School Committee — 2019-09-24
Agenda
- Superintendent Updates (5 minutes)
- Emergency Plan Update (5 minutes)
- Personnel Report
- Monthly Budget Summary
- Warrants
- Budget Review: Application of Override Funds (30 minutes)
- Student Activity Account Quarterly Review (5 minutes)
- Rental Agreement Review (5 minutes)
- Approval of District Officers - updated (5 minutes) vote required
- No New Business
- Overarching Goals and SMART Goals (20 minutes) vote required
- Committee Action Items for SMART Goals (10 minutes)
- Appointment of the Superintendent to Represent Melrose on the SEEM Board (5 minutes) vote required
- Student Advisory Committee Representatives (5 minutes)
- Rolling Agenda (5 minutes)
- Web Site Liaison Position - Revised Description (5 minutes)
- Liaison Reports (5 minutes)
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● SEPTEMBER 24, 2019 Council Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176
(ID # 7489) Announcements - Superintendent Superintendent Updates (5 minutes)
(ID # 7479) Announcements - Superintendent Emergency Plan Update (5 minutes)
(ID # 7478) Consent Personnel Report Adopted
(ID # 7477) Consent Monthly Budget Summary Adopted
(ID # 7476) Consent Warrants Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 10/7/2019 10:49 AM Minutes Melrose School Committee September 24, 2019
(ID # 7481) Finance and Facilities Budget Review: Application of Override Funds (30 minutes)
(ID # 7482) Finance and Facilities Student Activity Account Quarterly Review (5 minutes)
(ID # 7483) Finance and Facilities Rental Agreement Review (5 minutes)
(ID # 7491) Educational Programs and Personnel Approval of District Officers - updated (5 minutes) vote required
(ID # 7493) Policy and Planning No New Business
(ID # 7480) Announcements - Chair Overarching Goals and SMART Goals (20 minutes) vote required
(ID # 7486) Announcements - Chair Committee Action Items for SMART Goals (10 minutes)
(ID # 7484) Announcements - Chair Appointment of the Superintendent to Represent Melrose on the SEEM Board (5 minutes) vote required
(ID # 7485) Announcements - Chair Student Advisory Committee Representatives (5 minutes)
(ID # 7488) Announcements - Chair Rolling Agenda (5 minutes)
(ID # 7490) Announcements - Chair Web Site Liaison Position - Revised Description (5 minutes)
(ID # 7487) 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 10/7/2019 10:49 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:02 Good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Melrose School Committee for this 24th day of September in the year 2019. For the record, let me state that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on MMTV's government channel. As is our custom, let us stand as we are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you very much. First up on our agenda is the report of the student representatives. I see that we are without our student representatives this evening. undoubtedly Holmes studying the Roberts rules of order we will move forward next up is public comment this is the portion of our meeting when members of the public are afforded the opportunity to address the committee on matters before
▶ 0:58 the committee this evening or otherwise within the jurisdiction of the committee without objection the public comment portion of our period is now open are there any members of the public who wish to address the committee why don't you come up Jerry if you're ready please and I'm sorry I should have directed feel free to sit at the table you what you're welcome to sign in and if you could identify yourself and I only recently moved to Melrose with my family and my daughter attends first grade at Hoover I'm not sure I'm addressing the right place but we're very happy to be joining at a time when there's support for the schools from the administration and the population but there's one issue that's
▶ 1:55 been bothering me and I thought perhaps this was the right outlet to talk about basically it's come up with lots of other families that the lunchtime is too short that's that's basically lots of the kids seem not to have enough time to finish their lunch which seems really surprising to me as an outsider so they have 20 minutes which includes going to wherever they have to go opening and shutting their lunch box so really they don't have much time and it just seems common sense that you know kids who are hungry will struggle it just you know it seems unfair on them and I wonder this issue has come up previously and if it's going to be addressed since I saw something on the website about adding
▶ 2:56 meaningful time for wellness I don't really know what it's about so I would certainly encourage you on behalf of the committee to speak directly with the school principal about this issue I would also note and I realize this is your first time here pursuant to our custom practice and policy we don't interact with members of the public because this is principally a business meeting the school committee but we will certainly take your comments and concerns into consideration and we appreciate you sharing them with us thank you very much and welcome to Melrose thanks for being with us Mr. Moroz, good evening. Hi, I'm Jerry Moroz. I can't resist, but wouldn't it be wonderful if we could have a $5.18 million override
▶ 4:12 and extend the school day to give kids more time for lunch and recess? That would have been a nice thing to do. The committee failed to do that, so I need significant more time. And in terms of your goals, I wasn't able to attend your meeting on September 14th, but I see the product of them. And, could you use any more obtuse language about things that are less relevant than the real goals of a school system? We need to develop our children into good, solid adults who know things and have the personal qualities, skills, and characteristics they need as adults. None of these goals, your overarching goals from last October and the goals from this September, do anything to make that any closer.
▶ 5:10 You know, your first SMART goal for 2019, 2020, your strategy is basically to control any new city officials to your frame of what you want them to be and do regarding education. You know, your second goal is to develop a timeframe and a format for possibly providing regularly scheduled updates on implementation, and it goes on. Release the finances on a regular basis in Excel format and in detail. can certainly put out an Excel file out of munis that shows in detail what the individual costs are all the talk in the world of transparency I've heard over the in this school committee in this chamber all these years you have never been transparent about providing something even when I've gone and made a
▶ 5:57 simple public records request for one line item I think I'm now waiting what four months to get a response that's legitimate the Secretary of State's office said you have to provide this information you still haven't don't act like you care about transparency when you don't do the job to do it all right this whole document all your documents tend to be all about officiousness and presenting like you somehow care about the real issues of governance and of schools and of accountability and transparency it's clear you don't you You know, what was it, four years ago, the superintendent started talking about competency-based education and, oh, we're going to have a task force, we're going to roll it out and do all
▶ 6:48 this stuff. We don't have it. Most of our classrooms in the whole district are still framed by students' age. You literally, our schools violate the district policy by discriminating against children based on their age. No one looks to, oh, what's a child accomplished, what have they achieved academically, what are they ready to learn, let's place them at the right level. Melrose doesn't do that. Melrose says, oh, you're nine years old, we're sticking you here, and we're going to teach you this, whether or not you knew it three years ago or whether or not you won't be able to grasp it for another two years. That's age discrimination. Consider this a formal complaint. You know, another overarching goal, you know, Melrose wastes well more than a million dollars
▶ 7:34 a year in our education system because we have to be so parochial like somehow we're better than everybody else we can't get together with other towns and do anything else together I was out in Pittsfield today superintendent McCandless out there Berkshire County is hoping to form a countywide one school district regional school district eventually they're working toward that they have division they understand there's no sense now of course rural communities have an extra stressor, right? But it is stupid for Melrose to be wasting money and then going to the till of the taxpayers every time to grab more when you want more money. Get together with Stoneham, Wakefield, Reading. Get together to seem collaborative.
▶ 8:19 You don't need 10 superintendents. You don't need 10 curriculum directors, 10 special ed directors, 10 math department chairs and social studies department chairs and foreign language chairs. You don't need 10 business offices. Everything can be done over a network, right? The central office functions are a waste when the same functions are performed district side by side to another district to another one to another one. These are the goals you should be talking about doing. All that money that you could save could be repurposed to having a better mid-level management structure in the schools and to have teacher coaches that that are legitimately providing support to the individual teachers in the classroom.
▶ 9:04 You could actually create an evaluation core for teachers. So it wouldn't just everything be related to one person, you know, evaluating a teacher. It could be a core evaluating teachers all over the whole large district. This is nothing new, right? We're in this place we are now because back in the 1600s, Massachusetts said, if you're over a certain number of kids, you have to have a school system. And can't anybody get their heads out of that century? Can't anybody get their heads out of the 18th century for placing students into classrooms? Thank you, Mr. Moroz, that's more than five minutes. I'll be finishing up right here that- Thank you very much. The issue is that your goals, obviously you don't micromanage a district, but
▶ 9:49 you should be setting a goals by which the district operates and improves and achieves better and does better for our kids day after day after day instead of sticking them in a classroom, that are giving them 10 minute lunches, giving them limited recesses, and not letting them develop as people that we want them to become. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Maroos. Are there any other members of the public who wish to address the committee? Seeing none, and without objection, the public comment portion of our meeting is now closed. That brings us to the announcements of the superintendent of schools, Madam Superintendent. Thank you very much. Couple of announcements, those of you who may or may not be aware Ed and I mr. O'Connell and I today
▶ 10:33 attended the first meeting of the capital improvements planning committee we presented a number of projects that we would like them to consider for the schools ranging from windows doors safety reconfiguration to make more space at the high school boilers it was a comprehensive list and we will hope they will then take the information we provided mr. Merrill was there also to speak and rank our Requests and hopefully the city will be coming forth with a multi-year plan to address many of those large issues again We want to recognize the work that we've been able to do over the past seven eight years with the Department of Public Works That did not require capital improvements projects that we were just able to do out of the Melrose City budget
▶ 11:26 but there are a number of projects that have beyond the city's capacity to bond and that we may have to look at in a more long-term basis so that did happen today and we will see where that evolves over the next few weeks the other thing is the emergency plan update we are providing you with the dates of the fire drills the lockdowns and the evacuations the city now has a pretty hands-on emergency management director he does only work three days a week but he is working with all the departments throughout the city to try to update procedures throughout the city and we are in discussions with him about having tabletop exercises if you're not familiar with tabletop exercises it's basically just what you say you sit around a table you have a scenario and
▶ 12:27 you talk through how you would respond and try to figure out where you have weaknesses in your plans so mr. Alpert is trying to arrange that with the school department as well as City Hall it takes a little bit of planning to get all the players to the table very good Thank You superintendent any comments or questions for the superintendent and just a point of clarification with regard to the capital improvement program committee i am the committee's representative on that committee and truth be told it was the superintendent and others presenting i'm one of the seven or eight people who evaluate the proposals so any other comments questions seeing none that brings us to our consent agenda which this evening consists of the following items
▶ 13:26 the school committee regular meeting minutes for August 27 2019 the personnel report the monthly budget summary and the warrants as follows FY 20 school s 2 0 0 0 4 the amount of 171 thousand nine hundred eighty eight dollars fy20 meals tax s two zero zero zero five in the amount of three dollars and eighteen cents and lastly fy20 high school middle school wire s two zero zero zero six in the amount of 115 dollars and 66 cents are there any items which any member of the committee wishes to remove from the consent agenda Ms. Driscoll please warrant S20004 FY20 school and that will go to finance and facilities thank you are there any other items which any member wishes to remove from the consent agenda seeing none is there a motion to approve
▶ 14:26 Jennifer McAndrew: the consent agenda so moved made by Ms. Driscoll seconded by Ms. McAndrew all those in favor and that motion to approve passes unanimously with one absent and that brings us to the work of our subcommittees first up this evening is finance and facilities with miss McAndrew good evening everyone welcome to the finance and facilities portion of our meeting tonight we have four agenda items um including the warrant which was pulled from the consent agenda as well as the budget update and review on the application of the override funds the student activity account quarterly review and the rental agreement review for purposes of discussion is there a motion to approve warrant s2004 so moved second made by mr salm seconded by mr o'connell any discussion on that warrant
▶ 16:03 Jennifer McAndrew: all in favor opposed abstain and that carries with six in favor and one abstention thank you five sorry five sorry and one absent my mistake thank you i'll do better at counting from here on in our next item is the budget review on the application of the override funds for fiscal year 2020 and before we open this up for discussion I just thought I'd frame this with a few comments about where we are this discussion tonight is on the document in the packet is the fiscal 2020 budget as approved last spring and updated to reflect the current distribution of funds for staff and supplies added or restored as a result of the fiscal 2020 budget and therefore as a result of the override investments this is an update and a discussion among the committee
▶ 17:16 Jennifer McAndrew: not a vote tonight but before we do i just wanted to review a couple of salient points i think for the public and anyone who might be watching at home um last winter and spring as you all know we conducted a fiscal 2020 budget process that was unusual in many ways principally that we presented the community at large two budget scenarios one that reflected the possible override investment that was being considered by the community at that time and one scenario that would have been that would contained possible cuts and changes to our school system that would have been required had the override not passed this was the infamous budget a and budget B discussion that went on for many months I would also just add that last year's process or last spring's
▶ 18:08 Jennifer McAndrew: process followed years of difficult choices in front of this committee and previous committees including cuts that were made in previous fiscal years and so we were as a district in a place where educator positions and instructional materials and other vital supplies would need to be restored before they could be built upon after the community made the historic decision to support the operational override in april we moved toward a fiscal 2020 budget that included these investments and restorations however at that time we noted appropriately that while the overall budget reflected this funding work remained before the funds would be distributed across the various school line items and department line items most notably because
▶ 18:54 Jennifer McAndrew: of two factors the hiring of staff in key positions as a result of the override investment and the completion of the contract negotiations with the teachers union which was completed in mid-june and went to into effect july 1. in may we noted all of that and we agreed to add to the agenda this update sometime in september and so here we are tonight so in the packet we have a brief summary of the override investments and how they've been applied and then spreadsheets for broken down by school and then major department with notations in blue text where override funds are impacting that line item um finally i think it's important to say before we start our discussion that this is not the end of our budget oversight process that is an ongoing obligation of this committee of course
▶ 19:48 Jennifer McAndrew: and one we all take seriously i know we care about the outcomes from this budget as well and we want to lift up opportunities to hear those stories we also i believe truly want to hear from the community about what is working well and what concerns may remain and i hope that later in our discussions tonight when we talk about our goals and the action items associated with those goals that we will continue this conversation going forward about how we are going to lift up and discuss those outcomes so with my apologies for that lengthy preamble superintendent do you have anything to add before we open things up for questions from the committee thank you miss McAndrew again this is an ongoing process certainly you don't expend all
▶ 20:29 your money within the first month of school there are expenses that come up during the year, and you will see a couple of line items where we have pools of money that will be expended over the year, namely supplies, curriculum resources, professional development, because those are line items that play themselves out over the year. The other thing that you should note is because of the laborious nature of this, the raises for teachers are just buried in the salaries. didn't highlight every line that has teachers listed as to how much their salaries went up we tried to capture those line items that were a difference between our previous budget and our current budget the last thing i will say is it is what i have said to many of you in private
▶ 21:19 this was a restorative override it brought us back to the levels that we needed to be at prior to cuts over the past several years most importantly restoring the the middle school model restoring the directors adding additional teachers to lower class size when we can adding the social workers that we need to service our students so it is very much a restorative override at no point did it enhance us to a level in which we have a lot of extra but we are certainly more comfortable than we were a year ago and where we were anticipating to be this year if we had not received the override so I hope that's captured in this and that you and THE PEOPLE AT HOME UNDERSTAND WHAT A DIFFERENCE THIS HAS TRULY MADE.
▶ 22:20 THANK YOU. ARE THERE QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS FROM THE COMMITTEE? MR. O'CONNELL? THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MADAM CHAIR, AND THROUGH YOU TO THE SUPERINTENDENT. SUPERINTENDENT, CAN YOU TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT, AND THIS IS MAYBE A BIT OF AN AMORPHOUS QUESTION IF THAT'S THE RIGHT WORD, WHAT IS IT LIKE? What's the scene now for teachers, for students on a day-to-day basis in terms of the impact of this override? And I guess, you know, I'm assuming we're seeing smaller class sizes, I'm assuming we're seeing more resources. I know that's reflected in the spreadsheet that's been provided. Can you give a sense of what that's like on a day-to-day basis? So as you know, at the elementary level, you're not seeing smaller class sizes, and that's
▶ 23:08 both a matter of staffing and space. But we certainly have expanded our options for specialists. We return library media specialists to the elementary schools. We have not seen those in many, many years, and that's become a specialty for all students. We expanded the digital literacy specialists down to the K-2 level. We were not able to do that before so that we can be working with our young students on their digital safety, their digital awareness, and how to be good digital citizens. We were able, due to the contract, in the previous contract, elementary school teachers got a total of 150 minutes prep a week. That could have been three days, it could have been two days. One year, it was one day for a certain staff.
▶ 23:59 Now they are guaranteed prep every day. That allows them to have collaborative planning time. The specialists are in the room. I think that has gone a long way, not only for teachers working together and cleaning curriculum, but also for the flow of the building and for the general climate of the building. We love when our little ones have something to do other than academics every day. At the middle school, obviously, the return of the full team model has allowed them to meet a number of student needs. sizes are more manageable the staff there are certainly feeling that they they can do what they feel is important to them under the team model concentrate on that group of a hundred hundred and ten students they may have as a team and
▶ 24:50 not be divided between the seventh and eighth grade team at the high school we just met with mr. Merrill this morning we are seeing smaller class sizes better than we were in the past we were able to sustain a lot of our electives i would remind the committee that we in an effort to give students choice and voice many of our electives were proposed by students and if we did not have enough staff we could not run them i still said if they didn't have enough enrollment we didn't run them but we certainly have a very robust program of studies at the high school that our kids take advantage of so you're seeing a lot of those type of enhancements reluctant to use that word but benefits to our students the the important thing about returning the directors is every
▶ 25:50 department now feels they have a director that is a content specialist for them, working with them on developing their curriculum and instruction. We've added a great young director for science, technology, and engineering that came to us from Newton. She's out of the gate with energy and very impressive immediately. Staff are responding to her. We took one of our own as the new social studies and history, Tim Daly. The science person is Melissa Rice. And Tim, of course, came up to the system. That is a goal of ours, to grow our own people. We were thrilled that it worked out that way. And he really has a vision, having not only grown up in Melrose, taught in Melrose, had been a social studies
▶ 26:36 teacher, he has a real vision. And he's very engaged with the new social studies frameworks that we're implementing. The most important part is what many people don't understand, again, is the education evaluation system. we we evaluate every every staff member all 300 and whatever i am up to on teachers and probably 350 marianne every year at the same time i still only have 20 24 evaluators that's a lot of work and having those two directors makes a difference in in being able to do a better job growing teachers getting into the classroom every day giving feedback mentoring modeling lessons it gives us a lot of ability by having more of that middle management hands-on in the buildings it's also a great support to the principals
▶ 27:34 we moved two of the directors over to the middle school as you know the middle school is 800 plus students but we only have one assistant principal there and we moved two directors over in the middle school so that would there would be more administration in the building and they all tell me that they love it they feel it's been making a big difference and it's very supportive for the new principal there so the same end we added three full-time vice principals at the elementary level we know we were we had what 1.5 now we have well we actually have 2.5 now again tremendous difference you can see the difference in the communication to parents communication to staff with the involvement in the staff having that extra administrator in those
▶ 28:19 buildings makes a difference off the top of my head i think rosie's our biggest right now probably pushing 435 then lincoln's around 420 425 and winthrop is at 410 maybe 415 i'd have to look at the most current numbers so those have gotten to be pretty big schools with a lot of kids and you need adults and you so all that is being realized right now and i think most parents will tell you that is making a real difference in not only um the operations of the building the safety of the building but in overall in the climate and the culture of the building yeah I mean that's exactly what I was hoping to get at because it you know looking back on where we were last year and even the year before we were under it as a school district under a tremendous amount of
▶ 29:13 stress and pressure and we were sir as a school committee certainly seeing that reflected and some of the testimony was coming before us whether it was members the public parents caregivers but also teachers and I think at one point even at least one of our student representatives so I think it's important to hear and I'm happy to hear that you know that climate of pressure and stress has changed and it sounds like it's changed already markedly and we're moving in the right direction in that regard and as you point out superintendent it's got to translate ultimately into a greater likelihood of success for our students both academically in terms of their social emotional well-being uh madam chair may ask a follow-up
▶ 30:01 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: question um sure uh you know what i'll wait it's unrelated to that topic so i'll wait thank you very much are there any other questions comments from the committee mr school um i think there were two things that one the superintendent touched on that I think are really important here when we think about how education has changed since we went to school and we think about you know in elementary school and you had a teacher who was the second grade teacher for 35 years and retired it seems like that is less and less prevalent because our workforce is changing and becoming more transitory if you will looking for different opportunities for a wide variety of reasons but I think having those opportunities for growth within
▶ 30:52 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: the district content leadership ability to participate in a variety of contributory ways around curriculum and development you can see that in the professional development plan from April and in your strategy overview you're you're looking at how to include lots of people in the conversation who are teachers. I mean, people who are really boots on the ground people that give them different opportunities to grow. And it seems to me that when you look at what the OVRI was able to do, it's able to support some of those efforts that are inclusive. So you can certainly correct me if I'm wrong through the chair to the superintendent, but it seems that having that ability to grow as a leader is very important to teachers and you're giving them that by the way this
▶ 31:43 committee has funded some of those positions it really has paid dividends as you know sometimes we've done such a good job we've lost them to other districts where they've been hired as vice principals or directors or whatever but I think it really has made a difference that we made a commitment several years ago to try to build out into this district pathways for leadership development to the point that it culminated last year where we joined forces with Salem State University to give an on-site two-year program at CAGS in educational leadership we have a number of people in that and you can really see the difference in not only how teachers come to understand how decisions are made but their willingness to participate in that decision-making
▶ 32:30 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: and ultimately that resulted in the decision in this year's contract to build in systems for distributive leadership all of which we're getting off the ground this week so I think it I think it's a good model for other districts as well and hopefully there'll be some bumps in the road it's a learning curve but I'm really hopeful for the future with this model and if I made just one other thing that I think is sort of invisible in all this but from a stability and financial perspective I think it's important to note that there was $750,000 in this override correct me if I'm wrong that negated the need for us to hire staff implement programming purchase materials without the money we waited until October until our tax dollars were
▶ 33:25 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: certified by the state and then it was made official that that money would be transferred from the city to the schools so there was always the question about what would happen with the economy this year would that money be available was there something else in the city that was of such dire need that the city would have been unable to make the commitment that they had made in April to fund the budget that the committee had approved and this override was able to take away that worry if you will in that you are we are starting the school year with that money in hand it's not like some of it is going to come later it's not like paying your mortgage from your your tax refund so having that stability is a gift that the community has given both to the city and the
▶ 34:20 schools so that we know what we have we can make commitments in completely good faith to those we hire into the work that we're doing without thinking in October gee I sure hope everything comes out all right and I think that was really important in what this override accomplished thank you any other questions mr. mr. Ozzie Thomas thank you this is really for the superintendent I would like it just to remind the public a little bit and anyone who's here if you wouldn't mind going through the budget offsets a little bit which is on page 21 of 22 okay so this is basically an explanation of other sources of offsets for the overall number the numbers on mine don't coincide with the numbers on your so just sorry okay it's that little chat okay yes yeah okay would you mind
▶ 35:23 Can I just explain that? Excuse me, yes. Thank you. So basically, the city meets their obligations to us. I actually, I asked Ms. Farrell that in the course of doing our end of year report to determine how much above net school spending we are this year and try to project how much we will be above next year. As you know, last year when we went into the override, we were only 104% when the average in the state is approximately 129% or 126% over net school spending. So one of the ways that we always funded our budget was through other sources of income, for lack of a better description. So we charged athletic fees to pay for our coaches, our refs, and our programs to some degree. Circuit breaker is the return we get on special education out of district placements that are above a particular threshold.
▶ 36:28 So I've explained to everybody how that works. Does anybody need me to explain it again, how to circuit break it? It's not, you think I should again, Liz? For the benefit of the public. Okay, thank you. So basically, the state says a threshold up to which we are responsible for an out of district placement. let's say I think this year the threshold was 48,000 anything above the threshold is reimbursable a to a certain percentage that percentage can vary depending on the state's decision how much to fund I've shared I've seen everywhere from 42 percent to 75 percent in my career so let's say we have a child out of district for $60,000 circuit breaker is applied against $12,000 and it could be a percentage 72 percent 75 percent of the $12,000 we get
▶ 37:20 back so that's where that circuit breaker comes money comes from as the school committee knows Marian and I always calculate circuit breaker low we don't trust that we will get the 75% even though that's the intent of the law so we calculate low facility rentals our buildings our fields are a great source of income to us so in there is BB and there is BB and there is Ripley the auditorium the gyms the fields school choice which is we no longer are engaged in school choice but those children who were taken under school choice have a right to stay with us so until they graduate every year you'll see that amount of money diminish until it zeroes out music revolving we give music lessons during the day parents pay we pay for the music and structure through
▶ 38:15 those fees transportation revolving we charge a little bit our sped vans pick up some other districts so we make a little bit of money there education stations is our great moneymaker we have anywhere from six to seven hundred children's and after-school programs and we take the money from that program and and use it as an offset. METCO, the METCO grant contributes to us. Basically it's an offset against teacher salaries for the 127 other children that attend the district. ECC revenue offset because we manage the ECC's tuition programs. We use a piece of their tuition to pay for office staff at the central office. There is some money from E-Rate that's variable every year, depending on what the federal government has decided
▶ 39:14 they will pay for. Stay and Play, it was the Ed Stations after school program that's been rolled into, I mean, excuse me, ECC's after schools program, it's being rolled into Ed Stations this year. So that line item will go away, it'll be part of Ed's. Drama music fees, we voted a couple of years ago to add drama music fees mainly because these and the calculation we use was anything that uses a bus title one again pays for itself we have our title one grant every year that has diminished over the past several years because of the form changes in the formula as to what qualifies for disadvantaged youth so but that pays for itself and special ed 94 142 or 240 depending on who you talk to that is our federal special ed grant that we receive that pays for we
▶ 40:16 use it mainly from the out of school out of district tuitions so those are some of the ways we supplement the money the city and the state gives us so that we we can eventually get to $36,141,650. And so these are estimates, these are estimates for what we think will happen this year. Right. And they're subject to change over time, and they're best guesses in terms of what we think we're going to be offsetting. Well. They're pretty steady. They're pretty, well you see the ones that are asterisked. Yep. Okay, so we haven't received all the confirmation on the federal monies yet. circuit breaker I think the ledger at the time we did this chart we were waiting for them to vote the legislature to vote they have voted circuit breaker
▶ 41:03 at 75% so that should be okay and the rest were based on numbers from the end of last year so again what what I would say to you in terms and I understand what you're thinking is Miss Rosie Thomas I would not call those baselines for next year that's like you know if I got a $1,500 tax return this year I'm going to get a $1,500 tax return next year I wouldn't count on it so that but that you know we do use the offsets to the best of our ability we also can continue to keep some money in reserve because as we all know there are unexpected costs and we have to be prepared for those as we were last spring when we had some unexpected special ed costs and we had the money available thank you thank you and if I could just add a couple of things on
▶ 41:52 Jennifer McAndrew: that just to remind the committee that at our last meeting we added to the rolling agenda a discussion of the revolving accounts and the revolving account balances something I know members of the committee are very interested in hearing about to the October 15th meeting so that on the rolling agenda and that will be so we could have a more in-depth discussion about that but I think the point is that these are revolving funds that the fund itself goes across fiscal years and they're used for specific purposes within the school budget when you roll them up they are an offset to the overall budget but their budget numbers as it's everything in this document not actuals right at this point in the school year okay thank you
▶ 42:41 mr. O'Connell I think you were next thank you very much and through you to the superintendent, please. Superintendent, can you just, we've restored positions, we've added positions, we've increased pay for several positions. Can you give us an update in a general sense of where we stand in terms of hiring and filling positions? I'm hoping the increased pay, while it's probably not gonna move anyone into a different tax bracket, is helpful in terms of getting more people. Has that been the case? Are we able to fill positions? We're still struggling on paraprofessionals. The paraprofessionals increase in pay, which you voted on recently on the side letter, was not available to share when we went out to post.
▶ 43:33 Because again, you can't advertise a pay scale that you haven't approved with the union yet. So that now has been approved. So we were still struggling on paras. I think part of the reason we struggle in Paris, again, is it is a full economy still. And it's harder for us to find people. But that's probably our biggest challenge right now. A couple of challenges on drivers and crossing guides, only because we've had some illness among our people. The people that take those jobs are usually often retirees who are doing a little extra income. and sometimes they're subjected to some health challenges. So we've had a couple of problems there. But as for our teachers and everybody else, we're fully staffed.
▶ 44:27 My biggest problem, again, continues to be parental leaves. I think we have nine right now, Mary Ann? Nine starting the year, so you're looking for interim, long-term subs. You're trying to hire qualified people who can carry on with the curriculum and instruction. And that's a challenge in itself too. We did raise our substitute salary to $90 a day. So that was a good bonus out of this as well. Great, thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sam. Thank you, through the chair to the superintendent, actually before, I wanna thank you for the introduction. That's well worded, both verbally and written. that through the chair to the superintendent first and foremost well documented the number of new addition and new positions that's appreciated for
▶ 45:27 a while here in this chamber we went through contracts after contracts after contracts if you would please at what you are able to share i.e. that that has been ratified and is made, already previously made public for the benefit of the public, just a quick synopsis of the contracts that we have approved, the, how competitive they have become, and how it's been received. Okay. So, I don't even know where to begin on that one, Mr. Zell. So the first, let's start at the smaller unions. So our first goal was our very small unions, our crossing guards, our drivers, to make sure they had at least $15 an hour. That was a commitment we made as a district so that people would be above minimum wage.
▶ 46:23 We were able to do that through side letters with those unions. With the paras, when we met with the MTA on that, they represent the paras, a lot of good conversation about how best to raise their salary and we eventually settled as you well know to raise every step $1,000 for the year so they're at the at the lowest step they are above $15 an hour so we achieved that goal for the smaller units there was no negotiation with the administrators unit that's kind come up I think next year is there on the rotation we we raised non-union administrators principals assistant superintendents to be more competitive as well again maybe not the top of the pack maybe not able to compete with Lexington who was taken from us but certainly very competitive with our
▶ 47:37 neighbors Wakefield Stoneham Malden the most significant increase was with the teachers and a lot of conversation about where we had to do that best we had been slowly trying to get more competitive with our teachers contracts as you well know three contracts ago we raised steps one through five two contracts ago we really steps five through ten we only go up ten steps this year we took a very different approach we looked at how do we retain people and how do we get people in the top current quadrant so when you look at the step and scale you have you new people you have people who are going across this way because they're adding degrees but then at the bottom two quadrants you have people who
▶ 48:38 have been here for a long time and want to stay here so we really worked on how do we raise that probably that bottom fourth quadrant the most so the raises went from anywhere from three and a half three to three and a half percent depending on the quadrant to try to adjust that those salaries we also added a masters plus 75 for the first time our people are very good about professional development that you know staff would say to me Cindy I have a draw full of PD certificates nothing to do with them you know I go to the PD because it's it's it's important to my job it's interesting it's helpful to our kids and and so we added a master 70 a master 75 to again with the caveat you know you had to have been here a certain amount of time doing the courses you know you
▶ 49:27 can't go pulling out the drawer so that's what we did and we think we are probably solidly in the middle on competition at this point again we have be realistic about who we are our ability to uh increase funding long term but i think we are probably a lot better than than we were excellent uh and may i continue sure thank you thank you madam chair um a follow-up uh you had mentioned uh that net school spending last year well PUBLICIZED WAS AT FOUR PERCENT AND THEN YOU HAD UH YOU AND MS FERRELL HAD CALCULATED OUT THIS YEAR AND FORECAST NEXT YEAR NO WE HAVEN'T GOTTEN THAT FILE YET YOU HAVE NOT NO WE'RE WORKING ON IT I THOUGHT I HAD MISSED WHAT EXCELLENT THANK YOU UM AND I RECALL EARLIER IN THIS CHAMBER THERE WAS
▶ 50:27 DISCUSSION OF UNEXPECTED SPECIAL EDUCATION COSTS IS THAT REFLECTED IN THIS DOCUMENT UH THIS IS NOW reflected in this document so at this time we wouldn't we have no cause to expect that there would be unexpected short of somebody moving in everything we know about is with related special education costs no I would I would not make that assumption we have some kids in the pipeline is the best way to put it we had some move-ins that came with programmatic requirements in their IEPs that we do not have in our district we're trying to work with them to see if we can meet their needs because you know our preference is for inclusion in in district we don't know if we can quite honestly we're making a valid attempt
▶ 51:26 and the other thing is you just never know what's going to happen I I would tell you that Patty just ran statistics for the administrative team that I'm going to have her bring forward that I think you'll find very interesting as to where we're running into out of district costs and she ran it for the administrative team in order to so that they wouldn't understand how the the process is working we were finding challenges and what we expect from them in response to those challenges thank you and one final question as I recall there was approximately $675,000 set aside for classroom and infrastructure related needs where is that reflected in here infrastructure it's part of the override so it's it's not it's not infrastructure like buildings it's
▶ 52:31 listed as classroom space and infrastructure the initial discussion was around the BB estate but as we're not necessarily getting the BB estate this school year no there's 250 there's $250,000 in the budget to in the the override to replace the loss of BB rentals that's in the budget and then there is the money to replace the structural deficit and to take it out of the calculation as Margaret was referring to so that we don't have to go every year to the ultimate and get the transfer so so that that money so money came money from the override made us whole for lack of a better term where we We used to get, we would go to the alderman, get our budget approved, and they would basically say, but you have to come back in October and we'll give you the difference.
▶ 53:25 Okay, so that's now in the override. Yes ma'am, I'm aware. Okay, and then, well, but of course, you know, also talking to the public here. Sure. And then there was 250 for the BB loss of rental. And if you remember, last spring, We decided that we would have a, within the facility's revolving account, we would have a sub-account in which that rental money would go and sit until we need it for the BB. So that's where the- That's where it is, it's in the facility's rental account in a sub-account. That is not on here. No, that wasn't part of the offset, the offset's from last year's money. money's building as of July 1 okay because it hadn't been collected it hadn't been collected yet and the other 200,000 in the 450,000 that you
▶ 54:22 Jennifer McAndrew: mentioned is the technology line which is on page 20 in the packet document yeah okay thank you any other questions I just had one more that I have we haven't quite discussed if you don't mind you mentioned the the challenges we have around hiring paraprofessionals but if we could talk about how they're used and previously because there were there was funding for paraprofessionals in the override and as we can see from the document there quite a few positions budget now whether or not they're filled at this moment in time I get is a a different set of questions but can you just talk about how paraprofessionals are are used being used everything from special education paras to how they're used in our kindergarten classrooms
▶ 55:23 there's a lot of positions in the budget especially at some schools so the seven new paras in the budget and the seven new paras in the budget are building paras they're floaters they are to be used by the principal as needed to cover a class to give an extra set of hands if it teaches at a meeting or if something is going on in the classroom that teacher may feel I need another adult in the room so those are the floaters the kindergarten para is we have approximately one kindergarten para for every two case those are general ed paras they're there again you have the little ones you need an extra set of hands lots of activity lots of help needed so you have the kindergarten paras special ed paras are paras that
▶ 56:16 are required because of special education caseload we may have X number special ed students in a class we need a para you may have special ed students who need a one-on-one para that is in their iep that is the difference between them the special ed paras because they are in the special maybe in a student's iep are a legal obligation to provide those paras the general ed paras that are in the case are our choice as a district to provide there is no mandate that says k's have to have paras there is no mandate that says you have to have building paras these are choices we have made as a district about how to give extra supports to our students and our teachers yes thank you okay any final comments questions seeing none
▶ 57:21 our next topic is the student activity account annual review this is can I circle back to something I just realized what Mr. Stone was asking are you asking about the money from technology that was in the override 675 000 that was listed as offset for loss of bb rental in classroom infrastructure and materials I think only 250 was the offset for BB. I think it was just, it was parted, it was parted, right. So 250 was for the offset for the BB. $200,000 was for computers, computer licenses, you see it here. On page 20. On page 20, okay. Part of that money is underwriting the licenses we have to purchase for the one-on-one, okay. And the other money, I don't remember from the original override document and some of it was the and some of it was the
▶ 58:22 structural deficit repair that was separate that was separate because I'm not visualizing the original document but but the technology money is on on page 20 and 200,000 is curriculum materials and 200,000 was curriculum materials and that's 18 page 18 okay and when I began to speak I said they had not been expended yet sure okay all right so it just clicked with me what I was trying to visualize what that looked like on the original document okay okay moving on to the student activity checking account maximums superintendent a more or miss Farrell do you want to speak to this item so every year we come before the committee to reinstate what our maximums are going to be for our student activity checking accounts we have one at the middle school and we
▶ 59:22 have one at the high school we've not made any changes to these numbers our activities and our programs are pretty much the same the high school are much more expensive because of costs for proms and some of the other things that we have to outlay a lot of money so every year the committee needs to just vote those numbers and so I'm presenting it to you now I know it usually comes out in November but I wanted to make sure that some of these things get taken care of before I left thank you Mr. Driscoll motion to approve motion to approve the student activity checking account maximums made by Mr. Driscoll second by Mr. Razzi-Thomas any questions on this seeing none all in favor and that passes
▶ 1:00:07 Jennifer McAndrew: with six in favor and one absent thank you very much and our final item on on finance and facilities tonight is the updates, proposed updates to the building rental application contract for our school facilities. We heard a lot about tonight, how our buildings are used by, for dance recitals, sports, other things, and that revenue helps to offset our budget in many ways. There are some proposed updates in red in the packet to the document. Superintendent Timur, do you have anything to add here? So again, this document gets reviewed yearly by DPW, myself, Amy Lindquist, Rob VanCampen, Mary Ann Farrell. Based on our previous years of experience, what modifications we need to make to the rental agreement.
▶ 1:00:58 Those of you who have seen these before, you know that they have become more explicit over the years. And based on feedback from Ian Waite, are adding um we would like to add those items in red with your permission mr skill motion to approve motion to approve the changes made by mr skull second second by mr o'connell are there questions on the changes or discussion seeing none all in favor that passes with six in favor and one absent and that concludes finance and facilities with my thanks to you all thank you ms mcandrew and that brings us to educational programs and personnel with mr sillon welcome to the epmp portion of tonight's program we have one item on the agenda the approval of district officers i would remind
▶ 1:02:11 this committee that we are required to appoint a certain number of positions across the district each year the superintendent has submitted a memo with her recommendations for purposes of discussion actually first superintendent would you like to introduce okay so you approved the majority of this list the last time i presented it a couple weeks ago um we're having some changeover in nurses at that time we were waiting for the uh other part-time position at harvest man to be filled that has since been filled and we need you to approve it we will be bringing this list forward in probably three four weeks time again um there is a new nurse coming to the hoover but she has not started yet and until she starts we don't want to bring her name forward so i just
▶ 1:03:04 need you to approve miss brocklessby as the point four job share nurse at the harvest man so for purposes of discussion I would entertain a motion at this time so moved second motion made by Ms. McAndrew seconded by Ms. Driscoll discussion seeing none all those in favor motion passes six ayes with one absent and that concludes EP&P thank you Mr. Selton that brings us to the announcements of the chair and we have a number of items to take up under the announcements of the chair this evening uh first up is uh with regard to our overarching goals and smart goals um as the committee knows and as the public may be interested to know we the hierarchy in terms of our guidance and our governance and the direction in which we
▶ 1:04:23 steer this ship is that we have a mission and vision statement we have overarching goals which are before us this evening and then each year the school committee adopts a series of SMART goals and then below or within and to effectuate those SMART goals we adopt action steps so we'll be talking about we'll be revisiting our overarching goals this evening and voting if that's the pleasure of the committee to approve those and to continue with those and also reviewing and if it's the pleasure of the committee approving our smart goals I will say for the benefit of the public that the school committee discussed the proposed smart goals at some length at our Saturday September 14th retreat meeting one of our two retreat meetings we hold per year
▶ 1:05:23 typically our September meeting is our goal setting meeting and that's in fact what we did on September 14th in the packet we have the overarching goals as a last approved by the committee in October of 2018 and also a separate document for the committee's review and approval this evening which is our SMART goals again as adopted or as developed at our retreat meeting on the 14th we we adopt we developed and adopt SMART goals every year on an annual basis with regard to the overarching goals I would just note for the committee and again for the public that unlike the SMART goals which are annually created the overarching goals are more static they're designed and by their nature intended to be more long-lasting if you will more in keeping with our mission
▶ 1:06:31 and vision than the annually reviewed and approved SMART goals if that if that makes sense and I hope it does just preliminary preliminarily does anyone have any comments or questions in that regard if I accurately stated the nature of these documents as far as the committee is concerned very good so why don't we take up the overarching goals for purposes of discussion is there a motion to approve the overarching goals and again let me say this these are already approved so to take them up tonight would be to change them if that's the desire of the committee but just as a procedural matter we're taking them up just to look at them again see how they inform our SMART goals how they relate to our mission and vision and to affirm them once
▶ 1:07:28 again. So I'll stop talking at this point. Ms. Driscoll please. I would motion to re-approve our overarching goals. Is there a second for that? Seconded by Ms. Razzi-Thomas. Discussion with regard to the motion to approve the overarching goals? Seeing none all those in favor and that passes with six in favor and one absent thank you very much so let us proceed to the SMART goals again we have a series of SMART goals developed on September 14th at our retreat meeting they're in the packet as a document for purposes of discussion is there a motion to approve approve the SMART goals made by Ms. Triskell seconded by Ms. McAndrew discussion seeing none all those in favor and that passes with six in favor
▶ 1:08:32 and one absent thank you all very much for that next up is committee action for the SMART goals this is how I propose that that we proceed what we do every year is once we adopt the SMART goals we come up with action steps or action items that directly speak to the implementation of our plan for achieving these goals and what I would like to do this year with leave of the committee is to open the floor for those who might be interested in working to develop action steps for each of the particular smart goals and with the aim of presenting those to the committee for review and approval at our October 15th meeting so let me kick kick this off if I may the first SMART goal is with regard to working collaboratively with other elected boards
▶ 1:09:45 and officials in the city in terms of onboarding and establishing providing lines of communication and establishing roles and responsibilities that's certainly something as chair of the committee I would be interested in pursuing and working on whether alone or with others I would be happy to see someone else to that as well likewise again for me the piloting of a new superintendent evaluation process which is our third smart goal that's something I'd be happy to work work on and then under the overarching goal of community collaboration we have a community engagement smart goal again that's something I'd certainly be interested in working on but again with all of these you know I'm happy to defer to the committee and share some of the load on
▶ 1:10:43 these with that said any comments questions don't all rush the stage at wants mr. some when you say take them on is there a specific action item they're associated with that's a very good question that's a very good question this is not intended as a trap for the unwary first first step if we can assign these to various committee members for the purposes of drafting proposed action items for each not necessarily by raising one's hand this evening to undertake that work either alone or with another committee member one is not necessarily saying not only am i drafting these action items or action steps but I will carry them through and I think that's what you're getting at so So if I may, to be clear, apologies if I infringe upon your time.
▶ 1:11:57 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: So what you are asking for us is who is going to take on writing the action items in relation to? That's exactly right. And notwithstanding my disclaimer to the contrary, if one is interested enough in a particular SMART goal that one, again, perhaps in concert with another committee member, is willing to undertake the drafting of action items or action steps uh it would be terrific if that same person or persons would be interested in being responsible for overseeing them over the course of the year mr please um i would be very interested in working on number one with our newly elected officials and helping to the extent that they are interested in collaborating on onboarding and on number five equity
▶ 1:12:50 Jennifer McAndrew: social justice and trauma-informed practices would be primary interests of mine although I am happy to do whatever is most supportive of the committee terrific miss McAndrew please thank you so in terms of developing action items and also happy to shepherd um if that if we get to that point next time um i would be interested in the second one which is um around um oversight of the budget and budget outcomes and finding ways to lift up those um stories um and also um which is number two and then number four which is around communication and community engagement but again I'm also as mr. school said I'm flexible if there are things that people want to work on great I'm happy to try to smart goal it up for the equity social justice and
▶ 1:13:59 trauma-informed practices one and I suppose I would be happy to do it with mr that would be terrific thank you for that um i'd be interested in the superintendent evaluation process thank you mr obrowski i appreciate that well it looks like we've got coverage and everything mr silm welcome to the party you were a little busy writing there thank you i appreciate your patience i appreciate the invite to the party yes um i i feel rather strongly about Well about four of the five so as is The the need of the committee, please Inform me as to where you would find the best fit and I will be there Which one don't you like Chairman O'Connell and member O'Brimske to work on the superintendent evaluation process
▶ 1:15:15 what a surprise thank you for that and i'm happy to do that with john thank you um i think you have to choose you think i have to choose yeah i think you have to choose by my count there's two on number five uh there's one two i'm sorry on number one uh i would be happy to aid with number two as there's only one person on that and by extension it appears that there's uh only one person on four so if i need to be added on then i am happy to do the work on both of those terrific i believe with my colleague ms mcandrew great so if i can put you down for number two that would be great um and what i will do so thank you all uh for all of that um so i i will follow up um as appropriate with these individual groups
▶ 1:16:12 uh to help move these along uh and miss hogan i will follow up with you in terms of these assignments just so we're clear for the minutes on these um uh but i i i as chair i intend to at least be in touch with each of these groups um and to make sure we're on track for presenting these action items for october 15th um any uh final comments or questions in this regard seeing none thank you all very very much for your help and your patience as we work through this I appreciate it next up appointment of the superintendent to represent Melrose on the scene board this does require a vote so why don't we do this for purposes of discussion is there a motion to approve the appointment of the superintendent to represent the Melrose public schools on
▶ 1:17:11 scene board so moved made by miss rossi thomas seconded by mr selm um discussion would we ever have someone else do it you can't buy the scene board charter the way the scene um collaborative is set up only superintendents sit on the board and it was actually a discussion the other day at the scene board so this is a formality it's a formality the state requires you to take a vote just checking well we're lucky to have you as our representative any further discussion seeing none all those in favor and that passes with six in favor and one absent there are there are there are collaborators in which school committee members do the board well we feel very fortunate that ours isn't one of those
▶ 1:18:07 what you feel next up student advisory committee representatives and this is presented by way of information i'm happy to report that the following students will serve as school community representatives for the 2019 2020 school year thomas broder class of 2021 grace donahue class of 2021 julia foley class of 2021 matthew frowley class of 2021 brooke heidelberg class of 2021 mary catherine mahoney class of 2020 and ruby robichaux class of 2022. any comments or questions with regard to our student advisory committee representatives when will they start coming to meetings and that leads us to our next question mr selm so i've been in touch with uh actually may i put this here as opposed to under liaison reports which is where it normally would
▶ 1:19:13 fall thank you so i've been in touch with mr tanetta who is the teacher leader of this group of students and we are working out when the best time is to meet and proceed I hope to meet with them soon and thereby have student representatives here contributing substantially. Terrific. Thank you very much. Thank you for that work. Does that answer your question, Ms. Rousey-Thomas? Yes. Great. Thank you. Any further comments or questions with regard to them? Seeing none, thank you very much. That brings us to the rolling agenda. i have included in the packet an updated rolling agenda for our course going forward i just like to note a couple of highlights as Ms. McAndrew mentioned during the finance facilities tonight
▶ 1:20:13 we will be conducting a review of our revolving accounts at our October 15th meeting and as i mentioned and we just discussed will also be taking up our committee action items for our SMART goals. The May of walk is October 20th we typically have a group of us participating in that and more to follow in that in terms of our actual participation but let's have that on our radar screen. Importantly beginning with our October 29th meeting we will begin to delve into potential uses of the Beebe school in October 29th if I have this right superintendent the superintendent will be presenting a report and actually a presentation with regard to possible uses of the school am I correct in that regard
▶ 1:21:09 yes great thanks also at that same meeting I will be presenting for the committee's review and discussion a proposed plan and parameters for the public forum that we hope to hold with regard to potential uses of the Beebe school and looking further down we see that that public forum is tentatively scheduled for the week of it's listed here as October 19th November 19th I apologize and thank you but that that forum will likely be that week though so that's the week of Monday the 18th it's there because we have a meeting on the 12th the week before and then we have a meeting the following week on the 26th once the the superintendent makes her presentation with regard to potential use of the Beebe school on the 29th the committee of course will be meeting as
▶ 1:22:16 I just mentioned on the 12th public forum on the night or the week of November 18th and then we're meeting again Thanksgiving week on the 26th and then further down in the rolling agenda we get to our December meeting and our Our aim at this point will be to vote on a preferred use for the Beebe School in the hope that we will have the school available for our use for the next school year. So with further regard to the Beebe School, we're looking at visiting this issue over multiple meetings over an eight-week period spread over three months and in addition to our meetings a public forum so any comments or questions with regard to any of that and I know it's a lot very good seeing none we move on to the
▶ 1:23:21 next item which is website liaison position revised description what I would like to do in my capacity as chair with leave of the committee as I serve the committee is to update one of our liaison positions and the fact that this is connected with one of our SMART goals won't be lost on anybody with respect to community engagement so we have as one of our liaison positions a position entitled websites in parentheses webmaster and the stated explanation for this liaison position is to post documents to committee sites and for the past year and continuing to the present miss McAndrew has been in this position so actually in addition to the committee's thoughts on this miss I'd be interested in your specific us given the fact that you're in the position
▶ 1:24:28 This is what I'd like to do. I'd like to actually change What I want to do is revise the description and where to do justice to the revised description I think it would be appropriate to change the name of this position. So I'd like to move from website webmaster To communications. So this would be a communications liaison position Again, right now it says post documents to committee sites. What I would like the description to be is post documents and information to committee sites and social media subject to the approval of the committee chair. And again, I think this should be subject to the approval of the committee chair, any work done by this liaison, simply because of our policy KDD, whoever is the chair, it's
▶ 1:25:23 chair that's a spokesperson for the committee so I'm not suggesting that the revision to this liaison rule will suddenly create a spokesperson position that's not what this is about but simply as a way to aid the chair whoever the chair may be going forward and when and where appropriate in consultation with the superintendent of schools because invariably though the school committee has its clear roles uh and the superintendent has hers ours being in the realm of policy the superintendents being in the realm of administration invariably there's crossover there's obvious connections um and i think there will be times again when and where appropriate um that both this liaison working with the chair, and I as chair, or whoever is chair, working with the superintendent, would rightly consult with the superintendent
▶ 1:26:25 before posting anything to a committee site, before posting anything to social media, and on and on. So again, what I'd like to do is change this from website webmaster to communications liaison. I would like the description to be post documents and information to committee sites and social media subject to the approval of the committee chair And when and where appropriate in consultation with the superintendent of schools Mr. Isco motion to that effect Is there a second for purposes of discussion second by mr. So discussion Miss McAndrew, please. Thank you. Um, and this sounds great to me. I have just one suggestion on the language and committee sites I think I would just say the school committee website because that's really where we post a lot to the main
▶ 1:27:20 page and not really to the committee sites I mean we could but I would just make it broader than individual pages great so consider a friendly amendment the same as to some would that be considered a friendly amendment and so now I just for clarification miss McAndrew for all of our benefit post documents and information to school committee website is that right the school committee website and social media subject to the approval of the committee chair and when and where appropriate in consultation with the superintendent schools is that please mr. so may I ask a clarification will this updated language be sent around for us all for a secondary approval or is this it tonight no I'm happy to do that so what why don't we proceed in that
▶ 1:28:18 fashion if that's okay I mean it doesn't require two votes doesn't require it's not a policy change okay yeah that's that's fair so would it be appropriate appropriate if we just withdraw that motion thank you very much for that so what I will do for our October 15th meeting is I will prepare a packet document with this language so we can review it discuss it and approve it again if that's the will of the committee if that makes sense with everyone is that okay great any other comments or questions tonight about it seeing that okay thank you very much for that thank you all I appreciate it and that brings us to our liaison reports do we have any Ms. McAdoo please thank you I would just quickly mention for those who don't know
▶ 1:29:22 Jennifer McAndrew: that the Melrose Education Foundation's mystery night out party is Saturday evening October 5th and this is a major fundraiser for an organization that provides grants to educators in our schools and it's a fun evening with parents and educators and superintendent sometimes makes an appearance and you never always say we and you never know which house you'll end up I know it's a mystery and you can learn more on the ed foundations website and buy your tickets or on their Facebook page thank you terrific any other liaison reports if I may then just briefly as liaison to the special education parents Advisory Committee I attended their monthly meeting last night terrific as always for those who
▶ 1:30:14 are interested members of the public family members families and caregivers of our students this is an organization that meets monthly to discuss special education matters it is part advocacy group part support group and I would encourage anyone with an interest in special education to check in with the special education parents Advisory Committee and more pointedly their annual basic rights workshop is scheduled tentatively scheduled for our Monday October 28th 2019 at the high school at 7 p.m. so well worth and we have some time before that date so we'll be reminding folks of that and lastly by way of information not only to the public but to the members of the committee actually most of whom may know this our state senator Jason Lewis is
▶ 1:31:10 hosting a roundtable discussion on the recently unveiled Student Opportunity Act this is the legislation looking to reform our state's education funding formula the roundtable discussion will be held on Wednesday October 2nd at 7 p.m. at the Stoneham Central Middle School anything else from the committee seeing nothing else is there a motion to adjourn so moved made by Miss Razzie Thomas seconded by Mr. Obrenski any discussion Seeing none, all those in favor? And that passes with six in favor and one absent. And we are adjourned.