Salem School Committee Meeting - March 3rd, 2025

001all right call to order of the meeting of the Sal school committee for March 3rd 2025 at 7: p.m. this meeting is taking place in person Highland Avenue room 227 you can also join via zoom using the link posted in the meeting agenda uh I believe we have one member participating remotely on okay so all votes will be by roll call vote uh first item on the agenda is approval of the agenda is there a motion to approve motion to approve the agenda seconded motion made by member Miranda seconded by member Campbell roll call vote member Campbell yes member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes member Manning yes member Miranda yes and myself yes public comment the Salem school committee would like to hear from the public on issues that affect the school district and are

002within the scope of the committee's responsibilities Spanish interpretation is available for anyone who needs it the members of the school committee would like to remind the public that Salem public school students regularly attend school committee meetings we encourage all meeting participants to model respectful and productive public discourse for our Young Learners any public comment in the room any public comment online all right our next item is approval of the consent agenda these are the minutes of the regular school committee meeting of February 24th and the warrants of February 27th move to approve I'll second Mo show made by member Campbell seconded by member Miranda roll call vote member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes member Manning yes member Miranda yes member Campbell yes and myself yes student Representatives report today we had our monthly meeting with

003Dr Z in school and this is one of the first times he had a lot of people from uh New Liberty show up we had two more people from new New Liberty show up and the big question we talked about was what is most important to you about a new high school space I think this is really the driving factor of our conversation today a lot of things came up um what was advocated for a lot was a softball or baseball field because right now people who play baseball have to walk to the GS Hill Park and the people who play softball have to walk to um Mac Park and those are the places where they practice which are a far walk um the topic about an environmentally friendly school and the construction process came

004up um we talking about bigger Open Spaces with more sunlight to come in we're talking about how right now in the school it's hard because a lot of the rooms don't have a lot of sunlight and people talked about how it looks like a prison um people were bringing up how they wanted to see more representation for a traditional art like painting and drawing and photography spaces they wanted to see more representation for that um I think that was a big extent of what we talked about we talked about what about our special guest oh yes the mayor we had the mayor show up our special guest he came to visit um but we did talk about uh we had to talk about what would work best for everyone in terms of meeting weekly so

005we moved instead to having a like almost mandatory Monday meeting we moved to if you can come Monday please try to be there because some people have like academic work they might need or teacher help so it's more relaxed on Mondays now but I think that was a big extent to what we talked about yeah just the other thing if you if I could just jump in we um the I I really commend this group of um uh young people who one they we try to have a change project um and the what we started on was our change project which is this idea of what steps can we take to better support newcomers multilingual Learners and special education students and ensure that they have Equitable access to programs classes and opportunities that Salem public

006school offers there was a concern that like um Salem High well students praise that Salem High offers so much to so many kids but that not all students take advantage of those opportunities because we don't always provide them the supports or the guidance um particularly newcomers English langu multilingual Learners and special education students and we shared some data today about like the that we have higher percentage of dropouts higher percentage of students not graduating in four years um who are who fit those you know who fit those profile of students and so uh that's going to be the work that we try to do is try to figure out what systems and structures we can put in so that more students a more diverse group of students can take advantage of those opportunities um and

007I I do because a lot of times people just want to focus on making the bathroom's cleaner or they want to focus on food which is important I'm not saying that's not important but that they that they were focused on that question I think speaks very highly of the group students we have yeah um we broke out into groups to talk about the question was what steps can we take to better support newcomers multilingual Learners and special education students and ensure that they have Equitable access to programs classes and opportunities that s Public Schools offers and we talked a lot about how um we could have more uh translators in classes and have um just a lot of different changes to English Learners and how they learn throughout and I think we're going to talk

008about it like more on the coming Mondays next month meeting but it's the big project we have is just making Salem High School a lot more Equitable for everyone a do you want to yeah I just want to say that I was um really grateful for the opportunity to attend the meeting and some fantastic feedback by some um really thoughtful students so I was grateful for that um there were a lot of great questions especially around the new high school great feedback uh that I think the superintendent reflected already uh and that you reported out on Mark but I I it was the highlight of my day and I hope to be able to attend future meetings for sure you did get some questions about potholes and there was some feedback about Halloween traffic and

009potholes and but mostly we it was it was good to hear and I think um for a future meeting the design team is coming for for the high school project so it'll be good for them to hear that directly as well all right our next uh item on our agenda is the superintendent's report uh yeah thank you uh mayor just a couple things um before we get into the topics for tonight um we have a Communications update uh that I think we'll start with in a moment but just a couple things one is um I do want to note that there's a big basketball game Tuesday night at Salem High School against um Handover uh and moving on to the Sweet 16 uh the boys team so I hope people will come out for it

010at 7 o'clock in the Fieldhouse um and to rot on the witches um and um I do want to also acknowledge that um I did share with the committee that we are working on um rolling out a new grading system that the high school uses right now called jump rope uh we're looking to do that um I want to thank Mark and Kim who are working uh on that um implementation they met with the teacher Advisory Group this past week and we're trying to get some more feedback um and um I think I shared some information with you in my update but I do think it it's not just about what's good for teachers because I do think it's a better system for staff um but I also think it's uh much easier for students

011to read and for parents uh to follow as well so I think it'll be a marked improvement to what we have and I want to you know thank everybody who's been working on it but that's I think a big step we've listened to a lot of feedback that we've received um from all constituents about how Aspen is really clunky for um grading so um uh and you know maybe at some point we'll have Mark and Kim share a little bit with with with the committee down the road um once we vetted it with more people so I just wanted to acknowledge that I also wanted to give a quick update on the safety team our crisis team work I want to ask Miss Manning because mayor if you remember you had asked me to include

012a school Committee Member and so many jumped out jumped up and they said they wanted to do it uh and Mary Manny won the lottery and is serving on um the committee uh and also uh Miss Burman she she wanted it so badly that she put it in the contract that she should be on this committee as well everybody wants to be on this committee not even her design just her just her yeah so um anyway uh but I did there's some really important work that's um happening there and I wanted to turn it over to you Miss Manning just to sh sure I have a um a brief report that I'm happy to share if you just named somebody else that wanted it besides me and then I'll go ahead and talk yeah M's

013the word uh so anyway yeah so I'm I'm sort of half directing this to the public and then half directing to the rest of the school committee but I just want to give a little bit of an overview for for um you know parents and folks I know there's a communication going home is it tomorrow or today go home tomorrow tomorrow y um some of the real details on this but just overall the Safety Committee has been meeting for a couple of years now um I I've only joined it this year and um just to give a quick rundown we we meet I believe monthly um but uh the members on the team there's either an assistant or a principal from all of the schools um the three resource offices a representative from the fire

014department um there's someone there from the uh chatter Academy um Z the head of buildings and grounds then um the assistant director of special ed director of nurses and health um uh you know Stephen ker there uh laa Assad is there um the executive director for student supports then we have representative from uh the YMCA from leap and from the boys and girls club which are our three um after school um partners and we also have the director of out of school programs um who who runs all of the all of those overseas those plus programs on vacations and summer Etc um and Burman as as Steve said there's someone there from Food Services there's someone there from Transportation um and then uh the director of communications is there and then we've also um had

015the the benefit of working with a a safety consultant Dave Corbin who has a company called Dynamic um security strategies he's a Salem parent but he's also been working I think for um a couple of years now with this committee um three things I want to touch on the first two very briefly one is just the issues of vules that I know that um Dr Z has mentioned before the the uh horem man and the high school having the vestibules and um all the other schools you know having the doors and maybe someday have more of a vestibule design but for now um what with the work that's taken place besides the the uh the physical work and making sure that um the connections with the doors are there and and you know all the

016physical pieces are in place now that um the people that would be potentially answering uh responding to the bells or the doors whatever have now been given scripts there are two different scripts one has been written for schools with the vestibules and then a second for all the rest of the schools so that everybody has that would be potentially be somebody normally responding to the Bell or the knock or whatever has received that has received some training on on you know what to do where to be how to you know where to answer from Etc so so that's really um you know pretty much in place now and then the other issue is just very quickly um I think there's at some point this year that um we still had some doors that could be

017locked but didn't have that could be locked with a safe lock but hadn't been installed yet and over February vacation I believe all of those installations were completed I think there are few doors that cannot have that but all of the classroom office types of doors certainly can and they've all been installed so I want to spend just a few minutes talking about the major Point here which is um a new initiative that we're about to roll out um and it's it comes out of the work of the the uh Sandy Hook promise group and the initiative is called say something it's an anonymous reporting system and um the committee is has been exploring it since very early last fall and a lot of the district folks have been you um putting quite a bit

018of time in working on this and and really getting into the details of it and the decision has been made to adopt this um and part of that is it's meeting parents and some students questions about what kind of programs do we have that we can have Anonymous reporting of concerns of the safety of either um another student someone they know or just random something that they've heard um a threat something about themselves whatever um so this seems to be um right up there in in the systems that are that are out there that are designed for this and I just want to take a couple of minutes to go over it parents will be receiving this or you know Guardians caretakers whatever but the general public I just want to make sure gets a

019little bit of it too um there's no cost for this and um we're adopting the program and the way it works is that a button is going to be installed um on all of the Chromebooks and uh grades that are that are uh accessed for grades 4 to 12 and four to eight don't take the Chromebooks home we I know we've tried that for a couple of years at least at the middle school but I believe they're all pulled back in now so you have a class set um in a room students work is on there they can get to their work but it's not their Chromebook so um folks that are um nervous even though it there is an anonymity to it and that is absolute part of the program if you're nervous about

020that it's it can't be like traced back to it's your child's um Chromebook it's a random Chromebook that somebody may have had for that class period and someone else says at the next so really is not able to be traced back to a student but on each Chromebook there's a say something button and um also there's a number on the Salem public schools websites I believe there's a button there too I'm not positive of that but I know that on both the um websites and on the information parents will receive there's um a phone number so a student or a parent or a guardian or whoever that has a concern um about an event they heard may be about to to happen or a student they feel May about to um do something or a

021student they feel may be unsafe to themselves um any type of concern like that um you can either make a phone call or hit a a say something button and anonymously report that information and that kicks into two or three different um scenarios or or um uh steps that are taken all of those the button or the phone go to a a screening Center basically if the people at the screening Center determine it's a life-threatening situation then that information immediately gets relay relayed to 911 then to the district so if it was something that came through from a Salem Chromebook the SC the screening Cent gets it they determine someone's in in a life-threatening situation they will call the Salem Police first and then they'll call the District of the school department um if it's

022a non-life-threatening then the call will go to the school first and if needed then to the district and the if needed is usually going to be in a case of if the school can't be contacted there are all kinds of school teams District teams leadership teams already in place ready to roll out that depending on who needs the call who gets the call whether it's a daytime a night time a weekend a weekday school time not school time all the protocols are in place and um you know ready to be uh rolled out as soon as we start this students are going to be trained um I believe it's starting Monday um yep between uh March 10th and April 4th it's the responsibility for each team to make uh excuse me each school to make

023sure that students have gotten the training um different trainings for 4 through 8 uh I'm sorry 4 through 5 and then 6 through uh 12 um there's a video involved then there's some discussion involved um before the students are getting the training obviously the teachers some of the teachers have gotten training the school-based teams each school has a team they've already been getting the training so the training is sort of Rippling Out Among staff and then down to students um um the video is about 20 to 25 minutes for the kids a little bit longer for the um secondary one and then the followup discussion um basically you're submitting a tip and it's to prevent things violent things weapon instances self harm remarks are not to prevent the remark but to prevent the self harm

024so those it's um one of the most recognized most as being effective system s that folks have come up with um to try to get a handle on um things that are happening that kids hear about or parents hear about or caretakers hear about and don't know then where to turn or what to turn because they hesitate to get involved or they don't want their student in danger or whatever this system is based on complete anonymity there is according to the folks who who run it a little bit of a um startup time where kids over report or they make make a joke out of or something that kind of you know they have to try it test it and then that wears off they say all of their data shows that really disappears and

025just goes right down to students learn that you really do use it seriously and the best thing I think I can end with as an example of that is the recent the most recent um incident where there were the two high school girls that um were planning some pretty serious violence at their school um that was thed thwarted through um the this candy hook um program somebody tipped off that program and they um reacted and put everything in place and and and they stopped it so that's where we are I'll be glad to give an update in the spring or whatever as to how it's going but it's rolling out within the next few days so and you should be getting a mailing sometime um this week I don't know if it's an email or

026mailing but parents will get a parents word tomorrow okay all right that's it thank you member Manning any questions just just one quick thing to add um the uh yeah the training will will start the window opens next Monday um and I just want to point out the reason we're adopting this was this is not just some um this this was well Rec this was recommended by the Attorney General's office as part of comprehensive response for uh to school safety um and Sandy Hook promise in particular was recommended as a tool and our safety consultant Dave Corbin who Mary mentioned he suggested that this was something lacking in our sort of toolkit around in protecting our schools protecting staff and students so um we're you know we're looking forward to seeing how this uh plays

027out um we do think it's another layer of protection um to ensure the safety of everyone in the Salem public schools all right uh so moving on um I'm going to ask uh Mr odonnell to come up up to give a brief Communications update we wanted to brief you on the work that he's been uh doing and then what we see is the next level of work in the areas of public relations and Communications so if we can put put up that presentation that would be great all right hi everyone so just a few things I've been working on um there we go um I'd love to be able to show you the website but we have to settle for my slideshow here this is a screenshot of our College and Career uh page on

028the website it's got It's cleaned up from last year there was a lot of old information on it two things I want to I want everybody to focus on on this page uh two pages I've been working on the scholarships page and the early college page so I got with uh um uh Megan soua and and Dr Alex Kirby and Anna Gro to create this scholarships page where at the top of the page you've got our scholarships booklet which has I think 504 54 scholarship but we also get in in um Naviance andna set up a Naviance account for me we also get uh a bunch of scholarships through navian and uh so I created on the right side of the screen there I created a listing of all the scholarships National local Regional that

029our students should be applying for and they're uh designated according to deadline date uh there's a lot let me tell you as a father of two sons one graduated from college one a junior in college there's a lot of free money out there and we're trying to get our senior years to notice these scholarships to take advantage I've been sharing on social media um every time there's a dead uh you know a deadline of of a cluster of scholarships [Music] um uh Mark I know that when you get into school tomorrow you're going to tell all your colleagues and friends about this wonderful scholarships page we have and the applications are going to be flying in so I'm very excited for you to do that tomorrow you're gonna you're going to help me yes appreciate

030it um so we have uh on this in the booklet there's 54 scholarships uh We've also got on the right hand side uh we have 44 is it 47 uh additional scholarships that we want students seniors to take advantage of um and they're available in all three languages which is very important great um today I posted uh we've got some March deadlines coming up so I shared it on all our social channels so hopefully the uh applications be rolling in another part of this page is the early college page which had a lot of old information on it uh so with Dr Alex Kirby's help we updated this page and it's a lot more simple there we go uh there's a lot more to this page but basically it's what is Early College um we've

031got an application quick application takes a few minutes to fill out and our Partnerships with Salem State and North sh Community College um in which students can enroll and enter College as a sophomore and even a junior I know some folks that that earned their Associates degrees you know by the time they graduated high school it's an incredible opportunity um my son my youngest entered College as a sophomore but it's still going to take four years unfortunately um but huge opportunities a lot of savings here you know especially with with uh you know free Community College uh so those pages are are are rare in go and hopefully we're going to get a lot more traffic uh a fun project I've been working on uh and Mary you were kind of the impetus for this

032when I spoke here last year um I think we have a treasure Trove of prominent alumni out there and as you can see here I made these banners uh three of which are currently on the High School site uh the top there is Nate Bron the theuh 2012 graduate he's a actor producer director writer author uh has done amazing things uh so when you navigate to the fine and Performing Arts pages on the High School site uh you'll see Nate's uh Banner at the top of the page the paragraph is what he took away from Salem public schools so I want students to see the possibilities I've got a whole list of alumni that I'm I'm I'm I'm G to hit up I accosted John Keenan after a Salem partnership meeting and said hey I've

033got this project I just realized you're in Alum would love you to take part and he was very enthusiastic about it and his office really uh really helped me um at the top there is Elsa Bel renome you know IM immigration lawyer um huge advocate for immigration rights um Cynthia nto great great realtor in town who teaches basics of real estate for free at the high school she's made an amazing career for herself and down at the bottom is uh is Josh what's Josh's last name Josh bent Josh is a new Liberty grad um graduated in 2018 and he's part of our IT staff and uh you don't have to be famous you don't have to be wealthy I just think I I recognize a good alumni uh when I see it and I of

034course I wrote it by Steve and and uh he you know nine times out of 10 he'll he'll give me the okay and and uh so what I'm going to do with these is they're going to be the first thing you see on the website they're going to be a rotating Banner because I just want our students to see the possibilities and and what's out there it's been really fun um and if anybody has any suggestions I am wide open to uh to uh I have a good list but um um I know there's more out there that I don't know about so and member Cruz you are on my list so you'll be expecting an email from me finally what have I been working on uh continuing storytelling continuing uh focusing on our academic

035stories um that align with the Strategic plan uh I love telling the great stories of this school there's so many that I I I cannot keep up um up I'm continuing to update enhance the website uh the CTE Pages uh need a good thorough upgrade um less verbiage more video so I'm going to one of the things I want to do with the CTE pages are get student testimonials about what they learn and how great our CTE programs are uh programs are tomorrow I'm meeting with Dr Kirby about uh creating a web page for our tutoring center um and hopefully drawing students to uh drawing a little more traffic to the tutoring center um you know crisis Communications it's it's part of the job it's been a relatively tame oh oh year thank you say

036that thank you well compared to compared to my first three days last year um um but it's it's you know part and parcel of the territory uh I love doing The Weekly Newsletter uh even when I get submissions at 3:00 on Fridays um you know our newsletter last we get around 3,000 views which is fantastic love doing Facebook live with Dr Reich every week every two weeks uh we're going to start having more and more guests on our Facebook live um last week's Facebook live Drew I think the English version had more than 800 views the Spanish version had more than 600 that's because there was other people than me we had Sean sh hers was on it and Leanne Smith which was great so I'm excited to take it to another level with with

037more and more guests uh I'm very much enjoying representing the school district in in the community Through Salem uh Salem 400 committee um the Salem partnership Salem days in the fall and uh uh I'm told I'm going to be going to Salem rotary meetings in the very near future so uh um excited excited about that I love being a part of this community and representing the school system um I've been the deao communications person for the Sal and building committee um they are moving very quickly um but it's it's been great uh we're going to be putting out uh some like more abbreviated message messaging um probably starting this week and continuing work on the attendance matters campaign um always trying to uh setting out regular social posts on the uh importance of of attendance

038and you know letting people know that attendance opens doors future priorities we're going to launch I can't see we're going to launch a donation page um we have about three about probably about 3,500 followers on our LinkedIn Pages we have a LinkedIn uh School District page and a LinkedIn High School page and um uh it's just I think it's just it's a it's a natural progression to uh to seek donations from alumni and we're also going to launch by the end of the year a quarterly alumni newsletter hopefully with some alumni news similar if you get um I get a uh a magazine from my college it won't be that elaborate but uh about alumni news and who's doing what so I'll be searching for story ideas for uh for the newsletter but it will

039also Encompass the great things that are happening in the school district too uh project I'm working on portrait of a graduate um we're going to be creating murals of uh great beautiful photos of our students uh mark this is something I could use your help on too I need students for photos um but our portrait of a graduate uh will be U it's it's it's a listing of the skills that we want our students to have by the time they graduate um it's pretty cool um I've made some inroads inroads with our um our Latin and Spanish speaking media uh this year I've got a developed a great contact at the newspaper El planeta and she's been sharing and and tagging us in a lot of our posts on LinkedIn which has been great and

040we have a great friendship with uh Alberto visalo at uh elmundo uh he's the CEO and founder of elmundo and they did their Morning Show here a month ago and that I I got thousands of views um so he's he's been a great friend we were at WGBH last Thursday Steve um was on the TV show uh gbh amplifies uh hosted by Alberto and um that hasn't aired yet but it's uh as soon as it does it'll be it'll be on our website but we we have a we've establish a great relationship with Alberto um teacher appreciation week is coming up May 5th through 9th so very soon I'll be preparing for that hitting up businesses to take care of our our Educators um last year when I when Steve uh added that to my

041list I'm like all right how am I going to do this but uh it was a lot of fun I got to know a lot of business people around town and I'm I'm anxious to uh hit them again for for free stuff and free coffee and free swag so and um continuing to showcase the success around our Middle School Learning uh there's great things happening in this in this building so uh as always I'd love your suggestions and ideas and uh at this stage any questions I am more than happy to answer I just have one um I I appreciate the suggestion that I gave you whatever you said the idea or whatever but I really didn't you you what happened was you came out with the athletic page yes and then I suggested maybe

042other fields so now I didn't hear you say anything about the athletic page so I'm just curious is has that been updated or it's updated so that's an ongoing we had three this winter uh competing on NCAA teams okay and we had I think six in the fall and the spring I have to do a bit of homework uh which I'll probably do this week um but I believe we have five or six playing spring Sports at NCAA schools okay so that's how it sort of has shaken out that if if you're in um if you're participating After High School yes you're get okay all right thanks sure anything else all right thank you thanks Chris thanks Chris um I'll just take the msba update right now um since bethanne isn't here I'll just share

043that um we're since our last meeting where we looked at the Ed plan and the space summary uh we appreciated the feedback we're going to obviously come back in the March 17th meeting with some changes and iterations um and what's happening now is we have a much bigger building than we would like to at this point based on the initial designs on the space summary so tomorrow I'm can't wait after serving breakfast with the mayor tomorrow morning at Sal High be spending the morning talking to staff because we we have to um we're lucky that on the building committee we have a couple AR architects who represent the interests of Salem and have had experience with designing and we're going to be talking to staff about whether there's spaces that we maybe don't need or

044can be adjusted on the new building because every you know every bit of square footage is e will cost additional dollars and right now we're M you know are the numbers much higher than what a typical building would be and I understand when you ask Educators what they need they're going to tell you that they want it all and they should that's part of what um we asked them to do but now we have to call call it back a little bit so be spending the morning there um because we need to make some adjustments and you'll see those adjustments when we come back to the school committee in two weeks uh and those need to be reflected in the Ed plan so that's an update we did also have a building committee meeting on

045Thursday this past th I think it was last Thursday right this past Thursday yep uh where we did begin to see some designs of the building those are going to continue to be iterated and we're going to start being able to share those in the public but of course those meetings are always public and the next one I think is in a couple weeks uh we have a um our March 20th March 20th right uh meeting so those are just the updates we're continuing to work on the different uh you know we're it's getting more and more real again as each day goes by and um and uh so we appreciate the input and I look forward to talking to Salem High staff tomorrow about um the initial designs um Elizabeth I I think I'll

046pass it to you on finance and operations report I know you had some other updates oh had a can I just follow up on yeah because as you were talking about the building authority and stuff and I I realized that I really totally neglected to mention Lisa on the on the safety report and she is an integral part Lisa gold and ingal part of doing everything that I talked about and keeping all the records and doing all the you know organization of everything and what reminded me is her main job is leaz on to the school building and all of that and and that the safety is like um another whole area for she's responsible for for the district so I just I didn't want to let that go without saying that thank you great

047thank you I have um just two quick operations announcements one uh superintendent you previewed which is this is National School breakfast week so I hope uh Mark you may have enjoyed a dut this morning at the high school which was a special breakfast this morning we're menuing um fan favorites at the middle and high schools this month tomorrow it will be asai BS and we'll be hosting the mayor and the superintendent at Salem High School uh for National School breakfast week at the elementary schools we have organized a game that is Loosely based on the board game Clue uh and students will get different Clues every day about a school breakfast item uh and there'll be prizes at the end of the week so the goal is to bring attention to our School breakfast program

048and uh increased participation because we know breakfast is the most important meal of the day so uh we hope that students are enjoying National School breakfast week um although we're thinking a lot about breakfast this week we also uh launched a dinner program at colins middle school today and I'm pleased to say that we serve 63 meals today which is a very strong start um for the first day of the program so looking forward to serving breakfast lunch and dinner at Collins Middle School going forward um we've learned a lot from the dinner program at the high school and so we'll be serving dinner here at Collins Middle School um that is my operations report I do have a finance item on the agenda this evening um with the uh mysteriously named memo fy2 which

049was in your packet um so I um am bringing to you a package of budget transfers the total requested this evening for transfer is $262,360 and we have then proposed to leave them those funds so they can do the programming that um we want to do with students and that we would take out of the remainder of funds we would take half of what's available as of today so we're giving them all that they know they need to get to the end of the year and then with what's left we're proposing to take half of those funds which would leave them a cushion for unanticipated expenses because it is only March and there may be things that come up we're proposing to re- uh purpose the half that we would take back to budget lines

050that we know are over so uh in this uh this evening's transfers it includes a number of transfers for electricity it includes transfers to support uh some stiens telephone costs Etc um these are um spelled out for you in the memo we have had this conversation with every school and Department there are three uh cost centers that we're still working with um that will be back to you on March 17th uh with an update on what if any funds will be able to uh transfer out of their accounts so in every instance where a school or a department can do their programming and will end the year as it looks today with funds available we're proposing to take half of those funds and we're still in conversations uh with a couple of schools and departments

051while we do that forecasting so these are offered for your consideration even though not all of the transfers are above 15,000 but because as a set is it it is a significant amount and it is part of our strategy to end the year in balance while still fulfilling all of our programmatic obligations so I'll stop there if you have any questions um I'm happy to take them any questions um can I ask about the purchase of District staging for events what is that um we rent sta a stage for graduation uh and for other large events like convocation and when we've had districtwide PD so we're proposing to buy the staging which would be a one-time cost and then would save us in future years we tend to spend $15,000 per rental so we believe

052that this will save us money in the long run thanks other questions okay thank you uh that uh well the next item I can't do my evaluation so I'll uh turn it back over to you uh mayor that's the next item under superintendent's report yeah um member Cruz are you on thank you mayor yes and uh appreciate the opportunity to be able to uh be with all of you remotely I apologize I can't be with you all I'm feeling under the weather and out of an abundance of caution I don't want to spread whatever kid germs I've picked up uh and so once again we are here at uh the juncture in which we're evaluating the superintendent I want to thank everybody uh number one for their patients with the fillable form uh I know

053it took folks some time to get their evaluations in uh but nonetheless um we we do have them all and I've submitted them for the record uh to uh Shirley and to the superintendent so he has those now um and I was able to put together a composite uh for this uh this particular evaluation year um and so I wanted to just begin uh by uh providing just an overall um an overall assessment of the composite uh and to go through a few of the the standards and to highlight some comments from members of the committee that I saw uh in the evaluations that I think speak to um our superintendent's strengths uh but then additionally uh those continued areas uh for growth uh and then I'll just open it up to members of the

054committee uh for them to be able to provide any additional comments that they'd like to direct uh to the superintendent uh and then uh by way of process I would just name that uh we're once we complete this portion of the evaluation we will then move to the next uh part which is uh setting up goals uh for this particular year uh and the standards by which we would be evaluating the superintendent uh next year so uh top of the line uh on the composite I just wanted to name that uh for the second year in a row our superintendent has achieved something that I think is remarkable and certainly reflective of uh his leadership here within the district um across the four uh standards by which uh we use the desie rubric to evaluate

055the superintendent um uh members of the committee um uh in their thoughtful evaluations all together uh you were rated as exemplary across all four of the standards and overall uh in your leadership so uh Dr re as I go through each of these um I think you know it's a very high bar to reach a level of exemplary um in these um in these evaluations uh but as we went through I think collectively the evidence that you provided and then obviously the last year that we've spent together I think it was quite clear that members of the committee feel as though you're leading our organization uh in in a very positive uh trajectory and that we're really fortunate to have you serving here in Salem uh so in the overall comments that I could draw

056from members of the committee uh on this 5year journey that we've been on together uh many of us express our gratitude we appreciate your wisdom and expertise your your ability to be collaborative uh not just with members of the school committee but all all of our union leaders our our district leadership team our students our families um and we think that the trajectory that we're on with respect to um having a high standard for student achievement uh ensuring that our students um have social emotional wellbeing uh all of that is U is only possible because of your style of leadership which really does bring people in and so those were kind of overall comments that uh I tried to synthesize from the various evaluations about you as a leader uh and now move us through

057some of the standards so in in the first standard of uh instructional leadership um here's just a couple of member comments that I think are reflective of uh how you achieved a rating of exemplary in this particular standard um doctors re's steadfast commitment to Equitable student report is clear in the increase in student achievement that the Salem public schools has experienced in the 2024 assessment cycle with double digit gains at the high school level and gains at the elementary and middle school level as well another member in this standard uh wrote the achievements of Salem public schools and the most recent accountability data speaks to the exemplary level of instructional leadership demonstrated by Dr Reich Salem now has the number one academic performing Public School District ac across all of the Massachusetts Gateway cities our

058enrollment has increased by 160 students over the last four years and in our Commonwealth less than 15% of all public schools met or exceeded their accountability targets but here in Salem 50% of them did so not one of our schools is now in the bottom 10% of schools Statewide and everyone of them improve their accountability ranking compared to the state and two of them were name uh experienced double increases that's the Bates in Salem High School uh and out of the nearly 1,700 public schools in Massachusetts the state named 577 of them schools of recognition and two of those schools of recognition are here in Salem um and so those were two um uh comments that I thought were really reflective of your exemplary work as an instructional leader here in the district alongside your

059team which I know you give uh all the credit to um and then in terms of areas of growth I I think rather than reading individual comments I synthesized these in this area as um the majority of committee members that did point out areas of growth for you um really focused on equity and ensuring that we continue to make progress towards having high standards that we're providing uh high quality guidance to our students as they choose postsecondary opportunities and that we continue to push uh for Innovation as I move to the second standard which is management and operations um this particular comment stood out to me uh and it came from one member who said drors R has effectively managed District Operations Safety Human Resources financial planning ensuring a stable and efficient learning environment his

060leadership has strengthened school safety staff diversity and resource allocation while navigating budget constraints and contractual obligations areas for continued Focus um this is more in the area of growth uh should include things like staff retention refining our scheduling systems and ensuring long-term Financial stability moving to uh standard three family and Community engagement um this particular comment certainly resonated with me and was very similar to ones that others had made uh as a result of Dr reich's exemplary approach to family and Community engagement communication has moved from one of this districts most common complaints from Salem families to an area of strength and pride families frequently know his speed in responding his dedication to resolving issues uh and he has ensured that translation and interpretation um as a department is appropriately staffed and funded and this

061has developed structures and routines to provide these quick updates and opportunities for connection with the community and for sharing updates with the school committee as well uh another member um also highlighted in this particular area a comment that I just um I thought was really strong which uh was just want to make sure I get this one right I'm in the right standard yes I am um over the past year uh Dr zri has committed himself uh to engaging uh student voices uh he has taken the feedback on everything from high school grading system to lunch menus as a result Salem students know their superintendent and believe that their voices matter I'm not sure that there is a higher compliment that I can give to a person leading our district um we heard that today

062as an example in our very meeting um so that that Testament of knowing our students as a superintendent uh is hard to do especially uh in a Gateway City that can be pretty complex uh but Dr re has made it a point to really focus on uh uplifting the voices of our students and then I'll move us to the the last standard which is around professional culture um and so in this particular standard I want to highlight a few comments um so uh Dr Reich one member wrote holds himself and those around him to high standards of professionalism and cultural responsiveness he's excellent at building coalitions for decisions ensuring that people feel connected to the process and that they have opportunities to share feedback and concerns another member wrote Steve is an active participant at

063school committee uh policy subcommittee meetings on a regular basis where his work is ongoing to provide policy level supports specifically to wide range of issues um within the standard he provides input on areas in need of committee attention and then provides the backbone of implementation as strongly needed um so as I go through uh each of these standards uh I think it's very clear just with this uh sampling of member comments that Dr re uh you you set a high bar uh as a leader you're reflective um you're communicative transparent and collaborative and you really do view all of us uh here in the district at every level as your colleagues and you genuinely have treated uh folks with both respect and dignity uh so you know on my part Dr Z I want to

064wrap up by noting um that I too um feel these same sentiments and certainly um and grateful to your leadership here in the district uh and more importantly your thought partnership and your willingness to share your power with our broader Community uh so to that end that concludes my summary of the um of the composite uh and later on in the agenda I would recommend that we accept uh uh uh a score of uh exemplary overall uh for the superintendent's evaluation thank you very much member Cruz any discussion questions the vice chair here for uh next item on our agenda you finished with your report I'm done with my report yeah uh subcommittee reports any of the subcommittee chairs have any reports to make okay we'll move to item eight motions and resolution so our

065first item is a superintendent's evaluation um move to accept on the evaluation and the rating of was it exemplary I'll second all right motion made by member Campbell seconded by member Miranda roll call vote member Hoffman yes member Manning yes member Miranda yes member Campbell yes member Cruz yes and myself yes mayor can I do you mind if I just I just want to um I didn't I didn't know that would go that quickly but um I would just um just a couple of uh I just want to say I'm humbled by the comments and I don't feel like anybody I don't deserve an exemplary but I appreciate it and I I'm grateful to have the support um but like when you read off all the lists of all the things I do I don't

066do any of that stuff I mean there's all kinds of people my whole team is here you know executive team and obviously I think we have amazing Educators in our school these all these improvements don't happen you know without the people at the school level and I really do mean it I've been in a lot of districts the people in Salem work so hard on behalf of this city and like we have just amazing Educators uh because everybody's an educator in Salem not just teachers but everybody's an educator and um I I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to work alongside some incredibly talented and most importantly hardworking people who um give a lot for to the children of the Cities I also want to say that I love the I love working with

067the students of Salem I'm not just I'm I'm not just saying that but this is this is what democracy is about this is what public education is about we have one of the most most diverse systems I was saying that to the students today that you'll find in the Commonwealth and it's what makes us special it's why I'm committed to public education we take everyone everybody who shows up at our door and we're lucky to have the talent and the you know our youth are is our greatest asset and is what makes our city uh you know a terrific place to be and today to hear the students talk we asked them all about at the advisor group what is it that they love most about the Salem public schools in the City of Salem

068it's that we truly are emblematic of what this country looks like and it's at this moment in time it's important more than any to remember that we really are in America here um in this in the Salem public school so I just want to call that out um and there's just a lot more work still to do you know there's a lot of Unfinished Business uh that you know we all have uh and I think we have absolutely the right team of people the right group of people it this is hard work and um but um we're making really good progress because of the efforts of so many different people and uh you know we could have had yeah I want I'm grateful for our Union Partners as well we did not have any interrupted

069learning this year we were focused on all the right things for kids and um so I I appreciate the the fact that there's so many people that are uh committed to doing um what's right for uh for our young people and I do want to thank this committee because I chose to come to Salem um I thought I I thought when I took accepted the job that it was V there was a values alignment and I have not been disappointed by that um we're lucky to have a school committee doesn't mean we you agree with everything I do or you agree with one another but at the end of the day we have core values that are up on the walls there and I do think that counts for a lot and again In This

070Moment In Time those values mean more than they've ever meant before so I'll stop there turn it back over to you mayor thank you superintendent else all right uh our next vote is on the budget transfers that have been proposed um move to approve the budget transfers as outlined by um the assistant superintendent all right motion made by member Campbell seconded by member Manning roll call vote member Manning yep member Miranda yes member Campbell yes member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes and myself yes uh we have two policies for votes uh third reading of policy 52401 graduation requirements and competency determination move to approve second motion made by member Campbell seconded by member Miranda a roll call vote member Miranda yes member Campbell yes member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes member Manning yes and myself

071yes policy 521 5.01 directory of information on students second reading move to approve bur a pattern motion made by member Campbell seconded by member Miranda thank you uh roll call vote member Campbell yes member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes member Manning yep member Miranda yes and myself yes uh item nine announcements any announcements from committee members do we have an announcement on when that gbh thing is going to air Chris do you know when that is going to be on I thought it was going to be I was told it was going to be today at noon uh it's not up yet um let me see what I can find out thanks um I just want to share with committee members that um the superintendent and I had a meeting with um the city clerk

072and members of the board of registers of Voters to talk about the process of of where possible moving voting out of our schools um and where it's not possible um providing for space in the schools that can be uh secured so the public is not able to get into the rest of the building on Election Day so I think I'm optimistic that we're we're seeing some progress with the few schools that are polling places and we're going to keep at that thank you there's no further announcements one uh we had a um I thought a very good meeting at nagley on Friday um I want to thank member Hoffman for inviting us um but it was a good conversation with students not just from Salem public schools but the mayor you were there as well

073and Ellen winguard was there we did hear uh got a lot of good feedback about how we can best support our gptq plus community in this moment in time uh there was uh parents that were there as well um and a good um I thought a good conversation about um what school how schools can better support um our students we did have some teachers uh also who were there the the leaders of the GSA here at Collins were in attendance and they it was actually great to hear their perspective and what supports and what resources they need they they did ask for uh more financial resources to be able to run their program prrams and so I I that reminds me I need to follow up with them um and um yeah so I just

074I I think Salem's lucky to have Nagle in their backyard is a pretty special place and so many of our young people feel so connected there there was a huge turnout on a Friday afternoon of students all over the well young people all over the place um and um I look forward to be invite to be invited back and I think any school Committee Member is in you know welcome to attend at any point um to to learn more about um again a community that definitely feels uh anxious and fearful at this moment in time so thank you member Hoffman for helping to facilitate that as well is there another motion uh move to adjourn was making sure there were no more announcements I was making sure there were no more announcements I'll second motion

075made by member Campbell seconded by member Miranda member Cruz yes member Hoffman yes member Manning member Miranda yes member Campbell yes and myself yes Jour thank you all