School Committee — 2026-07-28

Agenda

1. NOTE
2. CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE (0:04)
3. PUBLIC COMMENT (0:40)
4. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT (4:00)
5. Report: Personnel (5:30)
6. Report: Enrollment Updates (11:56)
7. Report: Winthrop Playground Update (12:44)
8. Vote: Memorial Naming Proposal (15:38)
9. CONSENT AGENDA (21:53)
10. Warrants FY26 School - S26096 - $750,334.73 FY27 July Debit Card - S27001 - $1,430.00 FY27 June Meals Tax - S27002 - $5.81 FY27 June High School Student Activity Wire - S27003 - $10,509.01 FY27 June MVMMS Student Activity Wire - S27004 - $22,948.00 FY27 School - S27005 - $277,098.67 FY27 Refunds/Officials - S27006 - $16,144.96 FY27 School - S27007 - $79,193.40 (22:10)
11. Regular Meeting Minutes: June 23, 2026 (23:19)
12. Cafeteria Report (23:21)
13. Second vote to rescind Policy KCB (23:24)
14. Second vote to approve Policy KA (23:27)
15. Second vote to approve Policy KDB (23:30)
16. SUBCOMMITTEES (COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE) (24:12)
17. Finance and Facilities - Margaret Driscoll/Melissa Holleran (24:22)
18. Budget Summary/Grants/Revolving Accounts (24:38)
19. Report: FY25 End of Year Report Audit (29:10)
20. Policy and Planning - Matt Hartman/Margaret Driscoll (30:45)
21. Review: Policy KBA: School/Parent Relations Goals (31:06)
22. Review: Recommended changes to Policy JF: Admissions (46:00)
23. Discussion: Strategic Plan (56:16)
24. Educational Programs and Personnel - Jen Razi-Thomas/Sheri Leo (1:04:22)
25. Vote: MVMMS School Improvement Plan (1:04:38)
26. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE CHAIR (1:30:58)
27. Vote: Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation (1:31:28)
28. Vote: Meeting Calendar Updates (1:35:52)
29. Report: Rolling Agenda (1:37:45)
30. Report: Outreach (1:37:58)
31. ADJOURN (1:39:12)

Minutes

Melrose School Committee Regular Meeting Tuesday, July 28, 2026, 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 Arrived Margaret Raymond Driscoll Member Present Mayor Grigoraitis Mayor Present Matt Hartman Vice Chair Present Melissa Holleran Member Present Seamus Kelley Chair Present Sheri Leo Member Present Jen Razi-Thomas Member Present Cari Berman Superintendent Present Ken Kelley Deputy Superintendent Present Also in attendance: Recording Secretary, Kristen O'Connor. With a roll call vote with seven (7) present, the meeting convened at 7:00 PM. 2. PUBLIC COMMENT John Cancelarich, a Melrose resident and parent, expressed concern regarding the use of recent override funds. Mr. Cancelarich asked if the 17 eliminated positions were filled during the 25-26 school year, and if not, what prevented the district from doing so and where were those funds were allocated. 3. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE SUPERINTENDENT Superintendent Berman shared some summer update: Ed Stations and the Summer Learning Academy are in full swing, DPW has been doing lots of work in buildings and a report will be provided at the end of the summer, and IT has been busy repairing and replacing equipment across the district. She reminded families that educators will return on August 31st, students in grades 1-12 and pre-k students will return on September 2nd, and kindergarten students will return on September 8th. 1. Report: Personnel Superintendent Berman presented the personnel report from the packet, noting the very busy time of year for principals, hiring teams, and the business office. Many of the new hires are a result of the 17 additional positions funded by the override. She also noted there were some resignations, as this is typically a time of year when families move and 1 people make career changes, and she reviewed the district's remaining open positions. Discussion included: what the candidate pool looks like this year, the ongoing difficulty in hiring for special education positions, and how our starting salaries are more competitive than they have been. 2. Report: Enrollment Updates The Superintendent shared the enrollment report from the packet and offered to answer any questions. 3. Report: Winthrop Playground Update Superintendent Berman gave an update on the status of the playground at the Winthrop School. She discussed: the timeline to have the playground completed this fall, the stakeholders involved in the planning group and their work on selecting the equipment for the new playground. 4. Vote: Memorial Naming Proposal Chair Kelley noted an error on the agenda, clarifying that the item was scheduled for discussion, not a formal vote. Superintendent Berman presented a memo from Principal Galante regarding a proposal to name a reading corner at Hoover School in memory of a teacher who had passed away. She noted that the School Committee Policy states that "the Superintendent will maintain a procedure for recommending district facility names to the Committee." As no procedure has been in place prior, Ms. Berman requested guidance from the Committee on next steps. Discussion included: Ways to honor teachers in the district that have passed away, how this looks different at the secondary level than the elementary, and the plan to look at the current School Committee Policy and bring back at the August meeting. 4. CONSENT AGENDA Ms. Driscoll requested the removal of warrant S27007 from the Consent Agenda and Ms. Razi- Thomas requested the removal of the meeting minutes of June 23, 2026. Both items will be moved to the Announcements of the Chair. All other Consent Agenda items were approved as presented. MOTION: To approve the Consent Agenda RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer Razi-Thomas SECONDER: Matt Hartman AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo 1. Warrants FY26 School - S26096 - $750,334.73 FY27 July Debit Card - S27001 - $1,430.00 FY27 June Meals Tax - S27002 - $5.81 2 FY27 June High School Student Activity Wire - S27003 - $10,509.01 FY27 June MVMMS Student Activity Wire - S27004 - $22,948.00 FY27 School - S27005 - $277,098.67 FY27 Refunds/Officials - S27006 - $16,144.96 FY27 School - S27007 - $79,193.40 2. Regular Meeting Minutes: June 23, 2026 3. Cafeteria Report 4. Second vote to rescind Policy KCB 5. Second vote to approve Policy KA 6. Second vote to approve Policy KDB 5. SUBCOMMITTEES (COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE) 1. Finance and Facilities - Margaret Driscoll/Melissa Holleran A Budget Summary/Grants/Revolving Accounts Deputy Superintendent Kelley presented the FY27 budget summary, the grant report, and the revolving accounts in the packet. Mr. Kelley noted that we are under way closing out FY26, offsets have met budget targets, and all grants are on track to close out. MOTION: To approve the budget summary, grants and revolving accounts RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Seamus Kelley SECONDER: Melissa Holleran AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo B Report: FY25 End of Year Report Audit Deputy Superintendent Kelley presented the final report from an independent audit firm, marking several consecutive years without significant findings, resulting in another positive report. 2. Policy and Planning - Matt Hartman/Margaret Driscoll A Review: Policy KBA: School/Parent Relations Goals Vice Chair Matt Hartman presented Policy KBA for review and a potential first vote. Mr. Hartman summarized feedback from the previous meeting discussing the inclusion of language from MASC related to student conduct. Attorney Lindquist considered this feedback and drafted revised language, which is included in the packet. Discussion included the language around student conduct, changing language to include parents/guardians, clarifying language around their student's and whether the language 3 enhances the policy. MOTION: To approve the language "consistent with state law, school personnel will keep parents/guardians informed about their student's conduct concerns as appropriate" RESULT: ACCEPTED MOVER: Seamus Kelley SECONDER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo NAYS: Matt Hartman B Review: Recommended changes to Policy JF: Admissions Superintendent Berman recommended updating Policy JF (Admissions) to establish a firm September 1st cutoff date for kindergarten (age five) and first grade (age six) with no exceptions. Beyond academic readiness, she noted that young students often struggle with the social-emotional demands of full-day school, and the current early petition process consumes substantial district resources for individual testing and evaluations. Establishing a strict cutoff ensures long-term success, keeps children with age-level peers where teachers can differentiate instruction, and creates a clear standard that aligns with state guidelines and neighboring districts. Discussion included reviewing historical petition data from previous years and the elementary principals' perspectives on the current process. C Discussion: Strategic Plan Vice Chair Hartman discussed the strategic plan timeline as the current three-year plan is coming to a conclusion. He noted the financial and staffing disruptions in the district over the past three years and proposed evaluating current progress to identify priorities before establishing a possibly shorter, one-year plan. He discussed a possible timeline moving forward. 3. Educational Programs and Personnel - Jen Razi-Thomas/Sheri Leo A Vote: MVMMS School Improvement Plan Deputy Principal Bryan Corrigan presented the middle school improvement plan using the attached slides, and reviewed objectives created to align with district goals. The plan outlines goals where all students will make progress in academics and meet attendance goals, and to increase student belonging to reduce chronic tardiness, absenteeism and conduct incidents. He also discussed the survey data gathered. Discussion included: seeing growth in one year even though this is a two year plan, the improvement of the building's culture and climate, staff feedback, and areas of growth. 4 MOTION: To approve the MVMMS School Improvement Plan RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer Grigoraitis SECONDER: Seamus Kelley AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo 6. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE CHAIR 1. Vote: Superintendent End of Cycle Evaluation Chair Kelley presented the Superintendent’s evaluations from the packet, highlighting her core strengths in stabilization, transparency, organizational skills, and financial stewardship. He praised the Superintendent's deep institutional knowledge, collaborative communication, and open-door policy, noting her strong working relationships with the School Committee, staff, city departments, and the broader community. Key performance indicators emphasized her thorough understanding of the district, her pivotal role in contract settlements, her compassion and her deep respect for educators. She achieved an overall rating of proficient with a total of 93%. MOTION: To approve the Superintendent's Evaluation RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer Grigoraitis SECONDER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo 2. Vote: Meeting Calendar Updates MOTION: To approve the School Committee calendar updates RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Margaret Raymond Driscoll SECONDER: Melissa Holleran AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo 3. Report: Rolling Agenda Chair Kelley noted that adjustments would be made to the Rolling Agenda including the updated meeting dates. (Ms. Driscoll left at 8:31 PM) Chair Kelley presented Warrant S27007, in the amount of $79,193.40 which was removed from the Consent Agenda. A motion was made to approve by Ms. Razi Thomas, seconded by Ms. Leo. With six (6) in favor, that motion 5 passed. (Ms. Driscoll returned at 8:32 PM) MOTION: To approve Warrant S27007 in the amount of $79,193.40 RESULT: ACCEPTED MOVER: Jennifer Razi-Thomas SECONDER: Sheri Leo AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo ABSENT: Margaret Raymond Driscoll Chair Kelley presented the Meeting Minutes of June 23, 2026 which were removed from the Consent Agenda. A motion was made to approve by Mr. Hartman, seconded by Ms. Holleran. With six (6) in favor and one (1) abstention, that motion passed. MOTION: To approve Meeting Minutes of June 23, 2026 RESULT: ACCEPTED MOVER: Matt Hartman SECONDER: Melissa Holleran AYES: Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo ABSTENTION: Jennifer Razi-Thomas 4. Report: Outreach Ms. Driscoll announced that the MASC/MASS conference will take place in Danvers during the first week of November. Additionally, Ms. Leo shared that a schedule for office hours starting in September will soon be posted on the district website. Finally, Mr. Kelley noted that the board will vote on student representatives once school resumes. 7. ADJOURN MOTION: To adjourn RESULT: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] MOVER: Jennifer Razi-Thomas SECONDER: Matt Hartman AYES: Jennifer Razi-Thomas, Jennifer Grigoraitis, Seamus Kelley, Margaret Raymond Driscoll, Matt Hartman, Melissa Holleran, Sheri Leo The meeting adjourned at 8:39 PM. 6 7

Transcript

▶ 0:04 Good evening. Welcome to the Melrose School Committee Meeting of Tuesday, July 28th, 2026. Ms. O'Connor, would you please call the roll? Ms. Driscoll? Here. Maya Gregoritis? Here. Mr. Hartman? Here. Ms. Holleran? Here. Mr. Kelly? Here. Ms. Leo? Here. Ms. Rozy Thomas? Here. Okay, that is a quorum. We are all present. Please join us in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Good evening, everybody. It's nice to see you. We've been off for a little bit. I will now motion by unanimous consent to open the floor for public comment.

▶ 0:52 Is there anybody in the room who would like to comment? I don't see anybody. Ms. O'Connor, is there anybody online? Yes, actually. Oh, we do. Yep. Okay. While Ms. O'Connor's working to let somebody online, we can have public comment for up to three minutes, and if the person can just state their name. John Kanslerich from Melrose. Okay, welcome. You have three minutes. Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of school committee, and superintendent. My name's John Kanslerich. Been in Melrose for 25 years. I'm a parent of two children who had a great education in Melrose Public Schools. There's some concern regarding the implementation use of recent override funds, especially those earmarked for Melrose Public School.

▶ 1:40 It was my expectation, based on presentations and statements made by the mayor and school committee, there would be a full implementation during the '25, '26 school year. Specifically, 17 positions listed in the override question to be filled in the '25, '26 school year. However, contrary information has left me wondering whether the city fulfilled its promise to make to the community. While certain charts provided to school committee after the override vote reconfirmed those 17 allocations, there's indications that only two positions were actually filled. So to help transparency and clarity, I appreciate response from the committee on a few questions. How many of the 17 positions earmarked from the override were actually filled during the '25, '26 school year?

▶ 2:26 If all 17 positions were not filled for the school year '25, '26, what barriers or decisions prevented the district from doing so? I further ask for transparency and clarity on the allocation of override funds for the '25, '26 school year. Records indicate that only two of the 17 promised positions were filled, costing $195,000, roughly 96 each. This leaves 15 positions unfilled, resulting in 1,455,000 in unspent salaries. In addition to unspent salaries, the 15 unfilled positions represent an estimate of 600,000 in unspent city benefits, such as health insurance and pensions, assuming 50,000 per position. When combined, the school committee has not, to the best of my knowledge, publicly discussed where the remaining over

▶ 3:18 $2 million would be or was reallocated, which brings me to my third question. Because 15 positions were not filled, where/how were those previously defined override funds on over $2 million for salaries and benefits for teachers and administrators positions reallocated in the '25, '26 school budget? I look forward to your clarification of these questions. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Is there anybody else online? There's not. No. No one else in the room. Okay, motion by unanimous consent to close public comment. Okay, now we're going to move into announcements of the superintendent, and I will turn it over to the superintendent. Great. Thank you, Chairman Kelley. I have quite a few announcements tonight, so I apologize in advance.

▶ 4:05 Before we get started on the ones that are listed, I just wanted to report a few things that are happening on campus so far this summer. Ed Stations and our Summer Learning Academy are in full swing. We've had a great turnout this year at The Lincoln, which is our elementary site, and the middle school, which is our secondary site. And students are continuing their learning, and it's truly just very nice to see. DPW, in addition, is doing lots of works to our buildings and our grounds, including cleaning and some projects that have been outlined. A detailed report will be provided to you once those summer projects are complete, and we can share all of the information and all of the good work that's

▶ 4:41 being done. In addition, IT is also working in our buildings, repairing and replacing equipment across the district. And I'm just thankful for everyone who's putting in the time to ensure that our buildings are ready to welcome students and staff that first, well, I guess last week of August, so on August 31st. Which reminds me, I'll just begin the reminders that our educators return to work on Monday, August 31st, and Tuesday, September 1st, to engage in professional development. I know August hasn't hit yet, so it seems a little bit early, but just figure I'd say that out loud. Our students in grades one through 12 and our pre-K students will return on Wednesday, September 2nd, and our kindergarten students will come back after the Labor Day holiday,

▶ 5:23 on September 8th. Next week, the parents and our educators will be receiving a midsummer update that will include this information as well as some other reminders. So now I will jump into what is listed. In front of you, you have the personnel report in your packet. I'll just preface it by saying that you can see that it's certainly a very busy time of year for our principals and our hiring teams and the business office as well. Many of the hires that have occurred recently are the result of the 17 additional positions brought to us by the override. You will also see that we have had some resignations, and this is typical This is the time of year when often some families are moving and people are making some career choices and different decisions.

▶ 6:08 So we do see that movement. I do want to highlight that we have had many of our teaching positions that have been filled across the district. I'm really excited about that. In addition, many of our administrative positions have also been filled. So that includes the Director of Academics 6 through 12 for STEM, our Director of Visual and Performing Arts and Student Activities, the Winthrop Assistant Principal and Elementary Curriculum Coordinator position, and the Lincoln Assistant Principal. So those have all been filled. And then I usually wouldn't share the open positions. However, I did a cross-reference of what's on SchoolSpring and with the principals today. I just feel like it's important given the time of year, that I'm just very

▶ 6:51 explicit on what's open in each of our schools. All of the positions that are discussed are accounted for in the FY27 budget and listed. Many of the following positions that I'll share currently have finalists or are in the interview process, but someone hasn't signed on the dotted line yet. We still have both first and second round interviews that are occurring also this week. So frankly, we need two special education/early childhood teachers. We are looking for a dual certification for that, and many of our early elementary educators hold that. Horace Mann's fully staffed. Hoover is fully staffed. Lincoln has two special education teachers, and we also are looking to finalize our family and community social worker.

▶ 7:43 Roosevelt is still looking for an assistant principal, a second-grade teacher, a fourth-grade teacher, two special education teachers to work with in our DLC program, and two paraprofessionals. Winthrop, because of a recent shift in change, they are looking for a fifth-grade teacher. However, they already have a pool of candidates from a prior search. So that just occurred. So they're pretty close to that, and they have a grade three long-term sub that they're looking for. The middle school has three special education teachers, a sixth-grade science teacher. They are currently in the process of looking for a replacement for an assistant principal and an MLL teacher, so that's a multilingual learner teacher.

▶ 8:30 MHS is fully staffed. And then district-wide, we do have one multi-language learning teacher that's for elementary. We're looking for a .4 general education music at the elementary. And then we are looking for an elementary speech and language pathologist and an elementary special education coordinator. And then we also have our daily student supports and para positions that will be posted shortly. We have a few that are moving from maybe one elementary school to another based on needs of students, but we're working within our budgeted amount of staff to be able to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our children. So, that is the personnel report. Again, more than I would usually state or

▶ 9:13 share, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Any questions about the personnel report? Ms. Roszie Thomas. A couple. So, it seems like there are many positions open at Roosevelt, like you said at the beginning of your explanation around the personnel issues. Are there many finalists and many about to be filled there? I'm hopeful, yes. Okay. I do think that general education classroom teachers at the elementary level have gotten a number of candidates. Great. We have been able to get candidates to fill positions who are qualified and ready to hit the ground running. We continue the trend of having difficulty staffing some of our special education positions- Mm-hmm ... especially some of those working with our special populations.

▶ 10:00 Mm-hmm. And some of our specialists, you'll see in the speech and language pathologist. Although we, I think, hopefully have a candidate for that as well. Fingers and toes crossed. So, yep. In terms of this year in comparison to previous years, how are we doing in terms of hiring up? Yeah. I guess it's looked a little different in past years, just because we've had cuts and we've had movements in different ways. Mm-hmm. However, I would say the candidate pool in those general education positions that I shared are- Okay ... it is bigger, but we're still struggling in some of those areas. All right. Because I know that across the state, every municipality virtually had to tighten their belt this year, not just Melrose.

▶ 10:41 I mean, Melrose was very fortunate to get the override passed this year. So our situation's actually quite different, but it's a great time to hire because so many other towns and cities are laying off educators. So this works to our advantage. I don't know if you're seeing any of that. I think so. In discussing with the principals, and again, just looking at the qualified and certified people- Yeah ... I do think we are seeing some of that. I do think some people who hold some of those specialized licensures- Yeah ... if it's maybe special ed, they also have an elementary ed or a middle school, and oftentimes they're looking to do that as opposed to continuing in that special education realm.

▶ 11:19 Or they're going to the highest bidder kind of thing too? Yeah. All right. How are we doing with our new contracts in terms of being competitive? Have you seen any change? Yeah. From what I understand, and Ken Kelly can correct me, I don't think we're getting potentially the same pushback as we had in the past. I think when we have a candidate who has a certain number of years that we're able to give them credit for in a prior district, I think it's a much better situation than it was in past. Okay. And I don't know if, Ken, you want to add anything to that question? No, you're correct. Our starting salaries are more competitive than they have been in the past, and we've had less pushback for

▶ 11:56 people starting in those early steps. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, any other questions about the personnel? All right. Thank you. Okay. So moving on to the enrollment report. This report is also in your packet. We continue to have students withdraw and move to other communities. Again, like teachers and educators, this is a time when families move during the summer. So we have continued people who are withdrawing, but we also have continuing enrollment in our schools. I think that we are on track with our predictions, and we are within our class size prediction and expectations. So again, happy to answer any questions. Any questions about enrollment? Okay. All right. Just wanted to give a quick update, hopefully with the Winthrop playground.

▶ 12:48 I know some of you may have received some communication from me as you are part of the Winthrop community, but we did send an update to the Winthrop community specifically and just wanted to share it publicly. This Winthrop stakeholder group met at the end or middle of June, I guess June 18th, to discuss the plans for our new school playground. And this group will remain involved throughout the entire process. Our goal has been to have a new playground ready for our students as close to the start of the school year or the fall as possible. This stakeholder group is made up of a variety of voices from across the Winthrop community, and it includes Ken Kelly, Dr. Tracy, who represent the school leadership, Jim Troupe from DPW, Rob

▶ 13:30 Carrillo from Parks and Rec. And in addition, we're guided by the direct input of two Winthrop teachers and a few dedicated Winthrop parents, including a city councilor, Winthrop PTO, and school council representatives. So this group has finalized the design process to meet our students' needs. We selected the model, the color scheme, and have been able to secure a contract with a vendor who can deliver our quality work within our very tight timeline. We will be utilizing the same footprint and location for the structure because we really need to avoid any extensive infrastructure work and we don't want to relocate any underground utilities. And this really allows us to move quickly, meet the needs of students, put a playground in place quickly, and also stay within

▶ 14:16 our budgetary guidelines. The factory has scheduled equipment to ship the week of August 31st. They will start installation the first week of September, and we expect about two weeks for installation. And then hopefully we can get in the resurfacing and all of those kind of pieces. All of that's obviously weather dependent. We know what it looks like to live in New England, so fingers crossed on all of those things. But we are moving as swiftly as possible to ensure that our students have a great space as early as possible, and I'll continue to share the process as it unfolds. Great. Any questions about the Winthrop update? Yeah, Ms. Leo. I was just hoping, Superintendent Berman, you could share a little more about the

▶ 14:57 reactions from families, stakeholders, as you've shared out some of these updates, just so we have a sense of how the community is experiencing. Yeah. I don't always get a lot of responses to my emails or maybe sometimes I do. In this case, I think we've just gotten a lot of thank you. I think we're being really thoughtful in our planning and working with some very specific families and Winthrop families and identifying a color scheme that resonates with the community, and some different pieces. So I think people are excited to have a space again that feels fresh and new and that we can continue to use. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, before we go on to the next one, I just want to point out we made a slight

▶ 15:41 mistake in the agenda. We will not be voting on number four, even though it says vote. So I'll turn it over to the superintendent, no vote tonight. Okay. And this may have gone in a little bit prematurely. I think that I will just preface it by saying that there is a memo in there that we have placed, and it's a memo from Principal Galante that she submitted in the spring, and we've kind of finally gotten it into your agenda packet. And it's regarding the proposal of naming a reading corridor at the Hoover Elementary School for one of our beloved teachers who passed away during the school year. So I'm happy to participate in a conversation regarding this proposal, but I really want to be very upfront in terms of reading the

▶ 16:22 specific policy and sharing that the policy states that the superintendent will maintain a procedure for recommending district facility names to the committee. In full disclosure, I wasn't passed a procedure to align with this, frankly, and nor have I created one to date because it really hasn't come to fruition. So I do wonder if this would be best if we put a procedure in place, and then kind of bring it back to you. But certainly, I leave that to you in terms of how you'd like to move forward. And I think the intention when we were planning out the agendas for the summer was to announce this tonight and then potentially put it on the agenda in August for a vote, if that was the will of the committee.

▶ 17:13 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: So if anybody has any questions or wants to share their feedback now, or you can individually reach out to the superintendent or me. Ms. Driscoll. Yeah, thanks. Just a couple of things to think about, and thank you so much, Superintendent. I don't think anybody here would've expected you to have procedures that you would bring forward tonight. So all grace on that. I think you've been pretty busy working on many things. So appreciate your comments on that. I have just thought a lot about this and thinking about teachers who we've lost in the district over the years, and whether we've named for them, whether we've named for children, whether we've named-- Like who do we name something for? Where does that come from? And I think a lot of thought went into this policy

▶ 18:02 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: in 2023 to really be thoughtful and respectful of this. So that's just one thing I've been thinking about And I've also been thinking about what are the different alternatives when we do lose someone who we care about very much and is part of our district family. It can be a place, it can be a scholarship, the permanent scholarship fund. So it can be something like that. So there are a wide variety of ways, I think, to honor people who we have lost and care about. I just wanted to share some things that I'm thinking about as we walk through this process. Thank you. Yeah. And if I could just share something else. You all know that I've spent all of my life or most of my life at the secondary level. So I think in terms of what, Ms.

▶ 18:52 Driscoll, you just mentioned, I think it looks different at the secondary because it often results in some type of award that goes to a student, or some type of scholarship. Or even every couple years, they do the memorials for the bricks as a fundraiser. And you see a lot of those bricks will say, "In loving memory of." So I think that at the secondary, it maybe looks different. I obviously haven't had the lens into the elementary as I have in the last four or five years in the same fashion. But I do think it's something that, just think about globally and what that looks like. I do feel like it-- I don't want to say it's easier at the secondary, it's just different. Okay. Any questions? I just had-- Oh, so sorry.

▶ 19:40 Oh, no. I'm sorry, Mr. Hartman. Just to clarify in terms of what our next steps are, the intention is to bring back the memorandum to talk about implementing the name? Or is it that the procedure would come back in August for us to understand what the superintendent's procedure is in August before we- I think our original intention was to bring it up for a vote- Mm-hmm ... in August. I know that only four people will be here. I won't be one of them. But if that is maybe... Do people want to express that they would like to see written procedures first, or are we comfortable moving forward? I know how I feel about it. I think I've already given away my feeling on it but we can kind of talk about this now just to get the temperature. Ms.

▶ 20:20 Rozy Thomas? Well, I think it's important for all of us on the school committee to review what our policy is. Right? So rather than the procedure, we should look, we're responsible for policy, not procedures. So we should just double-check that within our policy, this proposal makes sense. And then we hand it over to the- Yep ... the school community through the superintendent. It's either yes or no from us. But if we're following our policy, I don't think you need to do anything procedurally. We have to check if we're following our policy, and then you decide how it's going to proceed. That's how I understand it. So I think that's just what we have to do on our own time, is double-check that we're living within our policies.

▶ 21:04 And then we say yes or no based on our policies, and then the superintendent and her team and the Hoover folks will do what they can based on our vote. Any other questions or feedback? Okay. The mayor? Just to your question about timeline, in the memo, the desire was to have this in place in September, so I would certainly want us to move forward to be able to meet that timeline. If that's sort of an expectation of the community, I don't want us to hold that up. Yeah. Any other questions? Can I just make a comment? Sure. I think it's a beautifully thoughtful and well-written proposal, and I think it's a lovely idea, and I want to just double-check our school committee policy. Sure. So it's policy FF naming- ...

▶ 21:52 for those of you who want to check it out. Okay. Moving on. Anybody else want to speak before we move on? Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. It's a short one tonight. We have warrants, FY26 schools S26096 in the amount of $750,334.73. FY27 July debit card, S27001 in the amount of $1,430. We have FY27 June meals tax S27002 in the amount of $5.81. FY27 June high school student activity wire S27003 in the amount of $10,509.01. FY27 June MV MMS student activity wire S27004 in the amount of $22,948. FY27 school S27005 in the amount of $277,098.67. FY27 school, I'm sorry, refund/officials S27006 in the amount of $16,144.96. FY27 schools S27007 in the amount of $79,193.40. Then we have the regular meeting minutes of June 23rd, 2026.

▶ 23:20 Then we have the cafeteria report. Then we have the second vote to rescind policy KCB, the second vote to approve policy KA, and the second vote to approve policy KDB. So I guess I lied. It wasn't a short one, was it? Does anyone have anything they'd like to pull from the consent agenda? Ms. Driscoll? Warrant S27007, please. Okay. So the last one there. Okay. And that will move to announcements of the chair. Does anybody have anything else? Ms. Rozy Thomas? The regular meeting minutes of June 23rd, 2026, please. Okay. We'll move the meeting minutes. Okay. Does anybody else have anything they want to move? Okay, those will go to announcements of the chair. Would anybody like to make any comments or make a motion to approve?

▶ 24:10 We have a motion to approve by Ms. Rozy Thomas, second by Mr. Hartman All in favor? Okay, and that passes unanimously. All right, now we move into our subcommittees, starting with finance and facilities. Yeah. Seven. Thank you so much. First on our agenda this evening is the budget summary with grants and revolving accounts through the superintendent to Mr. Kelly, please. Sure. Good evening. Thank you. So you've got the three reports. You have your FY27 budget summary from UNIS, the grant report, and our revolving accounts. Just a couple highlights. We're well underway with closing out FY26 and are now in the phase of making sure we have our carry-forward numbers correct, both in our open POs as

▶ 25:10 well as what we need to fund for the current warrants that are in front of you tonight. Our offsets did meet their budget targets. And good news, we were not in a position where we needed to request access through city council consideration for stabilization fund, which is a good best practice, and moving away from that as one of our contingency offsets. And all grants are on track to close out that are closed June 30, and some grants do stay open through September and even into the following year. So, all things that are on track, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have tonight. Questions for Mr. Kelly or the superintendent? Seeing none, why don't we move right into our grants report, please?

▶ 26:05 Sure. Yep. So all grants are on track. In case you're not aware, just informational, the new GEM system is almost a reimbursement system through the state now, where we submit backup detail that we've paid bills, and then we receive the drawdown funds, which is a little different than the way the old grant system used to work. So, our grants are all on track and in a good place. And anything else on the offset projections? Anything additional on that? One question. Ms. Razotins, yes. Thank you. So someone who's just looking at this would say that our offsets are very robust, which is great. With the override having passed, do we need to have all these offsets? And are there certain areas where could there potentially be relief with

▶ 27:01 increases to tuition or things like that? Sure. So for those that might not be aware that may be watching, the offsets are a built-in budgeted portion of our budget, so the city appropriates a major piece of our budget, and then we, through fees and tuitions, just like you mentioned, we raise about $5 million each year towards our budget. So, those are numbers that are budgeted at the beginning of the year. We have not raised those funds yet as we start FY27, so I probably don't have an answer right now as to things that we could reduce because those are funds that we do build throughout the course of the year, and we do rely on them. Mm-hmm. And while the override was a very generous thing for the city to

▶ 27:52 put forward for both the city and the school side, I would need more time to answer that question regarding were we going to move away from any of those offsets, because they are all a significant part of our budget. Right. It's baked in. Correct. And it's absolutely essential, especially when we're super lean. Yep. I just know that people are also really struggling financially with everything- Yep ... the costs of everything, and we're obviously six months away from our budget season, but it's something for us to be-- I know you're really thoughtful about it. Sure. So we'll see where we go. Yep. And we never know what's around the corner. Can have a global pandemic, right? So we'll see. Sure. Yep. No, we understand. Families have budgets that they plan and watch very

▶ 28:36 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: closely, as do we, and two of our lines for the ECC and Ed Stations that we pay salaries with those funds. Yes. So, there's a lot that goes into those offsets. Great. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, do I have a motion for approval? Made by Mr. Kelly. Second. Seconded by Ms. Holleran. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? Opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Next on our agenda is the end of year report audit. And just to clarify that this is actually a review. It's not an audit in the way that we think of the city finances being audited. So this is a financial report. Mr. Kelly, I think you have some good news to share with us. Sure, yes. Thank you. So, in the packet is our

▶ 29:33 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: final report from our own end-of-year report that is audited independently through CBES, our audit firm. And this is now a couple of years in a row where we've had no significant findings, nothing that they saw that was out of line with compliance with what DESE expects from us. So, another good report, which that's great to have on file. Any questions for Mr. Kelly on that? I just want to applaud Mr. Kelly for, once again Having a clean audit report, I think this is four years in a row? Yeah. There was some cleanup that first year, but then we've had three in a row that came through like this. Three in a row, yeah. So I'll give you three and a half, because I know you guys worked really hard on it. And you have all been

▶ 30:20 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: meticulous in working with your colleagues who have supported that work. Thank you. Yep. So that's a team effort, and much appreciated. Thank you. Yes, the business office works incredibly hard to have that as the final result. So yeah, thank you for that. Absolutely. Thank you for that. And seeing there are no more items on finance and facilities, that concludes our work here. Okay, now moving into Policy and Planning. Good evening. This is the Policy and Planning subcommittee. We have three items on the agenda tonight. We're going to review one of the policies that we put on hold at our last meeting, and we are going to discuss our kindergarten admittance policy, and then finally we'll have a short discussion

▶ 31:09 on our strategic planning process as we move forward. So starting off with a review of Policy KBA. This would be, again, potentially for a first vote. We've reviewed it a couple of times. There were some feedback at our last meeting around incorporating some of the language that MASC now includes around student conduct. There was some feedback from the superintendent about a desire to avoid unintended consequences of putting student conduct into a policy like this. And Attorney Lindquist went back and took the committee feedback, the feedback to the superintendent, and drafted some new language that you'll see in the packet. At this point in time, we can look at that language, consider it. We can also consider whether it even needs to be added at all.

▶ 31:57 I've been reflecting on this policy and thinking about just what do we add with new language. I think the underlying goal of this policy is to establish an underpinning of communication between educators and families about how students are doing, where they can weigh in, and help their students progress. I think that's the general theme of the policy, and supporting the district's procedures as they work with that. And I think the reference to student development is sufficient in a lot of ways to encompass what it means to have a conversation with a family about whether there's a student conduct issue or a student behavior issue in the classroom, and how that's developing with the assistance of the family and the educators working together.

▶ 32:40 So, I think looking at the language, considering the language that Attorney Lindquist has put together, I think there's certainly an avenue to think that maybe we don't need to add new language if it doesn't enhance the policy. So at that, I leave it with the discretion of the committee. But I'm leaning towards thinking about whether we actually need to add that, and if there's comments and feedback, we can go from there. But at this point, it's up to the committee. Open for discussion or a motion. Ms. Rozzie-Thomas. Yeah, I wasn't here at the last meeting when the first discussion happened. Mm-hmm. So, I can see there's benefit to less is more with language sometimes, but I also think even

▶ 33:30 with this new language that we put in about any student conduct concerns as appropriate. So when you're talking with parents, which I do in my day job all the time about student behavior, you have to be really, really careful about sharing anything about other- Mm-hmm ... students' behavior other than their own. And then of course, there's the desire from any parent and any human being- Mm-hmm ... to want to know more if their child is involved in it. Yep. So I think this says about any student conduct concerns as appropriate, right? So it doesn't talk about confidentiality. It does mention state law. And absolutely, schools should be in close contact with families and parents and guardians and caretakers of kids.

▶ 34:15 So, that's really important to say, but it's tricky when you say generally student conduct. Mm-hmm. Because anyone could interpret that as, "Well, now I need to know about all the student conduct concerns that I have in every school that I've ever heard anything about." Right? I think I have a little bit of issue with the genericness that that message sends. Mm-hmm. It's wide, not narrow, and it, in my mind, needs to be much more narrow, focused on the particular student that we're responsible for in relation to the family. Mm-hmm. So. Thank you. Yeah. Ms. Holleran? Thanks. That's, I think, a good point, Ms. Rozzie-Thomas. And to go back to the last meeting, the idea was that if you're a parent, you

▶ 35:15 would want to be informed of your student's conduct if something were to come up. Yep. But then Superintendent Berman brought up the point that we need to be aware of how involved parents are in that, with just the language being vague. And I was hoping to see conduct in this, but looking at it now, I'm concerned it doesn't add anything to the policy. If we're going to say that student development is also their conduct and their behavior, I think that covers that. And I Consistent with state law, I do think we are going to be consistent with state law, whether it's in the policy or not. Right. It is state law. So to your point, Mr. Hartman, I'm not sure that this sentence adds anything that

▶ 36:29 would be helpful in the policy. Great. Any more comments? I can make one clarifier, too, just in terms of how it's presented. The current language wouldn't include "and matters of student conduct." That was the suggestion from the MASC, the policy guide. So the crossed-out language and the underlined language are new to the policy in terms of discussion. The policy would end at "student development" if we adopted the current policy and reauthorized it. So at this point, we could make a motion to have a first vote if people are in favor of taking a certain direction, perhaps in terms of keeping this current policy. Is there a motion? Mayor? No. No. Question. Question. I just want to make sure I'm understanding.

▶ 37:23 Jen Grigoraitis: Can I say back what I think you're saying, Ms. Rozy-Thomas? Yes, of course. So your concern is that the added language allows it to be too broad, where basically someone could say, "I'm really curious about student conduct," period. Yeah. But I guess I read this a little differently, which is, I think we're very, particularly as appropriate, it would never be appropriate for us to share information about a child who isn't yours with you. I already think there are guardrails around the fact that we would not do that. We don't share information about students with people who aren't their caregiver or legal guardian. I know the intent around this was to clarify that we're not consulting with parents and guardians

▶ 38:01 Jen Grigoraitis: around matters of discipline and conduct, that we're not calling you necessarily to get your feedback as a parent about how we're handling discipline. Is that a correct summary, Superintendent Berman? So I don't know if that... But I'm just thinking, people may want what you're-- We know they want that. Right. But we would never, even whether or not that sentence is in there, we would never provide that because we wouldn't share that information. I would hope so, but I think it's tricky. Sorry to jump in, but is it okay if I go further or respond to the- Yes, if you'd like to respond, Ms. Rozy, that's fine. Okay. I think it's the language of "any student conduct concerns," that phrase- Okay, that's the piece. Okay

▶ 38:44 ... to me is very non-specific to the individual student. That is the student that's either related to the parent or the guardian is in charge of, right? So if we say "any," then that can be misinterpreted, I think in terms of, even though it says "consistent with state law," so we know that confidentiality would apply. You only talk about the student. But when you're talking about bullying investigations and all the things that bring other kids into it, and I just think we have to be really careful about, obviously, this is why we discuss policy, all the language that we use and how it implies and how it reads. That, to me, is about any student conduct concerns. So could you have someone who's really upset and say, "But in your

▶ 39:31 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: policy, it says, 'Any student conduct concerns.'" It's just a little... You know what I mean. Yeah. I understand. We're going to have, in all of our school specific rule books, we have laws listed at the end of them. So we should be covered either way. Right. But I just think that language isn't as good as it could be. Okay. That's all. I saw Ms. Driscoll, and then Chair Kelley. I appreciate all that. I do think that in policy, having sort of the broader language allows the superintendent to perform the how or to execute the how. So to me, a lot of this is in how you train staff and what your in your onboarding and in your yearly, however you do professional development around training, that it be

▶ 40:29 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: emphasized how this is executed. And I think then it could kind of do both things. So we say the what, and then the superintendent does the how. Yeah. So that's why I'm comfortable with this language. Mr. Kelly? Sure. Thank you very much. I think there's a couple of ways to handle it, but I'd be inclined to make a motion to approve. People can vote however they want. There would still have to be a second vote, and there would be time between now and the next vote for people to consult with Ms. Lindquist if they felt the need to make sure the language is what it should be, although this was drafted by her in accordance to all of her knowledge of laws. So I guess I would make a motion to approve as is.

▶ 41:15 Second. Second by Ms. Driscoll. Discussion? I want to clarify. "As is" means with the... Tell me what you mean. Make sure I understand what that means. The crossed-out language and the underlined language. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. No. So adding the sentence that Ms. Lindquist drafted. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Further discussion? Ms. Rozy-Thomas? I would just add a suggestion. So school personnel will keep parents, guardians, caretakers informed about their student conduct concerns as appropriate. That's all I would suggest. Would that be accepted as a friendly amendment, Mr. Kelly? Can you say it again? Sure. Consistent with state law, school personnel will keep parents, guardians, caretakers informed about their

▶ 42:09 potential student conduct concerns of their child or th-- It just needs to become possessive instead of it being a general thing. Did I hear you say things greater than parents? So, yeah. So can I jump in here? Yeah. Okay. So I had a conversation with Attorney Lindquist regarding this. So we do need to keep it as parent/guardians. Yep. We can't add the word- Yep ... caretakers- Yep ... just because these are the legal terms that- Yeah ... follow through there. That's fair. So I was actually along the lines of, I think, what you just said in terms of stating something like, "Consistent with state law, school personnel will keep parents/guardians informed about their student's conduct concerns as appropriate."

▶ 42:55 And I think that that may be able to blend and be successful, would be my suggestion. That sounds great to me. Is that accepted as a friendly amendment by the mover and the seconder? Yes. Yep. Okay. Yes. Are there any more comments? I have a comment for... Okay. I think the way that I'm really looking at this is when we make a policy change, and before I take a vote on it, the change should enhance what we're putting in there. I think some of our discussion tonight kind of indicates that maybe it's not clear if it enhances. Does it provide a new tool for the district to train teachers on? Does it provide teachers a new way of communicating with students about something that's more clear? I'm not sure it reaches that threshold for me when I'm thinking about the language,

▶ 43:45 as we've reviewed a couple of different rounds of looking at this. And even the starting point that MASC includes in their new draft and matters of student conduct doesn't come with a note beside it telling us what is the intent of that. I think the intent is to foster dialogue between families and students about how the students are progressing. I think that's captured in the underlying policy. I appreciate the work that Attorney Lindquist has put in, and the back and forth, and the changes we've proposed here at the table, but I'm just not sure that looking at it here, it enhances the policy or enhances what our educators can do with it. It might cause further confusion with families in how

▶ 44:26 they approach situations of conduct, as many students go through conduct issues, big and small, and I wouldn't want to add confusion to the classroom or to our superintendent's office around what this policy is indicating for them to follow. So, that's my standpoint at this point, is I think we can move forward with a vote, but that was my comment in the discussion element. Final discussion from Ms. Leah. Sorry, one more comment now, kind of putting all these things together. What Mayor Grigoret has said about last meeting really resonated with me with regard to the fact that matters of student conduct are not for consultation. So I think what this policy amendment does offer is a clarification to personnel,

▶ 45:11 to staff, that there is consultation on these matters and informing on the other matters. So in that regard, I do think it is additive with the informed language. So I do find that compelling, so thank you for adding that to the conversation. Mm-hmm. Appreciate that comment. So all those in favor of... Can we hit answer? All those in favor of the amended policy? So did I count six? And all those against, I'll say no. That moves forward six to one. We'll see that come back for a second vote next go around. All right. Moving on to our second agenda item for policy and planning. This is the JF admissions policy, so this is regarding kindergarten admissions. There are some amendments in the packet, and I'll allow the

▶ 46:12 superintendent to do a brief introduction about that and where that's coming from. It's to address some confusion around that. Great. So, I guess my recommendation is that we strike, as shown in the packet, the early enrollment petition language for both kindergarten and first grade, and establish a firm September 1st age cutoff with no exceptions. And I can give you the why, and I'm happy to have a discussion. So I would think when we just look at developmental readiness, as I think all of you know at this point, I'm very whole child-centered. And we know that kindergarten is academically and socially very demanding these days. While children might test and be very bright, they can struggle

▶ 46:57 with the stamina and the social-emotional demands of a full school day. You're often moving from a preschool setting to a full-out academic school day with older peers as well. And I would state that a firm cutoff date sets every child up for long-term success, and not just short-term. I just want to briefly mention the ability for our educators to differentiate instruction in the classroom. So, enrolling students with their same-age peers, I don't think it will hold any of our advanced or potentially advanced learners back. I really, truly believe that our teachers are very skilled at differentiating instruction. We often talk about them differentiating instruction for struggling learners or

▶ 47:39 someone who has not grasped a concept yet. I truly believe that our educators are also really good at helping to support students who need more, or who need something different, or who need a different challenge. I will come down to consistency and equity. I do think that the whole process itself can be a little bit complex, and it can create an uneven playing field. I do think a single, clear cutoff date ensures one transparent, fair rule for every family in Melrose. It does utilize district resources. Individual testing and screening for each of these children probably takes 12 to 15 hours of our school psychologist's work to assess a child, write a report, meet with a team, potentially having

▶ 48:25 someone else, whether it's that school psychologist or another one of our educators, do an observation. It does take some resources. And could those resources be used in a different way? So I guess, I just want to be really clear that striking this sentence means that a child must turn five on or before September 1st to enter kindergarten, or six on or before September 1st to enter first grade, and that no exceptions would be made. I truly believe that this aligns us with our neighboring districts and supports our student readiness and our teacher success. I've asked this question at many of my different round tables, and there are very, very few policies that have this exception. In fact, in many conversations over the last, probably I'd say six

▶ 49:15 months, I have found one district that has a similar policy to ours. The state law and guidance is this age five cutoff and then the age six cutoff, and I suggest we continue to support that. But that's it. I do have some data I'm happy to share about the past of what we looked at. You want me to keep going? Okay. So I do have five years' worth of data that I was able to pull, just because that's the time that I've been part of central admin and had access to this information. So over the last five years, we had 18 total petitions that were filed since the spring of 2022. All right, so we had nine in 2022, four in 2023, zero in 2024 because we didn't accept them because of all the budget cuts that were happening, and our class sizes were already too large.

▶ 50:08 So we said this policy we're going to-- Because in the policy, it states that we can, because of class size, not move forward with this. So we didn't. In 2025, we had three students, and in 2026, we had two students. So for a total of 18 over the last five years. In order to assess these students, there's a number of things that are done. I actually printed out all the things. We get a letter, we get recommendations, we get a letter from the pediatrician, but then we also do our own assessment through the Iowa Acceleration Scale, third edition, and that is completed by our school psychologist, as I mentioned before. That gives you some scores in terms of academic ability, aptitude and achievement, school and academic factors, developmental factors, interpersonal

▶ 50:52 factors, attitude, and support. And from there, there are four categories where children can score based on a number of points that they get, and it's a range. So we can have students be excellent candidates for whole grade acceleration, a good candidate for whole grade acceleration, a marginal candidate for whole grade acceleration, or whole grade acceleration is not recommended. So those are our four categories. So out of those 18 students, we had zero score as excellent candidates. We had seven score as good candidates, we had nine score as marginal candidates, and we had two score as acceleration was not recommended. So, with that, in the decisions that I have had to make, again, I look whole

▶ 51:41 child, and have had some difficult discussions about why it may not be good, even though your child has a high IQ, which is the ability to learn, but maybe has some social skill deficits when we dig into this assessment a little bit deeper. We want children to thrive, and we want children to find success, and I do think that the recommendation that comes out of the state for that age five, and with a September 1st cutoff, I do think it makes the most sense. I will also tell you, a number of those 18 candidates, you're probably wondering about birthdays. A lot of those are September birthdays. But also quite a few of them were October, and quite a few of them were November. I didn't chart all of that.

▶ 52:23 But they are that early piece. So, personally, I don't like to talk about my personal life that much, but personally, I have two fall birthdays, and I didn't do that, but my kids, whole child, do well. They had strengths and weaknesses. They still do. But I think to be with their same grade, same age peers, and to be able to move forward, I personally think that's really important, and that's what the research says, which is why we have this guidance from the state to say age five and not before. So that's my recommendation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions from the committee. Ms. Leo. Just one more follow-up on the database point. Out of those 18, with those ranked as good or marginal, how many ultimately did you support to

▶ 53:10 accelerate? So this is where the challenging point came. Okay. Okay. So again, and I should have stated that, sorry. Because my prior role, I oversaw school psychologists and all of these kind of things, I was often involved in the process of gathering the information, but I wasn't always part of the whole decision-making process because that fell under the superintendent. So I was trying to find those exact numbers of students we actually did say yes to and say no to, and that was proving to be a pretty time-consuming thing that I just didn't get to before this meeting tonight. So I know there's a handful. I do know over the last two years, we've said no to many, and even prior to that. We have said yes to a few.

▶ 53:55 Jen Grigoraitis: I don't think it's been since about four or five years ago. I would say that '22, '23 school year was when we gave the most yeses. Thank you. And it's not because they scored in a certain way. I think it's the decisions that were made. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mayor Gruder-Nies. Thank you for all of that, and it's really helpful to have your professional lens, but also the holistic data of how much time and resources we're putting toward implementing this policy. I'm not calling any of them out, but just do you feel comfortable saying what our elementary school principals, who are the ones that are overseeing kindergarten, what their thoughts are on this recommended change? Yeah, I think that they also believe that the state's recommendation is

▶ 54:35 age five. I also talked to some of our early educators, and I think that oftentimes, I don't want to say they lag behind, but there are skills that are not as well-developed as some of their peers who may be three, four, even five months older. And so yes, they would support the striking of this language. Thank you. For Mr. School. I would make a motion. Or this is informational? This is informational. It's informational. Yep. Great. Yep. I'll wait on my first review. Great. I'd deposit one thought if there's no further from the committee on the floor, just simply that anytime we have a degree of discretionary policy around decisions like this, and especially discretionary application for who is involved in

▶ 55:33 making a petition, there can be equity issues that come out of that. People may not know of a policy, the types of students that are brought forward and pushed through this. We have to think about the impacts of that. So I think a lot about the equity concerns of when there's a lot of discretion involved in how something like this comes forward as making a potentially big decision about a student and their trajectory. Thank you for highlighting that. Yeah, I tried to bring that in as one of my points- No, I appreciate you ... but I appreciate you uplifting that as well- Yeah ... because that's really important I appreciate your data as well. It was very informative. So, all right. Well, if there's no further comments on that, we'll move on to our final

▶ 56:14 agenda item, and that will appear in our next committee meeting for potentially first vote. Our final item on tonight's agenda for policy and planning is the strategic planning discussion. We've talked about this a couple times. As we are now excuse me, in the wrapping up phase of our previous three-year plan, the superintendent and I have discussed a little bit about where we might head with strategic planning on a longer-term basis. And I've highlighted to the superintendent and Chair Kelley a discussion around some steps we might take to move forward on that. So, there's an interest in how we would move forward with potentially a shorter-term plan, reflecting on the fact that over the last three years we've seen a great deal of disruption in our

▶ 56:59 school system financially, staffing-wise, as a result of those financial impacts. In a lot of ways, there's just been a lot going on with the district where we want to first assess where we are in the three-year plan that we are coming to the conclusion on. This gives the superintendent an opportunity to really dig into that and identify places where we've made progress, where we maybe need to focus a little bit more over the next year. So I'd offer that the initial part of this timeline is to look towards August, where the superintendent would come to us, discuss the current three-year plan that's coming to a conclusion, and what that might turn into as a potential one-year plan, highlighting elements of that plan that need additional

▶ 57:39 focus in this next coming year. That would give us the time in late August to meet as a committee again or early September, potentially with the help of MASC, guiding a discussion, pulling out from us as a committee what our directional thoughts are representing the community, highlighting some large topics for the superintendent to consider as she begins a longer-term planning process. So that would be late August or early September, where we would have that as a next step for the committee. At the same time as this, the superintendent and her team is working to pull through that remaining elements of the closing out policy. They would present essentially where we are in September, as well as what would a one-year plan look like.

▶ 58:25 That would be the direction for September. And then her and her team would incorporate the feedback from our dialogue session and work through October to start coming up with strategic elements of a master plan for the next few years beyond the one-year plan. I know I'm throwing out a couple different dates at the same time, but hopefully people are following me. Please raise your hand if you have a question as I'm describing it. So October is really a time for the superintendent and her team to get into the weeds on some of the data, some of the elements that her principals and leadership team need to really get into around strategic planning, hold some sessions with her teams, and that would be her time for her team, October and probably November,

▶ 59:08 to resolve and work on those questions, work with site councils, work with different buildings on elements of a strategic planning process. And then we would look towards December to start seeing some of that framework coming from the superintendent back to the committee. We would consider that framework. We would respond to it, give her further feedback about how she could change direction on certain things or what she would need to focus on as she presents it. And then January through February, we would start to formalize that, start to see coming from the district a more thorough and full strategic plan coming forward. No specific timeline on when we have to vote on it, but this is just the general framework for working through the fall so that we have a process

▶ 59:49 to follow input from the school committee. We could work in community sessions as needed or surveys as another aspect of collecting community feedback. A lot of elements along the way that we could build into it, but giving both the committee some time to focus on elements and giving that feedback to the superintendent, and also giving the superintendent and her team really an opportunity to deeply dive through the fall into the work they need to do so they can bring something back later in the winter and midwinter for us to really consider and chew on. So that's our general framework. If there's questions, or if there's thoughts about a different direction on any of those elements, please, this is the time to bring

▶ 1:00:28 that forward so that we can kick off where we're headed. Mr. Kelly? Sure. Thank you very much. I would just sort of maybe think a little bit out loud that doing anything in August, which is in three days, might be a little bit of a challenge with people being away and trying to schedule things in. So maybe September might be a time where people might be able to devote a little bit more time to this, but that's just my initial thought. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ms. Rosie Thomas. I know that we always have issues related to putting things on our agenda once we start budget season. Now, this year should be an easier budget season than previous ones. Not so much this year, but previous years. So, I would just say,

▶ 1:01:20 it depends on-- Having a general outline is a really good idea, because you have a lot of things that you want to try to get done before budget season, and I think that was probably part of the intent. But a strategic plan is also based on what every school needs to work on in terms of school improvement. Mm-hmm. So we've really done-- The schools have done a great job in the last year getting back to that, and there's some basic foundational ideas that this wonderful superintendent we have here in front of us, that she's offered to us in terms of what the foundation that she wants to build off of. So the one thing I would just caution us is, I would love a strategic plan with lots of community input, but I also think the one that she

▶ 1:02:06 probably puts together for that one year is probably what the long-term plan is going to look like, and then they'll dig into it and create more layers to it- Mm-hmm ... and more ways to get to the goals. But I don't think it's going to be radically different than what we have already, unless we want to really change direction, which I don't think we want to. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know. I think strategic plans are incredibly important, and there's also the daily work, and that's incredibly important. So I think we're already on a really good path, is what I would say. Mm-hmm. So. Thank you. Yeah. Further comments? Just replying quickly as well, I think that thinking about the budget question, was one of the driving factors was trying to conclude most of the heavy

▶ 1:02:50 lifting before January and February. Mm-hmm. Have the superintendent working with her team and starting to bring that dialogue back to us in January as we start a budget session sometime in late February or March, as we did this year. So considering that timeline, trying to conclude most of our work on that before we dig into the budget. And also, as we think about the budget, the budget should be informed by a new strategic plan and where we're headed with that. So that's another element as well, to connect those dots. So, okay. Well, if there's no further feedback, we'll continue that dialogue. Actually, responding to Mr. Kelly's point, I think when we're considering a session with the committee and MASC, we had discussed whether it might be

▶ 1:03:35 a Saturday morning. That's happened historically in the past. So whether if that's easier in September, we can work on scheduling that so that it's a session that is more accessible rather than dominating an evening agenda, if you will. It might not be the most appropriate use of our time during evening agenda when we have a lot of other business to tackle. So, if that's all, then we can conclude policy and planning, and move on to our next subcommittee. Okay, moving on to education programs and personnel. Good evening. Thank you for the introduction. We have one agenda item tonight that we will need to vote on, and I'm very excited to bring in front of us Mr. Corrigan, who, through the superintendent, is going to explain the

▶ 1:04:33 Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School School Improvement Plan for this coming year. And we're very excited to have you here. Thank you for coming out in the summertime. Oh, no problem. My pleasure. Superintendent, would you like to kick us off? Sure. Yes. So, thank you, Mr. Corrigan, for being here, Deputy Superintendent of Secondary Schools. Really appreciate all the work that you have done with the site council this year. I am not sure that we've had a school improvement plan for the middle school for quite some time. So I really think that Mr. Corrigan and his team started from ground zero and really looked at our current district plan, and really looked at the needs of the middle school to develop this

▶ 1:05:17 plan. So I will turn it over to you. You just stole my introduction. Oh, sorry. Yeah, no, it was a good setup. Ms. Connor, do you mind going back to the beginning of the... So. Go back. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. Sorry. So, as Superintendent Berman said... No, you just go back a couple slides from where you were. All the good stuff is always in the appendix. Yeah. No, I know. These are appendix. I know you probably have the most questions about that. So yeah. So as far as our process, and I'll start. Do you mind just going back two or three more slides? I don't know if they've- This is the first ... other direction. Thanks. Keep going, keep going. I just want to give a shout-out to the... So I'm here tonight by myself, but

▶ 1:06:00 obviously there were elected parent representatives as well as staff representatives who served with the committee with me and attended most of the meetings, contributed a ton. So I'll give a shout-out to them. Unfortunately, none of them could make it tonight, but I know every now wanted to come. The timing just didn't work. But they were awesome. I think I learned just as much from them about the community. I was new to the school this year. I won't repeat everything Ms. Berman said, but I kind of came into a situation where they didn't have an active plan. There hadn't been a full slate of meetings in the prior year, so we did look at it as starting from scratch. We also had a new template for our school improvement plans

▶ 1:06:42 So this was an opportunity for me to start fresh with that. Can you go to the next slide? So, we held seven meetings, mostly virtual. We did have one in-person in the library. I said, "You got to come in the building and actually see the children." Most of them have kids in the school. Every meeting had some form of an update from the schools. I would tell them about assemblies, field trips, academic deadlines, things that are going on in the building. Closer to the end of the year, we started to talk about bringing teams back, what the schedule is going to look like, what's on the docket for curriculum and whatnot. So, they were a great sounding board for that as well. I forget sometimes when you ask parents these questions, they come

▶ 1:07:30 back with really good, thoughtful questions and help my perspective of how I communicate as a leader. They were a great resource and really contributed a ton. So, our goal was to develop the school improvement plan, and we did that in multiple steps. We had sort of started with a general conversation. They weren't really as a group. I went into that first meeting a little nervous, and they were just like, "You set the agenda, tell us what you want to get accomplished, and we'll work toward that." Second meeting, we looked at a lot of data, historical academic data on the school, some current data. Most stuff that you guys have seen here in school committee, things like the IXL presentation, Manuel Acevedo, I

▶ 1:08:13 had recently put on. I shared that with them. We looked at some attendance data. I was able to share some more granular data that my team looks at at the school. Obviously, did it in a very confidential way, and we just started brainstorming, obviously using the district plan as our guide. We looked at a few other sample documents, and we sort of came up with two goals. One was to set an academic and social emotional goal that was in line with the district goals. Two, we also wanted to gather some of our own data. I had some community members who do some of this stuff for work, and we really talked a lot about surveying. And we recognized that we wanted to give out some sort of a culture survey

▶ 1:09:01 to the building, recognizing that we didn't really have a baseline for that because we hadn't given the exact survey in previous years. We looked at some of the wellness surveys that are distributed, including the one that the state distributes, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey that we're in talks about giving again next year as sort of a data point. And we had a few other historical data points over the last two years that we were able to look at. So, as you'll see at the end of this document, there's an appendix with most of those results. I did omit some of the parent responses just because a lot of them did name specific individuals and whatnot. The parent open responses. But I included all of

▶ 1:09:45 the parent qualitative responses. We spent a whole meeting just looking at that parent data and having a conversation about what we could glean from it, recognizing it's imperfect, right? That we had 150 or so parents fill it out, and a school of 850 students, that's definitely not a fully representative sample. We recognize that. But we got a lot of our staff and almost all of our students did it in Prime, so we thought there was some validity to those results, and we helped use that to write our plan. I know the plan was shared with you in the packet. If you want to go to the next slide. We just roll with the district's goal of a year's worth of growth as we use IXL as a measurement. It's not the only measurement that we're going to use.

▶ 1:10:34 Next year is engaging our students' academic growth, but it's a convenient one for us to have some conversations about. And then we looked at the attendance piece. We started a lot of work around attendance this year at the middle school. I learned a lot. I learned about how a middle school is different than high school, which it very much is. And some of the conversations that we're having with our 17 and 18-year-olds are just very different when you're dealing with a 12-year-old who's late to school, not necessarily-- There could be a variety of reasons that differ from why our older students are late. Often, our older students are just not coming on time, and it's more complicated with a lot of our younger

▶ 1:11:18 students. Parents are dropping another student off. So we learned a lot, and we met today as a secondary leadership team for about two hours. Kind of did like a little mid, late summer, where are we at? Where are we at with building improvements, projects? Where are we at with our goals? How prepared are we for the start of the school year? How in line are we with each other with our goals? And we took another look at the attendance policy that's in the code of conduct, and I think it's really about how we plan to enact that and some of our conduct policies next year in the middle school versus revamping the ones that were already approved by you guys. So, if you go to the next slide. I'm not going to read through the

▶ 1:12:06 entire document, but I do just want to highlight that we included some of those data points. I had the committee pick out some that they thought were the ones that resonated, that we had multiple conversations about, and they thought helped guide us. We tried to mark some interim measures of implementation, things that we could share with Superintendent Berman. She can share with you all, or Jason and I can share with you. These aren't things we're inventing for this document. I think I was very clear that we really want to make this something that we're actually going to execute on, and it's going to be part of what our bigger plans are anyway. And as you can see in our action steps, we really

▶ 1:12:50 tried to capture-- I think, as a committee, we did a good job of capturing all the work that we've been discussing, whether it's here in the building with our staff, of accomplishing over the next two years. So, whether it's bringing the teams back, rebooting some of the prime stuff, rebooting some of the PBIS thing, adopting the new curriculum materials, continuously using data and benchmarking students, holding those SST meetings and IST meetings when needed. And just continually looking at our policies not just as how they're written, but how, as leaders and staff, we're implementing them effectively. So, yeah. So, I guess I'll open it up to questions, and I'm happy to respond to anything within the parameters of this that-- questions you

▶ 1:13:45 have or thoughts. Yeah. Thank you very much- Yeah. No problem ... Mr. Corrigan. So, who would like to start the first round of discussions, questions? Go ahead, Miss. Thank you, Mr. Corrigan. This is great. I thought it was really detailed. One thing I was wondering, with it being a one-year plan, completion dates were two years out. Oh, yeah. Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. It's supposed to be a two-year plan. I'm sorry if that was marked incorrectly. It's great. I think our goal is to have that growth within one year. But all of the steps in here, we're anticipating working on over the next two years with our staff. So, though we will implement the new curriculum materials in English and math next

▶ 1:14:31 year, we don't view that as a one-year plan and then we're going to move on the next year. We view that as something that's going to take multiple years to-- I think we're going to learn a lot. As I said, I already learned so much just being in the building more frequently this year. Yeah, so we really are looking at this as a two-year plan. Yeah. Okay. Great. But I think I'm kind of reserving the right to reset our goals next year. And we'll definitely communicate that with you all. Yeah. So ultimately, it will be multiple touchpoints next year- Yeah ... and the year after- Yeah ... and with a final summary in 2028. Correct. Awesome. Great. I think that's well-stated. And I'll be honest, again, I learned a lot this year.

▶ 1:15:16 With a lot of these goals, I think we're going to learn and need to adjust at the end of the year. Mm-hmm. So, a lot of these steps. Thank you. Yeah. No, it's a good question. Thanks for catching that. Yeah. Yes, go ahead, Mr. Hartman. Thank you. And I'll connect with the point that Ms. Razotich actually made in the previous subcommittee meeting about the school site council, the planning process at the school level, building into our broader strategic planning process. I think that's a really good connection. I appreciate the work that's gone into this. Yeah. You've clearly got some great people at the table. You've got educators, your admin team, your parents, all connecting the dots and pulling together this plan. I appreciate that,

▶ 1:15:54 how much work has gone into that. So, I think this is a great starting point for us to where we can feed it into district planning as well. So, that's really helpful. Looking at some of the specifics, I know that we've highlighted math in the past. We certainly see that element here, so I appreciate that being called out. One of the other elements that popped out to me was the 56% of staff number in there around believing protocols around discipline, school safety- Yeah ... and transitions are clear and followed. That kind of jumped out to me about that, and I wonder if you could speak just a little bit more to that, if there was any more feedback on that and- Yeah. I would say overall, I can confidently say the culture and climate of

▶ 1:16:37 the building is improved, even with larger class sizes last year, no teams, the cuts that we had to make just to make things happen. There's areas of growth, I'm not going to lie. I think it was interesting when we actually wrote the survey, when we were working on the survey with the council, I got some staff feedback about some of the protocols around conduct incidents and whatnot, and immediately delivered that feedback to our team. So, I think though things are improved, we have some areas of growth, a lot of which you guys already were talking about today as far as parent communication around some disciplinary incidents, what do we share and what don't we share. You can even see it in some of the parent results that I didn't share

▶ 1:17:33 just because they were so specific. There was one that a parent was saying there's fights in the hallways, and there isn't a lot of fights in the hallways. But there have been fights in the middle school hallway, and just as far as how we think, I think we've gotten pretty good at handling those situations. As far as communicating what those results are, and just the conversation y'all just had, just that in an appropriate way with all of our stakeholders, whether it's staff, support people, other students who may have been witness to it, and families, is an area that we're working on. Mm-hmm. So, I think that was part of our conversation today. It even boils down to how we are hiring a new assistant principal at the middle school.

▶ 1:18:18 As a leadership team, what are our goals for that person next year? Michelle Suk has really stepped up as sort of a leader in a lot of areas, as well as sort of another decision-maker that collaborates with Jason and I, and I'm excited to bring Marissa Puccio on our conversation, who's got a lot of really good experience. So, just how can we function as a team to make sure that everyone's feeling good about the building? And I think overall they are, but I think there's some areas of growth, or not yet. I'm not going to hide that, so Well, thank you. Well, this is a very good starting point, and I think that specifically calling it out is important to- Yeah ... to have it as a- Yeah ... as a place to focus. So-

▶ 1:18:54 So that's marked too. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And how can we like... I'm sorry to jump in. Go ahead. But we've got this AAA class now. We got teams back, right? We've had another year of scheduling. How can we leverage some of those things to make some of these gains as well? So- Yeah. Thank you. Go ahead, Ms. Leah. Ms. Leah. Thank you so much for the database. So I think it was really helpful to see the survey data as well as the numbers- Yeah ... in the plan. And I think we all know that the plan is the first part and the implementation is the second. Mm-hmm. So I was hoping you could speak a little bit more to, you just mentioned now the teams, so with regard to strategy one, you mentioned reinstate the teams.

▶ 1:19:38 I would love to hear a little more about how specifically, for all of the folks watching, Yep Do teams support tier one and two instruction so that we can understand when we're investing in something like that, how that actually helps us implement this plan. Yeah. So last year we kind of stuck with what we knew as far as our student support process, and we used a very sort of high-level data process that involved an administrative team, counselors looking at student data, and then we'd identify individual students that we needed to have individual meetings for, and then pull a more intimate team. Last year we did not have common grade level blocks off, which we will next year. So every grade level's going to have a block off.

▶ 1:20:22 Even eighth grade, who's not necessarily constructed in teams, we can hold individualized student support meetings and know that every single teacher's available that that student has-- Every single, sorry, team teacher is available, because there might be some other important people left out, but we can get the majority of their team together more easily next year. I think it's building in those habits of looking at student results and then planning. And I think one thing that we've been working on at the high school for 10 years, and that we're still working on, and is what do we offer, right? So what can we do in the classroom to help support those students? And part of that is getting those educators that time together to have those

▶ 1:21:10 conversations, because now there's sort of a team around that kid. Because even if they're not on a team, they have a team of teachers, and now all those team of teachers can meet and they can discuss, and they can say, "All right, what can we implement at a classroom level?" Right? And then for me, it's like, what can we offer beyond that? So is there a pull-out service? So next year, we're very excited about that AAA class. That's an academic support executive function class for non-special ed kids. We've added a reading teacher. We have capacity for reading and I'm saying these things now, I'm worried that parents are going to come asking for-- We're hoping that our teams identify kids for these opportunities.

▶ 1:21:46 But we have the opportunity to do reading intervention for students who don't necessarily have reading on their IP. I don't know if we've ever had that at the middle school. That's a- Mm-hmm ... tremendous gain. Our guidance counseling team has started taking on sort of a more-- And they've always done this, but we really have had conversations about how can we get these needier students who maybe don't have counseling on an IP or a counseling service listed somewhere, just more regular check-ins and support. And we are looking at the prime block and those times built into the day and the win block, how can we best utilize that? We actually don't have all the answers to this. So we have some ideas about how we want the teams to function around the student

▶ 1:22:28 support process. But we've just actually, literally today during our secondary meeting, invited a bunch of staff leaders to our admin meeting on August 17th, or whenever it is, MTSS day- Mm-hmm ... to contribute to those conversations. We're hoping to make some decisions around that. But it really is just more concrete sort of team who's available to discuss, and for us, we're providing them with some more options if those classroom-based things aren't necessarily effective at moving the needle in whatever area the student is struggling in. So yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, go ahead- May I make a comment? ... Superintendent. So, I just want to really just thank you for all of your work. I do think the team that has been built, the administrative team as well

▶ 1:23:42 as the leaders and specifically the middle school staff, I think there's been a shift. And we talk a little bit about bringing teams back and putting that structure in place. And I used to call myself the scheduling queen, and now, I was proficient. I was almost exemplary, but Brian is exemplary. He's the king. I'll give you the crown. But he really has become-- Because you need the structures in place, right? So we bring back the teams. He's been able to create the common planning that becomes really necessary when you want teachers to collaborate, to work towards what's best for students. But also then you need to facilitate and guide what that time is used for. Yeah So set the expectations for what that needs to look like.

▶ 1:24:24 So whether it's a student support team or maybe a 504 team meeting or an IEP team meeting, whatever that may be. So now the structures have been created. I think we've given some of the parameters around what those discussions should look like in these collaborative settings. And I think also in addition to the override funding, bringing back teams and some other things, we have some actual true interventions that we can put into place. Not only in the classroom with our tier one interventions and having-- We have some new curriculum coming down the pike. We have teachers who are excited to come back and have some smaller class sizes and some different pieces like that. But then we have, you mentioned some reading pieces that we've never

▶ 1:25:07 been able to do. You've mentioned some executive functioning. For students who- do not have a diagnosed disability but are having some challenges. And that's really important because we have that second tier that we've been missing for a while, and that all comes with, again, the structures, the expectations, and I think we're hopeful we'll start to see really some changes in performance of our students, but specifically some of our subgroups who we have seen them not rise or accelerate at the same rate that some of our other students are doing. So thank you for all of your work on that. Yeah. We all have ideas. I think as a leadership team, we've been talking about them all summer, but we do really want to bring these two...

▶ 1:25:51 And adding the STEM director back as well- ... we're hoping that Allie's going to have a great role in the math lab block that sixth and seventh graders will be, because that's where some of those math interventions are going to occur. So it is written kind of vaguely, in the actual plan, and that was sort of intentional because we want to collaborate as a team and learn from the educators what they think is going to work best as well. So hopefully next year when I'm sitting in front of you, I have sort of a more concrete answer about, all right, the sixth grade 6A gets together. These are the data points they're looking at. These are how they identify the kids. This is the first step where the kids go, and this is the second step where the

▶ 1:26:33 kids go. We have a lot of that, but I can't sit here and tell you exactly what that's going to look like, but that's our goal. So... Well, there's the scheduling piece, and then there's also the evaluation piece, right? Yeah. So I think that that's a whole another conversation, but any other questions, comments for Mr. Corrigan? Yes, Mayor Jen, go ahead. Just a motion to-- Are we voting on this tonight? Yeah, we're going to vote on it. Yeah. Motion to approve. Okay. Thank you. Second. Seconded by many people. I'll give it to Mr. Kelly this time. I just want to make a couple comments, and then we'll vote. Thank you for all the work that you did in the last year. This is a whole new leadership model that was put together

▶ 1:27:11 by our interim superintendent at the time, who then became our permanent superintendent. So there's been so much done in the last year, and I know from having my own child at the middle school that I think the middle school was stabilized again, through you and through your whole team of leaders over there. And then I think this plan with the community input is really, really strong. It's simple, it's data-based, and it gives you a very clear direction to go in on multiple levels with different subgroups. And, I was very curious about the attendance piece- Mm ... because 11.7% of students missing more than 10% of school days during the '24, '25 school year. So that was not this past year, but the year before-

▶ 1:27:59 Yeah ... right? Yeah. But that's a lot of kids missing a lot of days. That's 18, 19 days a year for each one of those students that's there. So I don't know what this past year is going to look like in comparison. I don't know if it improved or not. I'm not going to ask you tonight, but I think I'm really glad you're paying attention to that. I'm also really glad that we're saying, "Let's get better," back to at least where we were before the pandemic, if not better. And those are really good goals to get to, and we can do it. We can do it. You guys can do it, and we believe in you, and it's a lot of work. So, I wish you all the best with it. And I don't know if there's anything you want to talk about related to attendance,

▶ 1:28:44 because attendance and timeliness- No ... is so important. The educators in the room know this is a national and a state trend, right? Mm-hmm. This is not a Melrose unique issue. The most chronically absent students, I'll say that, that's a statistic. We definitely improved in that. I can tell you, we've run attendance data. We're looking at it sort of in interim moments. I actually am interested to see, once we do all the state reporting, what's going to pop up on DESE's website for this year's stat. I think it's going to be better. Yeah. But I can tell you for certain, from all the month-to-month data that we look at, our most chronically absent students have improved. Mm-hmm. So as a high school person, I would always look at the incoming eighth graders,

▶ 1:29:34 trying to identify those students who maybe had 50, 60, 70 absences in eighth grade. We're not retaining them, right? Right. And we have actually put plans in place for those students to get support over the summer and- Mm-hmm ... because that's a whole all night- Right ... having this conversation about retention and- Yeah ... and meeting benchmarks at the elementary and middle school level, which is at the high school level, we just say, "You're not graduating. You're not moving on. You're not earning credits." And it's very different at a middle school and at an elementary school, and it's in some ways more challenging to hold that line. So, I would say we've made significant gains in that realm

▶ 1:30:17 of our most chronically absent students, and that was certainly a team effort this year from all stakeholders. So- So I'm very pleased with a lot of the systems that you brought down from the high school and are applying them to- Yeah ... the middle school, and the fact that you can also cross-pollinate between both schools. I think it's a really good model, and I'm very excited to see what you do over the next two years with the middle school's school improvement plan. So with that, we have a motion, we have a second, all in favor of supporting this plan. That passes unanimously, seven people enthusiastically voting yes. Thank you so much- Thank you ... Mr. Corrigan Thanks. Good to see everyone.

▶ 1:30:58 Enjoy the rest of your summer. Yeah, you too. Thank you. Okay. So we have concluded our subcommittee work. We're now going to move into announcements to the chair. There'll be four votes tonight, plus just the report that we have the rolling agenda That may need to change as a basis due to one of the votes that we'll have tonight. And then before we conclude, we'll go into outreach. Okay, so first up is we have the public evaluation of the superintendent. So everybody in the packet, you all were able to get me your evaluations, and then I was able to put in a composite. Before I go into any of the highlights in the composite, is there anything anybody would like to say or concerns about the process?

▶ 1:31:53 And then I'll go through the composite, and if people want to make any individual comments about our superintendent, we can go that direction. So process-wise, people good with how we did the composite? Okay. All right. So let's talk about some of the highlights. So, some of the things that were highlighted as core strengths of our superintendent is her leadership's been defined by stabilization, operational transparency, deep institutional knowledge. She's been with us for 25 years, and that has really helped her bring great organizational skills to our district. Strategic stability, financial stewardship. I think it goes without saying that she and the deputy superintendent faced a challenging budget, have been able to implement it,

▶ 1:32:41 as well as taking on money from the override and getting us back on track. People feel that she's got collaborative communication skills. She's got an open-door policy, works well with school committee staff in the broader community. She has a strong instructional vision, which I believe we all just saw tonight through some of the discussions. Some of the key performance indicators that came out of everyone's evaluations is that she has successfully moved from being an interim to a permanent superintendent and really has a strong understanding of our district. Something that popped out from many people, but I would specifically call out the mayor just sort of really brought up how well Superintendent Berman works with the other

▶ 1:33:30 departments. And I think that's really critical because we really do rely on city finance help, facilities, DPW, our IT department, and our public safety. So I think that that's been helpful and always is something that I think with that positive relationship is beneficial to our staff and our students. Many people brought up that she handled a crisis that we had at the Winthrop School exceptionally well, with a lot of compassion and communicated well with impacted folks. And then contracts, she was instrumental in our settlement of contracts, which I think we can all be very proud of, that they were settled before they expired, which not all school districts or Melrose could have had in the past.

▶ 1:34:18 So I think all of us who were part of that, it was very clear that she has the strong respect of our educators, and I think that was very helpful for us. All that in, based on everybody's rankings as proficient, exemplary, or developing, she has achieved an overall rating of proficient. And if you combine proficient and exemplary, her total is 93%. Is there anything anybody would like to-- Well, actually, any comments, questions, concerns? Anybody like to make any comments themselves, just generally? And then we can decide if anybody wants to vote to approve this. Mr. Harvin? Just briefly, I think the summary was just extremely well-stated and still just expressing gratitude for the superintendent coming

▶ 1:35:09 into an unexpected position and really responding to the role so well. I want to highlight that those first few weeks when you really took the reins of the position you were in and figured out what the right administrative team was, I think that was a really key element of showing your leadership very early on. And I think that's recognized in the evaluation here. The work you've done over this year has just been tremendous, and I'm very grateful for where we've come as a district as a result of that. Anyone else? Anybody like to make a motion? Mayor? Motion to approve. Is that what we- We have a motion by the mayor to approve. Is there a second? Seconded by Ms. Driscoll. All in favor? Any opposed? And that passes unanimously, so congratulations.

▶ 1:35:53 Thank you, Superintendent. Okay. Now we are going to move on to meeting calendar updates. So we do have the need to move some meetings around due to a fall holiday that impacts the city council, which then impacts our ability to access this building. So we have two updates that are going to be for October. And I just lost those. Let me just pull up, try to find them real quick. Okay, so those are going to be to, I'm sorry, September. Those are going to be having to move things around due to Labor Day because that switches around the city council meeting. So that would be to move our meeting of September 8th to September 15th and to move our meeting of September 22nd to September 29th. And then if these are approved, we will have to make some adjustments, obviously,

▶ 1:36:50 to the rolling agenda. Any questions or concerns? Anybody like to make a motion to approve? Made by Ms. Driscoll, seconded by Ms. Holleran. All in favor? Any opposed? That passes unanimously. All right. So, we do have a couple of items that were pulled from the consent agenda that we have to deal with tonight. The first one is the vote on the FY27 schools warrant S27007 in the amount of $79,193.40. Would anybody like to make a motion to approve? Okay. Made by Ms. Rosie Thomas, seconded by Ms. Leo. All in favor? Any opposed? That passes unanimously, six to zero. Okay, next up we have the meeting minutes of June 23rd, 2026. Would anybody like to make a motion to approve? Made by Mr. Hartman, seconded by Ms. Holleran. All in favor?

▶ 1:37:47 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, that passes with six in favor, with one abstention. Okay, so that got us through our votes for tonight. I already discussed, we'll update the rolling agenda as it relates to the adjustments to this meeting schedule. Does anybody have anything on outreach reports? Ms. Driscoll? Yeah, just a reminder that the MASC, MASS, MASC joint conference is the first week of November. It will be held in Danvers this year, so easy to get to, and especially for our superintendent, hopefully too, if she is available. And very excited about that, and looking forward to it. So I would just remind folks to let Ms. O'Connor know if you're interested in attending, and she will register you.

▶ 1:38:40 Okay. Ms. Leo? Just making an announcement that we will have an outreach calendar for office hours coming up, that we will start in September, and I will work with Ms. O'Connor, we have talked about this, to get that list of meeting times and locations up on our school committee webpage so folks can access that. And we'll attempt to plan that at least for the first half of the year so that the public can join us in office hours as needed. So that'll start again in September. Great. Anyone else? When the students come back, the high school will vote for the student reps. So that's already on the principal's radar. So that's all I have. Is there a motion to adjourn? Made by Ms. Rosie Thomas, seconded by Mr. Hartman. All in favor? Any opposed?

Original documents

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