Salem School Committee Meeting - November 4th, 2024

001call to order the school committee meeting of November 4th 2024 7.m this meeting is taking place in person 29 Highland Avenue room 227 you can also join via zoom using the link posted in the meeting agenda our first item of business is approval of the agenda second under discussion seeing none all in favor they opposed matter carries public comment the Salem school committee would like to hear from the public on issues that affect the school district and are within 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 public discourse for our Young Learners you have any

002comment online comment in the room seeing none approval of the consent agenda these are the minutes of the school committee meeting of October 21st in the warrants of October 24th and October 31st L second under discussion seeing none all in favor any opposed matter carries uh we'll take out of order the student representative report Mark so the student Equity Group we have met today at the conference room at the school and one we mainly went over 3 things um one student raised concerns about the safety of the hold in place and how sometimes we don't know what exactly may be going on in a Holden place and it can cause some worrying of the safety of the students and that became a conversation and the next order that we had discussed was SAT prep and

003how there seems to be a lack of SAT prep for these students both for uh the senior class and the junior class that just recently took the PSAT and we are discussing ways that we could involve sit prep and there was there was a third one it was um oh the uh phones phones at lunch and so one of the sophomore class officers raised the question of why phone are not allowed at lunch and would like to have conversations with the school principal and faculty about the approval of phones at lunch any questions from committee members great thanks our next item is superintendent's report um yeah good evening everybody we have a few uh topics on here tonight mostly uh leite Laura Assad who's going to give some updates from her Department I do just

004want to take a moment to talk about uh smoke uh we've been getting a lot of questions about smoke um in the area and um over the last week I appreciate the flexibility and patience of both our students our families and staff uh it is something that um was never in the playbook in superintendent preparation um courses um that would' be dealing with smoke uh delays or smoke dismissals um I do want to say that um today we there were a lot of questions about whether um there was too much smoke in the buildings uh we did consult very um closely with the Department of Public Health or um and the health agent in the city he came was very appreciative he came to the schools walked Salem High School and horse man with me

005today and he did not deem uh that there was a need to adjust the school day we did keep people um indoors today uh and kept all activities uh during the school day indoors and we'll continue to adjust as necessary but the levels of smoke in the building uh did not um require us to make any adjustments I I do want to point out that um last week when we did dismiss um the high school early and we moved horse man the fires were very you know were in the proximity of the school and the level of intensity of the smoke was a lot higher uh last week than was today um it seemed like the winds just happened to be blowing in the right direction so they especially earlier this earlier today where they

006were positioned towards Salem and we ended up having a pretty uh Smoky beginning of the school day but we worked very closely to uh to close the exterior vents to uh enhance our exhaust systems and then also to encourage people to run the HEPA filters which we still have and we still you know even if they're not in classrooms we can bring them out and run them as necessary but this is definitely a new chapter for us uh and we'll continue to adjust and and just so people know I'm not an I'm not an expert on on uh smoke um and and the uh impact but we do have folks in the city that you know are um that do guide us um I will say we're also paying very close attention to those students

007and staff that have respiratory conditions um and our nurses have very well versed in trying to support them um and uh making sure that they get get what they need if there's any concerns about individual uh staff or students that have asthma or other respiratory conditions did you want to say something yeah if I can just add to that you know so we you know one of the things that we evaluate in terms of the decision today but also the conditions of over the last several school days when there has been smoke is not just the immediate situation but also the wind forecast and the ceiling height for the weather so the fire chief was Consulting with the State Fire Marshall with the health agent and with the superintendent around the the forecast for which

008direction the wind was going to be going and sending the smoke we know where the brush fire is located so if the wind is looking like it's going to shift in a way that's favorable towards moving the smoke away from where the schools are um we didn't want to um preemptively dismiss school uh when it looked like it was going to clear up relatively quickly um I think just you know based on some parent feedback I think it would be great if even though I know this is um not something that we've all prepped for um but it doesn't look like it's going to be raining anytime soon um so I think it would be great to make some kind of FAQ or um FYI form that just says you know for folks who aren't

009watching this or um aren't engaged in like social media and put that into um parents square that just says here's here's what we do we have the health department come in we consult with the fire department here's how we walk through the buildings here's what the Hep filters are doing here's where they are here's what you can do if your child suffers from some respirator condition that um that you're really concerned about just so that we have like one central place where all of that stuff exists and parents uh kind of know what the protocol is even if the protocol is evolving yeah I think that makes sense I mean especially since now we have had multiple days this wasn't is you know I I was hoping it would just be one day smoke smoke

010out um there's been now multiple days so and and as you said it could could last depending on um you know whether there's rain or snow there I say snow um so yeah I think that's a good suggestion still your report oh it's still my report okay um so now to the meat of the meeting um we um uh Laura sad is here our director of equity inclusion and engagement and we have uh two different uh top iics or Laura's going to discuss two different topics with you and now that she's in her role for a second year um a lot of the work is starting to take hold and just recently uh we we launched our first parent survey which admittedly didn't have the responses that we'd like but it's a start it's a

011baseline it gave us 300 responses and directionally gives us some things to look at and um and Laura will talk about what we learned um and I do think it's important that districts are serving parents on an annual basis and we so we will continue and I think Laura will speak to some of the efforts to try to get more families to respond in the future and the second is we did an equity audit um that uh was really looking at our policies and practices also uh did a uh interview of our executive team it wasn't like the a full comprehensive look at um all aspects of the organization but it was look it did look at our practices and policies um and Laura is going to speak to some of the findings and recommendations

012the full report uh is still being copyedited and we'll send that to you um but I think it's most important that Laura have an opportunity to give you her sort of um understanding of what we learned from it and that's more I think valuable than just seeing it on a piece of paper um I think you all know that Laura is uh a trusted member of our leadership team and longtime Salem resident and um we're lucky to have her in an SPS so I'm going to turn it over to Laura and I think you're going to start with the family survey I am is that correct y yes yes yes all right um thank you for having me here today uh to share some updates and for for all of you for trusting me to

013do this work um and to elevate the voices of our students and families and also the trends and behaviors uh of our practices that are driven by our policy um I want to start off with saying that like while I am serving as the Dei director and engagement um it this work is not just my own like it it's a respons responsibility of everyone that's here and all of our Educators uh within our organization um the work is hard but the responsibility needs to be something that we hold everyone accountable for um my role is also to provide an opportunity to bring impact to the district so if there is uh if there are inequities or there are opportunities that our district can continue to move forward with and you know I see that as

014my role in bringing it to this body to our executive team to our uh building leaders and bring those things to light so that we can work collectively to improve in the way that we service students families Educators all around um what I will show you today is just the majority will be data it will be anecdotes from our surveys um from our family and caregiver responses that we received um I'll talk a little bit about what the process was for both uh with the equity uh with the equity audit and also for the family survey and um it it will show um it will show what most may know and also bring to light some of the work that we need to do um and that we need to do a better job at

015doing um so I forgot my CER Carlos had me prepared and I did not come prepared okay can we take questions now are do you want to save them for the end um does anyone have a question now M Manning does hi just very simp simple one could just Define for me like who is included when you're talking about caregivers sure so and it could be a biological parent it could be an aunt a grandparent a neighbor someone who has custody of our young person okay so anyone who is in soulle care of a has legal all right I didn't know if it meant like the daycare teacher or the what okay no this is who the student is staying with and is being cared for for the majority of the time thank you yes

016you're welcome um I want to um just highlight um some of the focuses of the department um our the department of Dei as you remember um overseas the um Departments of like parent information center translation interpretation um when it comes to engagement it's engagement of our Educators and families Etc um and those are all covered under priority 2 three and four under our strategic plan so just wanted to bring um forward uh what those main focuses are and what drove the work of what you are about to well what I'm about to present for uh for the body this is also um just as a reminder to the school committee uh last time I presented was in March and two of the main focuses of the work that I focused on in my first year

017in this role um were again to partner with a consultant to uh conduct our Equity audit and to conduct a family survey both of those pieces are also highlighted in our strategic plan and I wanted to make sure that that work was underway um right away so that um we can have um some data some input and um some level of a baseline for our building leaders to go by um when it came to specifically family and um caregiver information that we receive so for the spring family survey uh that falls under our priority 3.4 which states that we want to elevate voices of students parents and families to tap into their funds of knowledge and prepare them to take action so this was our very first formal um parent caregiver survey at least uh

018that was done districtwide um I believe that our um individual schools have sent out uh surveys either for ways that um families want to be communicated with or other surveys around different topics and different things uh this survey we did work with our Panorama um company that we use for our student services as well and they uh were able to provide a parent uh caregiver survey that we utilize and that we um to some extent made our own based on what we needed for um for our families so I I want to talk a little bit about what our approach uh was and um how we got to the final uh focuses or Focus areas that we have in the survey so um the first thing we were able to do is I was I

019had a conversation of course with our executive team members of our um District leadership team family engagement team and just some feedback from parents like random feedback of like what are the things that if we were to send out a survey um what are the things that you would want us to know as a district um so I I got feedback from all of those entities and came up with with um four main ones uh the survey did open up uh from June until the end of August and it was available in in all of the languages that um we provide um services for uh one piece that I did want to mention and that's why there's an astd and it it's the the ASD explanation is on the next slide um Panorama did offer

020other languages outside of the ones that are listed on the um on the slide deck and uh what we did have to do is uh for these particular languages we use some of our financial resources to support um getting correct translations um because it was a it was an automatic uh translation from the English and we wanted to make sure that it was culturally appropriate for uh the families that we wanted um to have access to these surveys so we focus on those uh Spanish Brazilian Portuguese and Haitian crayo so the next part of uh the the work that we did was we created um a distribution plan we wanted to make sure that we took advantage of some of the work that we did in the summer uh through the community walks we already

021usually for anything that we send out and we meaning our family engagement team um parent information center and any of the community members that we work with uh we sent out parent Square parent Square groups we had QR codes that were available during parent meetings parent teacher conferences um we uh sent it out on parent newsletters social media pages and mostly the usual things that that we do to uh send out information to families um there were Flyers available in the main office and as I mentioned during Community walks and uh we had it available at every table every Community member table during the back to school fair with all of those efforts we still were only able to get 3177 um but those are 3 17 families that um provided us with a baseline

022so I'm still grateful for those who took the time to be able to give us um this information and we have at least some idea of how we can move forward um because all of the um responses are very valuable in in the work that we have ahead of us um and as I said uh we we use some resources for uh for the other languages that uh we Reserve to provide adequate um language that's available for our families that um speak Haitian crayo Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish I want to go into and I know that that's a little blurry and I apologize about that I took a snapshot directly from uh Panorama um and to talk a little bit about who took the survey um so on the top leftand Corner uh we have

023particular subgroups um either uh families who identified by the language that they spoke so we have 82% of the survey takers uh spoke English 12% uh spoke Spanish and 3% spoke other or multiple languages and then there were other subgroups that uh were protected from uh so that there there wasn't too many identifiers so if it was that they spoke a specific language other than the ones that um were named uh Panorama does a um a subgroup specifically for the few that answered uh separately from those listed um when it comes to race and ethnicity uh those who identify as black or African-American 7% Hispanic or Latino 16% those uh who identify as white are 64% and two or more races are about 10% so those are the the when it comes to race uh

024of the survey takers of who um who took the survey and then the last which is to the right of our screen when it comes to subgroup um identified under the relationship of the student uh 81% of survey takers were mothers identified as mothers uh 12% identified as fathers and 3% as Grand grandmother and 2% are guardian or like a stepparent aunt Etc that was another 2% some of the work that um I mentioned earlier when we uh decided to uh do some of the work and include like our members of our district leadership team our executive team um we got some feedback that we wanted to uh figure out what it was that was going to drive some of the school Improvement plans and also um what was important data that our principals and

025other school admin needed and we came up with these four so it was barriers to engagement um School uh climate school safety and school fit the survey provides uh several other focused areas as well but if we were to provide all of them to our families that would have been a 20 minute plus survey that we didn't want to burden our families to take so we narrowed it down to these four and the survey um was no more than 15 minutes per each child and um when we message to families we asked them to think about one student if they had multiple students in the district we encouraged them to take one survey per each but if they wanted to um we encourag them to think of one student within their family to take this

026one survey because that would allow for us to get all the information that we uh needed and it some of it may have also been applicable for their other students that they had with us um so barriers to engagement um these are the pieces that um survey uh survey takers responded like how big of a problem are these issues when it comes to uh the levels of Engagement that we offer and all of those opportunities when it comes to school climate it talks about the perception of the of the learning and um what's the climate in the school like how does the student feel when it comes to um either feeling welcomed or um feeling seen whether it's just in school or reflected in the curriculum um perceptions of the student when it when we

027talk about school safety um like what's the physical safety so I appreciate Mark um mentioning earlier that in the student um Equity Group that there was a conversation that was already started amongst high school students and uh um reflecting on that topic because that was one of our Focus areas we get to Fe see the parents perspective when it comes to that and then also School fit and see whether or not the school that the student is attending the school is the right fit for them um and how parents feel when it comes to that so this is also a um screenshot from the survey itself and um what you see is uh favorability by topic so what Panorama does is it breaks up the questions to say that it's not either it's not at

028all a when it comes to the questions under either barriers to engagement School fit and the other topics um and this is how you get your percentage based on those favorability data it doesn't give you the opposite of you know what's not so favorable but I've been able to um review the entire uh survey results and have some areas of opportunity that I want to highlight um but I just want to say that I'm generally pleased at least with when it comes to how families feel um um when it comes to school safety and the barriers to engagement that for the most part those who responded to the survey feel that they have little uh to no issues when it comes to school safety and barriers to engagement again I want to also reflect again

029that the the survey takers uh may not always may not have reflected our demographic of students that we serve and the demographic of families that um that represent those students as well so I want to move to talk about some of the takeaways um so after reading the surveys um I wanted to think about you know like what came to mind for me for the team um as the results came in um and as I said I for me it's clear that um parents overall are looking at ways to be more involved when it comes to what's happening in the classroom um it was made clear uh part of the the survey included open-ended questions and that came up even on the free responses um this was also aside from the uh multiple choice questions

030that Panorama had already offered um in your packets you may not have the open response questions but I did take some of that information and we'll be presenting it to you shortly um the other pieces that I found was that a lot of um families when we were offering the survey um number one there were a lot of families in transition between the time that we uh that we offered it to the time that uh we closed it it was the start of summer so people are not thinking about taking a survey people are thinking about the end of school people are thinking about vacationing hopefully um and just kind of wrapping up and and not thinking about school so to get a message about a 15minute survey um was probably not the ideal thing

031um to do at that time um so uh you know which LDS to the next point that that was probably too late to send something out in June um we also find um I I I another takeaway is that we we have been able to find unique ways and the ways that we uh survey families and we just have to come up with other ways cuz surveying is not it should not be like the one way for us to collect this information and we do realize that we know that before we conducted the survey um and we will continue to build on those efforts on just how to collect this valuable information aside from sending out um an electronic survey that someone may not be able to know how to take um building leaders have

032now now have a baseline um for their school Improvement plans um and there were just some questions that um some of our members in the executive team um and in our district leadership um wondering about the responses on discipline right and how um parents are thinking about that and it doesn't the survey doesn't necessarily um elaborate on some of those pieces um and then of course that there need there's more work that need to be done on academic preparation and relevance um there are you know we know that there are families that are coming in at different times of the year and what one student may get um at the beginning of the school year versus in March when someone is coming in it's not the same um and depending on where the educator is

033in terms of their um teaching style and how to support a student in transitioning like what supports are is that educator getting and how are we ensuring that our students are getting what they need regardless of when they're coming in maybe next time let's see all right all right so some of the strengths that came up uh for us under uh the survey this is something that our what I found that our school administration was eager for there are other um data points that they are collecting whether it's through student data from their own Panorama um survey that they take um and then there are other uh benchmarks that they're meeting through other entities and this is something that was missing this was a missing piece for a lot of our a lot of our

034buildings or for all of our buildings rather and um you know our team is really motivated our Educators and principles are really motivated to be able to move forward with a lot of this work that the families are suggesting um schools seem to be um generating a sense of belonging and um cultural connection so there whether it's through a celebration or some type of recognition or um allowing a student to talk about um how they see themselves in the work that they're doing and to really show um and showcase the work that they do in in their own way is something that I know that we've worked really hard on um and then uh something that jumped out for me uh throughout the survey was 93% report that they have little to no negative memories

035at their school um so the that was a great data point to show and it's a strength that we have because that just shows that our at at least from the survey takers their parents feel like they they have a really good experience overall um for their students in school um and 82% feel a sense of belonging in our schools as well I want to dive into the areas of improvement um I mentioned this already that this uh survey does not or at least the responses does not reflect uh the demographic of our student student population um or the families that we serve if we go back again to the beginning um we have a lot of english- speaking mothers that took the survey like the data speaks for itself and it also goes to

036speak to the way that we want to be able to do some extra work to get the responses that we need so that it is as uh even Level Playing Field as possible so that we can get information of what we may not know is the lived experence experience of someone who is not a mother who speaks English might be very different from what was reported and these numbers can look very very different um just based on simple conversation with with families from all walks of life um I believe that we need to grow in our efforts when it comes to school climate and school fit um there was some data points that jumped out for me where 42% of our families report that they worry about violence in our schools so while overall that

037uh the school climate and school safety um became was one of the top um areas where there was high favorability there's still this 42% where families don't feel that they they're uh that they what families feel that some sense of lack of safety in our schools uh where 31% worry that their child will have a hard time getting help from an adult regarding bullying where 41% of families report that their teacher does not match their student learning style where 48% of families report that their child is not comfortable in asking for help so what jumps fell for me with that one specifically when we think about our student Panorama data we find that our students report that they have a trusted adult but their families don't know that right so that for me felt really

038contradicting in the sense of like what what is the missing piece that we're not communicating with our families because our students feel it our students can identify for the most part a trusted adult in their building and that's a high number I know of that but when it comes to like the work that is done with our families um that there seems to be a disconnect because that's too much of a high number for me um 50% report that classroom lessons are not as motivating to their child and then 56% report that their student schedule is too busy uh and prevents them from being engaged uh as engaged as we would like them to be so there's some pressure that comes with the ways that we want to share uh how engaged they can be

039whether that's through PTO or through parent teacher conferences or any other forms of Engagement or events and um opportunities that we offer we have 56% of our families that are saying like they can't come they're too busy right most of us here are parents and we can attest to that as well right and we understand that I also want to think about um when it comes to this like what's some what are some of the assumptions that our our district is making of these 56% of our parents that can't come and you think about the the biases that come with that and then you think about the the um breakdown of the race within our families that we serve and does it look do do we make assumptions the same assumptions for the 56% of

040the families that took the survey the same of the ones that did not and what does that look like when it comes to English-speaking mothers who are literally telling us that they can't come because they're busy and a non-english-speaking parent that might not have the same opportunity and we know we all hear it it they don't care we need to see more um and I can show I can share with the committee the full report where there was some comments that were made on there that um it was suggested that uh that we need to do a better job and could and in getting the Latino families involved right so these are these are the types of things that I want to make sure that like we do highlight and we do value um this

041information and we also have to think about of those who did not take the survey and what's happening with the families that when it comes to engagement how are we treating and how are we moving forward with supporting when they too are telling us that they're busy is it the same response so that's an area of improvement that I want to highlight for that when it comes to the uh Trends and open-ended questions I uh rather than sharing all of the language all in one screen because there was um a lot of really great responses um the open-ended questions there were about four so I only took uh the maybe two or three two questions that were specific to are where we can grow as an organization and um the other two were more uh

042centered on demographic so um whether it was what race or ethnicity do they identify with Etc and I didn't want to um take up time and speaking on that so um one of the questions were if you were in charge of the school how would you try to engage more parents within the community and this is just a word cloud that came up for all of those responses right so um for our survey takers we thought about uh you know how do we engage with caregivers how do we do um in the way that we work with school events we do a really great job in sharing information um there's a lot of conversation about salts because that seems to be you know and remember again this was between June and August so this is

043not anything that's recent at least within the recent talks um what and and the information on like the the ideas that um parents are bringing into the schools on the ways that they can engage so there's always an opportunity for uh for parents to be able to give feedback and that showed um in the responses so that's just the work cloud of some of the resp of all of the responses that came forward um under that question the next one is um what can the school do to help your child engage in learning activities parents want homework right um ST Math seems to be um a topic that parents want to see more of um they want to be able to see projects schoolwork more explanation again going back to that um one of the

044takeways is that uh parents want to be able to be connected directly to what's happening in the classroom and that showed again um under this question people want to know what's happening with math what are the topics that are being discussed um we can't rely on the kids to be able to fully um give a briefing of their every day because that's not going to happen um so parents want to know more and uh the last question was any way um or final ideas on how to improve the school district please let us know and these were some of the comments that um were made when it comes to um this section they thought about transport ation monitors um well at least with it when it comes to transportation and monitors just kind of paying

045attention to what's happening on their way on the students way to and from school um and when it comes to school safety I mean Panorama did talk about school specifically so you think about the physical building um and what's happening within but when it comes to their arrival and dismissal of school that's a topic that was not covered so that I wanted to bring that and highlight that um consistent days of dismissal and after school programs to be five days a week um so thinking about what's being offered right now where for some students it's not an everyday um and parents are looking for something that's more consistent and information around um after school programs and then reassess standards based grading um this is a direct uh comment from uh the survey uh in theory

046it's a great idea but not all teachers use the whole point range and um in the end certain classes are giving kids higher GPA so that's a Wonder something that we need to do some more digging into um and last comment um is administrators don't often response to emails um they don't expect everyone to drop what they're doing but to get back to them right away so it's that communication between um administrators and families where there's either limited response or not so much again I want to highlight that this was done done in June um and we were closing schools and we were also thinking about summer and transitioning into this new school year um so I want to make sure that um that doesn't become the understanding that that's how our administrators work all

047year and I I want to recognize that lastly um with regards to the survey some of the next steps um that I'm looking to do and follow up with is is make sure that the survey is available in April we'll start a lot earlier this year now that we have um our questions they wouldn't they wouldn't change um we'll keep it the same we'll just make it available much earlier and kind of get an opportunity to get families while they're still in the um in thinking about and being present while kids are in school um I will work with um Salem public schools Educators to get more responses and whether that means um just finding other unique ways to make it so that we we get them because I do want to double our responses

048for the end of this year um and then collaborate with building leaders to ensure that they get the feedback that they need um and ensure that school Improvement plans are implementing some of these um feedback that we're getting from families that's the end of that part and I want to open it up to any questions from the group m Cruz thank you mayor the and thank you Laura for the presentation and for recapping the data um certainly a lot I think in here to dig in on um a couple things so when you had mentioned um that some of these survey questions wouldn't change um I I know you had talked about the stakeholder group I'm just selfishly thinking about the work that this committee has in front of us and some of the I

049think the response rate is actually a representative sample and I know you didn't in terms of just the end count right but terms of the demographic piece totally with you there um so i' think I'd like to know a little bit more about like why the why the increase by another 300 is that to get to the demographic goal that you're seeking um just because I I just want to understand that and then the other piece would be around a question that I think should change which is you um but I just don't know if the Panorama survey function allows for it it's the question about race or ethnicity race and ethnicity are both put together versus separated um and I think that's a missed opportunity for us to understand the multiple identities that folks

050hold uh I know there's the same race or like uh multiple race kind of question there but I'm just thinking about like our afro Latino populations and all the other you know mesas that are out there so I would just ask if if it's possible to bifurcate the two that'd be great cuzz I I also think that there's some opportunities as we think about family engagement if we understand our where families are coming from their points of origin their family Origins that also is an opportunity for us to think about ways we can be engaging them culturally um so and then creating that kind of bridge across culture so that those are two things that came to mind there uh and then the only other thing that I think I had circled and had a

051question on was um it was around the takeaway around the safety piece um I I guess when I see those numbers around concerns around the bullying the safety the violence I know we've done a lot of work around like the the intervention across teers the data systems that we're putting in place and you talked about that misalignment so I guess what I would just want to hear is kind of like the followup from from Steve really about kind of um you know what we've how what the progress has been with respect to all those efforts that we've had to date um I know we've had like multiple iterations of but I just love to hear from like the school safety kind of folks about you know what progress has been made where do we see

052um like the opportunities identified here like what's our what's our solve for that especially when I see things like that first comment around Transportation like that's always the place where I have the most concern we know things happen on the bus um but I just want to like better understand the strategies that are currently at play where we see room for improvement Etc you know I when we we debrief this survey as an executive team we we were actually surprised that the safety data wasn't uh worse and by that I mean people are very concerned about school violence in general and of course stakeholders too yeah stakeholders are I mean as a a parents I think every parent is concerned about that in with in the world we live in um and certainly after incidents

053happen but there is great concern about violence in schools I think Staff feel it and I think um our parents do as well I I I hear the most concern and anxiety from parents around issues of violence you know uh of you know lockdown situations um yeah there there is definitely concerns around bullying and um but not to the degree I think the anxiety is more about are my kids safe uh from threats um you know within the school or outside the school and I do think I mean the kids brought it up to Mark was there today I mean the students brought it up one of the students said today every time they hear the loudspeaker go off and there's a hold in place even though that's generally a medical U emergency there's Panic

054that you know ensues for people and so I do think there's um tremendous um stress and and anxiety that comes from from families around um School violence you know about the the concerns about their kids being safe in school I mean I see Lisa gold in the audience this is her her almost full-time job is the work around crisis along with the high school building project but we you know we are I think we've done a lot of good work in the last few years and we should do an update to the committee eventually about that but I read it more about that and I actually thought it was lower than I expected um I thought there'd be more concerns because that's what I hear from families the most you know and I know as

055a parent myself that's the thing you worry about when you send your kids to school is you know God forbid something happens thank you I did want to respond to the two questions that you had for me in terms of the um increase in number um so it's it's a yes and so for me it's I I felt that with the efforts that we did um that we think we could have received a higher participation rate um and I was hoping that like at minimum we would get around 500 um there were various ways that we um connected with families and we had a lot of face Toof face and um and we were we were out in the public a lot and um we just expected the response rate to be a little higher

056than that um in terms of the demographic and and trying to get um a more diverse pool of respondents yes of course we would want to be able to get as many as possible hence why we went to things like the ice cream we went to the different block parties we went to the farmers market we went to do some door knocking um we sent it out to the Housing Authority we went to um different neighborhoods and we tabled that community events where families were um and those were not still opportunities again we were very um intentional while we were intentional in the work um this was our first survey and this is not something that our families were thinking of like oh yeah I want to think about that it's the first time that

057they had ever heard of such a thing so um I I want to give us some Grace when it comes to that that this was a first introduction and I can understand that people were reluctant to participate makes sense so I think in the second year that's why I think that continuing with these efforts and adding some other unique that we will be able to reach those targets um in terms of the question on uh race and ethnicity um I am going to ask for uh my friend Ellen who is a what I call a panorama expert um there are some questions that can be changed and I not 100% sure if that question can be um there are there is an opportunity for us to be able to um include additional questions onto the

058survey um and the more questions that we add the more time it adds to how much the parent has to um take on the survey so we have to be careful on how many more questions do we want to add and what are we removing um while also understanding that separating this is very important and that race and ethnicity are not one and the same um so I wonder if Ellen can help to answer the question on whether that particular question can be separated or not thank you hi um I think you asking about the demographic information right that's so I think those we can customize more specifically we can certainly work with our representative from Panorama to take a look at that and and make sure they understand why we're trying to disaggregate that

059um the questions that the content questions can again be customized um but you want to make sure that we're asking the same question over time so that we can monitor that so the demographic I think we can adjust um and we can look in that into that together um it may not match up with how we are reporting to the state and the federal because that does we don't have a lot of control over that but that doesn't usually match up because it's an anonymous survey it doesn't usually match up with our family survey it's more likely to um we're we're less likely to be able to break apart race and ethnicity for student surveys because we connect that to their Aspen profile to does that make sense that does okay that does thank you

060y thank you than you any other questions about the family survey sir he just one other thing I want to add is one thing I hear from families that I think is really important it's reflected in the survey and different questions is parents want a relationship with their child's teacher and that's something we have to continue to work on it's they don't want a relationship with the family engagement facilitator they don't want a relationship with the nurse or the principal they want to have a relationship with the people that teach their child and know their child best and so I think we still have a lot of work to do uh for figuring out how to create that that um those opportunities we know conferences aren't really working for parents I get that feedback a

061lot and we're in the midst of trying to rethink that for next year but what I what I hear especially from a lot of the families who um a lot of our non-english speaking families is they want to know uh they want a relationship ship they want to know more about their child's teacher and what their child's teacher thinks about their child's progress or lack of progress and so I think we have more work to do in that area um to making those relationships more accessible I don't think it's that teachers are always unwilling to have that it's how do you find the time the space how how does that happen in schools um and so that's just something we um you know I I continue to see in this data and I hear that

062from families a lot and that's something you know we we know we need to work on that especially for a non English-speaking family they shouldn't be always connecting with the family engagement facilitator they want to hear what the teacher has to say about their child so I'll just I'll just uh leave it at that and I know turn it back over to you Laura thank you um any last thoughts questions before I move forward to the equity audit okay thank you um so can we have the presentation back up thank you [Applause] okay so I want to um first introduce uh we have our uh partner in this work through the equity process um Cindy weeks Bradley who is joining us online um I want to uh just share um how grateful I am to

063have been partnering with the equity process and uh conducting this audit specific ly on policy and um if Cindy is on I'd like for Cindy to introduce herself and um speak a little bit about um her organization I am on uh Laura thank you very much for the introduction and the opportunity good evening everyone and thank you for having me um over the summer uh my or myself my within my organization we spent some time with sing Public Schools as well as during the fall so far um and we were just looking through your policies a lot of your practices procedures um the way that the administrators at the executive level are thinking about things and trying to see how um the Panorama data fits into the future of sale and public schools along with

064your policy so where's the alignment with that uh my organization is a very small boutique organization um we focus on self-care self- wellness and Equity um really aligning those two together ensuring that there's compassion within the work that we do and we're exploring all avenues for all people and not just some people while centering the most marginalized populations and in Salem public schools while what we noticed in looking at your Panorama data that there were some populations that needed just a little bit more than others and uh that's where the equity really comes forward and I love the question about uh bifa the uh race and ethnicity because I am from Barb so when I think about me as a black woman I am a black woman but I am not an American so I'm

065not African-American though I have to identify as African-American often and I would just like sometimes to identify as a black Caribbean woman so with that being said um thank you once again for being here if there are any questions that you may have at the end after Laura presents that I can support you with I am here to do so as well and Laura thank you for all that you've done um in supporting us and getting us the information it's been a pure joy to work with you and the superintendent throughout this entire process right thank you Cindy um I want to talk a little bit about what we did in terms of um our process before we went into um digging in to the equity work that needed to be highlighted um what you

066see on the screen is a list of some of the um items that were presented to the organization um so after we partnered with them um these were all of the documents that were provided and there were things from school committee policies our strategic plan the total number of Staff um that uh that we had um with with professional and non-professional Status the number of Educators that identified as educators of color our HR student handbooks um instructional materials for ELA Math and Science any PD plans from 2022 23 um and other documents that over time became um important for us to be able to show um because it all ties in together um something that is not included on here um we did present um information on our our enrollment policy our school choice um

067information around um how we uh conduct our enrollment and what is on the policy versus the work that is actually being done not just with enrollment but with other um policies that we have um in place uh the entire process took appro approximately uh three months although Cindy and I have been partnering in this work um since we connected back in February and we've kind of started the conversation and really started the work um after July what I'm going to um go over with you today um is something that you'll find Once the full audit is um finalized and um provided to you um is the SWAT analysis so we'll talk about some of the strengths um the weaknesses and and areas of growth um and some takeaways that came forward um and recommendations that

068um Folks at the equity process had for us uh but the SWAT analysis it's going to provide um Insight on all of those pieces um but it allows for us to um think about how we are going to move forward with the work based on some of these recommendations um something that I just want to highlight also part of the reason why we um decided to just focus on policy and to do it in this form is because we have a lot of data already on some of the work that we need to do when it comes to um retention and recruitment and we did a lot of work with tntp um or the new teacher project that was called um before I believe they have a different name now um we have worked with

069other Auditors um and there's enough data and recommendations on those um fronts uh and um our policy needed um some areas where we could um have someone review and we needed some support in that so that's one of the main reasons as to why um you're not going to see so much on other aspects of it just on the policy pieces I apologize for there being some a lot of language on here and I hope that you all have it printed um so when it comes to the strengths um just want to highlight that uh the the what came up in the report was we we need to be able to think about um strong we that we do have a strong student support system um we do have have um some great um tracking

070um methods and and systems on tracking outcomes um our access to technology um we've done a really great job in ensuring that um all students whether they are only utilizing it here or if they are utilizing um devices and things at home um that we're not creating constraints um for any of those parts for any of our young people um our strategic plan um we it it's uh it's our anchor it's what we use to guide the work that we are um providing for our students and families um and there's a lot of good intention and empathy that has come out of the work that we've already been doing prior to um this um Equity audit on policy uh was done when it comes to some of our weaknesses or areas that we need um

071some growth on uh of course we are still uh needing to do some work on diversifying our staff um unequal resource um distribution consist like with the inconsistency and allocations um whether it's Personnel um Financial um you know without a transparent uh decision-making process um tier one academic instruction came up um in the conversation uh about the language barriers and how we you how our educators are utilizing the tools that we are providing to them um when it comes to you know some of the policies that um we have in place and some of the guidance that we provide um and there's a limited understanding of what Equity is um I'll speak a little bit about that in a moment um and then duly identified students how are we supporting our students that are both

072multilingual special education homeless Etc and what does the support look like is it separate supports for each of the identifiers or does it look different and how are we supporting our students that have those multiple um identifiers um when it comes to the um going back to the limited understanding of equity this is something that you know in my first year I found um to be not surprising and I I say that because I think that there hasn't been enough conversation around um how we as a collective identify the term Equity um you can go into any of the schools and they may Define it one way and um we have to do and we recognize Steve and I have had conversations about this um we recognize that we have to do a better job

073in creating that foundation for our our buildings so that they can have a baseline on what to go off of and then also creating an opportunity to tailor what that looks like based on what the student needs and what the buildings need on the next slide um when it comes to Opportunities um thinking about uh increased transparency um when it comes to uh funding and resources and what does that conversation look like and uh some of the conversations that Cindy and I had uh consisted of like what does that look like when we're we're trying to uh share with either the the public or our families on how the funding is being distributed um when there are cuts when there are um you know departments or or particular uh areas where we where we're utilizing

074um those funds and how we are expanding that what's the communication around that um accelerated math review I know that there's a lot of conversation that comes out of that for us um but what is the uh comprehensive review action plan and what are the pathways to ensure Equitable access for all of our students when it comes to that um targeted supports um I'll skip that just because that kind of speak for itself um thinking about our talent finder fellows um we know that there are there we had worked with a few um Educators to support the work of identifying high quality teachers um and thinking about how we can expand some of that work so that we can continue it and not have it be just something that um was done through a grant

075and that it's a part of our day-to-day um to ensure that we are getting um continue to get high quality teachers and also teachers and other Educators that are reflective of our student population translation and interpretation Services um really supporting our Educators and also some of the work that we're trying to do with with our families is helping them understand um when it comes to our Educators what are the tools how do you use them when do you use them and how often and what's available to them on the other side is what's the work that we're doing when it comes to our families um and our students of what are their rights what do they have when they walk into our buildings and what is our um responsibility and ensuring that they are receiving

076those um services and opportunities um chome access I spoke a little bit about that um where well what's the replacement cycle and allowing families to keep the devices I know that um Our IT department has had conversations about that um so uh without knowing that like when when will we have the opportunity to share those um uh those opportunities again with families I spoke a little bit about um enrollment sorry I skipped uh parent Square Communications uh we all know that improving Outreach is is is important that's showed in the Panorama survey and why I wanted to talk about that first before going into this um uh this conversation parents want communication and I think we do a really good job in communicating information and different methods um and how are we differentiating going back

077to the translation and interpretation pieces understanding that things need to be proofread um and that not everything um gets translated properly in English and we've had to um do some differentiating and why we have the WhatsApp groups and other things as a backup to ensure that families um are getting the messages that we are re that that we are sending out so it's it's what's the supplement to parent square and how are we utilizing parent Square in the way that um could serve our families in the best way possible um enrollment and our school and school choice um really revisiting the policies around that and ensuring um Equitable placements for our students I know that that's a lovely topic and a hot one that we always like to talk about so um I I saw

078some Smiles so I love that um happy to have that conversation with you all uh but again when it comes to that is really thinking about how are we supporting our families again to touch on the point I made at the start of the presentation regardless of when families come in what are the choices that we're giving them who has a choice and what are our policy saying that when it comes to that um I can say that even when it comes to our um kindergarten and prek enrollment um we were thinking about um you know what does it mean for a family to think about having an application um open as early as January versus um someone who comes in in March like what choice do they have um and even for for families

079who have students that are moving in that want to enroll this school year what choice do they have depending on when they come in right um are we over um subscribing some schools you know our policy is guiding us to go a certain route however uh when we think about again the school choice policy and what's Choice do our families really have um so evaluating and uh evaluation and retention um aligning our educator evaluation with District values and belonging and opportunity um I can elaborate on this part just from experience again this I'm just entering my second year in this role um and the plethora of information and conversations that I've had with Educators through our Affinity groups um and just conversations with Educators regardless of whether they attend Affinity groups or not um just

080the the conversation about feedback and not knowing um whether or not they're going to stay because the feedback may not have aligned with whatever the outcome is at the end of the year um is inconsistent and that is something that I did have a conversation with um Cindy and some of the members of this body and um I know for sure it's a discussion that we've had in our executive team around you know how are we being um uh consistent and productive on the evaluations that we that we do provide so that our Educators can know what areas they do need to improve and which parts they need to be able to get training and support on if we're not being honest when it comes to that by the end of the year we're either

081non-renewing or non- retaining um staff um and that essentially may hurt our young people in the future um some threats um um of course there's always resistance to change um anytime that a that a guidance a rule or a policy comes into play um what's the work that we're doing when it comes to ensuring that it's something that people believe and it becomes a part of their day-to-day versus a well we're only doing it because ex person told me or this is what our district believ but it's not something that um that they believe in themselves so how are we including Educators and any of those processes that we're putting in place um of course implicit bias plays a role in all of the things that we do whether you we are here or where

082um everybody comes with their own level of biases and um as I mentioned earlier even when it comes to again the Panorama family survey um what are the assumptions that are being made when uh families are not taking the survey what are the assumptions that are being made when um families who did report that 56% % saying I can't come I'm too busy right just reflecting on that um there are other and many more examples um that I can provide to you all um but what are those practices and how can we support um members within our district um to eliminate some of those assumptions that come from implicit bias um compliance and time constraints of course we're always Bound by time um what does it mean what's a realistic time frame and when we

083are implementing things so those can be things that um prevent us from getting things done a certain way and policy because of the way that they're written slows us down so much um whether it's the the process that it takes to try and change something or the policy doesn't allow us and we have to take our time to be able to do something and um and then there's teacher turnover and lack of support so we may say here's a policy and a new thing and we may get some push back whether it's from Educators community members Etc um again which can cause folks to to leave not feel happy not feel a sense of belonging and Etc um I do want to share that I I think that when it comes to um you know

084the lack of support there are so many brilliant we have so many brilliant Educators that um bring forward ideas to to whether it's building leaders or um um District leaders you know what's the work that we need to do to ensure that some of that is being taken into account most of these individuals are are people who are in front of our students a lot and um how is that being well received so that we can ensure that it's something that we are at least considering right whether it's an accommodation whether it's um for the student or for the teacher supplies that may be needed um a time change for for something some of these things can really impact the way that we're receiving and supporting students um while they're in the classroom um and

085when the educator is not supported or heard um it can cause a lot of these um threats to come to light so just want to highlight that a little bit so when it comes to some of the key insights um and recommendations are the next couple um we're hitting our last few now um you want to think about what are the different ways that we can continue to create a sense of belonging um you know our students who don't speak English students who are in um sub separate programs um students who may have any form of disability you know they're at higher risk because we're we make assumptions right the reality of the situation is that we make assumptions about them their their and their families and what they what they are able or may

086not be able to do um how are we alleviate alleviating some of those barriers or eliminating them um are we open to having those difficult conversations what are those supports that are available um to staff without the fear of either retaliation or uh fear of not being um taken serious right how are we open or are we equipping our building leaders our executive team this body myself into supporting Educators community members into having difficult conversations um when it comes to rigor what's the shared understanding of it are we holding our Educators accountable for having high standards and do we just like the equity conversation do we all believe the same definition on what rigor is or are we coming with a you know I talk about this a lot in other groups of the poito

087mindset of the poor kid they're they just got here right why can't we hold that same student with the high rigor and high standards as any of our other students that are here who have been here right we have some brilliant students that are coming from all walks of life that you know Steve always says they can do hard things right we believe that and if we really believe that why do we still have Educators who see that see them as has a deficit right um student voice I love that we have a student representative here I love that we have student um Equity uh groups that are still growing and thriving I love that we have the student voice project at the end of the year continuing to grow that and what is the

088other what are the other opportunities that we have available for our young people to continue to give us feedback on what they're experiencing on a day-to-day on all grade levels not just the high school and then continuous Improvement on the equity work and this is where I hold myself accountable and for you all to continue to hold me accountable um for bringing some of these um topics to light so that we can move the work forward um I'll just share um the bolded some of the recommendations that you'll see in the full report that um we'll we'll get to you um by this week um we want to be able to share have a shared understanding of equity we want to address the resource um inequities um recruit and retain diverse uh staff excuse me

089improve communication and transparency we want to continue to elevate and Empower student voice um continue to U monitor the evaluation process um we want to be able to get clarification on absenteeism policies um engagement how do we engage non-custodial staff so Mary that question from earlier of like who who are we identifying as a parent or family member or caregiver we have families students that are in transition from home to home who is that how are we engaging them um where can we get that information um alignment of metrics of equity goals increase transparency and all resource allocations create inclusive CL U classroom practices um and re-evaluating approach on student discipline um and again the topic of rigor and what does that mean and are we um holding all of our students to a high

090standard um I will stop there that is the end um and open it back up for questions and Cindy is also available online if we have a specific question for anyone at the equity process any questions to the Committee Member Cornell yeah I just have um a question about the um the equity audit around policies uh so can are we going to get that in a in a document um like can we get a preview what is the what is I'm curious as to what the kind of General feedback was around our our policies the school committee policies sure so yes you will get um you will get the full report um that will include the findings of our policies whether they are equitable whether they're not Etc and um any of the more details

091on the recommendations that I share today um it is a larger document um that is being finalized with all of the final edits and you should have that uh for sure this week okay and one thing we as a as a policy subcommittee spend a lot of time as we sort of plow through each of the of the policies in order to kind of reassess them and we do spend a lot of time thinking about language and inclusive language uh and so those changes get made quite a lot but you said something about policies that make things harder and we we do have that conversation also but it's really difficult to have those conversations in a vacuum it's just you know it's it's the three of us and we we have input from Steve so

092uh having those things highlighted like what are the things that are an impediment to the changes that we need to make as a district sometimes I'm not sure that we're um we're not going to be able to identify that on our own every time so um if there's a special focus on that that would be really helpful thank you may I respond yes she's like where's that voice coming from um so what I do want to say is that your policies appear to be pretty Equitable from our standpoint so what you have in Ryden looks really great it is how they're being implemented in the alignment um is what we found to be um a challenge so it's not so much what you have in writing what you have in writing is like oh they

093have all the language right every every buzz word you'd love to hear but what does that look like in action so how do we begin to actualize um through an equitable lens uh first through an equal lens and then through an equitable lens what you have in writing so beginning with the policies you're like in a great place to be honest but how do we then Advance amplify what you have in writing to make it so that every single student every single staff every single family understands uh where you're coming from why you're doing what you're doing and feel a sense of belonging and I just wanted to um really say this piece because this is going to show up in the final um writing there are four stages to psychological safety um that is

094very research based and the four stages are um this inclusion piece of safety the learning safety aspect uh students staff families need to be able to contribute even in their own language and through their own cultural norms um and also Challenger uh safety which is challenging the status quo so as long as you create um I don't want to say a bubble but an environment an ecosystem that allows your policy to live within the realm of psychological safety as often as possible you will begin to actualize um those policies so it's not a concern of are the policies written right they're written pretty well um we we've done plenty of equity Audits and yours look pretty good for feedback um is really the actualization that concerned us the most thank you that's really helpful you're

095welcome member Cruz uh thank you man and appreciate hearing that the the work is in the the implementation is I think we do have a really good process for the policy reviews and Equity has been a focus and I I Laura I just have to name like thank you for naming the most important part this is not your sole responsibility it may be in your title it's all of our work and I think as a committee we've talked about that strategically for quite some time and that's why we don't have an equity subcommittee anymore because we got to a place where that was time bound it it served its purpose but um I think we we do have the right composition of a body that's focused on equity and you know I I think some

096of this is super important for us to understand where the gaps are especially in the definition just given like where we're at with like our Equity statement with our mission um and the work that we're trying to do every day for our students so you know knowing that that's still a barrier um that raises a lot of questions for me and in particular I want to talk about the increased transparency uh and then also this piece on HR are um so I guess I heard a couple of the things that you said about it and I know we're going to get the actual document to dive in but nothing like having the two living folks who help put this together so on on the increased transparency P um we have a budgetary process that we

097go through annually is is it is it is it a lack of awareness of like how folks can engage with that participatory process of the budget like from the findings that you saw is it is it there's not enough opportunities for folks to engage in the budget development process uh for their particular school or their function um is it is it like the shared decision-making component of it I guess that's is it like the one of these things is about um uh you know staff input right and being able to share new ideas and you had mentioned like following up on that is it people have said that I submitted a new idea for how we could use some of our funding in the district and nobody got back to me I guess I'm just

098trying to understand a little bit more about where the transparency Gap is in the process Cindy do you want to start sure I will thank you for that question um we were uh discussing the transparency issue that came from the executive leadership team mainly um and then it's just that some folks had an idea of what it looked like and some folks didn't um exactly understand and then um who should get what so it came down to messaging a lot so everything so I should start by saying first everything that you said but also the messaging needs to be clear is that when we're doing our budget this is going to take place through an equitable process so if this department gets more money than that department there's a reason for that that transparency needs

099to be quite clear um so people aren't creating their own narratives as to why things are happening um and from looking at previous videos um online I do know that it is clear so it's not the superintendent is not making this message clear there's the there's a slight disconnect in interpretation internalized interpretation of how that message is being um sent so our suggestion would be to sit with the uh I'm assuming you already sit with the executive team before this budget comes out because every other school system does but really sit with the executiv uh team and ask some pivotal questions like coach them through the the budget uh rather than just get input but coach them through so what are some of the the questions that linger what are some of the areas that

100you feel we haven't touched what are what are some of the concerns that you may have because I'd rather them come out in this room with us than come out in public um that's just a motto of mine I carry that at home I carry that in my business what is going on with us that we need to discuss because before it go goes out there we need to be able to settle it in here um so that is our perspective on the transparency some folks feel that uh some areas get a little bit more than others and that goes right back down to the term Equity if you understood Equity rather than equality you would understand why some departments may need a little more than others thank you that that's super helpful insights I

101can't wait to see you know what we have in writing on it just so that we can dive in on which uh which parts of our process we can be helpful in that coaching front and on the messaging I know that my colleagues on the finance subcommittee spend a lot of time engaging with school leaders and the district leadership on developing the budget but if if there are things that we can do to assist them with how that message disseminates um I we've we've got a lot of good experience with communication in the district so happy to um to be a thought partner there for you Steve uh and for the team too um the other piece was around the the threats on the compliance and time constraints for HR I think my number one

102concern with HR as just a function is that um and this is just broader HR that they are it is generally speaking like uh Antiquated systems here in Salem we're trying to do I think different things so that it's not a transactional function and I think we've made a lot of good progress there but I guess at a high level I'm just trying to understand like this HR like compli requirement piece that you name as a threat where you're saying that that is um the that that heavy workload hinders Equity is is that folks raising up that like we don't have sufficient staff to handle the compliance stuff so we can't work on the pieces that make us less transactional like Employee Engagement employee support counseling coaching Etc like I'm just I guess trying to

103understand what that particular piece means I think I think the superintendent yeah so just on that um just before on the fin the equity of resource allocation that's something Elizabeth is on on right now this ISS we we I I think this is all right what was been said um but we also uh need a bet we need better information so when people say oh that school gets more than others other we can actually show that that's true or not or not true and that's one of the things Elizabeth is definitely especially in a year where we have very finite resources um that is important that we be able to to either dispel the narrative or support the narrative that there is inequitable resource allocation so that that's uh and I I I can I

104know that that's something Elizabeth's working on right now uh for looking at you know our FTE and and and then uh per school and how much we spend per per student so uh stay tuned on that in terms of the HR this is a I do think this is a major pain point for the system right now HR is overloaded with a lot of transactional work and that's been true uh especially as we've had you've done a lot of hiring over the last few years it wasn't quite thankfully it wasn't quite as much this year but I do worry that we are not sufficiently staffed and this is not a year to be asking for more staff right now it um especially as it pertains to some of the pipeline work and the retention work

105as you know we wanted to hire a recruiter we had someone temporarily and then we you know that money ran out with Esser so it's that is a big problem the the ownership of while we've done a lot of work in terms of recruiting more staff of color issue uh our retention efforts um and then our acceleration of some of the pipeline work for Paras for um you know not even our our instructional staff who's on waivers and uh try you know that we need to get certified the bandwidth is a pro is really problematic um and so I wish I had a better answer than that right now it is a paino that we're trying to figure out how to um address it it's being shared by Laura is doing some some of the

106a lot of the work with affinity groups and um and some of the retention work with staff but then also HR wants to own it but you know the day-today requirements has become pretty intense in that department so I think that is something we need to wrestle with I and there especially and it's going to be a challenge because the the resources for us aren't there to add more people to that department right so we we've had to be really creative in some of the and a lot of that work so um Jill and I meet on a bi-weekly basis um to cover all of those aspects of recruitment retention and then the um any of the other areas of business that g& I handle when it comes to reporting Educators on a on a

107day-to-day with um with anything that might be going on without going into too much detail the um it's also important to note that um HR is a two and a half person Department right so there's um while we are thinking about the conversation on like how many more people do we need we think about like who can support us in this work like who's in it right now who are the Educators that have gone through this process that can speak on that process so that we can you know support with recruiting and whether that is supporting through a stipend or um that's why we had the um Talent uh finder fellow opportunity that came up and how we're continuing to grow that um those are kind of the unique ways that Jill and myself through

108Affinity groups um partnership with uh Salem State and other um higher red organizations that we want to be able to support our our our Educators and and elevating the work that they're that they're doing so we're just being really creative with the limited staff resources that we have and I'll just say that you both gave me the kind of insights I was looking for on that question so Steve give yourself some credit I think that's exactly what I was hoping to hear in terms of the specifics um and then I think Laura you just came in and really painted a good picture of like what you're up against with the constraints so just appreciate you both sharing that and gives certainly me and the rest of the body to think about you're welcome and I

109just wanted to add that um I fully agree with everything they said and they couldn't have said it any better and we did want to give credit to the HR department because even with all the constraints there're still looking at how they can diversify um the staffing pool member Manning yeah just a couple of thoughts um as far as the HR situation it's I almost feel like um we we need to really go into like and everybody's talked about it the like a we need we almost need like two people of sort of a um not both the not both the head like you have have one head but somebody whose skill set is the certifications and you know all of that stuff and another person whose skill set is the um supporting the the

110new people recruiting doing all the personto person things that you're trying to do while you're doing your other real you know real job not not that that's not a part of real too but you have so many reals and um we may only have two and a half people um and but we I think we need to redefine what some of the what part of those two and a half people may be you know responsible for try to try to have somebody people able to focus on one of of those areas I think that for example I don't think Jill can keep up with doing both because she's walking on water but you can only walk on water so so long you know um and the people down there are I think they work very

111hard and know what they're doing I think though we might need to look at what we're expecting them to do and change that a little bit I'm I'm I'm not sure you're right I mean it's a tight budget year but it seems like maybe we can help to reorganize that a little bit um that's that's just one thought as you were talking um as far as the like getting back to to to either departments or buildings on why they didn't get something or or why some school did and somebody didn't and all of that and I mean the basic premise under all of that is that um fear isn't always equal it's seldom equal you know and but the time constraint of the whole budget and I hope this is going to be a little

112better this year cuz we're saying we're going to start earlier but when we do talk with people as the finance committee um we hear them we we make recommendations of what we think you know and and the central office does and but there's no part where we for example go back to explain to to a principal or to someone why we did what we did as the commit as a finance committee um it goes back I think through central office but the communication we asked them to come in and talk with us but then we never talk with them afterward and I don't know how we would pull that off cuz there's like what 19 of them 19 groups or something but somehow a piece there feels like it's missing um and I don't know

113if we could do a better job of helping with that with just explaining to people why we made decisions we made you know um and I I just have I have one question I mean you know bethan sort of asked what I was thinking about the whole um policy thing because when you said you reviewed the policy I mean I I know I know the Two of Us in F it's like what you know but I'm glad to hear that at least what we're trying to do in writing is hopefully seems to be you know in heading in the right direction um I'm just wondering since the recommendations you have like six or seven of them and one of them is actually clarifi ification of absence policies so that must be an issue big enough

114to make this list and I'm just can you just give us a hint um you know of where you're going with this um it's just worrisome to see a policy on the on the on the list of um things to you know Focus right on I don't know no sure so I can give my perspective and I'll I'll also turn it to um sending to share from the equity process perspective because these are recommendations that came out of what what um what they found for me my takeaway and and this being highlighted is understanding that the way that we as a as a district um we're doing a really great job of trying to um have better guidelines to share with um with students families on what our attendance policies are um and when it

115comes to students um being tardy or or being absent like what's an excuse what's unexcused when I think about the families and how they understand it some of that work for me um in my takeaway of what the equity process recommended is the work that needs to be clarified okay I I understand so for me it's that it's that action piece after um but I want to give Cindy an opportunity to answer from her perspective on that thank you Laura so I totally agree with everything that you've shared um and what I would just say to make maybe put it in another voice is what is compliant or or I mean what what does the state expect um the Department of Education expects versus where's the flexibility within the school um Department right so the

116state is going to have their own recommendations and expectations for attendance policies but outside of that what can we do to support our families that say travel during the winter months uh they may go back home uh if they're not from here as I said I'm an immigrant so those are some of the things and there are other immigrants within the organization so those are some of the things that we tend to look for like there's this compliance piece and there's a little wiggle room um what can we do with the wiggle room to make it better for our students and families okay um that's that's interesting I appreciate that clarification um I would ask I spent a long time trying to find the answers that you people have just talked about so if you

117if you ever get those things clarified give me a holla i' like to know Ember Cornell um on the piece on staff input it seems that like until we get the diverse staff and representation that we're working toward which is not easy given the constraints we have around HR uh and Recruitment and and everything that you've already noted seems that we need to be really hyperfocused on the vo's and perspectives of our staff of color particularly when it comes to you know curriculum School culture um student supports policy implementation because we don't have a role to play with implementation we just get to write it and so um I'm I'm you know I'm curious about to what extent right now we're able to really Elevate the voices of our staff of color I think particularly

118our know staff given our student population like that should carry a great deal of weight for us given our student population so um how how well are we able to do that right now and if if it's something that we can be better at is this part of the equity audit um so I'll speak to the work that I've done uh that I that I did this past year so um the the the work that was done prior to this role being created um the one place where the voices of Staff of color could be present um would be through Affinity groups um prior to this role being created Affinity groups were offered um once a month um and they were um offered in schools and um whether you can imagine it or not that

119that could be a really uncomfortable space because anyone can walk in and it doesn't feel like a safe space anymore um so then over time it moved out into the community um and now it's grown to both in the community and also in school in a safe space in like designated safe space in school um so last year again um outside of the monthly um sessions there were um smaller sessions that were that I started to hold after school um and a lot of feedback um did go back to principles um or some principles for the most part um and it also came to our executive team of some of the um concerns Trends by school by um uh sometimes it it was down to a particular area of of learning whether it was math

120Ela or any of those um to specialist to after school programs Etc I think my pain Point um when when it comes to that is um and Steve and I had this conversation the other day where we can't we there's no right time to hold uh an affinity group space um the majority of our educators of color are are in the spaces of our bus monitors drivers um our um custodial uh Food Service staff par professionals and their schedules range widely um and our Affinity groups are help um after school where that could be from 1:50 to 3:30 right and our kitchen staff um or food service and nutrition services staff they're gone by 12:00 right um so when would we hold an a like could we hold an affinity group around that time um

121also recognizing that most of um most of them just in conversations with them have other jobs that they go through because this is a part-time opportunity that they have with us so taking away from income for their family doesn't feel right for me so I don't want to I don't want to touch that um so just really thinking outside of the box when it comes to how do we get that valuable feedback from the experiences of the Educators in those roles um it's something that I'm focusing on this year but that wasn't prior to that yeah yeah cuz I'm just thinking about how do we how do we um give weight yeah to those perspectives when we're talking about implementation of policy um or like I said curriculum or whatever that happens to be without

122overburdening or giving responsibility to you know populations that are you know constantly bearing the you know the responsibility of having to educate inform and it's not we need that we need that perspective and we need to elevate it and then it's you know right and we have some really great allies that are um Educators that are not that are Educators that don't identify as educators of color that like where's that space to for them to bring this information as well and that's not a space that's created right now um I've had individual conversations with Educators I'll bring them to my office I'll meet with them in a separate um space where they're like I'm seeing my friend dealing with some things and I don't know what to do right um and those are opportunities that

123we need to think about as well cuz yes there's a there's a missing um there's a missing group of individuals in their voice and we have some like really great um allies that also want to speak up that right now we don't have a space for that to happen I'd also just point out like Laura and I do have a couple different opportunities to hear from a diverse group of Educators that are you know leaders of color Educators who are lead ERS uh within the district Laura has an equity you didn't mention this but there's an equity uh race and Equity task force that we sort of replicated after the city that has a diverse group of teachers my teacher Advisory Group does have multiple members of color teachers of color in that group as

124well um and I think you know we've just got to continue I think you're right bethan we've got to elevate without overburdening folks but giving them the opportunities to share um and Elevate concerns that they see with Within in the system you know I it it's also not been uncommon that these folks have reached out to Laura and I to sit down and have conversations and we've heard some you know difficult things to hear you know well both positive and and things that could be improved I mean I think the note about um you know the some of the issues around evaluation and support for educators of color is real um and we're hearing a little bit of that at the in the um Affinity groups but people are also making appointments to come talk

125to us about that I mean you know and I we just got to continue to Foster that like it's you know we encourage it we're not going to get offended it's going to make us better as a system to hear even if it's you know painful to hear you know how do we improve the um the experience so it's a it's a journey but I think um people you know they know Laur is here now and that's I also think last thing I'd say about this is we have to do a better job of making sure people exactly know who she is although she's pretty well known in the community but like what exactly her role is like she's a safe person to talk to she's not there to judge she's not there to report

126back to me um but she has my ear and in the executive team's ear because again it's not just her responsibility it's our Collective responsibility so um I do feel like as a system we're we're getting better knowing that we're still doing a l you know we not lousy but we could be doing a much better job of retaining um staff of color in the system uh that's what worries me I think we have uh we've done a good job of getting more people in but like how are we supporting them to get their credential to move up um you know get their certification move up in their careers we still we have a lot of middle managers who are staff of color we do not have a lot of executive team members we don't

127have enough principles and that's I'm not happy about where we are four years into my tenure here um but we're building a bench I would like it to go faster than it has and that's another thing I mean if we don't have enough leaders of color um in the district I mean that that also um that that's problematic in terms of creating uh you know nurturing you know the next you um you know group of uh young you know staff members new staff members we don't have enough people at the table um both at the school level and at the district level and so I would ask that you continue to push me on that as we make High ing decisions uh in the future Miranda thanks so much for all of this um Laura

128I did just want to ask I have like several things here but I'll try to shorten it the first thing is since I've been on the school committee there hasn't been any type of like training um around this stuff and though I know that um my colleagues here are um maybe further along in the work um than some others like the work is never complete so I I definitely think um that it would be you know amazing I don't know if you could facilitate that or training for you I'm sorry you guys or scho committee members I mean you could come I I I didn't know if you meant for like staff you bring Bagels yeah if there's good food you sure um so that's one and then the other question I wanted to ask

129was centered around like restorative justice so like what does that look like when a student a family member or an educator like unintentionally causes harm MH thank you for that I really appreciate the um suggestion on training for this body and I think that um there's definitely an opportunity not just for this body but you know our executive team principles Etc that um can have some tailored training and um we can think about what exactly um that would look like or is if if just if it's just something in general um our uh restorative justice uh training consists of uh so we have a lot of Educators I don't know the number and I wonder Ellen if you have that but I know that there's a lot of our Educators and particularly our building leaders

130coaches are trained in tier one and tier 2 uh restored Justice training so when um we have an incident of whether it's an educator or a student that may be causing harm um there's either a circle within the classroom or um wherever the harm is being caused and um depending on the situation or the the harm that was caused uh the student or educator who caused it has an individual session with whoever was affected by it um so there are practices that are put in place um through the restorative justice training that we've had over the last several years um that does come into play when it when it comes to that so that's been a a first step for a lot of our buildings right now um before it comes to like myself Jill

131or um or Ellen um for the most part so we try to take those preventative measures first before going into like a formal investigation or anything like that as we do recognize that that can cause further anxiety for everyone involved um and if we can continue to to create um opportunities for belonging and um communities of care then that's the approach that we're going to take so there's a lot of um of that work that's happening right now thank you member Cruz the member Manning I think to the question that uh member Cornell had raised around um like the functions of our work as a body where we might get educator inputs and then to uh member Miranda's Point around the trainings I think the good news that I can offer you is that um

132before the 31st I'm really hopeful that a new state law will be in place that will require every committee to have what's called an educ educator diversity Council which will function in the same way it's something I've been working with Dr Reich and member Campbell on for four years now but um every committee would be required to have this type of function and I think this would be really a powerful space at the highest level of governance within the district because we have all these different functions between instructional leadership teams um the Affinity work group the task force Etc but if it doesn't reach the governance and what we're doing with policy with curriculum budgets Etc um and we're not engaging educators of color and allies and co-conspirators um we're creating things that are missing

133their perspective so I'm hoping that um as a committee like when that if that law should pass or if it doesn't that we think about the way that we can formalize that engagement I think we had really great conversations with our friends in the St as an example about a lot of diversity equity and inclusion topics during the last rounds of contract negotiations I would hate for the only time that we get to hear from Educators about those pieces to be when we're negotiating a contract I would love it to be a more proactive governance-based conversation uh with our Educators because I know we all clamor for that and we don't get enough of it at these meetings um and then to the the piece about the training the training would also be mandated annually

134for school committee members uh to take and all staff across the district uh and in that Spirit like I don't want to leave this to state law I think we should do this on our own but I would love to not only have our own time to get training as a committee uh but I also think it would be to our benefit to put that PD into into like a scope and sequence with the elt so that again as we're thinking about like our role as a committee their role as the folks that do mentation we're also building some trust because we have some rocky Waters that we need to navigate uh together in the future so you know I do think you know based on the findings of this audit there's a lot to

135dive into here so as we think about like Equity diversity equity and inclusion training um certainly need to happen at the committee but I do think we need to find a way to bring both groups together um to do some learning remember Manning I I just want to go back to the Ally thing for a minute um because I had my hands race when when you and I was going to talk about that because it just dawned on me as you were speaking that the whole situation of you know people speaking up for their friends and whatever was sort of the you know the Ally thing but and then so then you started talking about it and it just if we can go back to it for a minute um there's certainly differences but there

136are some similarities um if you go back several years in the school system um um and you and you look at the lgbtq um staff and the sort of the growing awareness that you know they they existed um kids and and staff you know and parents and everybody um school yeah and then um the as the process of like sort of transforming the schools and to more accepting places um and eventually you know classrooms where teachers had agreed to be safe zones and etc etc and the Allies started to become more formalized like to be a real thing not just like a a good friend that would support somebody but somebody who would speak up for anybody who was in a situ bad situation or whatever and I'm just I think if if you when

137you have time if you could just think a little bit more of that concept of of the Allies because I saw it work um it took you know it takes a long time but I did see it work and spread um and if there's a way that you can think of with with differences obviously but if there's a way for you to try to use that concept more that um that we can help you with by providing some support yeah all right um I'd like to Circle back to that eventually um you know depending on what you think we could do because if if if that can you know take a hold it does it does work no and I remember when I first started in the district there was a group that I was

138a part of that um that was a support for uh Educators and families of students or families themselves that identified as lgbtq um and that's no longer something that you know we had an educat alliances and all that you know we had an educator then that educator is no longer with us right like who Contin that work on and again as I mentioned in the beginning like I can't be the only person doing all you can't do it all um and who could step up to support in that um are they someone and and also like who are the partners that can be the ones to to you know they I don't claim to be an expert in all the things I know some things but not everything yeah and and I'm not asking you

139to I'm just no no and I hear that I'm just asking you to take a look at how that could be used in the situations we're talking right so I know like in the city I work really closely um with um City's Dei director and she has um employee resource groups where some of them are identified for like who's a parent who works in the city um so it doesn't have to just be like on race or ethnicity or some of those identifiers it could be like um any other topic and it's um an opportunity that was created based on what people needed and not so much on like some of the things that we suggest um so I'm I am thinking about like how can that be um something that we have here the

140question is on when do we do it who's going to run it how often these things are going to happen and going what is it and like you know am I going to be the person that kind of ensures that there are um supportive communities being built in each and every one of them I don't know yeah yep remember BR sorry I know it's it's getting late um one thing that I did just feel was like important for me to add is as as one of two elected officials of color in the city there I do feel and I don't know where this responsibility Falls but I do feel that there needs to be more support for electeds of color um and maybe specifically from um you know the White City electeds um because it's

141one thing to say that we care about representation and like that's our value and it's something else to stand there and support the person um and be there and be able to provide like resources um or just like in ear um because it's very different being like an elected of color I think um so just wanted to kind of name that so maybe that could be tied into like the the trainings or or whatever but I I think we need to do a better job of um supporting and encouraging elected of color people of color to run for things mhm great thank you no further questions thank you very much thank you appreciate itk good job thank you who's taking um just uh quickly the next item thank you Laura is uh the school Improvement

142plan so there later on there's just a vote to accept excuse me I'm sorry I just want to say thank you to Cindy and that she can also if you'd like to stay you're welcome um or not but I'll follow up Cindy I hope you heard we did we did applaud you and Laura's work so thank you very much um I am going to leave I want to say thank you very much there's a few things I wanted to highlight um just through my profession so I am um professionally certified mindfulness teacher I am certified through Stanford University as an applied training uh person in compassion I have a MERS from Simmons a bachelor's from UMass Boston and I am a certified State mediator and I want to say of all the school committee meetings

143I've been to you have had the most mindful school committee meeting I've ever uh attended so thank you for your time thank you for your question sess and I hope that um just your whole ability to stay within the work continues because you've moved me tonight so thank you thank you thank you thank you all H that's tough to follow um but um I'd like to have a degree in compassion too um not going to happen yeah thank um just on school Improvement plans I am asking uh for a vote from the committee to accept the plans for 2025 that were laid on the table at the last uh school committee meeting um but I don't know if you want to take that after you want to do that yeah we'll do that after your

144report but if there's any questions that folks want to make now about the plans okay and then uh the other items are um not necessarily mine but the msba update I bethanne if there's anything you want to y i just uh want people to know that we have scheduled three meetings that will introduce the building project goals the schedule and the team to the larger community so there will be invitations going out uh but they'll be Monday the 25th at Salem High School Tuesday December 3rd at stall and Thursday the 5th on Zoom um and it's really just to kind of kick off the process meet the consultant Consulting team introduce the schedule everybody can ask questions um and there will be more uh opportunity for public input after the you know in the new

145year so um and I also want to note that the school committee will be having a retreat on November 23rd to talk about grade configuration uh whether we're thinking about a middle high school or uh just a high school for the building yeah just to add on that I I will also be engaging the staff as part of that as well we haven't set those dates uh yet um and yeah you mentioned the retreat um yeah so a lot happening I will make sure the school committee has all those dates that are upcoming for the uh public engagement um leis says there any anything else that was it that was it okay it's the same presentation at all three meetings so people any one of the three little question oh yep remain Steve when did

146you mean you're engaging the staff in that November 23rd meeting or like engaging the staff I'm going to have separate meetings for the faculty to uh probably over Zoom to have this some of the same information but to have a specific meeting just for faculty not uh they can go to community meet the community meetings as well um I will also I I do know that there was a request um I think we should send out to the school committee a lot the data that we collected at some of the community meetings in the spring um so I'll make sure you have all that uh we we uh Lisa compiled and synthesized a lot of the uh input we received from parents that is going to be useful for the committee to take a look

147at so we'll be I'll send that along to you in the next week or so thank you and then finance and operations I have no report public okay and then salt all middle school grades we we obviously discussed that earlier I just put it on again if there was anybody that wanted to say anything at this meeting so that concludes it all right uh item seven is subcommittee reports I don't know if there's any subcommittee reports no okay uh under motions and resolutions we have one item which is the school ment plans for 2025 that were presented at the last meeting members have had some time to review any questions move to approve the school impr Improvement plans for 2025 as submitted by the superintendent I'll second under discussion I'll just say um thank you

148to everybody who's involved in putting those together there was very thorough and very thoughtful so all in favor any opposed seeing none the matter carries announcements we here oh am Cruz just like to remind the public that tomorrow is election day uh school buildings will be closed now the polls will be ex for Carlton except for Carlton and uh the buildings will be open for voting and please make a plan to vote and uh thank you poll's open in less than 10 hours that's right any further announcements if not item 10 I'll make a motion to adjourn second discussion seeing none all in favor any opposed the matter carries we are adjourned thank you