School Committee — 2023-11-28
Agenda
- Concussion Report
- Warrants (5 minutes) vote required
- FY25 School Year Calendar (10 minutes) vote required
- To begin deliberations and potentially vote on the appointment of the next Superintendent of Schools
- To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel, the Superintendent of Schools
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● NOVEMBER 28, 2023 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:30 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176
(ID # 11341) Consent Concussion Report Adopted
(ID # 11336) Finance and Facilities Warrants (5 minutes) vote required Passed
(ID # 11340) Policy and Planning FY25 School Year Calendar (10 minutes) vote required Passed
(ID # 11337) General To begin deliberations and potentially vote on the appointment of the next Superintendent of Schools No Action Taken
(ID # 11338) Executive Session To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel, the Superintendent of Schools No Action Taken 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 1 Updated 12/4/2023 12:10 PM
Transcript
▶ 0:01 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Good evening and welcome to the regular lease scheduled school committee meeting of November 28th. It's approximately seven 30. Um, and I would welcome everyone and invite Mrs. Hogan to call the role please. Mr. O'Connell. Here. Mayor Broda. Here. Ms. Razzi Thomas. Here. Mr. sel. Here. Ms. Withy. Here. Ms. Mickey, Andrew. Here. Mr. Driscoll Here. And we are all present. Uh, and we, uh, do have a quorum. So we will be begin. Um, please if we can stand as we are able for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty. Liberty and Justice. Justice for all.
▶ 1:00 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you so much. And just to note that this meeting is being, uh, recorded and live streamed by our friends at MMTV this evening. Uh, first on, uh, our agenda, I would, um, entertain a motion to move the, uh, announcements of the chair to, um, prior to executive session this evening. I would also entertain a motion, uh, included in that motion to move the deliberations under the announcements of the chair. So moved, Made by Ms. Desal. Second, seconded by Ms. Razzi Thomas. Is there discussion on those? Motion? That motion? Seeing none. All in favor? Opposed? That motion carries unanimously. And the agenda has been updated based on that decision. Uh, next on our agenda is the public comment, uh, portion
▶ 1:58 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: of our, uh, agenda this evening. And without objection, I would like to open public comment. And if you'd like to speak, if you would please sign the sheet, uh, with your name. It depends what it worked. Oh, no. Okay. Hold on. Let's see, what's your name? Uh, Isabel Vo. Isabella Vo. Yeah. Sophia Aki. Sophia Aki. So, um, my understanding is that you are students here with us this evening. Very good. Thank you. So if you'd like to sit right over here, that would be great. So we all know who you are and we can see you, um, next to our students. Is there anyone for public comment this evening? Seeing none without objection. Uh, public comment is now closed. Uh, next on our agenda is the consent agenda, um,
▶ 2:58 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: which this evening contains the school committee regular meeting, minutes of November 14th two, 2023, and the concussion report. Would anyone like to pull anything from the consent agenda? Seeing none, may I have a motion for approval for the consent agenda made by Mr. O'Connell? Seconded by Ms. Withi with no discussion. All in favor? Oppose that Motion carries unanimously. Uh, Madam Chair. Uh, Yes, Ms. Desal, Uh, point of personal privilege. We, uh, I observe that on the agenda student, the report of the student representatives is not, uh, on the agenda. However, we do have students, uh, student representatives, uh, here to give a report. If I may, I would like to add, uh, their report into the record and afford them time to speak.
▶ 4:01 Uh, very good. Um, your point of personal privilege, um, is approved and we would invite our student representatives to, uh, share some information with us tonight. Thank you. Hi, I'm Isabelle Voy. I'm a senior at Mar High. Um, I assume this has probably already been brought up, but the new grading policy at Mar High. Um, since then, I've seen great improvements actually from it. I have witnessed some of my fellow peers and friends who have been a little concerned or questioning the grading policy just because, you know, it is a huge, and it's a different thing for us students to adapt to, and teachers as well. I mean, we're both learning, uh, together from it. And I have seen students who have gone up to faculty
▶ 4:53 and have addressed it. Just making more clear communication between faculty students in regards to the grading policy. And I've noticed that actually some of my teachers have made some changes about different things that they've graded more heavily now, is not as heavy and has given us opportunities to, you know, learn from our mistakes and have been able to redo some things that previously we weren't able to do. And I think has, has been more beneficial to, um, the high school community. And I am glad to see that there are improvements and that the communication between faculty and students are coming together and doing all those things. Thanks. Um, hi. I am Sophia Koki. I'm also a senior.
▶ 5:41 Um, that is basically a big part of what's been going on at school and smaller part, maybe not as small, but we have our new English teacher. I don't know when she's gonna be starting, but I know students have some students sat in on lessons on teachers coming in to see who would be a good fit. So they told us, or a lot of the students have found out that we, that we do have a new English teacher that she will be coming in this week, next week, next weeks. I don't know when it is, but she's coming in the next few weeks. Um, and a lot of kids seem to be happy with that. 'cause there's been a lot of, um, confusion and just unclarity, unclarity. There's been a lot of unclarity and people are wanna get back to normal.
▶ 6:28 Um, we had spirit week, spirit month. That's kind of like, like I don't, It's Like a birthday. It just goes on There. Hasn't really been much new. Like yeah, there hasn't really been much new information, information issues. It's been overall pretty Good. I was actually in one of the classrooms for when one of the new lit teachers were coming in, and I thought it was really cool. I mean, I've never been able to see like a lesson being planned out from a teacher or, um, like, you don't get to see how teachers are really hired. So I thought it was really interesting that we were able to give feedback too. It was like student feedback and not, you know, just faculty be faculty being the ones to, um, hire them.
▶ 7:14 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: I mean, obviously they were ones to hire them, but we had say in it, and I thought that was really interesting and a good thing that we're doing. Great. Any questions for our students this evening? Thank you. Seeing none. We are so delighted that you came. It was very nice for all of us to meet you. We thank you for reporting out to us and for, you know, being here when we know you're gonna scoot home and work on your homework immediately, stay the whole time. So thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Next on our agenda are our subcommittees, beginning with finance and facilities, Ms. Rosie Thomas. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. Woo. It's not good to walk into the table.
▶ 8:19 Um, welcome to Finance and Facilities. Uh, we are, we are actually gonna have two items on the agenda tonight. Um, the first will be a review of the line item draft of the 2025 school district budget that you and Mr. Kelly put together. Thank you, maam. Which is so helpful. So thank you. Thank, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, so I just, I, I'll be very brief on it. Um, today or today, I, I sent you an updated version. It is the fiscal 24 line item budget. And when we talk about the line item, I've put it up on the screen just so that folks can know. There's multiple, multiple pages to it. And thanks to Ken Kelly and, uh, the work of our, uh, business office, we are now able to present this out.
▶ 9:07 And what I would like to do is, is put this on our website so that folks can see it. This is the current budget for this fiscal year, and that's what's important. You will notice on the bottom links that you'll see that there's, by school, you can pull up by school. Um, you can pull up so Hoover or Horace, Mann or Lincoln. And then under, in, within that section is all of our staff that is in there, what their full-time equivalency is. So you might see somebody that's a 0.3 at one school, and then at another school they're a 0.7 or they could be a 0.2 and a 0.5. So those are all the types of things. All of the salaries are listed. The pay periods, how they, so some, we have employees that are paid weekly.
▶ 9:58 We have employees that are paid, uh, biweekly, uh, 26 checks as opposed to 52. And then we have, when we have, uh, some of our employees who do work a 10 month, they're still paid on a weekly basis. So they break it up between 42, 52 and 26. So you'll be able to see all of that as well. And then if you go down to the bottom of each section, you'll see what the actual supply amount is based on for each building. And so you'll be able to take a look at those things, and it goes right across Roosevelt, Winthrop, Franklin Middle School High School. And then we have the athletics and extracurricular. And you'll, that page has got all of the expenses, uh, that are lumped in and how that all works.
▶ 10:43 Uh, and there's big totals there that come up as you move along. We then have special education. Uh, those employees that are, and most of the people that are under special education, the reason we put 'em under that particular area is because they're working district-wide, uh, not specifically geared to just one particular school. And as you move along, you'll see teaching and learning. That's where some of our directors, our assistant superintendent of, of, uh, teaching and learning is located. Curriculum leaders, um, coaches and, uh, secretary, and then all of those expenses. And then of course, you get to the administration, which is where the superintendent, the business manager is, as well
▶ 11:29 as the central office. And you'll take a look at, uh, in our it, even though we do share it, uh, with the dis with the city, we have our own employees that we pay for full equivalencies out of the budget. And then of course you have system-wide and system-wide is basically some of those teachers that just were kind of all over the place, but we put them in that, um, area. And then we've got everything that I feel is in here, the substitutes that we have for the building subs and all of that. And then of course, all of those legal expenses. And on system-wide, you'll see quite a bit of the different types of expenses that we have under the, um, just the different line items, for example, like,
▶ 12:17 uh, uh, contract obligations and different types of things. Substitute teaches that. And if you look under special education under that one, if you go to special education, you'll be able to see the transportation, um, all of, you know, the tuitions, collaborative tuitions, what those costs are. Now, what I would like to point out on this is that when you go to the actual page of the first page of the whole thing where it says the overall budget, you will notice that, um, and Mr. Kelly did a wonderful job of breaking it down by, there's your total salaries for each building. And then the next right line is the total non-salary expenses for each building. And then you add that up and that's the total budget for each building,
▶ 13:04 which then brings you down to that far, the bottom right is your total budget. So I just thought it would be, and then down here, these are the offset accounts that we have that help pay towards this budget. And then I thought, well, you know, what would be kind of good to have as, 'cause we're gonna constantly, this is a live document that's constantly being changed, um, as we go along. Because sometimes there may not, we may not need this particular thing or, you know, there's FMLAs where we have to have, uh, substitutes coming in and, and doing leaves. Or we could have a, uh, out of district placement that could occur or a move in that happened. And so if you'll look down at that very bottom,
▶ 13:48 you'll see Melrose, what was budgeted, what we have right now, but actual in there for fiscal 24 and what the difference is that we have not spent. So I think that that's important. And that will be the, this is the type of document that we will utilize as we move forward, um, for fiscal 25 and as we start to prepare that. So I just wanted to present that to you tonight because that was part of the superintendent's goal to make sure that that was there. And Mr. Kelly and I are here to answer any questions if You have, um, thank you very much. Point Of order. Thank you so much. I would invite us to, um, hold on, any questions or any discussion? I believe this is a report out which we greatly appreciate.
▶ 14:38 And, um, something for us all to explore and consider along, uh, with the community. Right? So we'll study, Study And then next time we have a meeting, we will have more of a discussion. Yes. Okay. That'd be great. Alright. Thank you. Thank you for all the work that you've put in. And Mr. Kelly's put in, um, I think this heads us towards greater transparency, which is, is just wonderful. It explains all the nuts and bolts that go into the budget line by item. So thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. And we'll work on getting further and further into it. So we have great questions absolutely. For you and Mr. Kelly the next time. Yes. I don't have a question 'cause it, You're not allowed, But, but I, this is leaps
▶ 15:24 Paul Brodeur: and bounds better than what we've had in the past. Um, and not just for the, the, the internal transparency, which is super important, but it also allows us to project and explain and for things like when we have our next collective bargaining instead of, you know, some of the, it, it, you can put it right out there. This, this is what a particular proposal means. The public can figure it out on their own. They don't need to, you know, wait for us, uh, to go back and forth. I think it's, uh, couldn't be more excited to, to see this. Okay. Moving on to the warrants. We just have one other item here for us to review for, um, finance and facilities. We have two warrants that we need to vote on and approve.
▶ 16:14 The first one is, uh, refunds and officials warrant S 2 4 0 2 6 in the amount of $3,190 and 50 cents. And the second warrant is, um, general school wire fund of, and the warrant is S 2 4 0 2 7 in the amount of $562,944 and 88 cents. Do I have a motion to approve made by, um, Ms. Driscoll, second by Mayor Broder. Any questions concerns, Ms. Withi? I'm just curious, we talked at the beginning of the year about the fact that we had a budget freeze. Are we still under a freeze at this moment or no? Yes, we're still under the freeze. Anything that comes through, they have to go through us on. Great. Thank You. That freeze will not be lifted this year. Helpful. Any other questions or concerns from the committee?
▶ 17:09 Seeing none. All in favor that passes unanimously with seven in favor and none. And, um, that is all for finance and facilities tonight. Thanks for all your good work. Thank you Mr. Kelly. Thank you Ms. Razzie Thomas. Next on our agendas Policy and planning subcommittee with Ms. De sel. Good evening and welcome to the policy and planning portion of tonight's, uh, agenda. We have one item in two parts, uh, this evening for consideration. The FY 25 school year calendar. Uh, by way of information there is a vote required. Uh, and by way of background, recall that, uh, last year we separated out religious holidays from the school calendar and provided a separate document outlining, uh, various observances, uh, that we know of.
▶ 18:20 Not necessarily fully inclusive, but certainly more expensive than we have had in the past, uh, of our students and community. Um, in a second document, uh, you'll find first the school year calendar, uh, as bullet A on the agenda. And then one B, of course is the holidays and observances document At this time from Opus Mo for purposes of a, uh, of discussion, I would entertain a motion of approval. So, moved, Moved, uh, made by Mayor Broder, second by Mr. O'Connell. Any discussion? I Just, uh, Mr. Rezi Thomas, please. One comment, just that I wanna bring this up for, um, us to consider from a mental health perspective is that it's, I think, somewhat challenging, um, for students to start the year going for two days, stopping
▶ 19:19 for a long weekend and starting. So I know that you know it, I just wonder if we should ever consider the way that that is structured. There's no easy way to start school, but it's kind of hard for some students to get all geared up. Go for a day, two days, a day and a half, whatever it winds up being with half days, et cetera, going home, thinking about it for four days. 'cause it's always a long weekend. Usually Labor Day and then get again, all geared up again. So, Uh, Mr. Superintendent, is there a time at which you begin, at what point do you start, uh, preparing the school calendar for the following year? So we would, we, I mean we began this year and Melrose has been doing it probably this time
▶ 20:07 of year in November for, um, for next year. But you, I guess the question is, is how do we prepare to put this calendar together for you? Probably we started in October. Okay. And then the underlying question, uh, if I may, uh, Ms. Razzie Thomas, uh, take your question forward would be at what point next year then would you recommend this committee, uh, talk to the superintendent at that time about, uh, modifying school year? I would say I would if you, uh, what you have to take a look at too, within the calendar is what is contractually agreed upon? Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. And so if you, and I believe we have, uh, we have done that in this particular calendar. If you want to make any of those changes, we would want
▶ 20:59 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: to take a look at that, um, in negotiations. Excellent. And that was my thought as well. Yep. Any further comment or discussion? Seeing none. Motion on the table is to approve the ca school year calendar for fiscal, uh, school year 24, 25. All in favor. Motion passes unanimously seven four. And that concludes policy and planning this evening. Thank you, Mr. S. Next on our agenda is the announcements of, uh, the school committee chair, uh, and, uh, as, uh, we did earlier moving the, uh, agenda item, uh, to begin deliberations and potentially vote on the appointment of the next, um, superintendent of schools. Uh, as we all know, we had the pleasure of interviewing our, uh, third and final finalist, um, earlier this evening.
▶ 22:12 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: And we will be, um, putting out a survey as we also mentioned, um, to welcome and invite feedback from our community. So, um, while this agenda item is included, um, really as a placeholder, should there be something unexpected that happened, um, I suggest that we may wish to delay our deliberations, um, until, uh, December 5th, which is listed in the Melrose, uh, meeting calendar as a placeholder at this time. So I would recommend that we meet on December 5th and have those discussions when we have more feedback and information to have time to process ourselves, what we've heard from our three excellent candidates. So unless there is any objection to that, I'll continue with the announcements of the chair.
▶ 23:09 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Seeing none, do I have any outreach reports this evening? I Seeing none. I think we were, um, uh, commiserating with our football team and their seven to three loss, um, on, uh, on Thanksgiving Day. But we always, uh, appreciate all that our band, um, our, uh, our teams, um, all of the students provide to make it a really joyous day and an opportunity to showcase the many good things happening, uh, in our extra and co-curricular activities in Melrose. So it was, it was a great day, uh, win or lose. Uh, with that. Um, uh, and seeing no other business, I would indicate that we do have need for an executive session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, the superintendent of schools.
▶ 24:07 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: We will not return to public session. Do I have a motion to adjourn to executive session made by Ms. Withi? Seconded by Ms. Rossey Thomas. Seeing no discussion, Mrs. Hogan, would you kindly call the role Mr. O'Connell? Yes. Mayor Broda? Yes. Ms. Razzi Thomas? Yes. Ms. Sel? Yes. Ms. withy? Yes. Ms. McAndrew? Yes. Mr. Driscoll? Yes. And as noted again, uh, we will be entering into, uh, executive session. We will not return to public session and we are adjourned to executive session.