School Committee — 2025-11-18

Agenda

1. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE (0:00)
2. PUBLIC COMMENT (0:54)
3. REPORT OF THE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES (4:22)
4. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE CHAIR (4:39)
5. Report: Outreach (16:49)
6. Report: Superintendent Mid-Year Evaluation (18:12)
7. ANNOUNCMENTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT (21:28)
8. Report: Personnel (22:16)
9. Report: Enrollment Updates (24:50)
10. CONSENT AGENDA (25:12)
11. Meeting Minutes from October 28, 2025 (25:25)
12. Cafeteria Report (25:32)
13. 2026 Quebec Field Trip Date Change (25:36)
14. Warrants FY26 School - S26031 - $641,700.16 FY26 October Debit Card #2 - S26032 - $205.00 FY26 Refunds/Officials - S26033 - $5,126.99 FY26 October MVMMS Student Activity Wire - S26034 - $3,720.00 FY26 October High School Student Activity Wire - S26035 - $4,670.43 FY26 November Debit Card - S26036 - $1,625.00 FY26 October Meals Tax - S26037 - $55.60 (25:41)
15. SUBCOMMITTEES (COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE) (26:35)
16. Finance and Facilities - Seamus Kelley/Jennifer McAndrew (26:50)
17. Vote: Monthly Budget Summary/Grants/Revolving Accounts (27:13)
18. Report: Special Education Expense and Summer Program Updates (27:52)
19. Educational Programs and Personnel - Jennifer Razi-Thomas/ Margaret Driscoll (32:06)
20. Vote: Roosevelt School Improvement Plan (32:44)
21. Report: MCAS Overview (45:07)
22. Vote: MHS Athletic Dept. Waiver (43:54)
23. Policy and Planning - Matt Hartman/Margaret Driscoll (1:35:45)
24. Vote: JJF Policy (1:36:06)
25. Vote: IJND and IJNDB Policies (1:36:50)
26. Vote: Concussion Report (1:38:16)
27. ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION (1:45:16)
28. EXECUTIVE SESSION
29. To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel, Cari Berman.

Minutes

Melrose School Committee Regular Meeting Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall MINUTES 1. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE Attendee Name Title Status Dorie Withey Chair Present Jennifer McAndrew Vice Chair Present Jen Grigoraitis Mayor Present Jennifer Razi-Thomas Member Present Seamus Kelley Member Present Matt Hartman Member Present Margaret Raymond Driscoll Member Present Cari Berman Interim Superintendent Present Also in attendance: Interim Deputy Superintendent, Ken Kelley. With a roll call vote with seven (7) present, the meeting convened at 7:00 PM. 2. PUBLIC COMMENT Without objection, the Chair opened Public Comment. Melrose resident Gerry Mroz expressed his concern that without a change in how the override funds are allocated, the school system would not see a meaningful improvement. He urged that the money be directed toward resources for students and that a clear spending plan be established to prevent the need for another override in the near future. Without objection, the Chair closed Public Comment. 3. REPORT OF THE STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES There were no student representatives present this evening. 4. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE CHAIR Chair Withey opened the meeting by thanking the community for passing the historic override. Interim Superintendent Berman detailed the plan for the new funds, announcing a proposed appropriation of over $3.8 million for instruction and learning, with additional benefits coming from DPW and IT budgets for maintenance and technology. Ms. Berman discussed the continuous work since the override to plan for the second half of FY26 as well as the plan for FY27. She outlined the next steps: the City Council will establish the total school appropriation during the November 20th meeting, after which the School Committee will allocate the funds into budget approved categories and MPS will begin year 2026 with approved budget amounts. Ms. Berman emphasized that while the override is a significant help, it won't fix everything; the 1 committee will prioritize restoring positions that directly impact student growth and achievement, guided by data and research. She specifically noted that due to the current school year already being underway, some existing contracted roles will remain unchanged for the remainder of the year; for example, Jason Merrill will remain as secondary principal and Bryan Corrigan will remain as deputy principal. Deputy Superintendent Kelley reinforced that this is not the typical process where the City Council sets the funding level first, and he too stressed the ultimate goal of maximizing the impact for student growth and development. 1. Report: Outreach School Committee Member Seamus Kelley reported on his attendance at the MASC conference last week, alongside Ms. Driscoll and incoming School Committee members. He noted the high quality of professional development workshops regarding effective School Committee functioning. Mr. Kelley also announced his intention to seek the position of Chair for the 2026 calendar year. 2. Report: Superintendent Mid-Year Evaluation Chair Withey presented the mid-year performance evaluation for Interim Superintendent Berman. The evaluation indicated that Ms. Berman has provided highly effective leadership during a period of significant transition and budgetary challenges, placing her on track for proficiency by the end of the school year. Committee members expressed their appreciation for Ms. Berman’s courage in stepping into the role during a time of uncertainty, her focus on students and the district's mission, and her dedication to all students and the community. Chair Withey then reminded the Committee that, per contract, they must notify Ms. Berman of the superintendent hiring process for the 2026- 2027 school year by December 31, 2025. This process will be discussed at the upcoming December meetings. 5. ANNOUNCMENTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT Interim Superintendent Berman thanked the Committee for their feedback and support, stating it was her pleasure to serve the community. She expressed looking forward to the second half of the year. 1. Report: Personnel Interim Superintendent Berman presented the Personnel Report, also noting some open positions. She confirmed that, with the exception of two Chapter 70-funded Reading Specialist positions, all current vacancies were part of the approved spring budget. Ms. Berman indicated that the two Reading Specialist roles are close to being filled. The Committee discussed challenges surrounding the timing of hiring cycles and the overall decrease in new teaching candidates. 2. Report: Enrollment Updates Ms. Berman shared the current enrollment update from the packet which has remained fairly consistent, and offered to answer any questions from the committee. 2 6. CONSENT AGENDA MOTION: To Approve the Consent Agenda RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Seamus Kelley SECONDER: Matt Hartman AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman 1. Meeting Minutes from October 28, 2025 2. Cafeteria Report 3. 2026 Quebec Field Trip Date Change 4. Warrants FY26 School - S26031 - $641,700.16 FY26 October Debit Card #2 - S26032 - $205.00 FY26 Refunds/Officials - S26033 - $5,126.99 FY26 October MVMMS Student Activity Wire - S26034 - $3,720.00 FY26 October High School Student Activity Wire - S26035 - $4,670.43 FY26 November Debit Card - S26036 - $1,625.00 FY26 October Meals Tax - S26037 - $55.60 7. SUBCOMMITTEES (COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE) 1. Finance and Facilities - Seamus Kelley/Jennifer McAndrew A Vote: Monthly Budget Summary/Grants/Revolving Accounts The monthly budget, grants, and revolving accounts reports were presented by Interim Deputy Superintendent Kelley, who noted that they are encumbered with staff and tuition for the year. MOTION: To Approve the Monthly Budget Summary/Grants/Revolving Accounts RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer McAndrew SECONDER: Jennifer Razi-Thomas AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman B Report: Special Education Expense and Summer Program Updates Interim Deputy Superintendent Kelley presented the Special Education Report and the Summer Program Update Report from the packet, offering to address any committee questions. Discussion included: more services to more students for less money this year, 3 consolidating programs into one building this summer, which created some savings, positive feedback received from families, positive feedback also received from surveys of families, and the wonderful opportunity for a more inclusive setting. 2. Educational Programs and Personnel - Jennifer Razi-Thomas/ Margaret Driscoll A Vote: Roosevelt School Improvement Plan Principal Venancia Cruz presented the Roosevelt School Improvement Plan. The plan centers on creating an inclusive, welcoming, and equitable learning environment to promote a sense of belonging for all, with the academic goal of achieving literacy growth for one hundred percent of learners. The plan also aims to improve student attendance, reinforce the "Roosevelt Three R's" (Respectful, Responsible, and Ready to Learn), and utilize the IXL platform to identify skill gaps and implement targeted interventions. MOTION: To Approve the Roosevelt School Improvement Plan RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer McAndrew SECONDER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman B Report: MCAS Overview Executive Director of Academics & Accountability Melanie Acevedo and Director of Academics (6-12) Nora Tsoutsis presented an overview of the 2025 spring MCAS results. The presentation included informational slides (added to minutes) and a packet summarizing the Melrose results, focusing on high-level analysis and next steps for the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Discussion included the district's priorities and next steps, with a particular focus on improving Math performance, closely examining mid- year data to monitor student progress, analyzing cohort data, and at the building level trying to identify consistent, grade-level performance gaps every year. Other key topics covered were a review of teacher licensure in content areas, enhancing communications with families, and strategies for increasing the focus on Science and Social Studies while still prioritizing ELA and Math. Finally, the group discussed how the recent change— making the MCAS no longer a requirement for high school graduation—might impact overall student progress. 2025 MCAS Overview Slides C Vote: MHS Athletic Dept. Waiver Interim Superintendent Berman presented a request for an Athletic Waiver from Athletic Director Stephen Fogarty. The waiver seeks approval for 8th-grade students to participate in the high school level girls and boys ice hockey teams to ensure team numbers. 4 MOTION: To Approve the Athletic Waiver RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Seamus Kelley SECONDER: Dorie Withey AYES: Dorie Withey, Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman 3. Policy and Planning - Matt Hartman/Margaret Driscoll A Vote: JJF Policy Mr. Hartman presented the JJF Policy as it was scheduled for its second reading and vote. MOTION: To Approve the JJF Policy RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll SECONDER: Seamus Kelley AYES: Dorie Withey , Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman B Vote: IJND and IJNDB Policies Mr. Hartman presented Policies IJND and IJNDB for a potential first vote. MOTION: To Approve Policies IJND and IJNDB RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll SECONDER: Jennifer Razi-Thomas AYES: Dorie Withey , Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman C Vote: Concussion Report Mr. Hartman presented an updated memo regarding concussions (from a previous agenda), noting that a document with additional details was added to the packet. Interim Superintendent Berman reviewed the memo and discussed with Mr. Fogarty the possible increase in reported concussion numbers. While there is no definitive explanation for the increase, factors may include greater awareness among students, coaches, families, and referees, leading to increased reporting. It was noted that the percentage of concussions remains consistent across various sports and that the report only tracks incidents for 5 grades 9-12 that occurred during district activities. MOTION: To Approve the Concussion Report RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer McAndrew SECONDER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll AYES: Dorie Withey , Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman 8. ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION Chair Withey sited the need for an Executive Session to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, Cari Berman. The Committee will not be returning to Public Session. MOTION: To Adjourn to Executive Session RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer McAndrew SECONDER: Matt Hartman AYES: Dorie Withey , Jennifer McAndrew, Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman The meeting adjourned at 8:46 PM. 9. EXECUTIVE SESSION 1. To conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel, Cari Berman. 6 Spring 2025 MCAS Overview Melanie Acevedo, Executive Director of Academics & Accountability Nora Tsoutsis, Director of Academics, 6-12 Slides Link Full Report Link School Committee Presentation 11/18/25 1 Objectives ❖ Provide an overview of Melrose Spring 2025 MCAS Results ❖ Identify high level analysis and next steps for Elementary, Middle, and High School ❖ Discuss district wide conclusions ❖ Answer questions from the committee 2 Assessment Terms to Know ❖ Tier I vs. Tier II & III Practices ❖ Proficiency vs. Growth Proficiency Growth ❖ Meeting or Exceeding Expectations 3 MCAS Results… ● Inform school and district improvement plans ● Identify curriculum needs ● Examine instructional practices ● Identify and address achievement gaps ● Support individual students and groups ● Progress monitor growth 4 Spring 2025 Melrose Public Schools MCAS Results English Language Arts Highlights Outperforming the state and surrounding districts in Meeting & Exceeding Percentages ● Grades 3-8: Melrose (61%), State (42%), Wakefield (55%), Stoneham (45%), Woburn (35%) ● Grade 10: Melrose (80%), State (51%), Wakefield (58%), Stoneham (59%), Woburn (46%) MHS grade 10 has met and exceeded 2019 scores, Grades 3-8 are increasing towards that target. ELA Grades 3-8 ELA Grade 10 Math Highlights Outperforming the state and surrounding districts in Meeting & Exceeding Percentages ● Grades 3-8: Melrose (60%), State (41%), Wakefield (53%), Stoneham (43%), Woburn (32%) ● Grade 10: Melrose (63%), State (45%), Wakefield (48%), Stoneham (57%), Woburn (36%) Math Grades 3-8 Math Grade 10 Science Highlights Outperforming the state and surrounding districts in Meeting & Exceeding Percentages ● Grades 5 & 8: Melrose (55%), State (46%), Wakefield (55%), Stoneham (51%), Woburn (37%) ● MHS (Bio): Melrose (71%), State (46%), Wakefield (49%), Stoneham (57%), Woburn (46%) Science Grades 5 & 8 MHS Bio Civics Highlights Outperforming the state and surrounding districts in Meeting & Exceeding Percentages ● Grade 8: Melrose (60%), State (39%), Wakefield (53%), Stoneham (55%), Woburn (30%)MCAS Comparison: Melrose and Local Districts 10Analysis and Next Steps by Grade Span Elementary Analysis  Highlights   Hot Spots  ★ Grade 3 & 4 Math ❖ Writing Idea Development ★ Grade 4 ELA Increase ❖ Grade 3 & 4- Fraction ★ High growth for current Application ❖ 4th & 5th grade students Disproportionality in subgroups (Black, EL, & Students w/ disabilities) 12 Elementary Next Steps Tier I Practices for All ➢ Evaluative & Non-Evaluative Feedback reset ➢ MyView & Mindset Math, and FOSS Implementation High Leverage Practices ➢ Scheduled vs. Actual Minutes of ELA, Math, and Science instruction Tier II & III Targeted Practices ➢ Data Team Meetings- ongoing cycles with 4-6 week interventions ➢ Lincoln After School Support for English Learners (ELs) ➢ Reviewing EL and Special Education services to support more grade level instruction 13 MVMMS Analysis  Highlights   Hot Spots  ❖ ★ Grade 7 ELA Writing Idea Development ❖ Overall ELA & Math ★ Grade 6 & 7 Math achievement stagnant or Standards Mastery declining ★ Grade 8 Civics ❖ Disproportionality in subgroups (Black, EL, & Students w/ disabilities) 14 MVMMS Next Steps Tier I Practices for All ➢ Evaluative & Non-Evaluative feedback reset ➢ Explore High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) for ELA & Math 6-8 ➢ Increase writing across disciplines ➢ Increase IXL opportunities at home & at school Tier II & III Targeted Practices ➢ Data Team Meetings- ongoing cycles with 4-6 week interventions ➢ Title I Reading & Math after school tutoring ➢ Reviewing EL and Special Education services to support more grade level instruction 15 MHS Analysis  Highlights   Hot Spots  ❖ Grade 10 Math achievement ★ Grade 10 ELA remains stagnant since 2021 ★ English Language Learner ❖ Math Short Answer and growth 2024-2025 Constructed Response ❖ Disproportionality in ★ High School Biology subgroups has improved slightly, but significant gap remains 16 MHS Next Steps Tier I Practices for All ➢ Evaluative & Non-Evaluative feedback reset ➢ Explore High Quality Instructional Materials (HQIM) for Algebra I, Geometry, & Algebra II ➢ Increase writing across disciplines ➢ Content Lead instructional walks Tier II & III Targeted Practices ➢ Data Team Meetings- ongoing cycles with 4-6 week interventions ➢ Increase IXL opportunities at home & at school ➢ Reviewing EL and Special Education services to support more grade level instruction 17District Wide Conclusions Overall Conclusions ➢ Melrose continues to outperform state and surrounding districts in all subjects ➢ Achievement post-pandemic has shown moderate increases, but most grades/subjects remain stagnant ➢ Triangulating MCAS Data with other sources like ACCESS provide a more complete picture of student achievement ➢ Success for many of our students, but not all- especially subgroups Black, EL, and Students w/disabilities 19 District Priorities & Next Steps ➢ Resetting feedback cycles with evaluators and educators ➢ Consistent Data Team Meeting structure & intended outcomes ➢ HQIM for ELA K to 8 and Math K to Algebra II ➢ Utilizing IXL - Mastery Development/Gap Filling, Practice & Extension ➢ Scale high-leverage instructional practices, but alter those that aren’t working for our students any longer 20Questions and Discussion 21

Transcript

▶ 0:02 Good evening and welcome to the Melrose School Committee meeting on Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. Thanks for being with us this evening. I'll now take a moment to call the role Ms. McAndrew Here. Uh, mayor Gregor. Here. Ms. Driscoll? Here. Ms. Razzie Thomas. Here. Mr. Hartman? Here. Mr. Kelly here. And I am also here. We are all present. Great. So why don't we rise if we are able to stand for the Pledge? Pledge Of Allegiance to the flag of the, in the United States of America, the Republic vote stands one nation under God with liberty and justice for all. Just a note before we begin business this evening. This meeting is being broadcasted by our friends at MMTV. And again, this meeting is being recorded.

▶ 0:54 First up on our agenda, we have public comment, so if anyone would like to speak tonight, we ask that you take a moment to sign up. Um, with that, and without any objection, I'll now open public comment. Hello, how are you? How are you? Great. Hi, I am Jerry Merose. Um, I was surprised to see on tonight's agenda that there wasn't a comprehensive plan for using the monies from the override to put back the schools the way that you want them put back. Um, you know, the, the, as we all know, the override was, um, retroactive to July 1st of this fiscal year. Um, I'm hearing rumors that you're not gonna put necessarily back in department chairs in the high school or the, the whole secondary schools.

▶ 1:54 I don't know whether that's true or not, but, you know, with all the effort that went into the override Across the whole city, um, I just can't imagine that we aren't jumping forward today with a plan to doing something. I do wanna call out a few things that I wanna caution you about. If we don't do anything different with the new money, we won't have a different school system. We heard a lot of in the o override process about, oh, we want, you know, world class school systems. Well, money doesn't do it alone. It means doing something different, not the same if we have another teacher's contract and put a lot of the money toward the teacher's contract, which I expect is gonna happen. But we don't require teachers to be there for more time

▶ 2:38 so the students can have a longer recess so that we don't have to take away, you know, ha half days for, um, um, professional development time you take, you're subtracting time from students to do something that the adults should be doing outside of school. Students deserve the time in school. In fact, I would love to see an extended day and an extended year. We know that extended days and extended years get high performing charter schools to where they are. Melo students deserve the same. Please don't start a negotiation with the teacher's union without taking these things into account. And I know the teacher's union has every right to push back on them, but at some point, you need, we have never seen the district actually respect the

▶ 3:23 children of Melrose in those contract negotiations. We've seen time and again, that what comes out of negotiation is more of the same, more money for the adults, less, fewer resources for the children, both time and money. So, I, I urge you, please have a plan. Why aren't we hit? Why haven't we hit the ground running already? But don't blow the override on teacher salaries that are unsustainable again, because then we'll be looking for another override in three or four years, because we'll need another override to sustain what you just did. And, um, and, you know, I don't know what your timeframe is on that. Uh, it's not on the agenda here, obviously, but, um, but please do that. Thank you.

▶ 4:06 Thank you. Is there anyone else this evening? Let me also check online. We don't appear to have anyone joining us, uh, virtually tonight for public comment. Um, so with that, I'm going to close public comment. And while it may be closed this evening, again, please know that you can always email us with any questions, concerns, opinions, or ideas. The next item we have on the agenda is the report of the student representatives. I'm recognizing that they may not be here this evening. I know things are pretty busy. Um, so we'll go ahead and move forward with announcements of the chair and then continue on with our agenda tonight. So, I just wanna start off this evening, um, taking just a moment to say a sincere thank you

▶ 4:53 to our community for passing a historic override that will benefit both our schools and our city. Um, truthfully, thank you. And I think as a next step, I wanted the superintendent to share a little bit more about the process we will be engaging in between now and December. And so, superintendent, if you wanna share some more, I think we would all learn to love to learn from you. Great. Um, so thank you Madam Chair. Um, so I, I do have a few notes 'cause I just wanna make sure that I don't miss anything. So pardon me if I'm reading and referencing, um, a little bit my computer. So, um, I wanna ensure that I thank all of the voters in the city of Melrose, um, and show my deepest appreciation for their willingness

▶ 5:33 to invest in the city. Um, and especially the schools. So, not only do the schools have a proposed appropriation of a little over $3.8 million, um, in the instruction and learning budget, but they will also benefit greatly from the proposed appropriations for DPW and it. So that includes school buildings and maintenance improvements as well as technology needs. Um, specifically I'll just mention a few of those projects that are, uh, will hopefully come to fruition. Um, uh, bathroom renovation and MHS, some front stair and sidewalk repairs, which really are a safety issue at, um, the middle school, adding security doors at Winthrop to increase safety for students, staff and families. Um, some school security cameras

▶ 6:18 and elementary Chromebook replacements. So just to name a few. So, I mean, this is really an exciting time. Um, as someone who's been here for a long time to have this amount and this override it, it really is, um, an exciting time. There has been a lot of work that's been done in the last two weeks since the override passed. Um, we will continue to do hard work and planning, um, in the coming months as we discuss the second half of FY 26, as well as the plan for FY 27. So I wanna share with the school committee and the public the immediate next steps and timeline for allocating the anticipated FY 26 supplemental budget funds. So, deputy Superintendent Kelly and I have been invited to attend City Council this Thursday, November 18th.

▶ 7:01 So two days from now to share information with the council members regarding the mayor's FY 26 supplemental budget request. City Council's primary responsibility is to vote on the total dollar amount for the school department and all other city of departments. But we're here and representing schools, so we're the most important at this moment in time. Um, and this vote aligns directly with the wording of the ballot question that passed. So the council is then required to, or the council is required to complete this action by voting. Um, and this includes setting the new tax rate. And that all needs to be done by December 1st, which is, is why we're moving this forward pretty quickly. Um, state law requires the council

▶ 7:41 to establish the total school appropriation, but it, and it does not give them the authority to dictate how the school committee allocates those funds internally. So once the school committee formally approves the total supplemental amount requested by the mayor, the funding will come before you, um, most likely in the next two school committees in December. So in short, city council votes on the total amount first, then the school committee allocates the details into previously approved categories. Um, and then this will allow, uh, Melrose Public Schools to begin calendar year 2026 with the newly appropriated supplemental budget amounts. Um, so, and then kind of to look forward to next steps.

▶ 8:23 So while the override funding is necessary and a historic investment for our schools, I wanna recognize that it does not fix everything. And PO positions that have been eliminated over the last two years will be examined in detail, um, positions that directly affect student growth and achievement will be prioritized. We're excited to bring back 17 positions throughout the district, and we'll need to be mindful and make decisions based upon student data and research. Most importantly, this year has given us an opportunity to examine what is impacting student achievement. We're currently quarter of the way through the school year, and there are some things that are going well as measured by our student achievement

▶ 9:02 and growth that we've seen so far. Um, given, uh, that FY 26 is actually underway and we created a balanced budget to, to start this year. Um, there will be some, some conditions that will remain unchanged for the rest of the school year. So I'll just give you, for example, we have some contracted personnel. So, um, Jason Merrill and Brian Corrigan, um, who, uh, will remain in their current roles as the secondary principal and the deputy principal, um, for this school year. Um, the leadership team has started to make, um, I don't wanna say decisions to brainstorm and, uh, do some preliminary planning for the FY 27 budget cycle. And we're going to, with that review the needs of the second half of FY 26.

▶ 9:48 Um, our future planning for FY 27 will be guided by comprehensive data analysis of student achievement and the priorities that we've outlined in our strategic plan. Um, we must determine what changes need to be made to have the biggest impact on student learning, growth and achievement in order to ensure that every student will be engaged, challenged, enriched, and self-directed learner upon graduation. Um, I'm just gonna look to Superintendent Kelly, uh, deputy Superintendent Kelly, and make sure, did I miss anything there? No, thank you. I I just would, uh, reiterate too that this is not our typical process. Typically, we would propose a budget, approve that, send that to city council for consideration.

▶ 10:30 And this is kind of the other way, this is, uh, council considering the supplemental appropriation then, uh, if, if approved, that would send that back to us to discuss and, and, um, uh, assigned to the approved school committee categories. So, uh, but I appreciate Superintendent Berman's approach, very thoughtful, very deliberate, always looking to strengthen the instructional core and what's gonna be the best outcomes for kids. So, um, very much appreciate that. But, um, I'm happy to answer any questions that make 'em up along the way. Yeah, so I think, um, between, um, Mr. Kelly and myself, we can answer any questions that you have about the process. Um, I just wanna keep in mind that the money has not

▶ 11:05 yet been appropriated, um, to us. Um, and so I just don't want us to get ahead of ourselves. I wanna ensure we're respect the role, um, of our city counselors in this process as well. Um, certainly there'll be opportunities, hopefully for us to discuss, um, but just don't wanna get ahead of ourselves. So with that, I'll, we can take any questions. Mr. Hartman. Go ahead. Um, thank you superintendent for, for the clarity on, on the process here. And I also wanna express my thanks to the, to the city and the voters as well for the support they've shown to the schools and, um, to the rest of the city needs. Um, and I appreciate the, the clarity you're providing in terms of how you're breaking this down in your process.

▶ 11:46 And, um, I just thought I would clarify a little bit about, around the process of the city council. Like we know that they have a couple of meetings that they have to put put into the appropriation process. And mayor, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you're probably more familiar with that process in your background. Um, but that gives us time from the school side to think about those things and to converse about those things while the city council goes through their process to finalize what those numbers are that we will eventually see. Right. So that they've gotta have committee process and then they've gotta have a final vote on it as well before it comes to us. Uh, just to clarify, that process will actually occur really quickly.

▶ 12:18 Jen Grigoraitis: Mm-hmm. So the city needs to set a tax rate by December 1st. That tax rate has to include the full appropriation for the year. So that is the hard deadline for the city council to, to create any additional appropriation. So if you've looked on their agenda, they, the order already went down to them. Um, last night. The committee meeting is this coming Thursday the 20th, and then they're scheduled to take a final vote on November 24th. So it will be fully complete, plus the tax rate will be set prior to the next meeting of the school committee. Great. Thank you. Ms. McCain. Go ahead. Thank you. Um, just wanna add my, um, my thanks to the community, to the voters, to all of the volunteers who worked so hard, um, to get this historic override, um,

▶ 13:00 Jennifer McAndrew: passed for our city and our schools, and especially for our kids. Um, I echo everything that's been said. I, I just wanna put a fine point if I could, on a point that the interim superintendent made, which is that this body, if it's the will of the city council to appropriate, um, in the manner proposed by the mayor in her memo, um, will appropriate. Um, and sort of what will come to us is the operating budget of the school district. Um, that supplemental appropriation, um, the, which, if you're following along in the city council materials that they have is 3.8 million of a supplemental budget for this year, including restoring the 17 positions. Um, that, but the total appropriation that will impact the schools,

▶ 13:49 Jennifer McAndrew: um, from the supplemental budget as proposed if it's passed by the council, um, for the school, for the schools is $8.7 million. So that is literally almost $9 million. Mm-hmm. Um, of the 13 and a half being, um, appropriated towards the school. So that includes $4.3 million in school building maintenance and improvements projects there. Um, the proposed list is in the DPW part of the budget, but it goes directly to school projects. Um, the instructional learning piece, which is the piece that would come to the school committee is 3.8 million. And then there's also technology pieces within the IT line of the city budget. Again, that would be appropriated to the city it, but it serves the schools of half a million.

▶ 14:38 Jennifer McAndrew: So I just wanted to really put a fine point on that to say how, um, much of an impact this override, um, had on the school department and the, the functioning and operation of the schools. Um, overall, it also, I think, makes the point that you hear all of us talking about ad nauseum during the regular budget processes, which is process, which is how connected the city departments and the schools are, and how all of that serves. Um, so much of the city budget serves our schools and our students. So I, I really, um, appreciate all the hard work that's gone into the council process thus far. All the hard work that's being done, um, by the superintendent, deputy superintendent, and their colleagues, including the principals

▶ 15:26 who I know are all weighing in. Um, and just really appreciate the hard work and look forward to, uh, what's next for us after the city council acts. Thanks, Ms. Rezi Thomas? Yes. I wanna say, um, thank you to our superintendent, um, for explaining this and making it quite, uh, clear for the community. And, um, thank you so much to the mayor for putting the override to the public to vote on and thank you to the citizens of Melrose for investing in our schools and our city in a historic way. I'm so grateful and it's been a beautiful thing to think about coming to this meeting. So it's, uh, uh, I just appreciate the courage and the, um, efforts that everyone has put into this process. So thank you all, and especially to the,

▶ 16:14 the voters of Melrose. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? If not, thank you for laying out a very clear process. Again, thank you to the community. I think it's clear that this will benefit our schools and our city tremendously. Uh, so look forward to additional conversations in December and also learning more about the city council and some of the next steps we're taking too. So I appreciate it. Next on the agenda, we have outreach reports a little different that we're coming so early with outreach reports today, but does anybody have anything that they wanna add? Mr. Kelly, go Ahead. Sure. I just wanted to update everybody that I went to the MASC conference last week for a couple of days on the Cape.

▶ 17:00 Uh, Ms. Driscoll was there in her position as the head of SBO and our incoming school committee members were also there. So it was a great opportunity to get together and do some really good professional development workshops around how school committees can function well. And I would truthfully encourage, um, everybody to try to take advantage of it in the future. I thought it was, um, a step above sort of charting the course. It was really a helpful meeting, um, lots of opportunity depending on what you're interested in to get some good professional development and hear from other school districts. Um, some key takeaways on behalf of Melrose is we, thank God we're not regionalized. That was one of the big ones.

▶ 17:40 Um, um, uh, and a variety of other things, but I attended a number of workshops that I think would be helpful, um, as a member of the school committee. So thank you for nominating me. Thank you for attending. Anyone else? Mr. Kelly? Go ahead. Sure. Thank you. I'd just like to, um, state for the community that at the next school committee meeting when we have our caucus, I intend to seek to be the chair for the 2026, um, calendar year. Thank you for letting us know. Alright, next we have a report in our packet for the superintendent mid-year of feedback evaluation. So I just wanna share in your packet, you're gonna find a memo that synthesizes the formative mid-year feedback that was provided by each of you, um, regarding the performance

▶ 18:27 of interim superintendent Gary Berman. As you can see, the overall consensus is that Ms. Berman has provided skillful, steady, and highly effective leadership during a period marked by significant organizational transition and budgetary challenges. Based on the feedback thus far, I believe that Ms. Berman is on track toward proficiency by the end of the year. I wanna also just give anyone an opportunity to add any additional thoughts or reactions to the document before we move on. So is there anything anyone else might wanna add? Ms. Razzi? Thomas, go ahead. I Just wanna mention that six months ago we were in a pretty unsteady state. We were unsure of how the impacts of the cuts were gonna be on our educational system,

▶ 19:13 and we had a superintendent in his first year decide to leave us. So I just appreciate the courage and the willingness that you've shown, um, superintendent Berman to step up to the plate and take care of our district, take care of our students, take care of our families, and take care of our educators during a time of great uncertainty. And now I hope you get to enjoy some of the fruits of your labor through getting to decide what to do with some of the override money that we're going to receive eventually. Um, I just, uh, really respect the way that you, um, developed a vision very quickly and helped us through a, a time of uncertainty. So thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Dco. Um, I think that, um,

▶ 19:56 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: interim Superintendent Berman has come in, um, as, uh, Ms. Rousey Thomas said at somewhat of a challenging time. And I've particularly appreciated your, uh, intense focus on students and on the mission of this district. You are student centered, you are, uh, student focused. I've seen that in your practice for 20 years. And I think it really speaks to the kind of person you are first before you're an educator, before you're a leader. And I think you've done that unfailingly. And so I think that is a, a hallmark of you as an individual and a leader. And also shows dedication not only to the students, uh, we serve, but also to all the community members who supported us throughout your showing that you care,

▶ 20:46 care about students, first families, and all of those taxpayers who serve them by way of your leadership has been very impactful and I appreciate it. Thank you. Anyone else? I'll add that in accordance to Ms. Berman's contract, the committee is required to notify her of the process for hiring a superintendent for the 26 27 school year by December 31st, 2025. So consequently, I would anticipate that we'll be discussing that process during our upcoming December meetings, and I wanted to just share that proactively here tonight as well. And with that, I will turn it over to you, superintendent to move on to our next item, which is announcements of the superintendent. Great. Okay. Well, um, thank you.

▶ 21:35 First, let me just thank you all for your, your feedback, um, school committee, um, and for the support, um, not only from you but for also for all of the stakeholders as I have taken on this role, um, as interim superintendent. Um, it is my pleasure, um, certainly to serve the community and I, I am looking forward to the next half a year. Um, does make it a little easier with, uh, you know, uh, an override and some real positives going into the year. We are gonna have some challenges as well, which we know, um, but, but hopefully we have really great people, really great team, really great community, um, who certainly has demonstrated that they're behind, uh, the schools and the city, um, to do their best.

▶ 22:16 So thank you. Um, and then the, my real stuff, I guess, um, the, you have a personnel report, um, it is in packet and updated, happy to review any of the open positions. I do have a list here. I will not read them to you unless you would really, anyone would really like to hear them. Um, just as a reminder, those were all positions. I like to say every single meeting that were in our approved budget from the spring, um, other than the two reading specialist positions that we put in, when we get got that additional chapter 70 funding, um, we have been working on hiring those two people. I believe that we have secured one. Um, we are, we are hoping, we are currently, uh, working on getting that person, um, signed, sealed,

▶ 23:02 and delivered to hopefully come on board, um, within the next few weeks. So that is exciting that we have gotten someone for that position. So happy to answer any questions. Okay. Okay. I'll ask one just 'cause So, you know, I think it's important for us to, um, anticipate this wonderful opportunity, but also be realistic about the best times of the year to hire people. So what are you seeing in terms of hiring in general right now is like, it's not the best time of year to hire educators, right? Teachers and reading specialists? No, no. I mean, um, there's a time for hiring educators, right? It's usually probably April, March, April. Um, we have some graduates, people who are newly licensed people who may be looking

▶ 23:52 to make changes for their following school year. Um, so certainly that is it. We also know that there's a huge decrease in the amount of, of people who want to be educators. Mm-hmm. Um, who are going through, um, programs, teacher licensure programs. So, um, I know those numbers were discussed over the last couple years about the decrease that we actually see of, of people who want to do this work and who want to serve. Um, so that makes it hard just in itself. Mm-hmm. Um, but, but certainly this is not, and it's hard, right? We, we see, especially with these specialized positions, we often see it with our paraprofessionals, our special education staff, um, our related service providers. So like occupational therapists, um, speech

▶ 24:32 and language pathologists, they, they're hard to get just in general. And then they can also compare, you know, if they're getting interviewed by multiple districts, they can compare the salaries. Mm-hmm. Right? So that's why, another reason why we need to be competitive. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, and then second, you also have, um, an enrollment update, um, which has, uh, remained fairly consistent. Um, and again, happy to answer any questions that you may have, um, about that. Okay. That concludes My segment. Thank you. Uh, next on our agenda, we'll go through the consent agenda tonight. So today we have the following items listed. First, we have the school committee regular mini meeting,

▶ 25:25 minutes of October 28th, 2025. We have the cafeteria report. We have the 2026 Quebec field trip date change, and the warrant says follows FY 26 school. That is S 2 6 0 3 1 in the amount of six hundred forty one thousand six hundred forty one thousand seven hundred sixteen cents. Then we have FY 26 October debit card number two, that is S 2 6 0 3 2 in the amount of $205. Then we have FY 26 refunds and officials. That is S 2 60 0 3 3 in the amount of $5,126 and 99 cents. Then we have FY 26 October M-B-M-M-S student activity wire. That is S 2 6 0 3 4 in the amount of $3,720 even. Then we have FY 26 October high school student activity wire, that is S 2 6 0 3 5 in the amount of $4,670 and 43 cents.

▶ 26:20 Then we have the FY 26 November debit card, that is S 2 6 0 3 6 in the amount of 1000, uh, $625. And finally, we have the FY 26 October meals tax, that is S 2 60 37, the amount of $55 and 60 cents. Would anyone like to pull anything off of the consent agenda this evening? Motion to approve. I have a motion for approval made by Mr. Kelly, seconded by Mr. Hartman. All in favor. And that passes unanimously. We will now move into subcommittee work. We'll start with Mr. Kelly, chairing finance and facilities. Sorry. Okay. Good evening everybody. Welcome to Finance and Facilities. Tonight we have a couple of agenda topics. One is the year to date spend, the grant report and the offset projections.

▶ 27:19 Does anybody have any questions for the deputy superintendent? Deputy superintendent? Do you have anything to share with us? Just That we're, we're pretty well encumbered for the year now at this point with all staff and, and, and tuitions. And so, um, we're, we're pretty well set there and, and, uh, things are on track. Thank you. Okay. Is there a motion to approve the reports made by Ms. McAndrews? Seconded by Ms. Raz Thomas. All in favor, and that passes unanimously. Now moving on to the special education expense report and the summer programs update, which I think Ms. Acevedo, are you coming for this one? I Thank Mr. Okay, Next question. Yep. So you have two memos there. One is the special ed expense update

▶ 28:02 that we typically get, um, monthly. And then also there was a summary for the summer programming, um, that, um, the, the team put together and be happy to answer any questions you may have about either of those. Okay. Any questions? Uh, Mr. Rosie Thomas? Um, Just a few comments and, um, it seems like we offered more services to more students for less money. Yes. And I know that there was a, a reconfiguration of where we offered the program. Is that true? Like everyone was at the Roosevelt for the younger kids, or am I you just explain that A little bit. You're correct. That's, you know, um, high levels of collaboration between, uh, Ms. Acevedo and, um, Ms. Berman's special education department to, uh,

▶ 28:51 align those two programs. Um, and so the, um, Roosevelt School was crowded this summer, but it was also, um, one-stop shopping, which was great. There was some, um, savings realized there. And, um, to that, that team's credit the, you know, watching, um, budgeted dollars and, and building programming for students. I would say that's correct. There was probably more opportunities for students and the costs to come in under budget. Um, do we get any feedback from parents and students of whether it was successful from their, their end? I only received positive feedback on the program, so Okay. We did survey some, some, um, caregivers and got very positive feedback, um, on it. We did ask students to commit to all five weeks, um,

▶ 29:37 four days a week, which is, is a challenge summer. Yeah. Um, and, and we did have some pockets of, of students who, you know, were away or at camp or whatever. But, um, overall, um, having students more consistently in front, um, in front of teachers and, and with peers, um, it was a really positive experience. We did use some of the, um, title funding, um, to supplement our out of our operating budget as well for that. But we were able to stay within that. And can you explain how it was more inclusive? Yeah. So we had an opportunity to include, um, many of our special education students in, um, in some of the smaller groups. So they were almost like co-taught experiences, um, where it was a general education student

▶ 30:21 and a special education student where they were able to be, you know, pulled to the side or pulled out for small periods of times to get their services out outlined in their IEP. But then the other amount of time during that school day, they were able to engage in academic work and some fun stuff too, um, in order to replicate the school day and be consistent through the summer. I appreciate that everything was unsiloed in that way, and I think that's a, a great experience for everybody to be all together. So great job. Thank you for doing all of this. Any any other questions, Mr. Hartman? Um, thank you and thank you for the questions as well. It makes me think about, uh, that just iterating, this is a,

▶ 31:01 a voluntary program, right? So we're, we have to, um, encourage students to come to this for the summer and, uh, that can be challenging for many students. And I think at some point, maybe in the future, we could think about how we measure success, uh, in terms of the impact of the program. If we can look back at students who have gone through the program and students who haven't and try to figure out, um, you know, where that puts them after the summer, that might just be a request for the future. Yeah. And, and they are progress monitored throughout the summer with their beginning year scores or beginning of summer scores and then the end of summer, and then monitored as they come back, um,

▶ 31:31 at the beginning of the school year. They also get some like, progress notes that are sent home to families to let the families know the progress that they've made. Um, so we are collecting that data and we'll be analyzing it, um, as we look at student growth. Yeah, I think it could be helpful for the community to know as well, so that as we encourage students who need the extra support during the summer mm-hmm. It's something we can have them look back on and, and see this is a successful program for them to participate in and helps their kids along through the, through the way. Agreed. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? If not, that concludes finance and facilities. Thank you very much.

▶ 32:07 Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Next we will have educational programs and personnel chaired by Ms. Razzi Thomas. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to Educational Programs and Personnel. Um, we have a bunch of things on our agenda, and I'm gonna move the, um, order around a tiny bit. First, if we can do the Roosevelt School, um, improvement plan draft and take a vote on that. And then after that we're gonna do the winter waiver, um, and then we'll get to the MCA results. Um, the first two things we need to take a vote on and the MCAS results will just be discussing. So, Ms. Cruz, thank you for being here. It's late. We appreciate all that you're doing every day for the Roosevelt Ravens and the larger community.

▶ 33:01 Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here as a humble representative of the community. Um, I'm really proud to serve the 367 students and our amazing staff of educators, paraprofessionals, our custodians, our, um, amazing admin assistant who keeps me in line every single day, um, our nurse. So I'm really proud to be here and represent them. Um, so our overarching goal, um, for our accelerated improvement plan, while it is just a one year plan, I feel as though it really is a two year plan, if you will, is to cultivate an inclusive, welcoming and equitable learning environment where all, all of our stakeholders feel a genuine sense of belonging, thereby leading to literacy growth for a hundred percent

▶ 33:59 of our learning learners. And when I say all of our stakeholders, I mean all of our stakeholders, I mean our students, our staff, our families, our community members, because when we feel a sense of belonging, when we feel a sense that we truly are one community, we want to be here, we want to support our learners, we feel comfortable being ourselves, we feel comfortable, um, being vulnerable, asking for help supporting one another, um, that truly does need to happen for us to nurture the whole child. Um, this work really, I believe, started last year in my first year as principal when, um, my goal was not only to make it through the year and survive, which I'm glad to say I did, um, but it really did come down to trying to, um,

▶ 35:00 establish a sense of belonging. Because when children feel as though they belong, they wanna be at school. So we've been, along with just Patty trying to improve our attendance. Um, we have really revamped our PBIS program. We, uh, totally changed our acronym from Raven, which only 17% of our community, including staff members, knew what the acronym Raven stood for. Um, I'm not going to test my three parents that are here, so you can rest assured I'm not gonna ask. Um, but we changed to the three Rs because we want our students to live and breathe what it means to be a Roosevelt raven. We are respectful, we are responsible, and we are ready to learn. Um, and so in the past year, we've implemented, um,

▶ 35:55 assemblies, um, our students are really taking pride and ownership in being Roosevelt Ravens. So that has really been, you know, step one. Um, we brought the T back to the PTO, I'm proud to say, um, in past years, the T had been nowhere to be seen. Um, I'm happy to say that we have a PTO liaison that regularly participates in our PTO. Um, our PTO has partnered really, really closely with our teachers now. Um, and I feel as though we have much more of a partnership, um, which helps us to really dig into this plan, um, in terms of building that sense of belonging so that we can focus on our goal of really digging in to increasing our students' potential for literacy growth. Um, the theory of action is that

▶ 36:59 if we systemically cultivate an inclusive culture of belonging amongst all of our stakeholders, while implementing high fidelity, culturally responsive literacy instruction and proactively dismantling systemic barriers based on timely data, then student engagement will surge non-academic barriers will diminish, and adult collective efficacy will increase so that the intentional connection between culture and instruction results in a hundred percent literacy growth for every single learner in sustained equitable outcomes. And so our focus this year, while it's been a little bit clunky, because we've had a lot of change, a lot of reduction in staff, um, we've had some changes in leadership, um, a

▶ 37:50 reduction in, um, we once upon a time had a full-time assistant principal and we went down to a halftime assistant principal along with, um, half of a special education coordinator. Um, we reduced our classroom size. So we're, uh, we no longer have the luxury of instructional coaches, so we're really still adjusting. Um, so we're, we're working with what we have and trying to create a culture around data analysis and getting comfortable with the routine of that data analysis. And I think one of the things that we've had to do is, um, really have some conversations about what data meetings have been in the past, um, and what we don't want them to be anymore, what we want them to be now, and who they need to be about, um,

▶ 38:52 and why we need them to be completely about students and focused on students. So we've been having a lot of those conversations. Um, I'm hoping to establish a data team, um, and establish a more of a formal six week data cycle with that team in addition to the data cycles that we have within the building already with our, with our grade level teams. Um, but you have that all in your packet. Um, in addition to that, um, our educators this year since we've moved into using IXL from, um, using i-Ready, um, our educators are becoming more proficient with IXL. And so the goal is for our educators to use it much more strategically to identify student skill gaps and implement targeted interventions

▶ 39:55 and to track progress towards grade level mastery, fully integrate IXL into daily and weekly instructional decision making to ensure interventions are precise, aligned to student needs and measurable. Um, and the reason why I think that this is so incredibly important is because while we have, um, many of our students really performing very, very well, there's some really major discrepancies, um, between all of our learners and our subgroups, namely our multilingual learners and our special education students, um, and also our students that would be qualifying for free and reduced lunch if we were still doing that. So does anybody have any questions? Thank you for that overview. Really appreciate it.

▶ 40:46 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Um, yes, this is a very comprehensive plan, and just one comment is that it's fine if you have it for two years, and I'm encouraging through, um, Ms. Veto and through this, uh, superintendent to just have those benchmark data points. So like next year for all the plans to be like, okay, we're shooting for this percentage, we're shooting for this decrease, or this increase in, you know, but this is such a good roadmap. Thank you. Any questions, comments from the committee? Yes, Mr. Driscoll. Uh, I just wanted to say thank you for a lot of hard work, and I know, um, we all recognize and appreciate that nobody starts at ground zero and we all stand on others' shoulders. So, um, I just wanted to remember with great fondness

▶ 41:30 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: and appreciation long term, um, administrative assistant. And prior to that lunch lady, Evelyn Lovett, who was with the Roosevelt community, um, just, she just loved the Roosevelt family so much. We lost her two weeks ago, but she was incredibly dedicated to the Roosevelt community with her head and her whole heart. And we know that you'll continue that leg, uh, legacy, um, in her honor and on your own. So thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you very much. Any comments or questions from the com, the rest of the committee? Thank you for all the work that you've put into this and we ap we really appreciate it, and we look forward to see what comes next. And we hope, Hey, Thomas, you. Oh, sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry.

▶ 42:17 No, go aheads. Okay. That's Last minute, last minute hand raise there. Um, thank you as well for the, the report. And I think one thing that's evident is the importance of the tools that we offer IXL being the tool we're offering now. Um, and I, I think it's, it's great how you've kind of structured into two different ways of how you're implementing it. There's the, the kind of background of what is the structure of reviewing these things, and then what is the structure in the classroom. Um, the one thing I I, it's more of a comment than a question. I, I think it's, it's, um, it important for for us to remember that over the last few years we've gone through a lot of reductions in our ability

▶ 42:50 to provide the curriculum and appropriate tools in the classroom. So now I think we have a period of consistency where we can hopefully for a few years be able to use tools like IXL and understand their impact. And I think that's one thing to reflect on, maybe as we're going through the plan is, um, give us feedback about if that's the right tool, if there are more tools that we need. Uh, I think we have some financial flexibility built into the way that the override is structured for a few years to make sure that we're able to have those conversations again and not be so focused on what are we cutting next year to make the budget work. Um, so I think that's a really important takeaway from,

▶ 43:23 from looking at the tools that you're presenting to us as, as how you're gonna implement it in the school. Thank you. Thank you. Do you do everyone motion to approve? Yes. Being here. Oh, thank you. A motion to approve made by, okay. Second. Okay. All in favor? Okay. That motion was made by Ms. McAndrew and second by mr. And that is seven in favor. Thank you Ms. Cruz for Thank you. This accelerated improvement plan. Moving on to our second item, which will be the winter waiver. That's for, um, JV hockey, for girls hockey as well as the boys hockey. Um, and we don't have Mr. Fogerty here, I don't believe so. Will you speak to this for us? Um, sure. Mr. Foreman. Um, I will do my best. Um, so, um, given the fact, um, in order to continue

▶ 44:16 with the success and, and make these teams whole, we are looking for, um, our, uh, eighth graders in both, uh, girls Ice hockey and, um, boys JV ice hockey for our eighth graders to be able to participate in, um, our high school sport. So although Mr. Merrill does oversee both buildings, both buildings are actually operated separately. So we do believe that according to the MIAA as we interpret it, you would still need to vote, I guess, right? This is a vote, um, to, um, to approve that, um, eighth graders would be able to participate in, um, these high school sports. And we've done this for many sports over the years at many points. So if we need to make a, uh, a sports team hold to run it,

▶ 45:04 it's, it's a good opportunity for those eighth graders to be brought up. Any questions or comments from the committee? Yes, Mr. Kelly? Yes. Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Any, any questions before we go with that? We have a second. Second from Ms. Withi. All in favor that passes unanimously seven in favor. And that takes us to our next big item, the big item of the night, um, the MCAS results from the spring of 2025. Uh, lots of good news in here, as well as lots of areas to improve upon. Thank you for coming to us, um, Ms. Acevedo and Missus, and you guys did a great job with this overview. I really appreciate it. Take us away. Alright. Um, no, do you wanna introduce yourself first and we'll?

▶ 45:52 Good evening. My name is Nora Suis and this year I've had the pleasure of working as the director of academics. Um, and so Mel and I have worked with Carrie Berman very closely and Principal Merrill, um, to ensure that we make the community proud and that we make sure that we sustain the work during this challenging time and now exciting time as we're, as we're moving forward. Great. Um, so thank you for having us here tonight. I'm excited to be here with Missus as we discuss the spring 2025 MCA results. Um, this year, the two of us have partnered with each other to help move the needle forward in teaching and learning pre-K to 12 here in Melrose. Um, we both have a similar belief and high expectations for all learners, all staff,

▶ 46:31 and especially ourselves, although there are several slides tonight, some of them are quick references or visual data representations, and we'll skip through them quickly. We'll be sure to add these, um, to the full report and as well as the meeting minutes, so if anybody wants to go back to any they can. Um, so our objectives tonight, we have three main objectives. First, we're gonna provide a high level overview of the results of the MCAS from 2025 spring. Next, we're gonna identify high level analysis and next steps for elementary, middle, and high school. And then we're gonna synthesize everything, everything together, um, with a few district-wide conclusions and next steps. Um, and we wanna save time, um, for us to be able

▶ 47:13 to have questions and the discussions. If, if we have any, um, you have seen me enough in these data presentations, I always like to start with previewing some vocabulary for you. Um, not all of us are educators and don't use these terms in our everyday lives. Uh, so three things you're gonna see today are tiered practices. Um, that top picture in the top right, um, I actually like this one. A lot of people use the stack triangles. I like this one because it shows tier one is everybody, everybody is included in tier one. Um, that's the blue triangle. The green triangle are tier two. So tier two practices are things that we, um, use on a targeted group of students. A student is never a tier. You will not hear, um, Ms.

▶ 47:57 T and I at any point tonight refer to a student as a tier. A tier is an intervention or a program that we're using. Um, and then tier three are those really specialized in individualized, um, interventions. So we talk in the report, um, that you all have as well as in our slides tonight about tier one practices versus tier two and three practices. Um, as always, when I come to present data, um, we're talking about proficiency and growth proficiency is how are students doing against a benchmark growth is how are they doing usually over time? And then in MCAS, when we talk about meeting or exceeding expectations, the simplest way to think about it is students passed if they're meeting or exceeding expectations.

▶ 48:38 We're talking about the number of students who have passed their MCAS. Um, so those are the three that I think will come up most frequently tonight. Um, but feel free to ask any questions that may come up along the way. So when we started the school year, and actually this started way back in June, we talked about accountability, belonging, and consistency, and the importance that every single student in the district matters and that we need to make sure that we're ensuring their growth and their progress during their time in Melrose. Um, MCAS comes into play because we use that data, um, to inform everything that we do. So it starts at the high level when we see how we make our decisions for school and for the district.

▶ 49:19 But then as we kind of go deeper, we look at it to determine our curriculum choices, um, our instructional practices to identify the gaps in the areas that we're doing well, what we need to replicate, replicate what we need to change, how to support individual students, and how do we monitor their progress to make sure that we get them where they need to be. So it matters. It matters that we get this information and it's actually helpful and it's actually exciting data to get. Um, because there are moments where I think we can celebrate what we're doing. Um, in times that we're like, you know what, maybe we need to make some changes. Um, so the next four slides, um, you may be familiar with,

▶ 49:58 they were what I shared out to the entire community when I, um, gave a brief overview and a teaser of this presentation back in the very end of September, beginning of October. Um, we're not gonna spend much time talking about the actual results slides that you'll see. Um, you'll notice in ELA math and science, there's a bar graph for performance distribution and then scores over time for grades three through eight and grade 10. So what we really like about these charts is it is that it gives us the balcony view of how our students are doing over time. Um, and our goal ultimately is, if you look at the bar graphs, is to see green and blue. We want all of our students to be proficient. We want our students to eventually move

▶ 50:41 to meet expectations, and we want to eliminate the red and we want to eliminate the yellow. That is our goal, um, over time as students are working with us in the district. So the same is true for math. You can see our results there. Um, those three bars at the top are separated out, elementary, middle, and high school. Um, but in some of our, um, materials will reference non-high school, which is grades three through eight. And then some will reference, um, will break apart elementary and middle school so that we can get a fuller picture of what's happening here in Melrose. And for science, um, we are seeing upward trends. Open side is a curriculum that we're continuing to invest in. Uh, we're wanting our students to, to think and argue

▶ 51:25 and, um, ask questions like scientists and engineers. And so we're seeing that in that foundation in the middle school. And as they proceed to high school, we're seeing sort of the trends with biology as students are really invested in the sciences. And then lastly, we have civics. Um, a quick note about civics. Civics was first, um, this was our first official year of implementation statewide in Massachusetts. Um, we had participated as a district in some field testing in 2024. So the hope, although I'm not sure, 'cause Jessie sometimes does random things, um, I anticipate that we'll see those same kind of charts over time as, um, the civics exam is given to eighth graders. Um, and what we put here is we just thought it was really

▶ 52:12 nice to see the, the trends in the sixth grade and the seventh grade, eighth grade, and 10th grade, um, comparing it to districts that are nearby. So just Wakefield, Stoneham, Wilburn and the state and just seeing how our students are progressing as they move during their time, um, from middle school to high school. And just the fact that we are really invested to make sure that our students are doing well. So it's, it's the middle school is an area that we are fully invested in and we're wanting to make sure that we see the progress that students are making. Alright, so let's get into the fun. Um, so for each grade, you can go to the next slide, Dory. Thank you. Um, what we did is we did highlights

▶ 52:58 and hot spots, spots. So highlights are things that are really great and we wanna celebrate. Um, hotspot are areas we wanna kind of dig into a little bit more. Um, so a major el highlight of the elementary grade results this year is that grade three and four have returned to their pre pandemic achievement level in math, which is awesome. Um, that means that the percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations now is the same or higher as it was in spring of 2019. We've been able to close some of the unfinished learning gaps in math through targeted teacher tables, and a focus on utilizing supplemental materials such as mindset math to strengthen students' conceptual understanding as opposed to relying on rote memorization

▶ 53:37 and procedural fluency. Um, fourth grade ELA also a great achievement for us. Um, in 2024, we had 53% of students meeting or exceeding expectations. In 2025, that jumped up to 73%. Um, and although I can't say for certain, as I'm walking around and visiting classrooms and talking to principals, um, I don't think my view has everything to do with it. But I think the shifts that came with the instruction with my view have some, had been having some impacts, particularly in the fourth grade, as students are switching from that reading to learn, Nope, learning to read, to reading to learn stage. Um, we're seeing a lot of shifts towards the science of reading in, in background building, um, in word work,

▶ 54:24 any of those kinds of things that we weren't necess necessarily seeing with our Reading Street materials. So this was a promising kind of jump for us. Um, and to see it across multiple schools and across multiple, um, groups of students, um, is a promising, a promising antidote. Um, with our, my View materials we're in year three of our implementation. So, um, and then obviously there are a few areas we wanna focus on based on our results. Um, one of the areas we saw in many spots was writing, um, in general. So open response questions, constructed response questions, math answers, where they had to prove their answer, those kinds of things. One of the areas that really, um, concerned me the most,

▶ 55:09 I would say is the idea development of writing when it came to essays during ELA. Um, and you'll see this again, um, as we move up to the secondary. So what it means is that our students, and when you look at their sample writing, which we are able to do as educators, they're writing a lot. So it's not necessarily a stamina issue. Um, it's they're, they're writing a lot, they're using evidence from the text, but they're not answering the question that's being asked. So as we're working with teachers on teaching writing, it's really that purpose of the purpose in the audience that, that we're writing for. So how do we make a, a concerted effort to really make sure that those are, um, kind of fully embedded in our writer's workshop.

▶ 55:53 Um, and then the area we've been talking about for years, um, disproportionality in our subgroups, um, we are really focusing right now on three in particular our black and African American students, our students with disabilities, and then our English language learners or our recently flipped students. So, um, when you leave English Learner Services, you're monitored for four years. And so we are able to track data for our students who are currently receiving services and the four years after they're, um, leaving. Um, and we have, when we talk about next steps and that are specifically, um, that we're trying to address this, um, in a more strategic way. So when you look at our next steps, um,

▶ 56:38 they're splitting into what are we doing for all students tier one practices, and then what are we doing for targeted interventions? Tier two or three, um, one practice we're working on as a district, um, is we go, as we go back to basics, is a reset on a evaluative and non-evaluative feedback. So how are the leadership team working together to make sure that our feedback is calibrated so that every educator, whether they've been here a year or 30 years, is getting feedback that is specific, descriptive and next step, right? So that is one of our focuses as a leadership team, um, to really think about and we're using that as a next step to help us improve some of our student outcome data. Um, we're also kind of looking as we're going around and,

▶ 57:22 and what looking in classrooms and talking to teachers, what are those high leverage practices with my view, mindset, math, and false implementation that we can then scale. Um, and then the other piece we need to look at is some of our time on learning minutes. We spend a lot of time in our classrooms and on content, but are we spending the it on the right amount of things? So what does our ELA block need to look like now that we know more about the science of reading than it did even three or four or five years ago? Um, so really looking at that cent, those, um, those pieces more critically. Um, and then the other piece around some of our subgroups, um, myself and then working with, um, Mr.

▶ 58:03 K and Ms. Chase, we're looking at those, what's happening during times that students are pulled out of class to ensure that all students are still getting access to high level grade level instruction. Um, so when we look at our subgroups, we're really trying to examine, are our subgroups not doing well because they don't have access to grade level instruction, and they're constantly in this cycle of remediation, um, and how can we address that more effectively? So at the middle school, we were excited this year to see that, um, the seventh grade increased the, the meeting and exceeding from 44% to 57%. And I think it's just nice to highlight that, to see that people are working hard to, um,

▶ 58:49 improve the outcomes for students. And we, that was something that stood out to us in ELA. Um, in math, we're noticing that students are doing very well with multiple choice questions, um, on ratios and proportions. And so that it was an area that stood out for that eighth grade. Civics is doing a phenomenal job, not only in addressing the topics that are covered in the curriculum, but also really enriching the experience. I think Melrose is at the forefront of civics education. I think the educators make sure that they weave learning experiences throughout the year. Um, they have a civic action project, and then they also have events at the end of the year that really make it a powerful experience for students.

▶ 59:28 And so I think it's really important to highlight that. And I do think that other districts look to us, um, as a model, uh, for that work. So, so I do wanna give a shout out to those educators who are working really hard with that. Um, for our hotspots, we are working to, again, this idea of having students really answer questions. I think they know what to do, but I think we need to be a little bit more precise. So we're gonna be working with that and making sure students understand what they need to do with that. Um, we've been consistent, but we want to reverse things. We really want to excel. And so we're, we're working really hard to try to reverse the trends, and we're seeing growth in, in pockets.

▶ 1:00:08 And I think as we're kind of progressing, we want to see students continue to grow. And disproportionality still exists in subgroups, and that's just not something that we want to see. So we're working hard. As Ms. Veto said, students really need access to, to coursework, that's appropriate. And so we want to make sure that students are getting rigorous coursework support as needed so that they can progress their skillset and experience the growth that they need to be grade level by the end of the year. Uh, next steps, um, similar, similar, uh, practices. We want to make sure that we're aligned. Um, as an administrative team, we want to make sure that we're supporting educators with our feedback.

▶ 1:00:50 We want to make sure that educators can see best practices from their fellow colleagues because there's really, um, excellent teaching happening and have giving educators the opportunity to share that and that expertise. Um, we want to make sure that students have access to high quality instructional materials. We've had some shifts in the sixth grade. We're looking at mathematics right now. We're looking at ELA and other grade levels to see if that would be a good fit. We want our students writing across disciplines. Uh, that's just something that the more that students do that, the stronger they will be. Um, and IXL, uh, again, it's our first year with the platform, but really looking to see

▶ 1:01:27 what is most effective in terms of how students use it when we're using it in the classroom, and the supports that we can provide to students. And so there are some tools that we're finding some students really benefit from. Um, and so as we're working on our own professional development, you know, having a little bit more finesse in how we're using things, I think we're gonna see an impact there. Um, and I'll pass it to you for, so our tier two practices, um, that we're looking at, one of the biggest shifts, I think that came from the reduction of, um, department directors is the ability to look at data in small groups. This was always done during department meeting time, and department meeting time essentially only exists in

▶ 1:02:09 small pockets right now. Um, so we had to come up with an, a plan to continue to review data, identify students who are not making grade level progress, and then, then identify some interventions that they could, um, use. So we, with the help of Mr. Merrill and Mr. Corrigan, Mr. Beaver, Ms. Zu, Mr. Black, um, myself, MSIs, we ran a 175 person data meeting, um, at, for our six through 12 faculty and staff. Everybody, everybody from the English teachers, to the wellness teachers, to the art teachers, everybody participated. Um, and the task was, you're to look at your students, look at your data, and by data we meant MCA data, classroom data, um, beginning of the year data from IXL at that point, or beginning of the year assessments, um,

▶ 1:03:00 or AP data for those that it applied to, and identify the students who weren't making progress. And so when we were thinking about our tier two interventions and what we were going to think about for middle school and high school, um, we really wanted to think about who are our students who are not making progress. So that was our first step. And then on November 4th, um, the PD day we just had a couple weeks ago, teachers were given opportunities to be able to have some time to review that data, to go back to their, um, Note taking sheets, for lack of a better word, that they did on the October 15th day, um, and see if some of those interventions were being effective. Um, we have mid-year data,

▶ 1:03:35 mid-year assessments coming up in January, and we'll be doing something similar at the February faculty meeting, but this time we'll be split middle school and high school. Um, so I'm excited about what that looks like and the opportunities that it brought for us. Um, something we thought was gonna be a really big challenge. We, we kind of turned into a, a strong model that we hope that we can move forward For our high school data. Um, it was really impressive to see that we've surpassed where we were pre pandemic. And so an interesting data point is, if you look at our numbers, where at 80% meeting exceeding, but if you look at the students that were in front of us, it's actually 82%. So when you look at the numbers, it's just kind

▶ 1:04:21 of an interesting difference. So there's some students that are not in front of us at Melrose High School, that's where that 80% comes from. And the 82% are the, the students that our educators worked with every day. Um, and I just think there's, there's two components to that. I think students working through and going into the ninth grade from the middle school and building that skillset with their educators. Um, but there's also strategic things that have been happening. Educators have made professional practice goals that are really aligned, um, to the work that they want to do. So, for instance, many educators decided that working with EL students was a priority, and they've invested in professional development

▶ 1:04:55 for the past two years of their cycle. And we've seen that disproportionality decrease. And so we're seeing improvements, um, in our subgroups as we kind of get to the 10th grade. Um, so that's a highlight for us. Um, high school biology, we've seen an improvement as well. And I think it's important to note that we're one of the few districts that offers AP biology in the ninth grade. So currently this year we have four to nine students enrolled in that class. That's pretty impressive. So it's a combination of providing students who are ready for that, for that early experience, access to that experience, but also, um, our biology students are really getting an outstanding experience. Um, and, and there was work done last

▶ 1:05:35 year with our STEM director. There was investment in sort of supporting students and working with the teachers. So I think, um, we're in, in, we're trending the right way with that. Um, you know, areas that we wanna work with. I think we've had really thoughtful conversations this year about mathematics and just some shifts that need to happen. Um, and so we're, we're looking at some changes that we want to make. Um, I think things that we're thinking are immediate things that have to happen in each course, but there's also long-term, uh, shifts that we're thinking so that students can decide sort of which path they want to go in terms of mathematics, making sure that all students have access to higher level coursework.

▶ 1:06:14 Um, so those, those are both a priority for us. Um, you know, short answer constructed responses, it's an area of growth, but it's, it's an area that we can coach students on. I think brevity tends to be the trend for students when they're responding on assessments. And I think just coaching them to get a little bit stronger with that. Um, again, disproportionality is something that we are watching, but I think it's the short term and the long term, thinking about where they're coming from, um, when they enter the sixth grade to get them where they need to be. And then also addressing the students as they are in each grade level, because that matters too. We're not gonna wait, um, for students to, uh,

▶ 1:06:52 we're, we're just not gonna wait. Um, so in terms of next steps, similar things, um, continue with the writing, continue with high quality instructional materials and looking at the materials that we have. Um, but the big thing is just really leveraging the expertise of our educators as well. And so we've been having conversations. I think the alignment of the schedule is a plus. Uh, this year we're able to coordinate a a lot more effectively. And so we want our middle school content leads and our high school content leads to have opportunities to talk to each other. And we're in the process of planning walks so that they can see both buildings. Um, and I just think that having that lens and that expertise, an educator

▶ 1:07:33 who might be teaching an 11th or 12th grade course might see something that we can immediately shift at the younger grades. Likewise, our educators who are working in the middle school know the students and know the things that they need to be doing when they're in ninth grade. So I think we're just, we're just gonna leverage that as well as we're moving forward. Um, you know, data team meetings, we're gonna continue to talk about that IXL how it looks in terms of implementation at the high school, slightly different. Um, and we've talked about that it's really to help, um, we, we need that dipstick for students, but also thinking about how we can support students who need to fill some gaps, um,

▶ 1:08:13 and making sure that our students have access to grade level instruction consistently Wondering, So what does this mean for us as a district? Um, I wanna start by saying that Melrose has a talented and dedicated group of teachers who are working incredibly hard to meet the needs of every student in their classroom. Um, and that each and every day, and that that shows in our overall MCA results. We continue to outperform the state as well as some of our neighboring districts. When we triangulate our MCM CAS data with other assessments like access, which is our English language acquisition assessment, we can see a fuller picture of student progress. Um, and with that being said, we also wanna be honest about our trouble spots

▶ 1:08:53 and where we're seeing data and work and work to address those. Um, our trend that was present in most of our MCAS data is a fairly consistent percentage of students meeting or exceeding expectations from 2021 to now. So we saw a lot of, um, graphs that that line didn't move very much. So how do we, how do we start pushing that needle a little bit? Um, we wanna move that needle so that we're at least meeting, if not surpassing our 2019 achievement levels in every grade, in every subject. Additionally, we have a new renewed focus and some additional next steps to help us address our disproportionality gaps in our subgroups, which support our overall goals. Next one. Thank you. Is that you? Um, I can, yep.

▶ 1:09:41 So, um, the next piece is like the feedback cycles with evaluators and educators. I think we wanna make sure it's a dialogue. I think one of the most powerful pieces that we've been doing in these feedback cycles is really having the thoughtful conversations with educators about the areas that they wanna pursue in terms of strengthening, strengthening their own repertoire, their own interests, and, and supporting that. And so that might mean, um, giving them time with colleagues, that might mean giving them them opportunities for professional development. That might mean giving them opportunities to see other schools that are successful in the area that we're working on. Um, I, I think that the data team meeting structure

▶ 1:10:20 and intended outcomes is just really making sure that we have the time set aside so people can think about the students that they want to support in their classrooms, and making sure that families are part of that conversation as well. I think everyone in this room and everyone in this community wants to make sure that they see their students succeed, and educators are fully invested in doing that. And so we've made that a priority as well this year. Um, high quality instructional materials, again, making sure that we are consistent from the moment a a student begins their time in Melrose, and that students have that building of skillset and, and that curriculum. And then also it's, it's helpful when we add new staff,

▶ 1:10:59 honestly, just making sure that we have the structures in place and the curriculum in place so that it's a seamless transition when we have transitioned, um, with staffing, um, using IXL, I think there's some students that are trying to master some skills, figuring out when it works to practice and making sure that we are using that, uh, with fidelity and the, the leveraging practices that work, and then making some adjustments for things that just no longer have the same impact on our students. And I think there have been conversations that educators have had with each other. Like, this practice was amazing. I, I tried this in my class, come and see me implement this. Um, and some other practices that just

▶ 1:11:40 for whatever reason right now with the students that we have in front of us, it needs to just look a little bit different. And I think that's something that educators do all the time. You might have four classes and each feels a little bit differently, and you might deliver the instruction to meet the needs of the students in front of you, slightly different. And so, um, personalizing, uh, things, uh, instruction to make sure that we're supporting our students. So that was a lot of information and, and we appreciate the attention. Um, but we're happy to answer any questions that you may have. Great. Thank you so much, Mr. Kelly. Go ahead. Sure. I have, um, I think a two part question. Um, the slide that we were just looking at, um,

▶ 1:12:21 which was resetting feedback, consistent data team meetings, high quality instructional materials, utilizing IXL and scaling, is that essentially what the plan is to address all of this, but with particular to what appears to be some real challenges around math? Yeah, I think that when we think about back to basics, this is, this is where I go, right? Like this is where, when I'm thinking about the vision for the district for the next this year, but even the next three to five years, these are the things that need to stay at the forefront as we start to add new pieces. Um, so the high quality instructional materials, I am a big proponent of, I appreciate teachers having autonomy and, and want them to still be creative,

▶ 1:13:04 but high quality instructional materials really provide that level playing field for everybody. Um, and when we look at our subgroup disproportionality, you could have the best of intentions and be doing great curriculum that you created yourself, but the inherent bias that's in that sometimes is really something that's hard to get over. Whereas HQIM, those high quality materials, they've done research, they've field tested, they've done some of those things to try to remove, um, some of that opportunity gap for, for students. Okay. And then my second question, um, maybe is a little bit more to superintendent, or maybe it doesn't need to be addressed tonight, but it's a comment, which is, as we've now had a successful override

▶ 1:13:45 and we've now perhaps have some money to allocate, what would be the best use, what would be the most effective way for the school committee to support this five point clan as we go into FY 27? That's a Great question. Can punch the super superintendent. We can talk about it at another time, but Carrie And I are both looking at each other saying, I'm not sure who wants to take it. Yeah. I, I think these are, these are the points that we're looking at now that we have had a, a successful override, especially with some of the funding that's gonna come in for the second half of the year, hopefully, if it goes through, you know, I don't wanna take anything away from city council, you know, if it goes as expected through C City Council

▶ 1:14:22 and is appropriated appropriately to us, um, that these are the pieces we'll look at. So we will look at expanding our curriculum, um, pieces to make sure that we're including these high quality instructional materials. Um, that's going to mean professional development, that's gonna mean training, right? That's gonna mean purchasing, that's gonna mean continuing and, and committing to something for a number of years. Um, I think one of the things we have done in the past, and Mel, you can speak to this a little more than I could, but, you know, we've, we've dabbled in some different things, and I think what we need again, is come back to our EBCs consistency, right? We need to do something for a certain amount

▶ 1:14:58 of time in order to see, um, the student outcomes that, that they are projecting should come when you're being consistent on implementing, um, curriculum. Okay. Thank you. So, Mr. Herman, go ahead. Um, thank you for the report and I'm sure we'll have more data to discuss in the future soon. But, uh, one of the things that, that I, I think you mentioned a little bit in your presentation was around, um, consistency at three and four, seeing some of the same things happen again and again with the explanatory, um, pieces of, of the MCAS. Uh, and it raised a question in my mind about cohorts versus, um, snapshots. Mm-hmm. And I think, you know, MCAS has certainly some utility to the data, but it's a snapshot in time from last spring versus

▶ 1:15:41 what we see in IXL, which is much more updated information to the students that are in the classroom of that teacher at that time. Uh, do you think that what you're seeing in, in that particular scenario is a, is a combination of a cohort issue and a, you know, continuing issue year after year in third and fourth grade? What is the breakdown that you've seen in, in that kind of split? I think kind of just thinking off without having done a deep dive at, at this point in time, I think one of the things that is next on my priority list is really looking at when the mid-year data comes in, how are our students doing, right? So what is that saying versus how are they doing? Where, where did they fall on MA last year

▶ 1:16:24 where there are some predictors that we can see when students have a certain growth percentile from beginning of the year to the midyear of how they're going to do on MCA if they continue growing at that same rate. Right? Um, so I think that's step one. I think it's challenging for us to look at anything other than MCAS right now as a, um, cohort data because we've changed tools so many times, right? So as we look at even our unit assessments, we've had my view only three years. So, and we, so we don't have enough data to look at a unit one assessment in my view, over those three years, right. Or over, um, for the same group of students over a number of years. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think that one of the,

▶ 1:17:09 the challenges we've had is always looking for the, um, the bargain version of whatever assessment tool we could find at the time. It, it's, it's making it a little more difficult now. Not that it's impossible, but it's making it more like comparing oranges and apples than it is to comparing oranges to oranges, if that makes sense. It does. No, and I think that goes back to the point I was raising with, um, the Roosevelt School and their plan and the consistency that we hopefully have over the next few years to be able to take advantage of and the superintendent's point as well. Um, that does raise another question in my mind then around, um, how we can leverage some of that, that mc a data since it is potentially useful

▶ 1:17:47 for the cohort side of things. Um, and just looking through the, the three through five grades here, I'm kind of seeing consistently when you look at the cohorts, you see the grades kind of at the same level each year as they're progressing. Mm-hmm. So that group of students doesn't seem to necessarily grow year to year. And so I'm wondering, you know, the first level question is, can we determine if those are the same students we probably can, right? And then how do we actually get to those students and the teachers working with those students to address the potential barriers those students are facing that clearly seem to resemble themselves year after year? Right? 'cause if, if we're focusing on a third grade problem,

▶ 1:18:27 which is really part of a cohort problem, we're missing the opportunity with those students as we move forward. Do we, we have any ways of kind of making sure that we're, we're taking the third grade data and, and making sure the fourth grade groups are looking at it and, and so on and so forth? Yeah, So that's happening at, at the building level. So I'm working with principals to make sure that they have one access to all of their accurate MCA data, um, and two, knowing how to share that appropriately with their staff. Um, so some buildings have already looked at it. Some buildings they asked me to kind of hold off until I came and gave the big district presentation, and then they're gonna start kind of looking at that.

▶ 1:19:01 But that is something that we're doing with building principals so that they can, teachers can see how did their students do, how did the students that just left us do, and what are those gaps in standards that maybe I'm noticing a couple of years in a row. Um, we're seeing that a lot with science, right? Like, where are those gaps that we can address in fourth grade science that are reappearing every year? Um, so we are doing that at the building level, not necessarily at the district level yet. Okay. Yeah, and, and just following up on that, if we get to a point, uh, with looking at the data that we could again, come back and look at cohort data at the committee level, I think I would really appreciate kind of seeing how that,

▶ 1:19:39 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: those cohort trends seem to present themselves. Um, and then more feedback about how that's being, uh, discussed at the building level and at the, the classroom level. Great. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Oh, go ahead, MRK. Uh, thank you. Um, my question isn't about the data, it's more, um, on the, um, social emotional level. So I'm wondering about how you're seeing students present relative to test anxiety compared to maybe prior years or, um, you know, uh, at grade levels. Are you seeing anything that, you know, sparks questions with you? I'm gonna have to probably talk to a couple people and get back to you, if that's okay. Absolutely. No, I was just, you know, thinking about as we have some opportunities to, um, you know,

▶ 1:20:29 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: to explore different, um, um, possibilities, you know, thinking about what are the needs, um, teaching wise, but also having students, you know, prepared to learn prep, like re ready to receive information, and how do we ensure that they're, it's like feeding students, right? We have to make sure that they're in environments that are supportive to them, um, and they're ready and, um, able to learn. So again, not for now, and, and, um, but thinking about that, so that's one question I had. I'm also interested in knowing, I know I'm with teacher licensure, I'm speaking about sort of the secondary campus, if you will. Um, I, I don't know if it's, it's changed over time, but I know that there are licenses

▶ 1:21:13 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: that are in content areas, five to eight in nine to 12, and sometimes seven to 12. Um, so I don't know what the standards are right now, but I'm wondering if, and this is purely hypothetical, I don't expect an answer, but thinking about, you know, um, how if you had different, um, grades of students, right? Some of them, they have personality sometimes too, and sometimes there are different kinds of needs, whether there would be opportunities for students, or excuse me, for educators say at the high school level to say, you know, I think, um, it would be interesting for me to work to support middle school students, or being able to have some of that flexibility and is that, is that something rigid

▶ 1:21:55 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: or are there, um, potential opportunities in there? And I know that sometimes too, there are teachers who have dual certification relative to just sort of that dual certification with special education and a content area, but also in multiple content areas. So, you know, I'm just sort of thinking about those things, um, and how to keep our educator workforce as flexible as possible to meet the needs of those students where they are at particular times, and potentially have opportunities to change over time too. Um, Yeah, I think that one of the things that we are getting a, a really strong handle on over the past couple years is who is licensed in what, and what are they able to do, um, in addition to

▶ 1:22:38 what do they want to do, right? Mm-hmm. Because, because right. You have to live your passion in a library Telling a teacher who, you know, teaches seniors, you're gonna go teach the sixth graders, right? That may not go over so well. Um, so we wanna make sure we're balancing those, like, what, but I know Mr. Merrill and Mr. Corgan and myself and MSIs, we, we are all looking at that as we start planning for next year, um, in future years. And, and we've been looking at that when we had to do, um, reductions. We, we really use licensure as a means of how that, how that works so that we could get as many people who were qualified to be in a position, in a position, right? So we have teachers that move content this year so

▶ 1:23:17 that they could keep a job, um, you know, those kinds of things. And now we have the opportunity with the override passing that we can be a little bit more flexible with, well, what do you wanna do as well? Right? Versus we're gonna tell you, you have to be here, or we're not gonna have a place for you. Yeah. And just the other thing, we've had a lot of educators who have stepped up and have said, I have this expertise, and although perhaps this is my passion and this is what I prefer doing, I know there's a need, so if you need me to do this, um, that's happened quite a bit. And I think it's testament to their commitment to the district and to their colleagues. I think there were, um, many situations

▶ 1:23:54 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: that were challenging last year, and I think people were very mindful of that. And I, there were, there were people who stepped up and I just wanna acknowledge that as well. Well, then I appreciate the educators who have done that, um, stepped out of sometimes their comfort zone. Um, and I also appreciate the fact that over a long period of time, the district has worked really hard and but successful at having a, a 95% or higher, um, highly qualified, um, teacher, uh, percentage. And I know that's, um, something that's really important to the department. So it's important to us. And I guess the last thing is really just a wonder for the future, which is there, um, used to be, um, more reporting around advanced placement

▶ 1:24:34 SAT and acts. So, um, again, not for tonight, but I would wonder if some of that data will be coming back to us at some point. Um, and that's a consideration really for the superintendent. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Skal. Yes, Ms. Hy. Thank you. Um, I have four quick things. One, I, I heard us name families would be involved continually in the data meeting process. And I think the number one question we get asked is like, or the number one question I should say that is on a family's mind is like, how's my kid doing in school? Mm-hmm. Right? So can we expect then that, for instance, if you're an elementary parent, I know there are screeners that happen three times a year, will families continue

▶ 1:25:17 to also get that realtime data like they did before? I would like to say yes. Mm-hmm. Um, I'm, I'm gonna be very honest about the capacity piece of things right now. Yep. Um, but I would like to say that that is something that is an intention I have. Um, but I don't wanna overpromise and under deliver. Um, my hope is that when we do mid-years, that I can send out an email, um, much like we did in the beginning of the years. Yeah. Where here's where students were and then here's where their growth is. Um, we are required by DESI to inform any family in K through three, um, that does not meet mm-hmm. Standards and or benchmarks. Um, and any family by Title one law or Title one regulations, um, any family

▶ 1:26:00 that's receiving Title one services. So we have Title one at Lincoln Hoover and Middle School. Um, so any family that is receiving additional intervention from from there would receive notification automatically. But my intention is to do another mailing like we did for beginning of the year. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I think it's really helpful to open the conversations and allow for families to know my student took this assessment, this is where they are currently. I wanna acknowledge that. I recognize we still have a lean district team. Um, but I appreciate you naming the importance of families being able to partner with their students. And I think them knowing the data is one of the top ways for them to be able to do that.

▶ 1:26:41 The next thing I just wanna highlight was around math. I mean, I'm really thankful that we are taking a deeper look into root causes with middle school math in particular. I think it's clear through the data that we're either stagnant or declining. I also heard you say earlier that, you know, materials matter, right? And so, looking at high quality curricular materials and starting to think about what would make the most sense in order to help accelerate student learning outcomes feels like the right call to me too. I would just add that a lot of these high quality curricular materials, while they are incredibly strong, are very different from how perhaps we learned in school ourselves. Um, and so I think yes to professional learning,

▶ 1:27:24 but I also would just encourage us to think about how do we ensure we're helping educators understand the why behind the design of these materials? Because that's actually the thing that's gonna help, I think just make sense of a shift in perhaps like the pedagogy or the approach that the materials are offering up. So yes to pd, but also bring in the research, help people get clear on the rationale and the why so that they can walk alongside and see what is the purpose of this material? How is it similar or different to what I've done in the past? And how can I, or how might I wanna lean in? Um, the next thing is around writing. I just, I'm struck by the three through eight call out of like, idea development.

▶ 1:28:07 I would also say, um, I think that's not unique to Melrose. I, I'm seeing similar things too. Um, and so I, I wonder if it's also an opportunity for us to think a little bit more expansively about perhaps a strategy that would go across grade levels. Um, 'cause I think one thing that tends to be challenging is when kids go into middle school, for instance, from an elementary perspective, sometimes we just say different words that ultimately are the same thing, right? And so is there a way for us to be able to have like common language, common ways in which we actually think about writing development across those grade spans that would help promote students in being able to develop their ideas in a clear

▶ 1:28:43 and like consistent way? I think That's part of the reason. And Nora, feel free to inter interject, but I think that's a big reason why we went with my perspectives for a pilot in sixth grade. It is the next step up from my view. Yep. Um, and my view is our reading and writing program. So the hope is that if there's a clear consistency of my view from K to eight, um, that we'll start to see some of those incremental shifts, That's really helpful framing, just to recognize that those two programs talk to each other. 'cause sometimes that doesn't always happen, and it can be actually really hard for students to have to figure out, wait, does this mean this or this? Like, how do these things kind

▶ 1:29:23 of refer back to what I've learned in the past? And we're also looking at that for math. We're looking for one program that is K through algebra Two. Thank you for sharing that. Um, so that is one of our goals. Super Helpful. Last thing I will say, um, I noticed, and this is minor, but I just wanted to call it out, that when it was talking about time on learning as something to investigate a little bit more, that social studies and history wasn't called out. Is that intentional? Not exactly. Um, in our younger grades, me, I, and I'm gonna speak very bluntly 'cause I haven't really talked about this with many people other than the principals. Um, we are noticing a trend in science scores where teachers

▶ 1:30:05 who specialize do a better job with their science MCATs. Okay. So if they teach science Yep. And another teacher teaches social studies. Mm-hmm. So it wasn't necessarily intentional, but the thought process behind it is that we may need to think about that at three through five Of Got It. How do we make that time really intentional? The other reason we do that is that it's less likely to get forgotten. Teachers at the elementary are really good at making sure ELA and math are taught consistently mm-hmm. Every single day. Mm-hmm. But if something happens, the first blocks to go are our science and social studies blocks. So how do we, how do we think about that a little bit differently? Mm-hmm. Um, so that it would,

▶ 1:30:49 I think also increase our science scores, but also, um, be better for teachers and kids. I appreciate you calling out that. Sometimes those are the moments that can get cut a little bit more. 'cause that's when I saw it, I was like, wait a second. Um, and I would also just highlight that, you know, we can teach literacy best practices and literacy through content areas. So I just didn't want for that one to be forgotten because again, like we have to teach informational texts. This is an opportunity to continue to do that. So I wanted to call that out too. Thank you so much for being here and for answering all my questions. Thank you. Any other committee members have any questions? Comments? Okay. I have a couple.

▶ 1:31:30 Um, I'm very proud of our ELA 10th grade performance. That is a, a big star there. Um, I, I just also wanna say that m cass is no longer a graduation requirement. So that changes the way kids are going to approach the test. It may decrease anxiety and it may impact test scores positively or negatively. Do you wanna, it looks like you have something you wanna say about that, that, Ms. Vedo, go ahead. So, MCAS is still a graduation requirement. Every Melrose High School student has to sit for the MCAS. It's part of our accountability. Yes, I was going but passing the m You don't have pass longer a graduation requirement. The, in the original intention of MCM CAS was really to see if we were teaching to standards

▶ 1:32:15 and how well we were teaching. And now we actually can do that. It doesn't mean that DESI isn't gonna change it, but it is the only test that we have that's remained consistent prior to the pandemic, prior to technology becoming an integral part of our educational system. And the teachers are learning about technology and the impact of technology. We are all learning about the impact of screens in our lives in a way that we didn't know anything about 20 years ago. So education is changing. The MCAS requirement for graduation, for passing to get to graduation has changed. We still have to take the MCAS. It's a good thing. It's a good tool, and it's been the thing that's been consistent for many, many years.

▶ 1:32:55 So I, I do believe in using it as one tool, but it is not everything. And there's many ways of learning and there's many ways of achieving outside of tests. So I just want to kind of frame the discussion to keep in mind that all of this is a moving target all the time with every single unique and wonderful student that we serve. So I think too that it's important to note that Jesse, although they've removed the MCAS requirement, they have not removed the competency requirement. Um, so we are now, Ms. TSIs, myself, Mr. Merrill, um, you'll see us again in December, um, coming before you with our new competency determination policy. Mm-hmm. Um, that is required of every district to have. Um, and it allows us a little bit more flexibility

▶ 1:33:44 to be able to say, how are students Showing that they are competent in the 10th grade standards in a way that isn't necessarily a test. So yes, while they did get rid of the, the requirement that you have to pass the MCAS Yeah. Every student still does need to show that there's, um, a competency Yeah. On the 10th grade standards. Yeah. Um, but we as a district are able to do that. And we're looking at things like using MIDYEARS and end of years, um, but also going back to portfolios and going back to opportunities for students to show some authentic learning, um, and giving different pathways for students to be able to show that competency. I think that's very exciting in terms of, um, not just trying to put every single kid in a, you know,

▶ 1:34:32 who may be a square into a round hole, right. So, or vice versa. So I like a lot of the trends of what we're seeing even on the, um, results by student group on the subgroups. They're, some of them are going up, some of them are still kind of flat. Um, and there's a lot of years that are quite flat for all learners. So, but there's also been tremendous growth. And if it's a plus or minus five, it's statistically insignificant, right? So it's only over time that we're really gonna know how we're doing. But those ELA scores over time have just stayed in a beautiful place, like, or gone back up. So we know we're pretty solid. Um, on the ELA side, we're wondering about the math, and I think you're gonna come

▶ 1:35:15 and offer us some ideas about the math curriculum, I would imagine. But I really appreciate all the work that you put into this. Both of you and both of you have really stood by us through a very uncertain time. So thank you very, very much. Thank you. We don't need to take a vote on this, but thank you for all the work and the analysis and we'll see you soon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank You. And with that, that concludes e, p, and P for tonight. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Finally, we'll round out our committee work this evening with policy and planning chaired by Mr. Hartman. Round it out by the most exciting part of the night. Is that, Let's do it. Alright. So we have, um, three groups of, uh, doc, uh,

▶ 1:36:05 pieces in front of us tonight. Uh, we, we'll return first to JJF policy. This would be our, uh, second vote on this after an informational reading. The policy has been updated based upon our vote at our last committee meeting in particular. Uh, the changes that were included are around our process at the school committee for reviewing the accounts and any information that the district provides about annual reviews of those accounts in years when there is not an audit. So you'll see that in the main paragraph, uh, at the top of this policy. Uh, but, um, all the changes that we've talked about through the process have been incorporated as we've looked at this and updated it. And, um, at this point, we would be open

▶ 1:36:43 for a second vote if there's a motion or if there's any questions, Mr. Koll, motion to approve. And is there second from Mr. Kelly? Any questions or comments? All those in favor? Any against None. That passes unanimously. All right. Moving on to our next set of policies. We have IJND and it's a accompanying, uh, policy, I-J-N-D-B. So this is our, this potentially could be our first vote tonight. Uh, and so Ms. Acevedo worked on this policy extensively to upgrade, in particular the I-J-N-D-B policy, which we heard an explanation of at our last meeting. Um, the IJND policy, one note to make is that, um, since our last meeting, it eliminated the, the piece around damaged school property. 'cause that's included in the IJ I-J-N-D-B

▶ 1:37:34 policy, which is being proposed. So we have one consistent place to talk about, um, damaged, uh, it property from the schools, uh, and what happens with it. Um, but at this point, the committee could vote on both policies for a first vote tonight. If there's further questions, maybe we should go through those first before we move into a vote. If there are any questions from members. Seeing none, is there a motion, Ms. Driscoll Motion to approve? Both please. Motion to approve both policies. Seconded by Ms. Razzi Thomas. All those in favor, all those against, we have a unanimous vote on those two policies. Um, coming back to another item that was on a previous agenda as well. Thank you, Ms. Acevedo.

▶ 1:38:19 Another item that was on a previous agenda, our memo on concussions. Um, there is an updated document in the packet with a little more explanation around some of the information that came out in this year's report. I think the superintendent also maybe has a couple of other pieces she wants to mention from some further conversations as well. Sure. Um, so I was just, in addition to the memo, I was able to have a, another conversation with, um, Mr. Fogarty regarding, um, the increase in numbers. And, and again, we don't really have an answer for that. I really do believe that, um, you know, uh, our, our students, our, our families, our coaches, um, everyone's just has a greater awareness of this, um,

▶ 1:38:56 including our referees. Um, anytime we have, you know, engagement. So, um, you know, I'll just use, my daughter for example, plays varsity soccer, right? They both go for a head ball. They're pulling both of those girls off the field, um, at this moment in time, which didn't happen when I was in high school or, or even, you know, pre COVID. We'll just go with that time. So, um, I've also learned that there is a, um, about an even number of distribution both this year and last year between, um, female and male, um, concussions that are, that are occurring on each of our sports teams. And then, um, I did, um, look at the numbers for each sport that I don't wanna disclose because it could, um,

▶ 1:39:35 actually disclose a, a specific student. Um, however, when I looked at the percentage of the number of, um, concussions that occurred with the total number of, um, of, of athletes on that specific team, it was very, very consistent. So I'll just use, I was a basketball player. Like there was, for instance, one concussion per those 12 per people on that basketball team, or 15. So it was, it was roughly the percentage was very consistent, um, across, um, all of our sports or many of our, there are some sports that, that don't have it. The other thing that I would also clarify is that the number of, um, concussions that are reported is, um, although the, the policy or, um, I wanna make sure I have my language right.

▶ 1:40:19 Um, states grades six through 12, we are actually only, um, accounting and reporting out on grades nine through 12 because it is for the, um, athletic, um, uh, occurrences and the extracurricular occurrences that happen at at the high school. Yes. Just To clarify, if we have eighth graders playing up, they would be included in the Report, correct? Yep. Yep. That was my next statement. Yes. Yes. So for example, like we you said earlier tonight with ice hockey, um, that would include our eighth graders. Yes. Thank you. And we can move to questions if there's questions on the updated information. Ms. Mc, Andrew, Thank you. This is helpful. Thank you. And thank you to Mr. Fogerty as well. Um, I do think that, um, you know,

▶ 1:41:03 Jennifer McAndrew: in the explanatory memo, and based on what you said, um, you know, I know we don't know why this rate doubled or the number doubled in one year. Um, and that year to year certainly different differs for many reasons, including increases in participation, which we're definitely seeing overall. Um, I will say if, you know, we're at, I know we keep saying this, but we are at a time where, you know, we have additional resources in the district. Um, and I, you know, I would just be like, interested to hear about from your assessment and Mr. Kelly's and, um, ad fogerty if there are, you know, like areas of professional development for coaches, for the nurses. I know that's a city function, um, budgetary wise,

▶ 1:41:56 Jennifer McAndrew: but, um, equipment and, you know, uniform, whatever is sort of if there, if, if there is an assessment there, there are things we can be doing. I think it would be helpful to hear about it when we discuss the report itself from year to year. You know, just getting the number is like, it's fine. I know we have to report it, and I know that it varies for all the reasons that you've laid out. But if there are like any recommendations along with that for trends or ideas or even things that other districts are doing that we're not doing either because, you know, we don't do it for another reason or because of resources, it would just be helpful to like, hear about that at the time that we're talking about,

▶ 1:42:36 um, the report. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Any other questions for members? Um, two things. I, I think I would mention from my perspective also, and some of this comes out in the, the memo is, um, around where the concussion occurs is something we don't necessarily know. Um, so it might be an outta school concussion not related to the sport, but it comes across as this player can no longer play as a result of a concussion. That's what gets communicated as, as I understand it. Uh, and that might be an important differentiation to make in the report in the future, is, is if we can identify, uh, how many of these are, are on fields or on court incidents that we might have some impact on, uh, for going into future

▶ 1:43:18 understanding of, of what our concussions are. And yeah, I Can comment on that a little bit after further discussion, um, with, um, Mr. Fogarty. So I do believe that it is actually concussions that happen, like on our watch. Um, I do believe that that's how it happened. So like, we're responsible. So it's not, you know, um, again, I'll just go back to basketball. It's not the basketball player who was skiing who, who got a concussion skiing and came, it's, it's on our watch during one of our, um, activities. So I think that that has actually maybe a little bit more frightening that we've had a, a doubling of that. So, um, That's helpful. Um, maybe another place for future memos also is thinking

▶ 1:44:02 about repeated concussions. If there's a way that we can, um, record an element of are we seeing repeated concussions on the same kids again? And, and be aware of that, especially as we respond to, um, thinking about how we implement protocols with coaches and so forth to be aware of certain students that are experiencing extra concussions. Yeah. And I could also report that this is the number of concussions, not the number of students who are concussed. Mm-hmm. So, you know, oh, my computer died. Um, so, um, that, that is like that too. Yeah. Great. Um, if there's no more questions from the committee, thank you. We could, oh, Mr. Kelly. Sorry. I just wanted to jump back to student activities.

▶ 1:44:40 I just wanted to thank the committee for moving that forward. That's been a long range goal to have that, that policy move forward. So appreciate that. And I did wanna highlight thank Kim Candel in our business office, who has been incredible, spent a tremendous amount of time getting this process to a systemic approach to managing student activity. So I just wanted to highlight that and thank you. Thank you. Um, I believe we have to vote on the concussion report if, sorry, I Didn't mean to jump Gun. Nope, that's okay. So if there's a motion from the floor Motion to approve Ms. McAndrew, second by Ms. Driscoll. All those in favor, unanimous approval of the concussion report. And that concludes policy

▶ 1:45:13 and planning, the most exciting part of tonight's meeting, I promise, at the beginning. Mr. Hartman, next time I'll hype it up a little bit more. Thank you. Um, absolutely. So this actually concludes the public session this evening. Uh, we do have a need for an executive session for the following reason to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel, Carrie Berman. Uh, as a reminder, we will not be returning to public session this evening. What is the will of the committee at this time? Motion to adjourn to Executive session. So I have a motion on the table made by Ms. McAndrew to adjourn to executive session, and I have it seconded by Mr. Hartman. I will now do a roll call vote.

▶ 1:46:00 This is a, I mess this up often. Um, Ms. McAndrew? Yes. Uh, mayor Greg? Yes. Ms. Razzie Thomas? Yes. Mr. Hartman? Yes. Mr. Driscoll? Yes. Mr. Kelly? Yes. And I'm also a yes. So we will move into executive session now. Thanks again for tuning in. We'll see you all in December.

Original documents

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