MRSD School Committee Meeting 04/29/2026

001I will call to order the April 29th, 2026 Masconomet School Committee meeting at 7:00 p.m. I'm actually going to inject a quick agenda item in here that's not on the agenda tonight. I know she have our SAB with us tonight. Thank you for joining us. Of course. We have quite a bit to cover tonight, but we'd love for you to go first just so if you don't want to stick around for the whole evening. Yeah. Yeah, so we're just going to really quick report. My name is Lou James. I'm the sophomore SAB. So just a few things with the student body right now. Um Our next big upcoming event is Memorial Day. We're having a ceremony. We're inviting local veterans and uh They'll have a nice private luncheon beforehand that'll probably be in here and

002then we'll have the band and the chorus perform along with the keynote speaker at the assembly. Um and then Relay for Life is another like event that we really look forward to. That's towards the end of the year. Um But that's a community event to raise cancer awareness and support. So students will walk in teams around the Masco track all night from June 5th to June 6th. So that's always a big event that we look forward to. Um and then in terms of other things that student body is going on, the track team is doing really well. They're undefeated so far. So that's good news. Um and then for student council we just had elections and turned over to the to the people who'll be in uh in office next year. And so Evan Savard

003will be taking on the position as the executive board SAB and he'll be taking the position from his twin brother Ethan who was here earlier this year. So and that's all I got. >> [laughter] >> Awesome. Nice. Thank you. Good night everybody. Thank you. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Remarks from the chair. First I'd like to thank everybody who took the time to come to tonight's School Committee meeting. We'll be discussing an important topic tonight. Uh I'm doing my best. I That's what I Um You know, first as I've done in the past, I just want everyone to know that although I may not have responded to everybody's emails on recent topics, but I do read every one of the emails sent out to finish and I engage the right parties whether it's my colleagues on

004the School Committee or the administration whenever it's appropriate. Um Next, the School Committee did release uh a statement pertaining to the comments made at the April 8th meeting. I'm not going to read the entire statement tonight. Most of it will be covered in other dialogue that we have tonight. However, I do want [clears throat] to read two parts of it. First, we recognize and respect the courage demonstrated by the student during the April 8th School Committee meeting. We want the Tri-Town community to know that we take student safety and wellness concerns as well as overall school climate issues within the district seriously. The safety, dignity, and well-being of every student and staff member in our schools are paramount. As parents and members of the community, it is is is a core value that guides everything

005we do. Second, we want the community to know that in the in the absence of public detail does not reflect an absence of action. We recognize that being asked to trust a process that you cannot fully see is difficult. We offer our commitment to navigate this with empathy, respect, and the care that our community deserves. Okay. During the April 8th School Committee meeting, I suggested the community pause and provide feedback to me on next steps. Shortly after Adrian and I met with Mr. Matt McEvoy who's at the table tonight, the district's counsel for matters relating to student services. Our goals were to understand what information we have access to, what role the School Committee plays in situations like these, and what we can say and share about the incidents and process with the community that

006came to light on April 8th. What we learned was that under the law, School Committee members do not have access or authority to intervene in student matters including the details of any process outcomes or actions taken. We have therefore invited Mr. McEvoy to the meeting tonight to provide >> [clears throat] >> any insights he can and to address questions and concerns from the School Committee School Committee members. But finally, one of the roles that the School Committee does take on is to ensure our policies are up to date and in alignment with the outcomes we expect across the district and they're in alignment with state and federal law. Therefore tonight, I'm asking the superintendent to perform a review of the district's procedures and the bullying and harassment prevention plan in collaboration with his leadership team

007and counsel. And I'm asking the policy subcommittee to review policies that cover student safety with specific directives and outcomes in mind. With that, I will transition to comments from the audience. Can I have a hand show of hands of how many people plan to make a comment? One? One. Okay. Great. Please, ma'am. I mean she's asking if you could please speak louder tonight. Story of my life. I'm sorry. Sorry. Good evening. I'm Ellen Sheehy. I've been an educator here for 18 years. Um as a result of last year's budget cuts, I'm now the library media specialist for the high school and middle school. Um 3 weeks ago, School Committee listened to ninth grader Charlotte Rollins bravely share her reasons for leaving Masconomet and heard the faculty statement in support of Charlotte. Uh tonight you've invited

008the district's attorney to speak about Masconomet's policies and procedures on bullying and harassment. Um we know that harassment and bullying by definition is a repeated pattern of behaviors. I hope that you will recognize that eight months of multiple and ongoing incidents meet the criteria for bullying rather than seeing each incident as an isolated occurrence. Now that Charlotte's experiences have been reported in the Boston Globe, the Salem News, the Eagle-Tribune, and on NBC TV news, current and future potential residents are watching. Parents of elementary school children are deciding now whether they're going to send their kids to Masco. What is the plan going forward? How will you communicate your findings and what deadlines will you set? Your actions will affect the Masconomet community's future. Be curious. Be transparent. Decide wisely. Communicate clearly. All the balanced budgets

009in the world won't fix the declining enrollment problem for a school when it has a reputation for not protecting its students. Yeah. Thank you. With that, we will transition to Attorney Matt McEvoy to review policy and procedure related to harassment and bullying. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members of the community for having me here tonight. And thank you, members of the community for being so interested in your schools. I really appreciate this. I I frequently attend school committee meetings on behalf of districts to empty audiences. And so I think it it speaks well that the community has so many people here tonight. Um the the committee has asked me asked me to come here both to answer some general questions from the committee tonight as well as to provide kind of an

010overview of the policies and procedures here in Masconomet that are in place. My firm has been representing Masconomet in regard to student related matters for I'm thinking it's probably 20 years. Um probably more than that, at least 20 years. Um and you know, based on my overall involvement with the district, my review of district policies, I can tell you as members of the community that the district does have comprehensive non-discrimination policies, a comprehensive bullying policy, has a bullying prevention and intervention plan that does generally comply with Massachusetts law although it does need some updating, and has appropriate grievance procedures to address claims of discriminatory harassment. There are two separate grievance procedures actually, both of which are have been adopted as School Committee policies. There's a policy ACGA which is the procedure for investigating all claims

011of discriminatory harassment would be harassment on the basis of race, sexual gender identity, disability, uh, sex discrimination claims versus sexual harassment claims are all addressed under that policy. Uh, there's also policy ACGB, which is the specific policy guiding how we respond to and investigate claims of uh, sexual harassment in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Uh, that we have a completely separate policy for that because there is a completely separate set of federal regulations governing what procedures we have to have in place. Um, these regulations and and for those of you who are kind of old policy wonks, uh, the Title IX sexual harassment regulations that have a fairly complicated history. There was a set of regulations issued in 2020, uh, governing how school districts respond to and investigate claims of

012sexual harassment. Uh, those regulations were dramatically changed in in 2024. The new ones went into effect in August 2024 as a result of litigation which took place subsequent to the implementation of those new regulations. Those regulations have now been nullified by the US District Court from Eastern District of Kansas and by the US Department of Education. So, over the course of this year we've shifted back to the set of regulations that were in place in 2020. Um, your current civil rights or uh, Title IX sexual harassment grievance procedure generally does comply with those 2020 regulations, although it is somewhat overly expansive. Under the 2020 regulations, claims of differential treatment, that type of sex discrimination, would not be investigated in accordance with a Title IX grievance procedure. It would be investigated in accordance with a standard

013civil rights grievance procedure. But, to kind of talk to you all about how the process works, I'll start with with the Title IX grievance procedure. When a student or a staff member, because staff staff members are also covered under Title IX, uh, files a written complaint of sexual harassment, the district the district grievance procedure does require the district to immediately respond. And what ends up hap what the way that is kind of plays out is the Title IX coordinator for the district, who is Assistant Superintendent Denton, um, will reach out to the student and their family, uh, if they did say student victim or alleged student victim of harassment, um, discuss, you know, the information we had received, discuss immediately what supportive measures can be provided to that student while we conduct our investigation. We

014then talk to uh, we then talk to the family about whether they want to pursue a Title IX investigation because it is a somewhat burdensome process solely because of the federal regulatory requirements which detail exactly what we do and when we do it. Um, if the family chooses to pursue a Title IX investigation, um, we will provide written notice to both the accused to both the complainant and the accused individual uh, of the of the filing of that complaint and specifically what allegations have been made prior to conducting any interviews of any parties in relation to a Title IX sexual harassment investigation, we provide written notice to the party of the intended of the intended interview, the date and time of the interview, and the specific subject matter to be discussed as well as all

015individuals who will be present during the course of that interview. So, nothing comes as a surprise in the Title IX investigation process. Uh, we will conduct interviews of both parties, both the complainant and the respondent, who is the accused, uh, conduct interviews of any identified witnesses, either witnesses that the parties identify, um, or that we identify kind of independently in the course of initiating the investigation. Upon the the completion of the evidence gathering phase of that process, which can take several days, uh, could take two weeks, uh, we will provide the parties with the opportunity to review all of the evidence that we have obtained. They can see witness interviews. They can see documentary evidence. Everything. Commented they have the oppor they have a 10-day opportunity to comment upon the evidence before an investigation report

016is issued. Once that 10-day period passes, an investigation report summarizing all the evidence is completed and provided to both parties. Um, both parties then have an additional 10-day period to comment on the investigation report as well as to submit written questions to the opposing party or any witness interviewed for purposes of the proceedings. Uh, and to obtain responses to the extent that the individual who receives the question is willing to respond, which in most cases they do. After that 10-day period elapses, the uh, the decision-maker, who is a separate individual from the investigator, and this is mandated under the 2020 Title IX regulations. We have to have a separate decision-maker from the investigator. The decision-maker will issue a written decision based upon all of the evidence, uh, using a preponderance of the evidence standard, meaning

017it's more likely than not that the conduct complained of occurred, uh, and will issue a written decision to both parties informing them in detail of the outcome, providing a detailed summary of every step that has taken place along the way, including the date every letter was sent, the date every interview was conducted. Uh, they are provided with this detailed uh, written decision as well as notice of their appeal rights, and either party has the right to appeal uh, the outcome of any Title IX investigation. They may file an appeal directly with the superintendent, uh, who will then, so long as the uh, the appeal meets the criteria for an appeal as defined as set forth under the federal regulations, will issue a written decision within 30 days. Okay. Um, and that is the end of

018the process both under the federal regulations and under district procedures. There is not a provision for further appeal or intervention by a school committee or uh, district representatives above the superintendent. So, that's the Title IX grievance procedure. So, when there is a claim of sexual harassment, um, either, you know, it can be, you know, repeated comments of a sexual nature that create a hostile environment for the student or the staff member if it's a staff complaint, quid pro quo harassment is harassment of a student by a teacher where the teacher conditions a benefit, uh, an aid or benefit upon, you know, the student's compliance with some sexually related demand, uh, or in any instance where there is a criminal act as defined under the Clery Act, which is a federal statute, or the Violence Against

019Women Act, and um, and is identified as a criminal act under the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting System. Uh, so, in terms of non-Title IX grievance procedures, the procedure is is similar. It is not quite as involved as far as the notice letters and the steps along the way. It's a little bit more of an efficient process. We will still always investigate any claim of discriminatory harassment, any claim of violation of the district's non overall non-discrimination policy or federal or state non-discrimination laws. Uh, in those instances, we conduct interviews of both parties, we ident we conduct interviews of all witnesses, we gather documentary evidence, uh, then we provide a detailed written notice of outcome to both parties as to what the findings were, whether it was established that discriminatory harassment occurred, uh, and also of their

020appeal rights. They also, much like in the Title IX context, have the right to appeal to the superintendent any finding with which they disagree. So, uh, and then finally you have a bullying prevention intervention plan, which is, you know, bullying is essentially non-discriminatory harassment, uh, and you have a policy JICFB, I believe it is, that uh, yep, JICFB, which is your your district-wide anti-bullying policy. As part of that policy, you have directed the superintendent to create a bullying prevention intervention plan, uh, which the district has created. You have a plan in place. Um, we would have a recommendation for updating that plan if they because, frankly, there's some language in the plan that is not consistent with the current language in the school committee policy. Uh, but I I will just because these issues they're

021very legally complicated. You have the kind of intersection of school district policies, state law requirements, as well as in some situations federal law requirements. And uh, people can get kind of confused as to kind of what process is controlling here. I will just assure people that in cases of Title IX sexual harassment allegations or any cases of discriminatory harassment allegations, the whether the conduct constitutes discrimination or harassment is always, you know, the primary focus. Whether it also constitutes bullying is also considered and decided upon in the outcome letter. And when we do trainings of school staff people on things like this, what I like to say to people is you know, repeated repeated disparagement on the basis of someone's race or gender, that is going to be discriminatory harassment. It's got to be bullying, too,

022because under the bullying statute, it's, you know, repeated targeting of an individual that results in any of the five conditions set forth under the law to support a finding of bullying. So, the district does have these procedures in place, and you know, I I can I I in following up on the the chairman's remarks, I mean, one of the issues has been that the school committee's kind of lack of ability to respond directly to things that are reported in the news or statements that be may may be made during the public speak section of a of a committee meeting. Uh the diff- the school committee members in Massachusetts are generally they're not considered authorized personnel for ac- for purposes of access to individual student record information. Under FERPA, the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy

023Act, which is the federal student records law, there is some provision for sharing information for designated school officials. That That provision is not contained within the Massachusetts regulations. And because the Massachusetts regulations provide greater protections to the individuals whose records are the subject of those regulations, we have to abide by the Massachusetts regulations. So, the school committee members don't have access to individual student record information. They have access to kind of overall issues going on within the district, but as far as providing committee members with copies of Title IX investigations or not or, you know, civil rights investigations and notice of outcome letters, the district cannot do that without the written consent of the parents or a student who is 14 years of age or in ninth grade. Okay, so that is, you know, somewhat

024of the hurt the the challenges that Masconomet and, you know, every school district faces when when addressing matters of public concern, that their their access to student specific information is limited. And to the extent that they do even access the information, um they certainly cannot share it publicly. Any personally identifiable information gleaned from a directly from a student's record. So. Attorney MacAvoy. Okay, I will um open up to see if there are any questions for Attorney MacAvoy. Trevor. I have one about the appeal process. Are appeals fielded on the way the process of the investigation and report was done or is it appeal on the decision itself? >> the entire Title IX grievance procedure and what Masconomet and any school district in in the United States has to do is set forth under the federal

025regulations at 34 CFR part 106.45. And uh essentially what what it provides is that >> [clears throat] >> the there has to be an appeal process, that the appeal once it's complete, once the decision is issued by the decision maker, uh parties then have the right to appeal within it's between five and seven calendar days from the date of issuance of the decision. There are specific limitations imposed on appeals under Title IX for appeals of sexual harassment investigative findings. It's limited to situations where there is newly discovered evidence after the fact uh that would likely have changed the outcome of the proceeding if it was known by the decision maker. In the Also, another would be bias of an investigator or a decision maker in the process, you know, if simple simple example would be

026someone appeals a Title IX finding uh because the investigator was the uncle of the respondent. I mean, that would be an obvious bias that would serve to uh overturn uh a decision. And finally, the third option for a basis for appeal would be a procedural irregularity that affected the outcome of the of the proceeding. So, as long as the appeal satisfies one of those requirements, the superintendent is required to issue a decision within 30 days. The superintendent can uphold the invest- the decision maker's initial decision, uh could order further investigation or you know, either of those options. Thank you. Yep. So, the um filing of the complaint, can that only be done by the victim or the victim's family or can it be done by a third party on their behalf? Well, see, now this

027is how you get kind of into the woods of some of the these complicated legal intersection issues, but for purposes of a sexual harassment complaint brought pursuant to Title IX, only the complainant, which would be the victim, likely or if the student, or the victim's parent could file that complaint. And to to initiate a Title IX process, they have to file and sign a written complaint. Simply making a report is not sufficient. The Title IX the 2020 Title IX regulations required that there be a written complaint filled out completed and signed by the victim or the victim's parent if the victim's a minor. Um the 2024 regulations removed that requirement and basically obligated school districts to move forward anytime they receive communication from a potential victim indicating that they had some desire to pursue a

028a complaint. Because those regulations are nullified, we go back to the 2020 regulatory requirements, which do require a written complaint signed by the victim or the victim's parent on their behalf. Okay, so in this instance, we had um two instructors at the last meeting basically stand up and give their statements strongly implying, at least to me, my take on it, that they had witnessed behavior. And my question is, are they allowed to report that? Absolutely. Not only allowed to report it, they're required to report it. So, they're required to report, you know, and this would be the same with bullying. If there's an incident of if they have observed conduct which, you know, arguably would constitute discriminatory harassment or bullying, they have an immediate obligation to report that to either the principal and in the

029case of sexual harassment to the Title IX coordinator in the district. The making of that report for purposes of sexual harassment does not initiate an investigation process, however. Um it can under bullying and frankly, it can for non-Title IX discriminatory harassment, but in the sexual harassment context under Title IX, when if a staff member observes conduct, so let me give you an example, which is a staff member is walking down the hallway, sees a a male student come up behind a female student and grope that female student. That needs to be reported either to the principal or the Title IX coordinator immediately. If we receive a report like that, we will then reach out to that student who was the victim of the conduct reported. And in some cases, the family and say and, you

030know, report inform them that we are aware that this incident occurred, discuss potential supportive measures we can put in place for the student. What What supports can we put in place for you so that you feel safe and comfortable in school while we look into this. And even if you don't file a complaint, we are going to keep those supportive measures in place. Um so, we will we will reach out to the victim, but it would ultimately um for the Title IX purposes be on the victim or the victim's family to file that complaint. In some cases, the Title IX coordinator can file the complaint on their own. Okay, but the problem with that is that when the Title IX coordinator files the complaint, the the student, let's just assume we're talking about students here,

031the student victim is still identified as the complainant. So, what often happens in these initial Title IX discussions with families, and this is not pertaining to any specific matter, um is that there are cases where a family will either become aware of an incident because we've informed them of it or they are reporting an incident to us and will notify them of we'll talk about supportive measures, we'll talk about the Title IX grievance procedure. They're aware it's a burdensome procedure to participate in. I mean, these are the requirements of federal law. And some I I often have cases where a family's like, "Look, you know, our child has been through quite a bit. We feel that to initiate this process, we've, you know, aware of someone who's gone through this before either here or in

032another district would be detrimental to her, so we are not seeking to initiate that process at this time." In that case, you know, in determining whether to file on the student's behalf over the parents' objection, the Title IX coordinator needs to consider, you know, what the impact will be on the child victim who's going to identified as the complainant. The general guidance from the US DOE regards to districts initiating on their own is that it's in most cases going to be limited to a situation where we get a complaint or a report of a school staff member, a person in a position of authority engaging in discriminatory harassment of students. Because in those cases, you know, students are often I don't want to have my name on any complaint against Mr. So-and-so because he is,

033you know, the head of the science department here at you know, at the high school kind of thing like that. And you know, in those situations because it is a staff member who exercises oversight over students, oftentimes the district will just initiate the investigation on their own just to be sure even, you know, at the expense to some degree of that individual victim, they'll initiate the investigation because what our concern is about is that individual engaging in similar conduct with other students going forward. Okay, so then just to follow up if um you know, we really don't have access to the reports and the information what happened. Um not not so much what happened because [snorts] there has been some public information about it. Um how do we ascertain whether policies were properly followed and

034you know, that there the ball wasn't dropped by anyone if we're not allowed to actually get into the details of what's actually going on? How do It is it is a situation and I think that's why the FERPA provisions contain this kind of school officials exception, which the mass state regulations don't, but I mean school committees set policies, set priorities within district. You hire school administrators to implement those policies in the district. You are to some degree as a committee, you place your faith in your school administration, the people that you have hired to run to implement your policies and in in many cases you are reliant upon the school yes, in this case policies and regulations were complied with. Yeah, but I mean you see the issue there is that we decide we're saying

035that they followed policy and then you go ask the people, you know, that the administrators have have you followed the policy and they say yes. Where does it go from there? I mean They could theoretically file a complaint with the US Department of Education or problem resolution services with from Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. But you know, quite frankly, even if even if the superintendent shared with you as committee members the outcome of a of of a complaint that was filed, the committee would not be in a position to share that information publicly because that would be sharing personally identifiable student record information with the committee, which I think under Massachusetts law doesn't work, but even if you do do it and provide the minimum amount of information necessary to enable the committee to

036respond, the committee is not going to be in a position to show subsequently publicly disclose that information. So on a little bit more of that note, is there information that school committees get about incidences within a school district like can is it within our purview based on your your your expertise that we can say administrators, please tell us how many incidences of bullying of you investigated or victims into in the school year? Absolutely, because that's information that we would report to the the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. That's that's de-identified information. The problem is that that comes is and this comes often often arises with school committees and members of the public who are seeking information is people will say, "Well, why don't you just redact all the kids' names from those records?" That

037kind of redaction doesn't work when any reasonable member of the school committee community knowing kind of the general facts could identify those children. Okay, so if if you were to receive a complaint here at the school committee and the district administration was to provide you with a copy of, you know, any type of notice of outcome or investigation report, even though the the name of that student is blacked out, you are still violating student records laws because that student is still reasonably identifiable to any member of the community because they know the facts and circumstances. So so it seems to me that in addition to making sure all our policies are up to date and according to the law that we can give a directive to our superintendent that says, "Please report back any rises

038of incidences in any any form of harassment including bullying, sexual harassment or um discrimination discriminatory harassment." So like you know, for example, like the number of complaints we've received, the number of investigations conducted and the number of notice of outcome letters issued. And then that would give the school committee the ability to say, "Administrators, it looks like we had a rise in these incidences. How can we prevent it? These are the tools we can we have as school committee members, which are hiring and firing our superintendent, budget and policy and we can use these tools to help you, but you need to tell us." Yeah. And you know, on on the flip side you there can also be situations where a committee when they kind of regularly gather that data may notice that from year

039to year suddenly there have been 90% fewer complaints of discriminatory harassment and you know, for a school committee that can also cause a alarm because simply that doesn't necessarily mean that the situation has been addressed, it may mean that, you know, the situation is no longer being addressed. Um so yeah, I mean that's that kind of de-identified information can absolutely be shared with the committee. I mean frankly, it would be public record information. Right. You may have already answered this um in answering Joe's questions, but just so I have it straight, the school committee can't hire an outside firm or there's no one that could come in and do an independent audit of our policies as it was to relate >> You could That person that person would be technically I think you could hire

040someone to independently audit your policies, absolutely. >> And how it applied to a specific situation? >> want to you could hire an outside person theoretically to, you know, contract with an outside person to review a situation and provide you kind of an overall assessment of what occurred because that person would have access to student record information because that person would actually be authorized school personnel because they are under contract with the committee to perform a function that would normally be performed within the district. Yeah, thank you. You mean like when we revise our policy and we and we know our procedures? auditing Okay. procedures Oh, it's different from different from like our policies. Just to be clear, what you're saying is because we would be contracting with that person, that does turn them into an

041authorized personnel for the district. >> For for their access. They could have access. >> Yes. And could say job done. We wouldn't get any of the details. Yeah. >> get details, you might you could potentially get a summary. We'd get a summary and then that summary is something we absolutely could not share. It would depend on what information whether there was any personally identifiable information or you could link the summary to a specific student because of general knowledge within the school community. Okay. I can I will just say one thing here and you know, I I won't profess that you know, I get, you know, every call about every situation, but I personally have not been involved and not aware of a situation where the district has failed to respond appropriately to a complaint of

042bullying or harassment. And when I say appropriately, I mean in compliance with district policies and applicable federal and state regulations. Yes. On that note, um I made a note during your comments that you said our bullying prevention and intervention policy does need updating. Absolutely. Um do you have any specific recommendations to that? I do. You you are and and I I I profess some ignorance on this, but I you are required under mass general law chapter 71 section 3702 to have a bullying prevention and intervention plan. Under your anti-bullying policy, you have delegated that authority to the district administration to develop that plan. Under the law, you are required to update that policy every 2 years. Based upon my cursory review of your bullying prevention and intervention plan, you were the you know, one one

043thing I always look for when I'm reviewing, you know, how current a plan is is I immediately go to the definition of bullying. And under the initial draft plan that was issued by the the of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is the plan that most districts follow. Um, initially when the bullying law went into effect, only, you know, bullying was only about mistreatment of students by other students. Uh, as part of chapter 86 of the Acts of 2014, they amended the bullying statute uh to include staff as potential perpetrators of bullying. Your district committee policy has the appropriate definition of bullying and recognizes that staff can be bullies. Your bullying prevention intervention plan has the the pre-2014 bullying definition in it, which doesn't identify staff as potential perpetrators of bullying, which, you know, it could

044simply be a typographical error because, you know, again, your your policy looks current, but that is the kind of thing that you would need to update. Just So, we we went through a whole policy review with um the Massachusetts School Committees, and they advised us to pull all of the procedures from our policy manual. To pull all of them? Yes, that they weren't appropriately um they weren't appropriate for us for a policy manual. They'd be Well, that I will handbook or >> Yeah, it's like extraneous information in a policy handbook. I I will just tell you all I mean this is that is an interesting issue um simply because, you know, generally what what my office recommends is when it comes to things like your Title IX grievance procedure, your non-civil rights grievance procedures, we

045do generally recommend that districts the district administration it adopt those as procedures rather than as school committee policies, mainly because of the kind of things that have happened with Title IX, which is where you had one set of regulations issued, we developed policies to comply with those regulations, then suddenly out of the blue we get a new set of regulations issued, which completely changed the process, and then 3 months later a court invalidates that new process and we have to return to the original process. When you have your grievance procedures as school committee policies, it would require you to go through the school committee process each time there were any changes like that or each time there was a, you know, a Supreme Court decision on, you know, Title IX reinterpreting something. And by having

046them simply as procedures rather than as a school committee policy, you are able to modify those procedures in a much more efficient and kind of responsive manner. So, I would not necessarily agree with the MASC suggestion or anyone's suggestion of removing, for example, ACGA, which is your civil rights grievance procedure, ACGB, which is your Title IX sexual harassment grievance procedure from your actual policy manual and having the administration adopt those procedures as administrative procedures for purposes of implementing policy AC, policy ACE, policy ACAB, and policy ACR. I mean, uh ACA, uh the your non-discrimination policies. But, yeah, I would I would actually we we we generally when we do new policies, we do generally recommend that for grievance procedures, but, you know, obviously it is ultimately the committee's and district's determinations how they want to

047proceed with that. Yes, thank you. Um, did I hear you correctly a few minutes ago that you said that in your experience um all of the incidents that have come your way that they were appropriately addressed by the school district? I have not seen I have not I am not personally aware of any complaints that have been filed which I would consider to have not been appropriately addressed or addressed in accordance with district policies and applicable regulations. Okay. Cuz I I personally find that hard to believe. Uh cuz that would suggest to me that well, that sounds like the problem of bullying must be getting better if if if all these things are working just the way that they're intended. But, I don't I don't actually believe that's true. I'm not saying that you you

048don't have incidents of bullying or incidents of harassment. Every school does. I am saying that when when they are reported or complaints are filed and we are aware of the complaint, um you know, we have not seen I have not seen instances where the district has failed to fulfill its obligations under the law or under the the committee policy. >> So, have you seen incidents where they were action was taken and a there were consequences to to the accused? here in Masconomet this year? anywhere? Absolutely. Okay. Masconomet? Uh I can't say I'm not sure sure I can comment on any Masconomet specific cases, uh but I not sure on the Masconomet. Cuz my concern is that we've got all the policies that we in the world that we need, but that but that either they're

049they're not being followed or maybe they are being followed to the letter of the law and all that, but they're not effective. I mean, that's that's a concern I think, you know, the people around the table. Great point, right? I think it's a point. That's That's one of the reasons why I asked to make sure that we perform an adequate review, and this is an area of emphasis for us as we go into our next fiscal year of reviewing our policies, our procedures, our plans to ensure that um I think one of the commas directives and outcomes Can you please project a little more? Make sure that we had policies, procedures, and plans in place that were aligned with directives and outcomes that we would expect as a community. Right. Cuz I'd want to know

050and it's this isn't just directed toward you, but the administration as well that you know, this this thing that that that initiated this uh this discussion, you know, started with some um photographic proof of underage drinking and then it got into uh bullying behavior. Um in looking at our handbook, the anti-bullying policy, um the forms that that kids have to kids and their parents have to sign when they register for for a sport to not engage in any of this behavior. Um have we ever punished people here at Masconomet for that sort of stuff? Is that a yes? Because it's the the rules are pretty clear. Okay. I mean, I I Yeah, go ahead. One of the things we're aiming for this evening is clarity and transparency, and we've all been instructed to be very

051careful about everything we say tonight. Repeatedly, I've been instructed of that. So, I'm nervous even asking questions tonight, which also makes me uncomfortable and upset, but I want to ask a question for absolute clarity. For um of of Matt. Yep. We are only talking about Masconomet. You said in the case of Masconomet, I just want to make it clear that we we're only asking you questions tonight about Masconomet. Okay. Second, you made a statement that to your knowledge, Masconomet has not violated any state or or any federal or other or other regulations or any of Masconomet's policies, but you also said that some of the policies are outdated or incongruent with what the school committee policy is. So, if our school committee policy was that the administration is responsible for the bullying and intervention policies,

052but those policies haven't been updated since 2014. Is it that something that transpired, perhaps this year, perhaps since October, was in violation of a policy was not in violation of policy simply because the administration had failed to update a policy? What I can tell you is that, well, first of all, even though your your school with separate the two sets types of them of violation. So, discriminatory harassment, sexual harassment versus bullying. Okay? Under your your bullying policy has the correct definition of bullying. It identifies staff as perpetrators. In my interactions with with Masconomet administrators, there is no question that they understand that a staff member can be a perpetrator of bullying uh as defined under the statute. Okay? So, as far as that update, you know, I think I tend to think that that is

053more of a kind of typographical oversight in your bullying prevention intervention plan versus, you know, anything, you know, any intent like deviate from the policy, and I I cannot even comprehend that that any any school administrator in this district or in any other district at this point doesn't recognize that staff are subject to potential >> Okay. Are there other aspects On on your Title IX grievance procedures, your title your Title IX grievance procedures, your policy ACGB, the the substantive requirements, the actual procedures, are correct. They are the 2020 requirements. So, one of the big differences between 2020-2024 was the 2024 regulations eliminated this two-tiered decision-making model and had the investigator issue the decision as well. So, there wasn't a separate investigator and decision maker. The original Title IX regulations required a separate investigator and decision

054maker. Your current policy is kind of a a you know, at the outset is is a little bit of a mishmash because it cites the 2024 the scope of the 2024 requirements, but the substantive procedures in the policy actually are compliant with the currently applicable regs, the 2020 regulations, which provides for the investigation process I described, the steps along the way where people have the with the right to access information, challenge information. What what my concern about your Title IX grievance procedure and this this occasionally will create issues with families. Um because we've had this issue in other districts as well, is that in 2024, and I I don't want to like kind of bore you guys with this, but it is just for for attorneys who practice in this area, it has just been

055like all encompassing for the past 6 years. Um under the the 2024 regulations, you um >> [sighs] >> there there were just an entirely different set of procedures and I kind of lost track of what I was going to >> [clears throat] >> um but your the the 2024 regulations expanded the scope of the Title IX grievance procedures. So, under the 2020 regs, the proceed these these required federal procedures, which are kind of mirrored in your policy, were required only for purposes of investigating claims of sexual harassment. Although sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination, when it came to investigating issues like differential treatment, um Title IX kind of disparate treatment allegations like pure discrimination, they those kind of allegations were not subject to the Title IX grievance procedures. They were subject to a

056standard civil rights grievance procedure. In 2024, and and I just I I certainly do not want to be political in any way, but you know, the we have different administrations diff issuing competing regulations. Um and in the 2024 procedures, the uh they expanded the scope of the type the required Title IX grievance process to cover uh individuals on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, as well as sex discrimination. Your current grievance procedure still kind of reflects that broadened scope of 2024, but the 2024 broadened scope is no longer valid. That you only [clears throat] use your Title IX grievance procedure when investigating actual complaints of sexual harassment as defined under Title IX, not sex discrimination. So, for a a complaint of differential treatment, like, you know, the the you know, boy's locker room is

057a palace and girls are the girls teams are required to change in a closet. Um you know, pure Title IX sex discrimination, that should be now investigated as as under your non-civil non-Title IX civil rights grievance procedure rather than through this elaborate Title IX process that's dictated by the federal regulations. And so, what occasionally will happen is when I've had this I have this happen all the time, which is a a family might come and say, you know, the the locker room issue, that you know, we're concerned because the boys basketball team has this, you know, NBA-style locker room and the girls basketball team is required to try to uh change in the closet. We want to file a Title IX complaint. Or they do file a Title IX complaint pursuant to the Title IX

058grievance procedure. Oftentimes districts will they'll receive that complaint. The Title IX coordinator under the regulations is required to do an initial assessment of the complaint as to whether the the you know, it meets the criteria. And in some cases, you will end up dismissing that complaint under the Title IX grievance procedure, but that means you are simply going to investigate it under your non-Title IX civil rights grievance procedure. But occasionally families will be like, well, what do you mean? Like, you're not going to look into this? Oh, we're absolutely going to look into it. We're just going to use this other procedure to do so. And really, I mean, the the Title IX grievance procedure being to be candid with you all, the 2020 procedures that are that are set forth in the regulations that

059are now back in place, they were designed to protect the accused. They were not designed to protect the victim. And you know, prior to 2020, there were no regulations governing specifically how we respond to allegations of sexual harassment. We were relying solely upon dear colleague letters, which were I would say overall, and not necessarily inappropriately, very victim-focused judgments from the DE US DOE, and they would issue these policy letters and we would have to comply with them. The administration in place in 2020 felt that that the accused were being denied their rights in this process. So, they created this formal regulatory process and that went into effect in 2020 with a focus on protecting the accused. Okay. So, that is you know, people people just do need to be aware of that. That we have

060to presume throughout the entire process that the accused did not commit the offense that that they are accused of until a preponderance of the evidence obtained through documentation, witness interviews, interviews of the parties establishes uh that they it is more likely than not that they did engage in the conduct. Okay. And then one other clarifying point regarding something you said earlier. It is within um our role of as school committee members to ask for and receive information not specifying any students or at giving any information that will indicate who it is about, even if we're part of the school community, but we should be made aware or we are allowed to be made aware that Title IX complaints have been filed, that bullying incidents have occurred. Like it is unusual that we have we're completely

061blindsided by this? Okay. Like are we are allowed to know that these things are >> I I I I think you'd be allowed to, you know, be provided with de-identified information that, you know, how many complaints have been filed, you know, how many investigations have been conducted, things like that. Um you know, we can't be you if you go to the administration say, hey, you know, I was talking with a a my neighbor and my neighbor reported to me that they had filed a complaint uh of bullying or discriminatory harassment and it wasn't acted upon. And you say to the you know, you the committee approaches the superintendent and says, you know, can you provide us with, you know, de-identified information regarding any complaints filed during this three-day period? That's a little bit different because

062even if we de-identify the information, we have reason to believe that you know the subject of the of the records that you're seeking. But as far as general information from the administration, how many complaints, what is the general process, how many findings have been issued, things like that, then you you absolutely can obtain that. Great. Thank you. But it I will just add one one thing in in my experience, we represent about 70 school districts, um I don't have any situations where I I am aware that the school administration is on a routine basis, you know, notifying the school committee each time a complaint is filed. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Okay, and then Jeff, and then we'll probably wrap this up. Um I'm just trying to process everything that's being said. Um quick

063clarifying question, is the gaps you speak of in the language of the different policies from what school committee has done in the admin, would any of those gaps in the updated policy or in the language affected the outcome? The outcome of any investigations conducted? I I would take the position it you know, I'm not aware of any situations where the the school administration uh you've got the complaint of bullying by a school staff person, where any administrator has said, oh no, you know, staff people can't be bullies under the policy because you under your policy you can. Um so, I'm not aware of of that at all. As far as your civil rights grievance procedure and your non-Title IX grievance procedure, the the procedures in place under your two policies absolutely are actually current and

064they're appropriate. What what my concern is about your sex Title IX sexual harassment grievance procedure specifically is that it's still it's under your current policy encompasses types of complaints that are no longer subject to these title. And that, you know, it is it is given that, you know, that basically a court found that the the Congress didn't have that the the government did not have the authority to expand the scope of title nine the way that they did in 2024 and so they nullified all of that. So, given that these these additional potential protected, you know, classes were included in the 2024 regs and now have been specifically those regs have been specifically nullified, you know, we we should be addressing complaints of, you know, differential discrimination on the basis of sex, complaints about harassment

065on the basis of gender identity and the complaints about the harassment on the basis of sexual orientation via the standard civil rights grievance procedure rather than the title nine grievance procedure. I'm involved constantly like with this is all our office does is student-related educational matters. Um, I'm involved in in uh these types of matters constantly. I can tell you that under your civil rights grievance procedures and your title nine, you're still going to reach the same outcome. And and quite frankly, you know, one one of the things we I I try to impress upon, you know, parents or their opposite or their counsel when the issue comes up when something's dismissed under the title nine grievance procedure, we're still going to investigate it. We're still going to make a determination. If we found it occurred,

066the sanctions and and our actions are going to be exactly the same. The the the benefit of going on the civil rights grievance procedure versus the title nine grievance procedure is we can do we can do that entire process much more efficiently, much more quickly. We do not have these stand these required 10-day waiting periods for written questions to be asked or for evidence to be reviewed, things like that. We can actually respond in a much more efficient manner. Thank you. I want to loop back around to something earlier in the conversation. Um, Mr. I'm reading our our handbook right now. So, for the process, the investigation and the determinations for anything bullying upwards, yeah, is through I think it's the principal, correct? The handbook? Well, not not under not for sexual harassment. Uh, and

067for your civil rights grievance procedure, it's kind of the principal in conjunction in conjunction with the district's overall civil rights coordinator. For bullying, it's the principal or the and the principal has the authority under the statute um to delegate the investigation to an assistant principal or another staff member. The title nine coordinator has the authority to delegate the investigation of a sexual harassment claim to another staff member and then they also have to appoint a separate decision-maker who is going to consider whatever evidence is gathered and make the ultimate decision on that. And your point of here so Brad, you're the title nine coordinator, correct? Mr. Denton is the title nine. Right, thank you. So, I guess yeah, is that that standard practice across schools in general? It's um the principal's title nine, they're the

068investigation and the determination. Well, a standard practice in in in all districts is that, you know, the title nine coordinator is responsible for the initial outreach. They discuss supportive measures with the student. So, we we have stuff in place and this and I just need to want to emphasize that whether you're talking title nine grievance procedure a title nine complaint, a non-title nine civil rights complaint, or a bullying situation, the first step in that process in in each of those processes is discussing with the alleged or the the alleged victim what supportive measures we can put in place. That is that is like the focus of the of your bullying plan, it's the focus of the bullying off. It's also a requirement under both under state and federal civil rights statutes. Yeah, I'm just just

069procedural just agnostic. You know, just called bullying to keep it going on. So, it goes to the principals at that's the standard for most schools. It goes In bullying under the statute and under most school policies, bullying is reported to the principal. Principal either investigates or delegates the investigation to another staff member, usually an assistant principal, who conducts the investigation and if, you know, frank frankly under the law, which, you know, we we we encourage districts to always provide notice about coming regardless, but under the law for a bullying situation, you're actually only required to provide written notice of outcome when bullying has been supported and we we generally discourage that and, you know, it's all something you can always consider in your bullying prevention intervention plan because, you know, we take the position that

070you you need to always provide people with written notice of the outcome. That a family who makes a bullying complaint that we investigate, even if we don't support that bullying occurred, that didn't meet the evidence didn't satisfy the criteria under the statute, they're not going to assume that we didn't find anything. They're going to feel that we were non-responsive. So, I That's where where my question I haven't even got to my question yet. So, are there instances where there's an independent review that's delegated, you It absolutely can be. Um, most districts at this state, I will tell you that most when the when the bullying law first went into effect, I was inundated with calls from clients saying, you know, we want to hire an outside organization to handle all of these bullying things, which,

071you know, it's in my opinion it's not really appropriate because you you need to have people who are familiar with the school setting, they're familiar with the students in the school, but in most districts do not outsource their bullying investigations at this point. In some instances, discriminatory harassment in that part. sexual harassment or other forms of discriminatory harassment, they will outsource it to to another individual. Sometimes it's a an independent attorney, independent investigator to conduct the investigation, but when it comes to sexual harassment, because we are operating under the 2020 regulations, which do require a separate investigator and decision-maker, what happens is you hire an outside person, they do a comprehensive investigation, their investigation report goes to someone within the district to make the decision. If it's a non-title nine civil rights investigation, you could

072outsource that as well and that that outside investigator would also be issuing the written decision on that. I guess yeah, it just you can put yourself in this place where you can say we investigate ourselves, we found we did nothing wrong and that doesn't feel good. >> We're not investigating ourselves. We are investigating the accused. You know, and and you know, I quite frankly school personnel and and we talk to them about this I mean, there there's not a lot of incentive not to support, you know, if the evidence supports a finding someone committed a violation of school rules or district policies, school administrators don't have an incentive to not find to find that it didn't occur. I mean, it's it's it's in their interest to find that it did occur and do address it

073because if it just it's not consistent with their legal obligations. Thank you. Last question. Trevor, It's um not a question. I just just listening to all of this, I think it's clear that and although I do sincerely appreciate you coming out, you answered a lot of our questions and have given a ton of clarity to situation. I I think what I want to do and something in your last comment stuck with me like it's not us investigating ourselves, but I think that's maybe what we need in the situation. And just so we know that our policies are being followed to the T and that they're working for the district. I I'd like to make a motion that we um procure an outside firm to audit the specific situation that um drove us to have this

074meeting here tonight to make sure that our policies and procedures were followed as posted on the website and recently adopted by the school committee. So, Sorry. I was going to say I'll second that. Any discussion on it? Melissa, Do we want to do all of the Do we want a more broader than just Do we want a broader audit? I want to make sure that they that is the center of it so we have the answers in that report that the high-level report that we may be um able to see. I want to make sure we have we come away with answers and that we know that our policies were followed, not only our policies, but our procedures, student handbook, anything that regulates these types of situations. So, just a quick point of order, would

075we be making Would the motion be to procure that service or would the motion be Would the first motion be to direct the administration to go get quotes for a service and then the next meeting we allocate the funds against that to go and execute that contract? It's the question I had. I don't know if I should if it should be the chair, if it should be the council our council to do an outside audit or if it should be the administration doing an outside audit. I just want to make sure What Administration wouldn't do the audit. No, to procure. We Yeah, we got to get Yeah. And as a follow-up to that, we've never had someone look at manuals, policies, and procedures all at the same time to make sure that they're actually aligned

076with each other. Because when we did our mass policy review, they had us pull all the dash Rs. So the school committee has not seen any We have They haven't been kept up. And we were going with that. So I don't know if that's what they'll look at. Would you think that would be encompassed in what I said? I think so, but I wanted to make sure. Well, we'd have to we'd have to write a SAL, a statement of work, for them to do it. We'd have to get a quote for it, and then we could allocate dollars against it for them to go and for us to go and execute the purchase order. The only I believe we don't have the power we don't have the ability to execute a purchase order. So it

077would have to be the administration that executes it. We could review options that the administration could bring to the table for us. Um but then we would have to direct them to execute on a specific contract, just like we do in any other I believe. Okay, sounds right. Sounds right. It's not the school committee that will be authorizing it. It's the next >> committee, but the school committee can certainly ask to go put together a SAL. We got to start the process. I got to we got to understand that. That's all, right? I think so. What is it? My understanding, even if we do the outside audit, we then can't publicize what the audit found? I think what I heard was it would depend on the what was in the summary the summary and how

078much PII, personally identifiable information, is included in that, but I would I would not count on us being able to share much. Attorney MacAvoy. I mean, I would recommend, frankly, that you you kind of address that issue with whatever entity you retain for that purpose. There are There are organizations out there that specifically do exactly these type of kind of secondary investigations, and they could probably offer you guidance as to a means by which to provide, you know, a summary that could be provided to the committee that wouldn't, you know, disclose [clears throat] personally identifiable student record information, wherein the committee could report that they are, you know, based upon review of that summary, they were satisfied or or dissatisfied with the actions that were taken, you know, in response to a specific matter. I

079don't know if we need a motion for that I will withdraw my original motion. Okay. And restart. >> [laughter] >> Um I move that the school committee directs the administration to uh statement of work >> develop a statement of work in attempt to audit our existing policy procedure to procure an outside firm to audit our existing policies, procedures, student handbook, um bullying prevention plan, um anything that may be involved with bullying, harassment, sexual discrimination, and discrimination of any nature. Staff trainings. Um and provide that to the school committee to decide on next action. I think of that. I had a comment from earlier, that's all. Sorry? I had a comment from earlier that I'm sorry, Jeff. Um it's just more wordsmithing or just a comment. Yeah, I think make sure the policies align is fantastic,

080but to make sure the policy is adequate, that's one of the challenges of the policy. If the bar is set too high, a lot of things fall under the the threshold, and then that's one of the frustrations that a lot of people find. Is that it's fair to say, well, anything, not just this specific You have a valid complaint, but it doesn't hit our standard of hitting our policy. And that's a real challenge. So there's a nuance to that, so that's what we're showing you look at the policy. We make sure the policy is adequate, not just that we followed it. Yep. I I'm going to make a quick comment, Bill, and then I'll go back to you. I will say that um the language we used earlier around directives and outcomes, I think somehow

081we have to find a way to work with these organizations to ensure that they understand and or we collaborate on what directives and outcomes we want from our policies, procedures, handbooks, plans, and remain in accordance with state and federal laws. Jeff? Sorry. The directives that that piece of it, I don't know if we can opine on that because we don't know if our policies were followed to a T. Like that is that's the question here. So if the policy subcommittee were to go back and review our policies, we don't know what may or may not have been followed to a T. Like we And I'm not saying the administration didn't do it, it's just we don't have that information. So without that information, going to review a policy that we just reviewed a year ago

082won't deliver a different result. And that's where I kind of have we need to look back at that specific I mean, do the review of the policy with the lens of the current state, would it produce maybe a different level of scrutiny, and you guys would say, you know, maybe we should look at this and see if there's language that we can refine, add, adjust? So those policies that were question? Yeah. I There's >> have been reviewed probably reviewed by Attorney MacAvoy. Um the changes that we added in 2024, and then we tried to revert back, but I seems like it we weren't successful, but with our final policy manual it was just I participate in this. Adding. All right. So first of all, I'm I'm I'm concerned that we're starting to boil the ocean.

083Um we know that we know here today that probably our policies somewhere north of 90% correct. It's The policies are not the problem. So why would we want to spend money on on having someone do a review that's overly comprehensive comprehensive? I mean, what we have is a very specific incident that personally, I I want that specific incident or series of incidents reviewed, um and then tell us were things done the right way. And that was my intent. Okay. >> And that's great, but but but it certainly got a lot bigger than that. No. No, no, sorry. Yeah, I don't think I But but you have to look at another context, too. Like was just this one, or was it all? Let's start with this one. I mean, cuz I mean, do do you have

084any idea how much this is going to cost for someone >> They're going to say a statement of work. Okay, I just don't want to spend 6 months looking for someone to do it in a appropriate time frame because we we certainly don't know we didn't budget money for this. Yep. We don't know how many incidents there were during the year. You know, we talking about reviewing you know, these things complaints or reports When we're talking about auditing what went on, are we talking about looking at two cases, 20 cases, 100 cases? Do we have any idea? >> We had Title IX cases over the I'm just I'm just saying in terms of bridging the gap here between looking at everything and looking at just the specific um incident or incidents in question here, right?

085Is it What's the gap there? Is Is it a huge undertaking versus a very specific one, or is it a very specific one versus two specific? I I think that I would just make a couple of points here. You know, we first of all, we are student services council. We respond when called upon. We are not, you know, reviewing all activities within the district on a daily basis. We are not in-house counsel. So I couldn't certainly not comment on how many reports of bullying or harassment may have been made, allegations, but by a student. Right, but you did say that if public record, the number of of incidents should be available to us. That's why I'm asking the question. That's why I'm asking the question. That's the DESI website. It's Yeah, it's last year's. Yeah.

086This year doesn't report but it's on the DESI website. Right, it's on the DESI website. And Joe, All right, so let me rephrase my question. Does anybody know what the DESI website I'll send you guys notes, everybody. Yeah, I'll send you guys the link. It's It's just It's under our school and district profile. Anybody can access it. It's public information. Um It's just It's 3 years old, isn't it? It's 3 years old, isn't it? Uh last year. Last year. And going back several years. I think back to uh 20 even before that. 2017, 16, 15. Still going. 15. So there's a there's a pretty DESI does require that all districts report that. Yeah, every year. >> [clears throat] >> So they're going to they're going to have the 24-25 data posted on their website in

087Okay. I want to bring this back to the motion on the floor. Uh is there any other discussion regarding the motion? I want to make sure that it's clarified that to Bill's point, we are reviewing all the documentation, the policies, procedures, handbooks, plans, all all that stuff, but also looking at the incidents against all of those things to ensure that there weren't any gaps. I think was your point that you were trying to make, right? That I don't want >> want all of that. >> No. Let's just focus on the issue at hand. But if we focus on one issue and any information >> That's going to be identifiable information. We're not going to be able to know or do anything with that at all. It's not going to give resolution to the community. We

088will be able to tell them spending money that we don't >> Oh, that's as our counsel said that we may very well get uh we could ask the organization that provides that um what can be provided and then might be sufficient. And if it's not, then what? We don't proceed with it? I don't know. I don't know, but I don't want I mean, look, guys. I mean, I just seems wasteful to look at everything. Counsel said some of our procedures were out of date, so that's what that's really my red flag like four or five that I spent five years working on policy updates to It's What do we think out of date procedures made this event happen? No, that's a separate different, but we don't know what Okay. Joke. So, I think there's the

089two separate things. There's compliance with the policies and then there's are the policies correct? You can separate these two things and do them you know, at different times and Bill's basically saying let's focus on the one that's more pressing. Which is were policies complied with? That's step one. And after the investigation, we're not going to get any real specific information, but we'll get something saying yes, they were or no, they were not. And if the answer is no, they were not, the question becomes where did we fall down? Let's investigate all the policies and go from there. I guess I think that's a You know, instead of going comprehensive on this, go in narrowly to start. >> I guess I would just assert that we're we're just putting together a cell for step one. We

090can ask for line items for both those activities, for quotes for both those activities. And then we can let the next school committee decide whether or not they want to purchase both of those activities or if they just want to focus on specific specific events. I don't see a harm in asking the administration to together the statement of work so that they can so that these organizations can respond to both. Otherwise, we're going to be going through this whole process again in the future if we decide we do want to review. >> policies and plans, etc. Sorry I cut you off. Right. And and the one thing we don't want to do is wait for someone to do a full policy review before we get an answer as to whether or not there was an

091issue here with with whether we applied current policy correctly. And I think that's one of the things that Bill's a little concerned about. Thank you. And one one quick fast thing for you, Matt. Um just going back to clarifying when and if the school committee would or could ever know if policy was actually violated. We really wouldn't, correct? It would only be if we happen to just ask administration to present us just a generic um you know, piece of information or data. Like what just to clarify and confirm what we're kind of trying to figure out here like when and if policies were violated in the school, we really will never know, correct? If we we could never ask >> by violated by the administration and in applying the policy or violated by a student?

092>> Both. Or all. >> You would not necessarily know on an individual student. Um because if they're you know, if you impose find the students in violation of a school rule or policy or applicable law and you take disciplinary action against the student, that information is is clearly student record information. It is only subject to disclosure, you know, in in some instances, you could obtain it with the consent of the student or their family. So, if a family is asking the committee to look into a certain issue, if the family provided the written consent to share that information with the committee and to allow the committee to share information that they glean publicly, the committee could do that. >> Okay. But you know, it would have to be you know, if you're looking at an

093issue involving a student and a staff person, you would need the consent of the eligible student who's a student who's 14 years of age who's entered ninth grade or their family um or if it's a student uh versus student incident, you would need the consent of both students Okay. >> likely to uh to access it, but you know, that's another you know, always another potential option if the family's amenable to it. I think the committee should never, you know, insist that a family do that, but you know, for families who are looking for a direct school committee response, you know, one efficient way around that is for the family to provide a written consent to the committee uh or written consent authorizing the district administration to share specifics about uh their any complaint or response

094thereto with the committee. Thank you. All right. I'm going to I'm going to ask a similar question. Maybe the same question a slightly different way. I think what we all want to know is is there some sort of uh requirement, regulation, tool by which anyone involved in some sort of report, investigation, appeal, whatever portion of this, if they become aware, I'm trying to project, guys, so if I sound angry, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to talk loud. If they become aware that something has been skipped, there's been some procedural irregularity, there's been some non-compliance with a policy or procedure, if it's our policy that is not followed in that moment, is there anything that would trigger a proactive notification to the school committee to say this transpired, there was a failure to comply with policy,

095you guys should know that as the people who established policy, the way that I I contemplate is because the only person you have authority over is the superintendent, is that that's the only time that that would trigger some sort of notification to us is if there was a formal complaint like that? Specifically on the person that we have authority over, but otherwise Generally, yeah. I mean, you you school committees, you know, school committees set the policies, they set the priorities for the district, they hire district administrators to implement and administer those policies. So, it is the district administration in my experience this is how it works in every district, but the district administration, you know, does certainly review, you know, actions being taken and if there's an error in a process, we'll we'll fix it.

096You know, I often have I and I I will say it tell you I know you guys are all talking about Maskin tonight, but I represent a lot of districts. Occasionally, I'll see a bullying investigation report and I'll I'll you know, look at the report and the principal asked me to look it over before the decision letter goes out and I'm just like, okay, you didn't investigate you didn't interview the accused student. Like, what are you doing? And you know, in in that case, you know, usually they'll go back and like supplement their interviews. So. Thank you. Jared, do you want to try to rearticulate your your motion? Okay, I will with Do you want me to withdraw that other motion? I I'll withdraw my motion. I move that the school committee direct the administration

097to procure an outside a cell with a statement of work with an outside firm to conduct an audit of our policy manual, procedures, student handbook, and any other related material as it relates to the situation that brought us here tonight um and to ensure to investigate whether those materials were followed accurately as they are published on the district website. And or in district records. I'll second. >> [laughter] >> I'm going to go to a vote. All in favor? Aye. Any against? Anybody abstaining? Okay. Thank you. All right, folks. With that um I do want to thank Attorney McEvoy for joining us. Thank you for having me. It's a very heavy topic. It's a very important topic. Again, I um I uh I know we will spend time on this in the in the new year

098coming up in a few weeks. And uh we'll work with the results and uh the motion we just took at our next couple meetings. So. Attorney McEvoy, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. All right. We will move on to town meeting preparation. I need 30 seconds to gather my thoughts. Sure. Okay. Um I know there's been a little bit of action going on regarding um moderator forums as well as charts being generated for moderator forums and prospectively town meetings. Um Adrian, I know you had uh your hands on some charts. Joe, uh few others have been touching a couple charts here and there. You can um do you want to just provide a quick summary of maybe where where we stand with those? Sorry for jumping the spot. Uh Sure. Um so,

099Topsfield had their moderator forum yesterday. It was last night. My god. It was like a week ago, but yes, we uh It's been a year. Um so, we put together some slides that we felt were appropriate to update the Topsfield community, address some of the questions we were hearing. Um you know, certainly I can make them more broadly available, but um you know, I did some upfront kind of Masco update slides to tell everyone we have a new superintendent, highlight some of the great um academic and student led achievements and um give a little context around what capital investment looks like at Masco and what kind of work is done with a typical you know, year-over-year capital investment. Um and then we had a slide on each of the warrants specifically that detailed what is

100the ask, what are the numbers, and what is the what's the background detail that you need to know to be informed. So, I did that quickly for the moderator forum. Um Joe did some other work to update um what was presented several years ago when you guys did the capital ask, those of you who have a longer tenure than I do. Um so, we there's some other new things available, too. Um I am aware that the warrants are different in every town basically. Everyone just kind of doing their own thing this year, so I don't think we can create like a nice set of slides that everyone can just use and tweak a couple of things. I don't think we can do much more than a few core talking points probably, too. Like there's going

101to be differences across each community, so I we might want to think about what the needs are and then put that together so that we have the initial unified message message happening next week at Topsfield town meeting. Joe. Yes, so one of the things with um so, Boxford, we have our moderator's forum on May 5th and um the town meeting moderator is he's like a time Nazi. I mean, you you get 2 minutes to present and that's it. And so, your slides um No, way way longer than that. Yeah. Yeah. So, I I have to go up there and probably show one to two slides maybe on each one of our two questions. And um I'm probably going to do three on the uh on the capital ask. Um MSBA capital ask. Um and I've

102I know exactly what they're going to look like. I just haven't put them together yet, but I'll I'll put them together this weekend at the latest and I'll send them out to anyone who wants to look at them. Um but we have two questions. One is the MSBA money and the second one is the category three capital spend. So, my slides are going to be about you know, the uh roof and HVAC system replacement in one case and in the other case it's going to be mainly about the softball uh Title IX stuff. That's That's about it. Short and sweet. >> So, you you don't have an override, but you still have to approve the Masco budget. That's just part of the overall town budget, so we don't >> Oh, really? have to report on.

103Nope. Really? Yep. >> Oh, that's What you say, Joe? Because covered in the overall town budget, there's no different vote on. Each town votes it differently. Got it. Yeah. Okay. So, like the the ADA upgrade, the I guess I was I was I Why are you highlighting the softball fields? Just curious. Because that's the primary driver of the category three spend. Most of it. It's like 380,000 or something in total? >> Yeah. So, good. It's like five or six items, so >> Yeah, I know, I know. I was just I'm just curious because I think >> It might not could that create a whole other set of Yeah, I know, but but in in this case it's something we have to do. It's Title IX related. You know, we we had a Title IX complaint.

104You go up before before the town, you explain that, and pretty quickly everyone's like, yeah, it's the thing that has to be done. And Are you saying you guys have two warrants for Masco? Yeah. And one of them is to pass that portion of funding that specific capital line item. Correct. I don't even know how they pull that off. Freedom What do you mean? What do you mean? You don't have the data data? That's one Us, our override is the percentage to bring it from the guideline, which was 2.25% up to the 2. whatever percent we landed at for Topsfield's assessment. >> Right. Doesn't matter what's in that bucket. That is what's in the budget. That's the number that needs to be funded. They're saying this piece Oh, they're both capital items, though. I mean,

105everything else is operating budget. So, the operating budget because we didn't go over Prop 2 and 1/2, it's good to go. It's in it's just put into the regular town overall town budget and If those capital items don't pass, the budget fails. >> fails because it's part of the Yeah, I mean, that's This is the whole thing is so, the the the district sends the towns an assessment. That's what the treasurer did after it was vote budget was voted. It then the towns have full control on how that number gets presented on the warrant. >> Yeah. So, that's why Topsfield is doing an override for everything over that. Uh Boxford's got two separate questions. I think Middleton's probably just got one for the budget. I don't even know for the whole thing. For operating They

106also said we eliminated the superintendent position in Middleton, so that's another It's in the book. Yeah. I So, I was like I was like, wow, that's interesting. I updated them when they asked me for the salaries. I updated them what was publicly available. I did not eliminate any position. >> superintendent was eliminated. Which was kind of interesting. It's in there. It's in the warrant book. I think Scott Morrison sent me that the other night. >> forgot to attach the appendix that a lot of articles. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> So. All right. >> More work to do. We got two weeks. We got two >> [laughter] >> All right. >> We got two weeks. We don't have a lot of time. So, presuming everyone has 3 minutes at their forum or town meeting, we I

107don't even know if we're going to if we're going to be able to present slides at our town meeting, but I'll have a 3-minute statement regarding Yeah, we probably will. We probably will. We've done it in the past, but but we're just not going to have a lot of time to discuss the budget warrants. It'll be fine. Free cash. They got exclusions. Yeah. So, it's free. Well, the other one's just in the town's budget. Sorry. And because we're not doing everything at the same time, that will actually be a benefit. We agree that whatever Joe sends out we'll cut It's all Joe's and mine and Sure. Okay. Hopefully this When is that happening? I think this weekend. Joe's going to have his stuff done this weekend, so. Only like thing in his Middleton's moderator forum

108is Tuesday, isn't it? Tomorrow, I Does she have to put more together? >> together yet? >> [laughter] >> Did you guys put anything together yet? Um I was unaware that that moderator forum was taking place. Oh. But um I I don't know who of us can go. I'll be there for a separate purpose. I'm more than happy to speak for Masco, but and I think the slide what we had presented earlier to the select board and finance committee at our capital discussion might be sufficient with the timeline. >> Yes. Yeah, so I'm more than happy to go over that. Yeah. Listen, our stuff Yeah. And I spoke with the moderator today. Anything we do bring to town meeting just has to be like as in slideshow has to be approved by her before. That takes

109first show. There's more to come on that discussion, but I can talk to you offline about the other stuff. Okay. Thanks, Joe. Okay. All right. Thank you guys for doing the work that you did. Appreciate it. Um All right. We will move on to vote to set Are we good? All right. We'll vote to set the last day of school for students as June 17th, 2026 with a 10:30 a.m. dismissal. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Against? Anyone abstain? All right. Thank you. Um subcommittee reports, community relations. Um so, I will wait. I was kind of just waiting for the templates on how to move forward with getting everything on the same page, but I know we've had a lot going on, so um nothing to report as of yet, so I will also

110wait and communicate with Joe and get um as much as we can prepared to get out there um as fast as we can. All I got. I'm transferring all of it this is going to be it for me. Everything is going over to Adrian for Facebook, Instagram, and all of the communication. So, um, hopefully by the end of this week that will all be transferred over. We know how to find you. Don't worry. I won't have the power anymore. I'm not perfect. Uh, DCI budget? Um, we haven't met uh since the last time we got together. Um, I think all of the remaining business we have to do is to for me to issue the last set of minutes and everyone sign off on it. I don't think we're going to have any more meetings

111before the end of the year. So. Thank you. Uh, vocal? Uh, we had a short uh housekeeping meeting recently, but uh no new news. We just tied the tied things up for the end of the year. Uh, policy? Um, we have not met [snorts] um don't have anything to report. You made at the directive of the school, probably future school committee I've worked in, but write different policies up for me. Yeah, I mean I I did ask the policy subcommittee earlier to review uh our current policies. It may make sense just to wait until the new school committee is set and we have a new policy subcommittee. We will get it done this summer. Is that what you're saying, Trevor? Yes. Okay. Um, I just It's with our policies, we just update it and I

112I don't Just to review to flag the ones related to it so that those are prioritized during the next review cycle. Okay. >> It's a It's a living, breathing document. >> That's easy enough. But like and like procedures, we don't we don't control over it. Yeah, just policy. So, with the what was referenced there is what was outdated. Doesn't come from us and it's not approved by us. So. Might be worth just noting that it's getting updated at some point for the future committee, but All right. But you guys can take that action to flag relevant policy. Well, that's you're going to be unless we're meeting before elections, which I don't know when the first elections are. That should be given to the next policy committee after you organize. To flag them. Yes. Yeah, talk

113to you next Thursday, so. So, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that by next Thursday. This is everyone's last meeting. I know, but I'm thinking like they're not officially off until the next meeting, but they're off as of the the vote as of the election. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe. Um. All right. One week. Did I say that out loud? Those are my intrusive thoughts. All right. Uh, liaison updates? We Uh No news. Yeah, I mean, the council cycle talks feel conversations are good. I think moderator forum went well. Mhm. Um. Agreed. Definitely positive. Good questions. Yeah. Discussions are next week. Um, I will say that we last got together with the town officials and talked about capital items, you know, and I asked, you know, do we need to worry

114about one of these are going to pass or not? And they were like, no. So, high confidence level that, you know, this is not a big ask this year, so. And they're ecstatic about the overall operating budget. Well, increase levels, so. Uh, negotiations. Hopefully making this. All right. I know we do want to uh on the consent agenda, we want to our vents or remove uh the school committee notes uh April 8th. There's uh a discrepancy regarding the discussion around the Georgetown. Yeah, I I have just a quick sentence that you know, to change it. Um, let me bring it up here again, so Give me one second. One second. Here's a second. Thank you. >> I can't We both need a second here. Is that the full of the meeting? Pulled it. Good sight.

115So, it's pulled and then we'll You have to vote it separately. We'll vote it separately. Good thing. So, you got it, Bill? I got it. All right. So, it's the the Georgetown Masconomet item um I and see, the task force met with Georgetown superintendent to discuss and this is where I would change it. To discuss educating their students in grades 9 to 12 for fee and potentially joining our district at some point in the future. I mean, it has not been decided in any way, shape, or form that it's a permanent move and that uh the regional agreement being a I'm sorry, the tuition agreement being a place holder until the regional agreement can be modified. That's definitely not a predetermined fact at this point. We're going to strike that? Yes. Also, this will be

116a permanent move, right? This will be a permanent move. You want that or not? No, I don't want that. Let me say that we appointed The members of the task force were provided to the school That's cool. last time. So, the task force met with Georgetown superintendent to discuss educating their students in grades 9 through 12 for a fee and potentially joining our district at sometime in the future. The members of the task force were provided to the school committee. Yep. Thank you, Gil. Thank you. All right. So, how do we do this? So, we vote the whole rest the consent agenda. Okay. And then you have to vote April 8th separately. Okay. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda minus the April 8th minutes. Second. All in favor? I. Any against? Any abstain?

117Okay. Next. I'll move that we adopt the April 8th minutes as amended and now presented on the agenda if you refresh your page. >> [laughter] >> Second. Sorry. That was the second. That was a All in favor? I. Any against? Any abstain? All right. So, we do just have one more quick topic I want to recognize tonight as we were just talking about, this is the last meeting for our school committee members. Uh, so Chris, uh Kendra, Alyssa, Maggie, um yeah, I just want to thank you guys for your service. I I know how rewarding this this job can be, this volunteer job can be, but I also know how heavy it can be at times and time consuming and the impacts on your families um and the sacrifices you make to the community. I

118respect each of you for your uh contributions. I just want to say thank you. I know Jackie in the central office put together a small something. We'll all do that after after the meeting. Um, but thank you guys and Maggie, thank you for for coming in and uh hot moment um needed you, so. Um, I also want to recognize that this is Dr. Harvey's last meeting. Um. So. Yeah, this has been a hard year, I think. We've done a lot this year. Um, Mike has stuck with us throughout the year. Um, he's remained committed uh to the district. Um, he's remained a good partner. And um yeah, I just want to thank you, Mike, for everything you've done over the years. And um again, for your commitments you know, since deciding not to come back

119next year. Uh and to wish him well in in his next endeavors, of course. Thank you. So, really, best of wishes. Second. >> [laughter] >> All right, folks. Do we have one last motion? I move to adjourn. Like I'll second. >> [laughter] >> All in favor? I. Any against? Any abstain? Good move. You want to call it a night? I'm ready. I guess I'll second that. All right. I didn't like