there are no lowlights and then folks will get the completed forms to miss Hogan quickly and if I could also ask if you could get me digital copies as well to facilitate the preparation of a summary that I would like to present on the 12th having said all that is there any member who'd like to talk briefly about their self-evaluation miss Casatelli so I think the chair

▶ 2:33:00 Christine Casatelli: encouraged us to take a couple of opportunities to share with the committee one one in particular is district governments governance engaging them what I think is working well is this idea about creating a comprehensive orientation program for the incoming members I think that's a fantastic idea we've we've tried to do that in fits and starts in the past but I think this is a much needed effort that's going to help new members get up to speed quickly on the responsibilities of their new role my suggestion for improvement is to add an additional midterm or year-end orientation update where where members can get you know it's useful for new members to follow up on ongoing on ideas that maybe weren't handled at the initial session so maybe just um every three months follow up on

▶ 2:34:06 Christine Casatelli: that and at the end to definitely survey new members about the effectiveness of orientations and get their feedback on how it could improve for the future my second comment is superintendent support and accounting i think that our superintendent has an open door policy responsive to questions and viewpoints of committee members um i know some people some members meet with the superintendent a lot some members not so much but again in light of our new i have all these suggestions for the incoming uh members um right now jen yeah um i think that each i know the superintendent's busy but i think each committee member could benefit from a standing 30-minute meeting with the superintendent each month to ask questions and get feedback

▶ 2:35:00 Christine Casatelli: about district policies I know that would be an hour and a half but I do think two hours two and a half well three three people right at least three people an hour and a half but I think that it would be 90 minutes well spent for the members to have one-on-one time with the superintendent and for her to get a sense of the new members on the committee and my my final statement many of you know I have I'm conflicted on the value of these self evaluations I think it's important to be self-reflective but I don't see the Board of Aldermen doing self evaluations and I think we have yet to see members of the US Congress doing self evaluations not that they couldn't benefit from those but I know a lot of

▶ 2:35:54 Christine Casatelli: time goes into this a lot of thoughtful comments and after this process I see them go into the minutes and that's the end of them so two suggestions either the chair could call the what actions might result in improvement from all the members and put them on a to-do list for the committee and decide what's useful and what's not to to help us in the process for the next year or my second suggestion is to eliminate them so those are my parting remarks in terms of so that's it for constructive criticism you just felt the self evaluations you have told December 31st to add more to that any other comments and all good points well said anyone else just briefly then leadership and governance superintendent

▶ 2:36:55 support and accounting I talked a little bit about this and I won't belabor it I think we need to find ways to work with you to share some of the load because I think all too often despite the fact that you know we're the policymakers you're you're you're taking the lead on that and you shouldn't have to do that and I think we're abdicating our responsibility to a certain extent when that happens again and again when's the last time one of us put forward an idea like blizzard bags I think we need to start thinking like that if we're gonna carry out our mission appropriately so that's all i'll say in that just again members a reminder if you could get digital copies uh to miss hogan so they can be included in the minutes that's

▶ 2:37:43 the point of that if you could also get them uh to me or i suppose i can get them from miss hogan uh so i can prepare that summary and and miss casatelli i will endeavor uh to frame it in a way that's that's useful uh looking forward uh please mr yeah i'm sorry i think the best way is if we all give our digital copies and paper copies if we have them to miss Hogan and she forwards those directly to you I think that would be that would be a great process that makes sense thank you for that thanks finally in the packet is the policy and planning end of year report it's been a pleasure serving anyone have any questions or comments regarding exam seeing none that concludes the policy and planning portion of our program thank you very

▶ 2:38:27 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: much thank you next on our agendas the finance and facilities subcommittee mr. Selm good evening and welcome to finance and facilities this evening we have two things on the agenda the budget timeline and process for FY 19 for the committee's consideration there is a vote required on this motion to approve at this time I got a motion to approve mr. school second by mr. Dolan any comments questions mr. school I would make a motion to amend the original motion to add a meeting on April 10th should we need that date and if not we can always cancel and decide at that time the chamber is available on that evening so I would amend my original motion if I may speak to that right so in discussions with miss Farrell about

▶ 2:39:46 this timeline we agreed that since we the Charter has changed to a reasonable time not a set specific timeline for us to get this to the Board of Aldermen having the April 10th meeting date as a possible would be a nice outlet just in case we needed an extra day for deliberations I when I originally proposed this to the chair the thought process was that April 17th that week is vacation week and we wanted to have a hard stop prior to that so with that in mind the motion on the table is to add a meeting on April 10th 2018 that could be removed if not needed I would second that motion motion made by mr. school second by mr. O'Connell all in favor or discussion all in favor unanimous the original motion on the table then I'm sorry we just approved that entirely the

▶ 2:41:05 second thing on the agenda for finance and facilities is the year-end report yeah I'm sorry point of clarification I think we voted the amendment but we would need to vote the entire oh I see in its entirety I correct so then any further discussion on the amendment or on the timeline itself mr. O'connell madam chair the March 27th event Melrose public schools slash school committee joint public meeting what is that is that you know procedural jargon or charter it's in the Charter okay it's also in the law it's so that's where that comes from it's thank you very much for that and one further thing madam chair um i i caught your you i'm sorry different agenda i apologize i'm all set thanks okay i had

▶ 2:42:02 a question about the end of your report i can wait excellent thanks any further question discussion no uh all in favor of the budget timeline as amended yes sorry passes unanimously Now, on to the year-end subcommittee report, as my colleagues mentioned, it's all here in all its glory, feel free to peruse, I will happily entertain any comments or suggestions. The only thing I would like to highlight is that, again, we are looking ahead to the SY19 process and it begins tonight essentially with the approval of the timeline and so carry on budget time comments questions mr. O'Connell thanks thanks for working this the one thing that I thought was I think I have it in the right order this time you did a great job with the outreach and we're

▶ 2:43:21 getting better and better at this every year but the work you did going to all those PTO meetings and inviting people into the process and engaging people and being able to answer questions I think was great people have talked about it ever since so kudos to you for doing that the question I had was with regard to something you said you said lastly it is the intention of the FNF chair to tie funds and priorities of the sy 18 budget to the outcomes can you tell me what you meant by that sure so discussion with miss Farrell and I looking forward at the sy 19 budget document it has been the idea is that we will look at where money was spent last year what the priorities were there were as you might

▶ 2:44:16 recall three that we set and a fourth added by the superintendent and to attempt to look at how that money was spent and whether or not it was not whether or not how beneficial it was what the outcomes were that were tied to it I think in the past this document has done a good job in general of showing where money has gone it has not necessarily shown whether or not good money followed bad or bad money followed good or where improvements were made so I feel that that is something that we can do simply in a business sense if you spend money and you look back and you go well that was a bad investment you've got that decompression we haven't had that analysis at least in the time that I've been privy great makes sense thank you for that any further discussion

▶ 2:45:20 thank you and that concludes financing facilities for the evening next on our agenda if you are interested in discussing it tonight given that it is 1004 are the proposed school committee action items so I will abide by your pleasure would you yes in reviewing your action items the only one I have a concern about is under the SMAC goals 2d action item D only because of I I need clarification it's December already and people are sworn in January 8th and we have ten days of Christmas vacation so I but this is this okay logistically this is what I'm looking at icing on my mm-hmm okay I'm just looking at the logistics that's all and it was my understanding those were just for us to manage with new members yeah yeah staff to be there right correct we would post

▶ 2:46:34 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: those publicly as a public meeting but not expect staff to be there with us is that correct correct okay I'm also thinking about your ability your ability to get it done in three weeks and you have to post at least 48 hours in advance and you have to find an open space right so if the committee again it's late if the committee wants to consider these tonight if not they can be revamped for discussion next time potentially taking miss casa telly's guidance with respect to employing some of the information which will be in the packet so that's another option that is the option I would recommend at this time just a quick thing from Jamie item number three mm-hmm says define indicators for each overarching goal and it should say define indicators of

▶ 2:47:33 Jessica Dugan: success for insurance just a typo and the podcast is pretty cool so thank you we've already done it yeah I know we got more to do you went live today the we love spending time together the birth to five suggestion was very timely for a kindergarten registration podcast if in case you're lacking ideas kindergarten registration podcast thank you for that miss Dugan because just to remind the committee kindergarten school visits are this beginning this week for parents to come view the different schools so it's on the website and in newspapers yes that's been in the newspaper for a while if anyone else has any quick comments on the action items they can be redrafted for next time see now the liaison

▶ 2:48:29 reports would anyone like to offer a liaison report just briefly the international welcome reception by the Human Rights Commission was not quite two weeks ago they unveiled a new logo there was press coverage I encourage you to go and look at the logo it's pretty awesome but it was well attended as as always, and there was a good breadth of diversity present. Great. Anyone else? Mr. O'Connor. DESE board meeting today, first time I ever went, fascinating process. But more importantly for our purposes, they began consideration of revisions to the history and social science framework. They are substantial revisions. it appears they're going to vote to approve them late winter early spring contemplating there after a two-year rollout and also talking I think rightly

▶ 2:49:35 about whether and what kind of assessment they should be but I think in that respect we're talking for three or four years out most importantly a heavy emphasis on civic education and including a full-year 8th grade civics class which I think was a bit of a surprise to some folks so that's it thanks anyone else seeing none do I have a motion to adjourn so moved second made by Miss Casatelli seconded by Miss Duke in discussions seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously with one absent and we are adjourned

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Bulletin (IQM2 PDF)
• Minutes packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal