School Committee — 2023-10-10
Agenda
- Donations
- Personnel Report
- Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan (15 minutes)
- Special Education Expense Update ( 5 minutes)
- Monthly Budget Summary/Revolving Accounts (5 minutes) vote required
- Review of Revolving Accounts (20 minutes)
- Warrants (5 minutes) vote required
- October 1 Enrollment Report to DESE (10 minutes)
- Superintendent Search Update (5 minutes)
- Outreach Reports (5 minutes)
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● OCTOBER 10, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176
(ID # 11204) Consent Donations Adopted
(ID # 11203) Consent Personnel Report Adopted
(ID # 11217) Policy and Planning Bullying Prevention and Intervention Plan (15 minutes)
(ID # 11207) Finance and Facilities Special Education Expense Update ( 5 minutes) No Action Taken
(ID # 11205) Finance and Facilities Monthly Budget Summary/Revolving Accounts (5 minutes) vote required Passed
(ID # 11210) Finance and Facilities Review of Revolving Accounts (20 minutes) No Action Taken
(ID # 11206) Finance and Facilities Warrants (5 minutes) vote required Passed
(ID # 11214) Educational Programs and Personnel October 1 Enrollment Report to DESE (10 minutes) No Action Taken
(ID # 11211) Announcements - Chair Superintendent Search Update (5 minutes)
(ID # 11212) Announcements - Chair Outreach 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, City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 10/17/2023 2:38 PM Minutes Melrose School Committee October 10, 2023 and other items not listed also may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 10/17/2023 2:38 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: I looked before. Good evening, and welcome to the Melrose School Committee meeting of October 10th, 2023. Ms. Hogan, would you kindly call the role Mr. O'Connell? Here near Broder? Here. Ms. Razzie Thomas. Here. Mr. Sel? Here. Ms. Withy. Here. Ms. McAndrew. Here. Mr. Driscoll Here. And all seven of us are present. So a dec a quorum is now declared, and I would be happy to let the community know that, uh, this meeting is being recorded, uh, by our friends on M M T V and, uh, will be available at m t MTV three.org. Um, following this live stream. At this time, I would invite everyone to stand as you are able, so we can say the pledge, Our pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,
▶ 0:55 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: and to the Republic for which it stands, nation one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and Justice for all. Thank you all. Uh, next on our agenda is the report of the student representatives, and they must be deep into their homework because they are not able to join us tonight. So hopefully at our next meeting, uh, next is our public comment, uh, section of our agenda. Um, and is there anyone who would like to speak at public comment this evening? Uh, um, seeing none, I have opened a public comment and seeing that there are no speakers. I hereby close without Objection, public comment. Thank you. And we can move on to the announcements of the superintendent. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a couple of announcements tonight. Um,
▶ 1:55 first wanted to let you know that the websites, all the pages on the websites will now be officially open after tonight, so you should be able to go on there. And I really want to, um, thank, um, Melanie Aceto, uh, for the great work that she's been doing and working with, um, all of the department heads and stuff to make this happen. And so the, she has told me that as of tonight, you'll be able to go on and walk through it, and we'll just keep improving and improving it as we move along. So that's, that was good news to hear. Was happy about that. Um, in, I had, was notified today earlier in regards to the grade six. Mm-hmm. So I just wanted to bring people up to, uh, speed. So the cross team has always been a concern in regards to
▶ 2:49 not having enough staff per student. So there are teams that have, uh, classes that have maybe over 30 students in a particular cross team class. And the cross team could be anywhere from a music class, an art class, a drama class, a physical education class, a world language class, those type, that type of, um, classes. So what has been, they've been working on at the middle school is trying to even out those numbers and have some other opportunities. And today, uh, the principal had sent home a letter informing parents that some students ha have been, uh, designated as someone that could move. I am in discussion with Dr. Turner. We will talk with the principal tomorrow. I know that there had been talk about it. I didn't know if they had,
▶ 3:47 were moving in that direction right away. I'm all about transitions, and so I'd like to take a look at that again and see where we're at. So I just wanted you to be aware of that as we, um, move forward. And I, I wanted to, uh, make that announcement, um, being away for a couple of week, uh, for last week. I don't have that many announcements. I know tonight we're gonna be talking about the bullying prevention, and we have some updates on other stuff. So that's it for me for tonight. Very good. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Macero. Um, any questions for the superintendent? Ms. Hy? Um, going back to sixth grade, thank you also for just sharing what you learned today too. I've also gotten a couple emails.
▶ 4:34 Do you know what the plan might be if students do not choose to voluntarily drop the cross team? So, I don't, I don't, I mean, they're currently, they're in a classroom and it's, it's really difficult to, to have them move at this, as far as I'm concerned right now. Yeah. So I think we have to figure out what's in the best interest for the child. Right? Okay. So, and I do believe that, yes, you know, when you have 30 or have more students in the classroom, that that is difficult. And so you do want to give them that option. So some of them may want that option to go to wellness. Part of our issue at the middle school, when you dig deeper on it, is that what happens is because we don't have enough cross-team teachers,
▶ 5:20 currently, you are having students that may have one particular class, first trimester, and then third trimester may end up having that same class. Got it. And so that's part of the problem. And so that is something, as a matter of fact, this morning when I met with P t O group, that was one of the things that I said, as we move forward, we need to fix that. You know, that's, that's, that's a priority that that's not gonna get fixed this year. But for the future, that needs to be fixed, that we have enough staff that handle those cross teams. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, at this time, we'll move on to the consent agenda, which tonight contains the school committee regular meeting, minutes of September 26th, 2023,
▶ 6:08 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: the donations and the personnel report. Would anyone like to pull anything from the, uh, consent agenda? Seeing none. Do I have a motion? Motion made by Mr. O'Connell to approve. Seconded by Ms. Razzi Thomas. All in favor, oppose that. Motion carries unanimously. Next on our agenda are the subcommittees with policy and planning. First, Ms. Dessel, Good evening and welcome to Policy and Planning. Tonight we have one item on the agenda, bullying, prevention and intervention plan. Uh, I see that Dr. Turner has joined us in the horseshoe. Welcome, Dr. Turner. Thank you. Um, there is a presentation that goes with this, or will you just be sharing information with us tonight? Nope. So I'm just sharing information. Uh, essentially we, uh,
▶ 7:14 you are supposed to be taking a look at the bullying prevention and intervention plan every other year. And we hadn't done so in quite a while here in Melrose, most likely because of the pandemic. That seems to be what threw everybody off course. And so we worked to redraft our plan. The plan is based on Desi's model plan and on the law. So there's not a lot in terms of wiggle room to make drastic changes to what is included in the draft that you have in front of you. But one of the things that we have committed to, uh, is sharing with you soliciting feedback from all of you on what we have currently in the plan, and then putting the draft of the plan out to the public for their feedback and
▶ 7:53 their comment. And then once that happens, we would like to come back to you for a vote. So, so that's why I'm here tonight to answer any questions, to have an open dialogue about what we currently have in our plan. And then our next step will be to post it for the community along with a feedback form, which I also shared with you. It's an open-ended feedback form. So people may comment on, um, pieces of the plan or the plan in its entirety. We'll take all that feedback, change what can be changed. There may be things that people comment on that we're not able to change. Uh, and then we'll come back to you and ask that you vote to approve it. Very well. Are there comments or questions from the committee? Uh, Ms.
▶ 8:32 Razzi Thomas, please. Thank you so much. Um, thank you Dr. Turner for being here. Uh, I have a bunch of questions, so, but you answered a bunch of them too. So the district has not yet involved parents, students, Mave, um, teachers, the police department. That's gonna be the next phase after this first. So what we're going to do, so most of what you have in front of you is, is pretty word for word from, from Desi's plan from the law and from Melrose's previous plan. Okay. So the connection with, uh, Maeve and with the other organizations was something that is carried over from the previous plan. We have certainly met with them to talk about individual, um, incidents that are happening, but we haven't yet presented this draft.
▶ 9:12 Our first step was to bring it to all of you before we put it public to any other group. Okay. We did have teachers and staff members and administrators that have worked on the plan and have looked at the plan with us. And of course, Amy Linquist as well. Okay. Great. Um, so there's mention within it, there's one page where all of a sudden it flips to adult on adult bullying versus student on student or teacher, adult on student. So I'm just, I'm wondering about that. I'm wondering if it could be clearer. Like that should be its own section. So when I go through training in my district in Salem Public Schools, there's training about harassment, you know, a hostile learning, a working environment for adults, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm.
▶ 9:55 Like harassment could be sexual, it could be, you know, just hostile. Mm-hmm. Hostility could be discrimination host, but that doesn't, I don't know where that lives in terms of our, of that's just in an HR module for staff. But it is mentioned at some point in there and it just felt confusing to me. Okay. Do you, are you able to tell me where it's mentioned in here? I'll find it 'cause it would live, it does live in our mandatory training that we all staff go through at the beginning of, of every year. But specifically the, the mass general law that deals with bullying, they define victim as a student. So we wouldn't necessarily, in this plan get into depth on staff. On staff that is an hr.
▶ 10:34 That's why it was confusing to me. 'cause I was like, that didn't seem to really follow. But certainly if it's mentioned, I wanna make sure it's clear. Okay. So if you can let me Know, I'll find that for you. Okay. And I'll get back to you on that. But, um, so I wanted to ask you a few other things. Sure. I'd love to see the, the bullying and behavioral incident data that's mentioned in the working group that, that reviewed it on page four. Yep. So I, I, I have some data with me today, but I didn't plan on going to much in depth because we haven't had the chance to really take a deep dive yet as a team. Yeah. We submit an S S D R report at the end of each year to the state, and I have the, you know, the results from that report.
▶ 11:13 But within each of those incidents, we would wanna pull them apart as a team to look at exactly what happened and what was involved in that. The other thing that can be a little bit tricky and just looking at the s SS d R report is that you might have something that is, uh, reported as potential bullying and we would therefore have to report it to the state as a potential bullying incident. But after investigation we may have determined it was not bullying, it was something else, harassment. So it would appear in two places on the report. Mm-hmm. Making the numbers look a little bit skewed. So, uh, what I would ask the committee is if it's okay for me to include that in my data presentation that I'll be giving mm-hmm.
▶ 11:48 Later this winter when we talk about academic data. I'd be happy to do that and, and share a little more in depth. Um, but I do have just some general numbers. If there's something in particular that you wanted me to mention. What first, what, what does SS S D R stand for? It's The school. Um, of course I do, it's the school something discipline report State school. Yeah. But it's what we, we give to the, the state. We only have to report on certain incidents. We don't report everything. Yep. And we only have to report when the discipline itself involves suspension. And every, we Do report every incident of reported bullying. So anytime you get a report of bullying, you have to start an investigation.
▶ 12:28 Correct. Right. Okay. And then you kind of rule in or rule out whether it meets the criteria to be bullying. Correct. Okay. And we, we give the state the numbers. So we got, you know, 10 accusations and then we would have X number that we determined were bullying or we disciplined the students for something else. Those sorts of things. I, I'm always, um, I'm kind of surprised in the definition, and I understand it's a legal definition, but usually there's a power differential in order for it to be called bullying and also has to be, you know, over and over again. It can't just be one, you know, awful comment or one moment of meanness. I guess I'm curious about why that's not in the definition.
▶ 13:10 That's the legal definition in the law. So we took it word for word as is. I wouldn't wanna change it or amend it in any way. Certainly we do consider those things during the investigatory period, but that's, that's the way the definition is written. Um, working in a high school myself, it's, it's very hard to control online harassment, sexting, et cetera. How are you, how is the district managing that? And how do we get parents involved to take responsibility for these phones? Mm-hmm. Well, I think think the most important thing is the education that we're doing. Yeah. So, when we have presentations with students, when we have organizations come into our schools and, and educate our kids on how to use social media tools,
▶ 13:49 that's really the best defense that we have for, for any of that. We're never going to be able to keep up with every new platform that comes out. And with the way in which our students are using those platforms. And even with my own teenagers, I always think if I think I know what they're posting, there's probably an account I don't know about. So it's really important to have open and honest dialogue and conversation and to provide that education. Certainly when things do rise to the level that a student has made a mistake and administration is aware of that mistake, they follow up with disciplinary consequences and, or conversation and education. Um, even if it's something that has taken place at home,
▶ 14:24 often it does spill in to the school day. And that's when, you know, we are able to intervene and provide that, provide that support. But it is, it's very hard. Um, I would also like for us to get to see the results of the climate surveys that were mentioned on page four too. If we can at some point, that would be great. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm gonna find that part of The report, please. Yeah. And if you don't find it, just let me know via email so I can make sure that wording is, is tight. Alright. Thank you. Uh, Ms. McAndrew, please. Thank you. Thanks for bringing this to us. Sure. I think it's really important that the district is reviewing this and updating it. Um, and very important that we're sharing it with the wider school community. So,
▶ 15:05 Jennifer McAndrew: um, I'm glad to hear that. Um, I have a couple of sort of processing questions and then one substantive question. So the processing questions are for sharing this with the community, is that gonna be, um, email, website, all that? Will there be like a dedicated page on the website where we can access both, where communities can access both the draft and the feedback forms? That's my hope. My hope was to post it tomorrow after this meeting on the website, along with the feedback form. And then with Mr. Eros permission, I would email it to the school community as well. Okay. Again, with the feedback form, I might consider, I might suggest also sending a blurb to the newspaper. Mm-hmm. Um, just to, uh, put, they,
▶ 15:48 Jennifer McAndrew: they tend to run notices and things if, um, with a link to that, whatever that webpage is that has that information. And I think We could put a link in our, um, when we send the good news report out Sure. On Friday, we can add that in the districtwide, That link. And some of the principals send a weekly update too. Mm-hmm. So that might be helpful. Um, 'cause I imagine you wanna get as much feedback as you can. Mm-hmm. Um, so I've, so there's, so there's the feedback form, which is how people provide feedback on this. But then there's also the online form to report a bullying incident, which is new, I think this year. The Form is not new. It's the same form we've had for many years. It's just we made an online version as well. That's to
▶ 16:32 Jennifer McAndrew: Make it easier. So the online piece is new. Correct. And that was discussed when we approved the handbooks because the online form was added to the handbooks. I see. It's at the very end of this, when you have all the different links, I think it might be useful to take a read through and see if there are places within the body where you might wanna reference the online form. 'cause there's a lot of instances where it says reporting, and you may wanna make it clear that this not just written reporting. So when you, you provide like, the address of the district, it tends to make it sound like these are written reports only. But since we now have the online form, you might wanna put it like within the body of the, the plan a couple times.
▶ 17:12 Jennifer McAndrew: Um, so the, those are my kind of, um, processy questions. I my substantive, oh, the other thing is the page numbers don't match the table of contents. Oh, okay. So just to have someone do one of those, sorry, I was trying to find something a second time around and then I can find, oops, I was not on the right page. Um, draft my question. Content question though is, and importantly is about the, um, interplay between students who are on five oh fours and IEPs and bullying investigations. So I just wanna make sure I understand it and then maybe we could take a look at that section. I understand we, you know, this is all very legal and we want legalese and need to be careful, but, um, so a student, if a student's on a 5 0 4 or an I E P,
▶ 18:04 Jennifer McAndrew: it's very clear here that if they're found to be, um, the target, um, or of bullying, um, that they could, that their I E P or 5 0 4 could be adjusted or certainly would be reviewed to make sure that it's, that they're not additional services or supports that are needed. Um, is that also true if it the perpetrator is on a 5 0 4 or an I E p? Sure. I mean, the 5 0 4 and the I E P both provide some level of service. So if we felt that a student was perpetrating an act of bullying and it was somehow related to their disability because we weren't servicing them in the correct way, then certainly we would come back to the table and say, we need to look at this plan and see what, what part of it needs to be beefed up or changed.
▶ 18:49 Often that shows up as counseling sessions, um, or, uh, daily check-ins, things like that where we might identify that a student needs more than what we're, what we're currently offering. The other important piece to students that are on an I E P are 5 0 4 is if the team believes that they could potentially be the victim of bullying because of the nature of their disability, that needs to be addressed at that i e p or 5 0 4 table even before the plan is written, so that there can be preventative measures put into place to support that student before waiting till something happens. Um, that's what I would hope and thought that you would say. I will say, if you take a read through it, again, as a lay person,
▶ 19:28 Jennifer McAndrew: you might wanna see if the language matches what you're saying. Okay. Or what we're doing. Okay. And maybe it's because we, by the law, we only have to write it this way and that's what we do. But I think it, um, and then would a student, is it possible that a student who is found to be a, um, a victim of bullying is who is not on a 5 0 4 i e p may then get a review to be on a 5 0 4, for example? Like would the, could that ever be an outcome of the bullying investigation that someone would get services? Yeah. I, I, I suppose I I would, I would imagine that sure. Probably there would be other factors that would, that would impact that decision. I'm not sure that one decision like that would,
▶ 20:13 would bring a student to rise to that level. But certainly it's possible, especially if we felt like there was a reason why that particular student was being targeted and we needed to bring the team together to investigate if there were a disability that were impacting their performance. Okay. Or the case of a 5 0 4, if I may. Yeah. You know, there could be a, an emotional, a attachment that could occur. And because of that being the target of what occurred, that may infringe upon the curriculum. So therefore you would take A look at that. That's, I'm thinking about school refusal in particular. Right. So I would see it being more towards, towards The 5 0 4 to emotional. Yeah. Probably like a 5 0 4. Okay. Right. Um,
▶ 20:53 Jennifer McAndrew: okay. Great. Um, so yeah, that, that was the section that to me, I felt didn't, and again, I'm not an expert. You all are, but I didn't feel like when I read that it matched up super well with what I know to be the values and procedures of Melrose Public Schools. Um, and I would just say, I hope, and I assume that we'll send this to all of the school support and advocacy groups in town, cpac, the PTOs, all of that state councils. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks for this Ms. Boothy. Please. Just one other process point. I'm appreciative that we have the feedback form and there's a few different ways that we're thinking about getting feedback. Would we ever consider potentially partnering up with parent
▶ 21:38 university or a way for us to bring people physically together versus just via email or via a form? We certainly can. You know, I think, to be honest, we wanted to, to get this. Yep. Mm-hmm. We wanted to make sure we got this through, because currently the plan that we're working off of, it's been quite some time since it's been reviewed. And the names that are in there are people that are no longer here. So I think we had this sense of urgency to sort of really make sure that we've got a, a solidified plan in place. Um, I think what might be really valuable is to use one of those vehicles like parent University or something else to hold discussions about how it's being implemented. Yeah. Because, you know, at the end of the day,
▶ 22:16 a lot of this is language from the law, language from Desi's model plan. There's not a whole lot of room to change the document itself, but there is room for us to have conversations about how it actually looks and feels when we're implementing it. So that I would love to see in more of a face-to-face dialogue. I, I Would love, We could speak with, um, Lisa Lewis. Lisa Lewis, great. And ask her if we can add that as a, a class. Yeah. I love that idea personally, just because I think to the point that you named earlier, if this is something we should be doing every other year or so. I think actually getting real time feedback about the experience, um, and just having face-to-face conversations, I think just goes a really long way.
▶ 23:01 Paul Brodeur: So if it's possible, I Think would be great. I can envision two great instructors in that class in my head now, I just have to convince them to do it. I can convi, I can see it. It Used to be a term we used voluntold. Yes. Voluntold a lot. We used to use that a lot. A Certain superintendent did. I wonder which one. It's true. I have a feeling I know who that was. She did that to us a lot as well. Ms. Woody, any, any further? No, thank you for the consideration. Mayor Broder, please. Thank you. Three, I think quick ones, uh, maybe process oriented, uh, in no particular order, cross complaints, you know, this, this, the, the paradigm here, the kind of regulatory statutory scheme, if you will, talks about, you know,
▶ 23:50 Paul Brodeur: victim perpetrator perfectly make, makes, makes perfect sense. But as we all know from experience these things, it's not just related to school bullying and million forms with this happens where air there's essentially cross complaints, right? Someone will be complained against. And when you interview, um, or, or investigate a little bit, the, the perpetrator, the perpetrator will say, well, actually, here's what really happened. Um, if there's a short answer to this, how does that work? I wish there were a short answer. My, my previous life as a middle school principal, that is what I lived and breathed every day. Mm-hmm. It is never clear black and white. Yeah. There's an accusation, there's a victim, there's a perpetrator, and that's the end of the story.
▶ 24:36 You are always untangling a a long and complicated story that lives in social conflict and sometimes years of kids kind of growing up with each other and having lots and lots of different social conflicts. That's, that's what the investigators do. So that's why it's important that we're documenting along the way. We do have an investigation form where we're interviewing multiple witnesses, taking detailed notes on what we're hearing and, and engaging in multiple conversations, often with the same students over and over again. So one of the things I would always say when I would call a parent to say I'm opening an investigation is, you know, I'm gonna speak with your child whatever day it was today or tomorrow,
▶ 25:12 Paul Brodeur: and I will likely have to speak to them three, four, maybe five more times. Because inevitably, as I start to unpack what, what has actually happened, I'll have to circle back and say, so now I heard about this. Can we talk about this? So it's very complicated. Uh, the investigations do take time. It's important that there's multiple adults that are working together to really have, you know, conversations with everybody involved and do the best we can to, to untangle that. But you're right, it's very rarely a simple Perfect. Um, perfect. Lead into my next question is, are there any, um, reporting timelines built into the statutory regulatory sea? Because as you know, from your experience, when,
▶ 25:55 Paul Brodeur: when this process starts, I, the, the, the typical, um, if there is such a thing, a typical reporter or or parent will say, this is what's happening. This is what has happened, and quite reasonably, they're I impulse to go fix it now. Mm-hmm. And that is not really by necessity, that is not really the way the process can work. Right. Right. So, great question, and I will get back to you with the specific answer about the timeline for the whole investigation, because I don't know that off the top of my head. What I do know is as soon as we receive that report, the very first thing that should happen is that a safety plan should be put into place. Mm-hmm. And in the letter that goes out to families notifying them that a bullying
▶ 26:38 investigation is being opened, that safety plan should be detailed. Sometimes those are fairly simple, you know, it's a matter of keeping the students away from each other while we're conducting the investigation. Other times they can be fairly complicated and might involve, you know, um, schedule changes or might involve some extra support during the school day while we're figuring out what actually happened that should take place as soon as the report comes in. So that's really the most important piece that we, that we kick off that investigation immediately with that safety plan in writing for the families to see. Is it fair to say the safety plan, I'm just guessing off the top of my head here,
▶ 27:10 Paul Brodeur: that the safety plan has the potential to get more complicated for our older students because the range of activities they participate in might be more diverse, theater, band, athletics, whatever the Case may be. Sometimes. And sometimes it's, sometimes it can be easier because you can say to them, you need to stay away from so-and-so, and, and they get that when you're dealing with little ones. Mm-hmm. Sometimes it can be harder and they don't quite understand the intricacies of what's involved in an investigation. So when you have, you know, elementary school kids who at the end of the day wanna be friends and wanna make amends, and you're saying, well, you can't, but they're at recess and they see each other.
▶ 27:46 Paul Brodeur: So sometimes it's actually more complicated mm-hmm. When you've got, when you've got the little ones. And last question, I think that I, I think must be very challenging, hopefully it doesn't happen a lot, is, um, I'll call out of district issues where, um, yeah, I'll use a hypothetical. There's a Melrose Public School student and, uh, a charter school student mm-hmm. That, um, are under investigation as an allegation, whatever the case may be. Mm-hmm. The, I would never call them easy, but districts that, I mean, complaints or investigations that are wholly within the district mm-hmm. Um, should be easier. Everyone's on the same page as kind of a single apparatus. We have our policy, how, how easy is it to, to make it work when it's, when it,
▶ 28:36 Paul Brodeur: they're outta district issues? And what do you do if, you know, there's a real philosophical difference between the way our district handles this and the, um, institution that houses or is responsible for the other student doesn't play ball or has a totally different attitude about what's the appropriate outcome. Mm-hmm. Well, that's the nice thing about Dessi giving us that model plan and the language to use, because it's called out specifically that school districts and schools have an obligation to contact another school or another school district if there's another student involved. So there shouldn't be too much of schools or school districts not wanting to engage in a conversation, in a dialogue about how to move forward.
▶ 29:15 It's called out specifically mm-hmm. That they are obligated to do. So if there's a philosophical difference, I would go back to that safety plan. That's why that safety plan is really important, and it's important that it's updated at the end of the investigation. So as the Melrose Public Schools, our responsibility would be to ensure that that safety plan is really tight and that other student would be held to that safety plan for the protection of our Melrose Public School student. And if I may add, if that still didn't work mm-hmm. In that particular sense, we always have the right to then connect with the police mm-hmm. For that particular, you know, safe. Sure. You know, to make sure that the child is safe in that environment.
▶ 29:56 But I, but I think that's rare. Most, when you call other schools and say, you know, one of your students had something with one of my students. Generally speaking, it's, it's a cooperative and collaborative endeavor. Thanks for the information and the answer. Sure. Any further comments or questions? I have just one. Sure. Um, so could you outline for, uh, both the public following along at home and, uh, for those in the chamber, again, what the timeline is, uh, when will you be coming back to us with what, when will the, these things I, these, uh, survey will go out to the public very quickly, but, uh, when will you close that survey? How much time will you take to process it? Just general timelines,
▶ 30:41 if you would please. So, again, my hope is that we can move through this with some sense of urgency because we need a plan that's current and, and up to date. So I was hoping to put the, uh, community to put this out to the community tomorrow, both on the website and via email, and then we can include it in the suggestions that you've had, the good news and the principal's newsletters. And I wanted to come back here in two weeks, um, having collected feedback and, you know, made any changes that we can make. Again, I think the, the harder part that will require more time is how we're implementing and talking with people about what do you all think about how we're implementing the document itself?
▶ 31:18 Doesn't have too much room to make major sweeping changes because so much of it is the law and, and the model plan. So I would like to do it in two weeks. Certainly, if you feel like we need to push it back another two weeks beyond that, I'm happy to wait. But, you know, sitting a month on a, an older plan, I'd rather, I'd rather not, I'd rather do it in, in the next two weeks. Okay. Very good. Ms. Razzi Thomas, I promise I'm dreading calling you because we're done with this. Go ahead. Just Quickly, sorry. And I would invite you to follow up offline afterwards, but please go ahead. Um, I think the real test is in the students, not the parents. So I hope we can figure out how to have the students give us feedback too.
▶ 32:03 Mm-hmm. Sure. And, and in six months and another six months, in another six months, and really love to see student leadership work on upstanding and building. Yeah. And, you know, as, as positive culture as we can Sure. Given the limitations that we have, because lots of stuff happens when kids aren't at school, that gets brought to school. Mm-hmm. Thank you so much for the work you're doing, and thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Turner. We appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. That concludes, uh, policy and planning this evening. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ms. Desel. Next on our agenda is the finance and facility subcommittee. Ms. Razzi Thomas. Thank You. Mm-hmm. Thank you for joining us Mr. Kelly.
▶ 32:56 Thank you for having me. Welcome to Finance and Facilities Tonight. We have a few updates for us. We have, the first thing is we have the memo on the special ed expenses, an update on that. Would you like to speak to it, Mr. Kelly first, or Assistant Superintendent Berman, um, prepared a memo with, um, uh, some of the, the big categories she had visited in her last meeting that was in the packet. And, um, uh, she's unable to be here tonight, but I'm, I can certainly try to answer any questions that you may have, and if not, I can certainly get back to you with more information. Thank you. Any questions from the committee? Yes. Yes, Ms. McAndrew, go ahead. Thank you for this. It's really helpful. Um, just one, I guess, um, opinion,
▶ 33:42 Jennifer McAndrew: get your feedback. Um, I saw this was the first time I had seen, um, the, um, O S D estimate for next year for out of district tuition. So I remember at about this time or so last year, and we heard that the estimate was 14% increase. Correct. Um, we were nervous. Um, and I, the estimate for next year is 4.6899999999999995%. I know that's certainly higher than two point a half percent. Um, but I'm wondering how, how you feel about that and, and what initial steps you're thinking about in terms of planning. I know it's early. Yeah. So I think, um, in conversations with Assistant Superintendent Berman, when we, when a year ago when we got the 14% automatically started game planning for that, um, assuming schools would do that, many of them have. Um,
▶ 34:28 and I think that's the same process we would use now as take the existing tuitions and, and, you know, go to the max on that. Like you said, um, you know, we're at a two and a half max, and it seems that the, you know, O S D seems to always go a little bit above that. This is even better than 14% for sure, but even still a little higher than I was anticipating. We might see, um, given that they had 14% last year. So, um, but it's good to know that number now, just so we can start planning and, and kind of plan for that ceiling. That'll be part of the fixed cost that we present with the budget. Mm-hmm. Proposal. Knowing that number now helps us, and we will estimate that, that we will project that, that would be what it could be. It,
▶ 35:09 it'll be less in some tuitions and it could be a little more somewhere else, but I, we, it's good to have that number. Thank you. And that's just tuitions, that, that's Just tuitions correct. Transportation. That's just the private school tuition's? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or concerns from the committee regarding the memo with the update on special education costs so far? Oh, Ms. Desal, go ahead. So for, forgive me, this is, uh, uh, tangentially related, uh, but transportation is here and we recently, uh, settled with the bus drivers, um, so that we could hire at a more competitive rate. I was curious if with permission of the chair, uh, if you'd grant me the leeway, uh, have we made any headway in hiring, uh,
▶ 35:59 bus drivers and staff for the, the, the bus rides in transportation? Thank you. Good question. So, um, we've working with Attorney Lindquist on that, um, very initiative. We've been efforting that, um, or one roadblock is that, um, we had to turn into leased vehicles, uh, due to their age. And when we went to replace those vehicles, um, the cost was, um, uh, significantly higher. Um, there, just as a little bit of, um, background, if you're not aware, they've stopped making the Dodge Caravan, which is a, a very widely used, um, uh, transportation vehicle. Uh, and the replacement vehicles now are like the Chrysler Pacificas. Um, some of the, um, uh, other minivans are, are very costly to replace and lease. So, um,
▶ 36:44 that's a factor that we had to turn into vehicles that we had at surplus that we thought would be able to fill with, with Melrose drivers. And, um, we have one surplus vehicle now that we are, um, pursuing, potentially trying to hire another driver. That's where we are with that. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, And one of the hopes in regards to transportation though too, is under the, um, student Opportunity Act, there should be, we should be at that. The goal was we'd get to a hundred percent of transportation reimbursement. So we'll see where that lies ahead. Great. Thank you. Any other questions, concerns about this memo? Thank you very much for bringing it to us, Mr. Kelly. And please thank Ms.
▶ 37:29 Berman for the update. And I know that, um, we're gonna keep getting these frequently, so there are no surprises as much as humanly possible in this process of ever moving targets. So I Say thank you for that. I would say transportation is one of the biggest ones we still are worried about. That is very, that's very, very hard to predict and forecast in the market we're in. We don't need to take a vote on accepting the memo, but we're gonna move on then to the, um, year to date, October 10th, uh, budget so far, the, the budget report. Um, I'm gonna just take these one by one. Any questions or concerns about the year to date budget report? I have a few. If no one else is, do you have any? You're gonna put your hand up.
▶ 38:14 Jennifer McAndrew: It's just a comment, which is Thank you. Now everything looks like it's encumbered. Yes. And the big line items. So, um, it's really clear if folks wanna look at this, where we are anticipating coming in over a budget. That's correct. Um, for this fiscal year, it's not a surprise, I don't think to anyone on this committee, certainly, or anyone in the administration. But, um, this, I think this makes it really clear where those, um, anticipated, um, uh, overages are. Yes, I agree. Thank you. This is, um, a, a good, uh, now that a lot of our, our major known costs are encumbered, it's, it's starting to come into focus a little bit about, uh, where our needs will be. And we can see our structural deficit emerging, right? Mm-hmm.
▶ 39:02 So we have the line, the transportation line, and then we have the SP tuition and non-public schools and the collaboratives and, and those are where we're seeing the big bloom blooming. Yes. We had anticipated that. And that's knowing that when we accu tuitions and transportation, that's where we would see a, a significant deficit. Great. Okay. I mean, not great, but at least we're tracking it extremely carefully. Thank you. Any questions or comments more about that? Let's move to the offset so far. Um, Mr. Kelly or superintendent? Ms, do you wanna say anything about the offset report? So the, there's a memo in the packet that just details, um, what a revolving fund is. The, the district has, um, multiple revolving funds.
▶ 39:43 These are, um, uh, what we also, we use as our offsets for the budget. We collect revenue. Um, it's important to understand too that the, the fluctuations you'll see in our monthly report, and, and you get that now starting last year, um, which has been a great monitor to track our, our, um, our revenue and, um, the, um, The bigger funds like the E C C and education stations are money in, money out. We do use those to pay salary. So that's why you will see a fluctuation, um, in those, those are our bigger revenue drivers. And you will see a month to month fluctuation in those. There are summaries of the different revolving funds that we use. Um, and it's important to know too, that revolving funds are not necessarily bound by a fiscal year.
▶ 40:27 Our operating budget has to be dedicated to that current fiscal year. We're not allowed to span fiscal years with the operating budget. Um, and the revolving funds are things that we can go across fiscal years. Thank you. Questions, comments, or concerns about the offsets? Yes. Ms. Withy, Looking at the offsets, and I know you just talked a little bit about education stations, um, will fluctuate, right? 'cause we pay salaries with that amount. I also remember in our last conversation, we had talked about how we had hired more folks and gotten more people off the wait list. So two quick questions. One, could that also be another reason why this number looks higher? Because we've actually been able to bring in more students. And then two,
▶ 41:12 have we made any additional taking people off the wait list? So Yeah, the education station folks work daily to bring families off that wait list. They work literally daily to, to hire staff. Um, it's a capacity. What we don't wanna do is get too many kids that we can't supervise after school. Yep. Um, the administration at education stations is keenly aware. Um, and literally within minutes, if they're able to hire someone, they are working with the school to work, you know, get people off that wait list. So that's a daily occurrence. Um, yeah. And our education stations, um, they probably are seeing a little bit of a spike there with people coming off, which is great. Great. I hope we can keep on keeping on with that.
▶ 41:51 And it's great to hear that folks are just being so proactive with bringing more people in and hiring as as they can. One, if I may. Yeah. Go. One, one thing we may want to take a look at as I'm just looking at it myself in regards to the education stations and the E C C revenue. Mm-hmm. It is hard to tell if you're hitting that mm-hmm. Projected number because mm-hmm. As Mr. Kelly said, we're paying in and out of it. But what we may want to do, Mr. Kelly, is add just a column in that grouping to show what we have brought in Yes. Year to date, so that we can then show that are we reaching that potential? Yes. Because it's hard to determine how much we're paying already in payroll versus what do we still need. Mm-hmm.
▶ 42:36 Sure. So you're talking a target for the budgeted number, right? Right, exactly. So the second column is the budgeted number for the year, and then the balance can fluctuate. So you wanna see Correct. How you're making that towards that goal each month. Correct. Right. Okay. Yes. I think that might help, yeah. To see whether you, we are able to get to the projected number that we're talking about in those two particular areas. The others, it stays, you know, I mean, the revolving can fluctuate as well, but, you know, at least it's a little easier. Any other questions on those two reports before we talk a little bit more about the revolving accounts? But we need to vote on these two reports first.
▶ 43:18 Do I have a motion? Motion to accept the year to date and offset projections? Second. Okay. Motion made by Mr. Sel, second by Mr. O'Connell. All in favor, that carries with seven in favor unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Mr. Kelly. Anything you want to tell us more about those revolving accounts in the summary you gave us? No, I think that's a good point that, um, superintendent RO made is that we're, that report is to show an indicator of how we are progressing towards those budgeted amounts. Those are part of our, our, uh, our budgeting system. Um, and then the, um, the other accounts there you can see, um, athletics is, um, the, the fees that are collected for, um, the different, um,
▶ 44:01 athletics programs and, um, uh, the band program. We have our music instruments program. Um, and then as superintendent, miss Sarah mentioned that we have a transportation reimbursement line. That I would say that the, our definition of a hundred percent reimbursement in the state's definition of a hundred percent reimbursement may not be aligned, but hopefully at the end of the s o a we will see some common ground there. You're a very diplomatic man, Mr. Kelly. It's funny how numbers can be different, right? How I thought they were so straightforward. Any questions or concerns about the the revolving account summary memo? No. Okay. And so now we are going to move on to the warrants. We have four warrants to approve tonight. Um,
▶ 44:51 the first is warrant S 2 4 0 1 3 and the amount of $9,157 and 15 cents. That's payments to athletic officials and trainers. Um, then warrant SS 2 4 0 1 4 and the amount of $612,429 and 48 cents. That's tuitions transport. Other expenses and warrant S 2 4 0 1 5 in the amount of $3,129 and 36 cents. Looks like refunds, um, Amazon and field trip stuff. And then we have, um, mass revenue for SS 2 4 0 1 16 tax in the amount of $32 and 47 cents. Do I have a motion to approve one made by Ms. McAndrew? Any other second by Ms. Wii. Thank you very much. All in favor? That's six in favor. Do I have a seventh? I have an abstention. So we have six in favor or, and an and an abstain. And you're abstaining. One abstain. Sorry. You got it.
▶ 45:59 Jennifer McAndrew: Abstention. Thank you. Okay. That's six in favor and one abstention. And that is it for finance and facilities for this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, next on our agenda is EP and p, educational programs and personnel. Ms. Ro. Thank you. Good evening everyone, and welcome to Educational Programs and Personnel. We have one item on our subcommittee agenda tonight, which is the October one enrollment report. Um, which annually the district sends to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education with our official enrollment count. This is a very important, uh, document and count that we send to DESI because it's very determinative of
▶ 46:58 resources and support, like our chapter 70 state funding that we get. So, uh, superintendent, I turn over you for any comments. Sure. So, uh, there's also, for members at home, there's a, there's a chart in the packet with the enrollment numbers. So as you can see that the enrollment, uh, the total enrollment for Melrose Public Schools, which includes, uh, in this service students that we do service who come for certain services and out of district is 4,026 students. Uh, when you take the 56 and then the, uh, 62 out, you're talking at, lemme just pull it right up here. You're at a 3,900, uh, 3,680 students is K through 12, which is also important because then the preschool through 12, you add an additional, uh,
▶ 47:58 231 students that are on a pre tuition. So the numbers are very important, obviously, because that's going to help how we get funded through chapter seven. Oh. And so they didn't change as much as you saw when we last spoke at the last meeting. Um, and what I have done today, I did email you all out as of October 10th as well, and I'm going to e share with you that copy. So whenever it gets changed, you'll see it always so that you'll have that when we change those numbers. But currently that's where we are. The, um, you will see that the Melrose High School, what's interesting is the Melrose Veterans Memorial, just to remind everybody we are, we have 912 students over three grades. And then when you go to Melrose High School,
▶ 48:49 we have 963 students over four grades. So that is, uh, building as we move forward. And if you take a look at, uh, the grades itself, take a look at fifth grade, we're at 300 students and all of the grades second through fifth grade are within either over 300 mm-hmm. Or right there at 300. So the numbers are increasing as we move along. Thank you. Any questions or comments about the enrollment report from the superintendent? Ms. Razzie Thomas? I just have one question. I'm, I'm just so curious about, you know, how many students were losing a private school when they go from eighth grade to ninth grade? And, um, because that's like an X factor in terms of the numbers that we wind up having at the high school versus the middle school. Um,
▶ 49:46 and I know how do, how do we track that? I mean, we can just count how many we had in eighth grade versus how many we have in ninth grade, but you have movements, you know, move outs, all that stuff. So that's probably what I would look at right now for past history of taking a look at what would, what was our numbers for last year when, when they left eighth grade versus where we're at as we start, um, ninth grade. So as you take a look right now, you have 297 eighth graders. Mm-hmm. So I'm curious to see what that number looks like next year. And you start to see the pattern. Normally there's probably about 25 to 30 students that venture off into, whether it's the vocational school or private schools. So,
▶ 50:35 and that's probably, in this particular case, I don't know what last year's numbers were. I, I'll take a look at that for the future so that we can kind of maybe take a look over the last three or four years and get that comparison of what those numbers look like. But if I was, it's interesting 'cause we did talk about that today at the p t o. As you look at the eighth grade with 2 97, I'm anticipating you're probably going to prob, you know, 270, we'll go to the high school out of that 297 that are in the eighth grade. So at some point you are going to, if you look at, if you take 30 students away from grades five through eight, at some point that high school, you're looking at, you know, maybe close to 1200 students or 1100 students. So you,
▶ 51:26 Jennifer McAndrew: you're gonna grow at the high school as opposed to the 912 that you have, 963 that you currently have. Personally, I'd like 'em all to stay here at the high school. Thank You. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? No, seeing none, I'll just add that, um, in addition to everything that superintendent mentioned on this chart is, um, just clear that we have very healthy kindergarten enrollment. Yes. Thank you for adding That. Um, at three 18. Um, so we're back over 300 there. Um, I think, um, in his beginning of the year message, principal Merrill at the high school mentioned this is the biggest, the high school has been in several years. Um, and so I think your point is a really good one for us to keep in mind as we look
▶ 52:15 Jennifer McAndrew: at such big middle school enrollment. We also know, I think that if, when you look back at the data, you'll see historically the current 12th graders, um, and the class that just left the high school were among the smallest cohorts moving through all from when they entered, just for whatever reason. Hmm. So we're definitely the, the smaller high school classes, um, are sort of at the top of the grades and potentially, as you point out, being replaced by bigger ninth grades every year. So, Can I add one thing too is that I'll be very curious to see next year how the kindergarten numbers start to continue to grow. Because 2025 is covid year. You know, that the, where they mm-hmm. Had the baby boom, uh, five years ago.
▶ 53:06 So that's gonna see where our numbers start to even more increase. So, Excellent. Thank you. Any final comments or questions? Seeing none. That concludes E P M P tonight. Thanks everybody. Thanks Ms. McAndrew. Next on our agenda is the announcements of the school committee chair, uh, the superintendent search update. And I'm going to invite Ms. Witty to comment please. Great. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to announce that we have selected those that will be serving on the search committee. Um, and we've been in communication with them through a couple of different emails. We're preparing for our orientation and anti-bias training that will take place tomorrow night. And then the application deadline for the superintendent role is actually this
▶ 54:01 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Friday, October 13th. So then we'll continue with starting to look at candidates and beginning the selection process there. So looking forward to getting to work. Very exciting. Any questions on that? Seeing none. Outreach reports, anybody, uh, doing anything or hearing anything that's, um, they'd like to share Ms. Withy? Sure. Just wanna also share that the, uh, literacy task force will have another professional learning experience coming up on Monday the 16th, where we'll be digging into K to two word recognition a little bit more. So excited to be able to also have that moment with the folks that are on the literacy task force as well. Anyone else? And I'll just mention that the, um, um, the,
▶ 54:48 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: um, citywide P t O met this morning and, um, while I was not able to attend, I forwarded to Ms. Lewis the, um, packet information on bullying and prevention. So, um, uh, bullying and harassment so that, um, they will have the opportunity to take a look at that. So just as an F Y I, mayor Broder, is there something you'd like to comment on? Uh, no, other than to, um, make a motion to adjourn. That's Fine. Is there a second? Non mayor's motion? Second. Seconded by Ms. Razzi Thomas. Seeing no discussion? All in favor? Opposed? That motion carries unanimously. And we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all.